COMM 203 - Reading 8 - Film Piracy and Megaupload

Our final reading points out that the demise of Megaupload resulted in an adverse fashion to how one might assume that it would on the motion picture industry. MPAA took down Megaupload as if it were threatening to steal all of its profits unrightfully. However, it is my understanding that when researchers in Munich and Copenhagan conducted a study on how films profitted before and after Megaupload’s demise they found that Megaupload was helpful in building interest in people to actually pay to see the movie (and perhaps to purchase it’s merchandise) after their intial download. Each viewer of a Megaupload movie would then tell other people about the film and that would generate a profitable buzz around it. Research showed that a dip in profits for MPAA, after Megaupload, occurred with movies that wouldn’t initially draw large crowds in the first place because they no longer had the buzz generated by Megaupload to send people to the theater. With blockbuster films they found that Megaupload had kept people out of the theaters. That is where Megaupload was hurting the industry. So the MPAA had merit in taking them down. The MPAA continue to warn people against “rogue sites” like Megaupload on their website today.

I never heard of Megaupload before this article. How do I think piracy should be dealt with? Just let it be. Let there be piracy. But that’s not realistic because then pirates would be robbing not just producers but actors and editors and everyone affiliated with the film. Right? I don’t know. I guess for pirates, just fine them, shut them down, do what you have to do to save your business against them, but don’t send them to jail. 

"According to mpaa.org, we should all care about movie piracy because declining DVD and box-office sales will result in fewer high budget movies and limited releases." - Piracy Good For Consumer, Bad For Film Industry That quote is an example that sums up the collective perspective that I'm getting when I Google search for why film piracy is bad. I don't believe it. The movies will get made anyhow, with somebody's money and if they don't, then oh well. All these movies are stupid anyway. I read some guy's "screen rant" about how piracy is cutting down the chances of a Zombieland 2 movie getting made. Who really cares?

COMM 203 - Reading 7 - 38 Studios Legal Controversy

Just by instinct, I want to say that I believe that the government should give out huge loans to companies without an assurance of payment because the government gives money out in small and large amounts to all kinds of people and organizations and sometimes they expect nothing in return. Plus, whenever they give out loans to companies I’m sure that it’s done in good faith for payback and with as much legal reassurance that they will still be able to maintain their financial stability and ethical integrity regardless of whether a loan is paid back or is defaulted on and never repaid. Am I incorrect in this instinct? Probably.

I learned more about our reading just from scanning through the comments below it. The commenters seem to think that the government is now just trying to save face with taxpayers and is filing a legal claim against 38 Studios as a PR move because it is established that 38 Studios has no money to pay the government back; but a long drawn out court case, just for show and just for nickel and diming, may be just the thing that will smooth things over with the taxpaying complainers. The commenters see the government’s attempt to carry out this suit against 38 Studios as transparently pointless and offensive for the entire population of Rhode Island. 

The video of Governor Chafee on this 38 Studios matter was very thorough in addressing the people's concerns and in stating what is and will take place with their legal filing and proceedings. It seems that it was a well constructed speech that would buy the government some time for them to go after this company to demonize it and take the heat away from them. The government can never display a weakness or remorse or mistake. (Can it?)

This all reflects on the video game industry as an unpredictable industry to work in and try to make a living by as a minion or as a CEO. It is stories of massive layoffs in the video game industry that makes me consider that no one there is safe from their job dissolving at any given moment from sudden financial pitfalls and drastic money saving strategies that could not have been foreseen.

COMM 203 - Reading 6 - Video Game Hirings and Firings

If I had a big business, I would fire people whenever I needed to without remorse. If I had to get rid of employees in order to grow my business, I would. I think that it is fine for companies to lay people off, for whatever reason, however morally or ethically unjust or repugnant. A business's objective is to make money and if its workers become unnecessary, let them go.

Workers need to understand that when they select a career, or job, just how expendable they may be to that company and brace themselves for a potential set back. A company doesn't owe you anything. If you want them to owe you something then make sure you make a legal and binding contract with them,  stating all that they will do for you in certain situations such as a layoff or firing. Most companies won't do that for you but, that's just how things are.

If I had a small business, I would run a tight ship. It would be super efficient in all ways and I would not have to lay anybody off or fire them too often.

COMM 203 - Reading 6 - Video Game Hirings and Firings - UPROXX

Comm 203 - Reading 5 - Hollywood and Government

I read the Argo Wired article you linked us to here. For something I'm being 150% forced to read, at least it was an interesting story. You want to know how I feel about the connection between Hollywood and the government. I don't know much about that link in the first place. I looked into it a little and found some information on the Hays Code, which reminded me of how the government is responsible for the standards of censoring creative content in the media. I haven't ever studied films, besides experimental films, so I can't say for sure, but it doesn't seem like the censors matter that much on what films end up showing. I've seen sex, drugs and violence in films to many degrees. So I guess I just haven't discovered what it is that you are referring to exactly with the connection between Hollywood and the government.

Yes, the government should be able to control the film content if they are paying for the majority of the film's production and if they want to make it 100% a military propaganda movie, go ahead and let them. I'm not familiar with how you termed this "assisting" and "advising" when it comes to film making, so I can't give you my thoughts on what I don't understand, but I'll still give you my thoughts. If the government has any part of the making of your movie, even if it's not the major financial contributor, I would guess that you would have to let them have the most creative control regardless because they have an image that they do not want conflict with. So either let them into your film making or don't. It's just a simple choice.

COMM 203 - Reading 4 - WikiLeaks

Here’s what I thought I knew about WikiLeaks prior to this assignment….

1.       Bill Hader played Julian Assange on SNL

2.       Julian Assange is a French guy

3.       Julian Assange is on house arrest somewhere

4.       WikiLeaks was the work of Julian Assange and it leaked private financial information about American businesses and employees

That’s all I knew. That’s all I wanted to allow into my brain, be it accurate or not, but now I am being forced to look into it so I will at least take those 4 things listed above and find out just how accurate they are.

1.       YES, Bill Hader did indeed play Julian Assange on SNL in 2010, several times. Here’s one of those times… http://www.hulu.com/watch/202005

2.       NO, Julian Assange is Australian.

3.       NO, “Since 19 June 2012, he has been residing in the Ecuadorian embassy in London, where he has since been granted diplomatic asylum.” (Wikipedia, Julian Assange)

4.       YES, WikiLeaks was his website and it leaked that stuff but also private military information and other confidential international information.

Here’s a quote that I like from Wikipedia’s WikiLeaks page, “In an interview on The Colbert Report, Assange discussed the limit to the freedom of speech, saying, "[it is] not an ultimate freedom, however free speech is what regulates government and regulates law. That is why in the US Constitution the Bill of Rights says that Congress is to make no such law abridging the freedom of the press. It is to take the rights of the press outside the rights of the law because those rights are superior to the law because in fact they create the law. Every constitution, every bit of legislation is derived from the flow of information. Similarly every government is elected as a result of people understanding things"”

I see, through some links provided for this assignment, that a lot of countries want to prosecute him and kill him and I don’t know if he has broken any laws. If he has, then I guess he should be tried, fairly. I like his philosophy as stated up above in his Colbert Report quotation. I feel like if that was all he was intending to do, then he should remain a free man. He sounds reasonable, progressive and forthright and I respect that. Let him be free and he’ll just fend for himself in the world where people idealize or demonize him. He’s made his bed. But if he needs protection, I hope that he is receiving it and will continue to receive it.

Julian Assange VS. The Pride

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5NMmpxQPFLY

 

COMM 203 - Reading 3 - Bookcovers

The books that I buy to read on my iPad aren't because of their cover. I buy those books because I've heard about them somewhere and became interested in reading them. Another feature I like about getting books to read on my iPad is that I can download a sample of them and that way I won't forget to maybe buy them in the future, because the sample sits there on the virtual bookshelf along with the books that I've purchased, so I won't forget about them. This is handy because it curbs my need to buy a book impulsively. The cover art for these iBooks rarely influences whether or not I purchase the book. ++

Here are some books that I've experienced in the tactile world of books and a few thoughts tagging along on each one.

 

I bought 48 Laws of Power because I had heard about how kick ass it was from somewhere, on a tv show, I think. I bought it in paperback and read 1/2 of it then kept it around for many years because it was worth keeping due to content and the bright orange glossy cover, but I just let it go when I moved a few years back.

I bought Glam-orama from a discount table at a Books-a-Million store about 12 years ago. The cover was a big influence. It was a shiny black hardcover book with celebrities' faces all over it with a white dustcover with the different, clean, hip fonts and different size circles cut out, as windows to the celebrities' faces underneath. I'd never seen a book that used the dustcover in such a way and I thought it looked like something I'd like to carry around and read, for novelty sake. I did read it all, and I liked it.

Valley of the Dolls was a book that I'd bought because I'd read that it was about glamorous, sexy women taking pills and boozing it up and as a teenager that kind of story was worth reading for me. I loved the glossy, girly cover. It's pink, it's bold and it's pretty iconic.

White Teeth was another book that I'd picked up at a Books-a-Million discount table. I never did end up reading it. I bought it just because of the cover. It was a hardcover book with a very sort of snowy white, hefty tactile paper dustcover with the author's name in gold metallic and a washed out title in black. I think subliminally the symmetry of the title and its 5 letters per line are representative of teeth and to make the dustcover white and the print in black seems almost like the imagery of an xray or a film negative. I like the simple stamp above the authors name and the simple "a novel" between the title. Aesthetically it just seemed to fit my style at the time. An aside to this... I joined a memoir writing workshop a couple years after I'd bought this book (2004, maybe) and after I'd read to the group my memoir, some woman told me to read the book White Teeth; that my writing style was like Zadie Smith's.

The Baby-Sitters Club. I was big into the Sweet Valley, and TBSC books when I was a pre-teen. I read all of them. TBSC always had fun covers. I didn't know any girls that dressed like the ones on the cover but it helped with bringing the characters to life. I was already obsessed with the story so to have that extra picture of the characters was pretty awesome for my kid self. They didn't give us anything else except the text and the cover art, but if there were other TBSC products to buy or to watch on tv, I'm sure us young fans would've consumed them all. There were also some other series I used to read... Scary Stories, Goosebumps and a few others, I can't recall right now. Cover art, symbols and graphics is important to children and teen's minds and imagination, I know; though I'm not sure that kids need that through a printed book, perhaps an electronic version will eventually become more commonplace and feel the same to those kids as tactile books did to my generation.

Ishmael is THE ONLY book EVER that someone loaned to me that I really, really enjoyed. This guy must be a very intuitive person, because he loaned the book to the right person. It was perfect for the time and place that I was in my life, circa 2006. This is the paperback cover of it, the same as the copy that I read. It gives nothing away of the story inside but it speaks to the serenity and peaceful, understated nature. The cover doesn't need to make a show of things. It represents well the feel of the story which is what this book impresses you with, its sentiment.

To this day, I remember this imagery. Something about this vibrant big guy and this big blue ox towering over and trampling down anywhere they went wandering was so outstanding to me. Again, this speaks to how significant I feel that visuals are to children's stories. I can't even remember what these two went around doing together, but they obviously did whatever they wanted to, and maybe that is what I found memorable and amusing about the imagery, their freedom and audacity. The cover art and illustrating of this story, no matter how many times it is redone, is usually pretty cool in my eyes so long as it captures that spirit and doesn't change their character.


So, there is some of my book cover experience. Maybe not the most significant of my experiences but it's what came to mind, right off the top of my head. I don't think that book cover art is very important to me anymore in influencing my purchases, but I do appreciate it. Sometimes I see an art book or photography or coffee table book that is very outstanding as far as covers go and I feel that for some people who like keeping books around those are the ones that could deserve semi-permanent placement in a home or collection, but really it's all just mass marketed stuff today and disposable and not of any real significance.

++ A few extra things... I don't currently read books anymore, because I'd rather do anything else. I only read on my iPad when I'm on a long car ride or sitting in a waiting room. When I buy a tactile, actual book now, I don't buy it for the cover, I go online and buy the cheapest copy that I can find.

Comm 203 - Reading 2 - Video games, just for kids?

I don't play video games. I've watched various boyfriends over the years play them. When I was growing up in the 1990's and Nintendo games were simple my brother and I used to play them. He kept playing them and I eventually stopped after Golden Eye and Tomb Raider. When Grand Theft Auto came out I just liked to play it in this offensively girly way where I would just try to drive around obeying all traffic laws. My favorite video game used to be Earthbound. In elementary school they used to take us to the computer lab and on these big ass IBM computers we'd play Oregon Trail and some less memorable games.

Video games today are really incredible. I've watched one of my really young cousins, like under 10 years of age, kicking ass at one of those warfare video games. I was shocked, frankly. Kid's today, you know, it's incredible how they are so adept at navigating these intricate virtual worlds and at orchestrating and memorizing the proper operations on a controller or keyboard. I think it's great. I wish I'd see more kids playing outside like I used to but, it's fine I guess. The future must go on.

Video games now have social integration so that you can play with others whom you know or may not know; it is also used to train military personnel and medical and science students and interns. Video games are probably used for therapy with autistic people, I'd bet. I'm cool with video games growing as an industry and becoming further integrated into our daily experience... If that's something that people continue to want to explore.

However, though I don't play video games, I do play all of the Zynga iPad games. I like them because they are easy, and addictive and I can play them against people I know, or even friends who I last saw in person years ago. Plus, these games are convenient. I can pick them up where I left off and I can do that at anytime of the day or night wherever I have the WiFi access for it.