EW Article: PSA in *theaters* to not pirate? (1 Viewer)

[Brenton]

Personally, PSAs before movies don't bother me at all. It's the commercials that bother me. If I want to see commercials, I can stay at home and watch them on TV.

 

[BertFalasco]

This attempt is pathetic. Is the MPAA implying that the pirates don't acknowledge what they're doing and that if they see a PSA, they will see the light?

Blah.

/me Connects to coins.dal.net (6664)

 

[Blu]

I'm ALL FOR making everything you can make in America. This is America afterall and if you can make bucketloads of money off of your ideas you are free to do so.
But this whole idea smacks hard working intelligent people right across the face with elitism.

These people are so out of touch they don't realize that 99.9% of the people who pay their money to see their product aren't going to steal it.

What they also don't realize is that 75% of their products aren't worth stealing let alone paying their hard earned dollars to see in the first place.

 

[Seth Paxton]

And as others have mentioned, does asking the people who LEGALLY BOUGHT THE PRODUCT to stop illegally buying it really make sense? Unless the bootleggers copy the PSA too, then what non-legal viewer is ever going to see the freaking thing.

Yes, good effort on that one.

Also, clearly they realize the elitism of the effort and how it might be perceived because they intentionally tried to avoid it by going with "working stiffs" from the movie industry instead of mostly stars. Any other time they would rely strongly on the star-power to move viewers, like in asking for donations for film preservation. Suddenly for this PSA having ultra-wealthy stars and execs on-screen isn't such a good idea..come on.

 

[John_Berger]

They also are going under the assumption that everyone who downloads will never buy the real thing - the "one download always and forever equals one lost sale" mentality. I think that most people realize that a 600-700 MB download can never replace the real thing. A theater or a good home theater setup will always be better than a DIVX file on a PC, even as good as DIVX files can be.

I'm not going to bother with any explanations since certain people will be more than happy to start evangelizing and proselytizing about the unethical, vile evilness of downloading; but it still comes down to the fact that good movies will sell well regardless of whether they can be downloaded or not.

 

[TheLongshot]

And as others have mentioned, does asking the people who LEGALLY BOUGHT THE PRODUCT to stop illegally buying it really make sense? Unless the bootleggers copy the PSA too, then what non-legal viewer is ever going to see the freaking thing.

Yeah, I saw the irony of this thing when I went to see Secondhand Lions this weekend. What is the point of this again? Are the people who this is directed to going to actually see this? Not likely...

Jason

 

[Gui A]

Has anyone else noticed braille-like dots in theatres recently?
I noticed a bunch in Once Upon a Time in Mexico...
This is worse than the PSA, IMO.

 

[ChuckSolo]

Actually I wasn't at all offended by the PSA I saw before "Underworld" where they have the painter talking about the movies he's worked on and that pirating won't affect the producers and the higher ups like it does the ordinary carpenter, painter, sound guy etc. Being a musician and having copyrighted a couple of songs, I am indeed consciuous of pirating issues. It never ceases to amaze me, if you want a movie or a song, just buy the damned thing and quit with the US vs.THEM mentality. I have never understood the mentality that it is one's God given right to download copyrighted material. However, I like everyone else, am incensed that we have to sit through product commercials before the trailers begin. With products like Tivo though, and the viewer's ability to bypass TV commercials, you are going to be seeing this more and more, as well as well placed views of brand name products in movies.

 

[John_Berger]

It never ceases to amaze me, if you want a movie or a song, just buy the damned thing and quit with the US vs.THEM mentality.

Again, where is it written in stone that people who pirate have no intention to buy the movie? Where is it written that one download always and forever equals one lost sale?

I downloaded FotR when it was available as I did TTT when it was available. I also saw both of them in the theaters - twice each. Actually, three for FotR now that I think about it. And in my DVD collection are my 100% legally purchased FotR theatical, FotR extended edition gift set w/ bookends, and TTT theatrical (obviously) DVDs. My wife is already prepared for me to purchase the TTT extended edition gift set w/ Gollum statue on the very morning that it's available. The files that I downloaded are gone.

So, please stop the polarization (and broad brush accusations) of "just buy the damned thing" as though that was never the goal in the first place. We're getting enough of that in certain RIAA-related threads. Downloading a movie, seeing a movie in theaters, and buying the movie when available are not necessarily mutually exclusive of each other.

These PSAs are useless because the people who they target aren't going to give a rat's rear end anyway, and the rest of the people who have to listen to it are just going to get irritated that they're getting hit with the ol' broad brush. I'll wager that most people in the audience don't even have the capability or desire to download anyway. Hell, that's why they're at the theater instead of being at home downloading!

 

[Gui A]

A pic of the dots

They appear for a frame or two, a few times throught out the movie. Apparently, they're at different locations in each theater. I haven't heard too much on them.
Really annoying once you know they're there. I never noticed them before 'Mexico', but they've been added for a while now.
I guess it's one of those things that normal people won't notice, but once you know it's there, you'll look for it and it will forever haunt you.

edit: I think this is it:
http://www.sarnoff.com/news/index.asp?releaseID=116

 

[Derek Miner]

I noticed the dots during a sneak of SCHOOL OF ROCK this weekend, and I figured immediately it had to be some anti-piracy measure.

sigh...

If this is what it takes, I suppose I can stomach the dots, but dammit if they're not annoying.

 

[MatthewLouwrens]

And then what?

"Hmm, we have this movie on so many thousands of screens, which single one of those screens had that particular mark? OK, now which one of the thousands of people who saw the film on opening weekend happened to take a camcorder into the cinema?"

 

[Shane S.]

I think the PSA's are great things, As a matter of fact the guy behind me in the theater with the camcorder while I was at Underworld actually threw down his camera and ran out of the theater with tears in his eyes sobbing something like "what have I done with my life"

Its just plain Ironic the studios paying some guy (probably an no name budding actor) to tell us that instead of them and the actors/actresses taking a cut from there obscene paychecks there simply going to drop the hammer on the "little guy". Basicly "hey come on guys, its up to you to save my job because the people I work for don't care"

Where's the viewers PSA that shows up on the screening executives watch. "hi I'm (insert name), an average joe who works for an average income. My money is important, so when I spend it on a Movie I'd like it to be a good one. Unfortunatley alot of the movies you put out suck and I end up wasting my hard earned money. The people that I pay my bills to don't care weather I wasted my money on trash or not, the bank wants my mortgage check either way. So who suffers? My family whom I am forced to feed hotdogs an Rhaman noodles to instead of healthy foods. Please say yes to piracy so i can pre-screen a movie before I spend my childrens college funds on DVD's that I will watch for five minutes and then eject from the DVD and attempt to cut my wrist with. Thank you... and enjoy the movie."

I work in the IT field where people have been downloading movies since broadband was available. Basicly I see two types of people doing it.

1. Huge fans of the movie who have seen it in theaters and will buy the DVD but are looking for something to hold them over for the 8 months until the dvd release.

2. Guys who never had any intention of viewing at the theaters, buying, or renting the movie and are only watching it to kill time.

I can honestly say that I don't know anyone who uses movie downloads as an alternative to buying or viewing at the theater. I personaly have gone to see movies at the theater because I caught some of a DL and thought "thats something I've got to see on the big screen.

Allright I've ranted enough.

 

[John_Berger]

hi I'm (insert name), an average joe who works for an average income. My money is important, so when I spend it on a Movie I'd like it to be a good one. Unfortunatley alot of the movies you put out suck and I end up wasting my hard earned money.

 

[Jesse Skeen]

They should have a PSA trailer that tells theaters not to employ incompetent projectionists, and also not to build theaters with small screens!!

 

[Ted Lee]

has this already been discussed? sorta related to this thread.

another stupid jack valenti move. god, this guy is starting to drive me nuts.

no dvd screeners