Sorry Chris but this is crap along with the "piracy really helps a film" theory propagated by Pirates. Look if a filmmaker who paid for his own work wants to make it available for free than that is their right but it does not justify stealing from others who don't. The situation is simply acute with American Independent films and especially foreign films. There will be virtually be no legal distribution of older films soon and little production of new ones. Feature films are not individual works and they cost a small fortune to make, if people and INSTITUTIONS continue to steal them ( and sorry there are institutions doing this) Let me give you two recent examples
I am working with a company that has a number of very good foreign films that they acquire the rights to for US & UK distribution. One of them was a top prize winning film from Italy made in 2010 that has not yet been released in the US. I found it up on youtube (neatly chopped in 10 segments) I had the company file with youtube and it was taken down. First it was replaced with a snarky message about being forced to remove an item ( really youtube thinks posting an entire film over 100 minutes was legal?) and THEN the original poster was allowed to post a LINK TO Bittorrent illegal copy. Thanks a lot. What possible market can't their be when people not only don't care that they are stealing films, they claim that either they are doing you a favor or you are just a greedy pig. The 2nd incident was a conservation with my nephew, an NYU senior. He and his roommate have never paid for a film they watched at home. All are all illegal downloads. This is hardly surprising because they go to a school that condones and engages in illegal copying and streaming ( there I said it) in which a leading professor ( who is very active in a variety of academic and foundation groups on "copyright")tells librarians and institutions that they should be able to copy and stream any film they want to use because if the rights holder has not made it available that is just too bad( trust me I am not exaggerating as he said this to my face). So when you wonder why the only copy you can find of a film looks like crap from a bootleg site or there are a lot fewer foreign films around, this is the reason. People are stealing them so there is no incentive to make a good legal copy available. Also remember this when the next indie distributor goes under. On Tue, Dec 20, 2011 at 4:08 PM, Chris McNevins <chris.mcnev...@uconn.edu>wrote: > ** > > Hi All, > > My cousin sent me this tidbit: > > * > https://plus.google.com/105237212888595777019/posts/Da1wjfvrLxq#105237212888595777019/posts/Da1wjfvrLxq > *<https://plus.google.com/105237212888595777019/posts/Da1wjfvrLxq#105237212888595777019/posts/Da1wjfvrLxq> > > ________________________________________ > > *****Chris McNevins* | ACQUISITIONS COORDINATOR > > UNIVERSITY OF CONNECTICUT | HOMER BABBIDGE LIBRARY > > 369 Fairfield Way Unit 2005AM | Storrs, CT 06269-2005 USA > > *******PH*: 860-486-3842 |******* FX*: 860-486-6493 |******* EMAIL*: ***** > chris.mcnev...@uconn.edu* <chris.mcnev...@uconn.edu> > > ________________________________________ > > > VIDEOLIB is intended to encourage the broad and lively discussion of > issues relating to the selection, evaluation, acquisition,bibliographic > control, preservation, and use of current and evolving video formats in > libraries and related institutions. It is hoped that the list will serve as > an effective working tool for video librarians, as well as a channel of > communication between libraries,educational institutions, and video > producers and distributors. > > -- Jessica Rosner Media Consultant 224-545-3897 (cell) 212-627-1785 (land line) jessicapros...@gmail.com
VIDEOLIB is intended to encourage the broad and lively discussion of issues relating to the selection, evaluation, acquisition,bibliographic control, preservation, and use of current and evolving video formats in libraries and related institutions. It is hoped that the list will serve as an effective working tool for video librarians, as well as a channel of communication between libraries,educational institutions, and video producers and distributors.
