41–50 of 50 posts
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Dodd In office for 36 years, the first thing he does when he goes private is to lobby for a law nobody wants on behalf of his new employer. What happened to Obama's promise to stop this?
A Google of Adam Lipsius returned his IMDB page, his Facebook page, a few videos about 16-LOVE, and no Wikipedia article. I followed his IMDB page and discovered he has participated on the producer + director level of several films. He is said to be 'known for' The People vs. Larry Flynt and Men in Black, but was involved only in the sound of those films.
16-LOVE produces similar results: virtually nothing on Wikipedia or IMDB. Its IMDB article says it is similar to films such as "Zookeeper", and is rated at around 5 stars. Completely distinct from the IMDB results, RT claims it is 100% fresh with 39 reviews. It was directed by and produced by Mr. Lipsius.
Conspicuously absent in my searches were any torrent offerings.
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Here's what I think:
I think 16-LOVE was not a popular film, and just plain didn't do well. I don't think piracy had anything to do with it.
My opinion is that generally you will find the noisiest, most entitled, belligerent users amongst the ranks of the free. They didn't pay for it, and so there is literally no skin in the game to persuade them to like it.
I contend that if, indeed, hundreds of thousands of people had illegally downloaded this film, there would be much, much more evidence of its existence available through Google - the same exact route I would have found torrents, by the way.
I think it was just an unknown film, with no publicity, and maybe - hell, probably - it would have done far better if it had been offered through a more direct, easily-accessible avenue.
The MPAA knows watershed events, alright. I'm still waiting for the VCR to destroy movies, as his predecessor, Jack Valenti, predicted: "I say to you that the VCR is to the American film producer and the American public as the Boston strangler is to the woman home alone."
How many women did the Boston strangler actually get? (I'll save you a trip to Wikipedia: 13, over 3 years.) What percentage of "women home alone" is that - even women home alone in the Boston area? Now compare the level of raw paranoia that the strangler generated - surely, paranoia well in excess of any real risk. Perhaps this is a more apt analogy than Valenti realized.
And no one ever seriously promoted a massive reorganization of society, establishment of a surveillance state, or revocation of basic liberties in communication over the matter of the Boston strangler.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Don't even joke about that. In Denmark we pay "license" to the state, to keep the public television and radio channels going. Mind you, this isn't part of the tax and it's completely optional whether you want to pay it or not. Except, if you have a television, an internet connection, a cellphone, a radio or any device capable of receiving a television signal via an antenna or internet connection - you have to pay. Af…
By the way, almost every country in europe has a TV licence. It definitely can be a good thing, most brits would accept that the TV licence is a good price for the BBC. They provide quality television/radio for minority groups and tend to invest heavily in industries like documentary film-making which might otherwise be ignored in a purely capitalist TV industry.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Dodd In office for 36 years, the first thing he does when he goes private is to lobby for a law nobody wants on behalf of his new employer. What happened to Obama's promise to stop this?
Obama's promise was to limit lobbyist movement in the other direction (industry -> government). Not that he's done a great job of that, but let's paint his promises in an accurate light.
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/obameter/pr...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
By the way, almost every country in europe has a TV licence. It definitely can be a good thing, most brits would accept that the TV licence is a good price for the BBC. They provide quality television/radio for minority groups and tend to invest heavily in industries like documentary film-making which might otherwise be ignored in a purely capitalist TV industry.
As the US supreme court noted early in its history, the power to tax is the power to destroy. You will surely forgive me if I am a little skeptical of the government having the power to destroy radio, television, and other communications; note that it's actually been done before.
The the typical libertarian appeal to fear of tyranny IMO sheds more heat than light.
I want to share my results of a tertiary topic on this thread: Adam Lipsius claiming that hundreds of thousands of pirated copies of "16-LOVE" had destroyed his chances of profiting from the film. A Google of Adam Lipsius returned his IMDB page, his Facebook page, a few videos about 16-LOVE, and no Wikipedia article. I followed his IMDB page and discovered he has participated on the producer + director level of sever…
example: http://usenetdownloads.net/usenet.nl/v4/files.php?q=SGFja2Vy...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Dodd In office for 36 years, the first thing he does when he goes private is to lobby for a law nobody wants on behalf of his new employer. What happened to Obama's promise to stop this?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
By the way, almost every country in europe has a TV licence. It definitely can be a good thing, most brits would accept that the TV licence is a good price for the BBC. They provide quality television/radio for minority groups and tend to invest heavily in industries like documentary film-making which might otherwise be ignored in a purely capitalist TV industry.
I agree that a public television channel may be a good idea, and I agree that BBC produces great content, just as our DR does. I also see that your license is ~145£ while ours is ~265£ - not that that makes the argumentative difference though. My problem is that everybody pays exactly the same, the poor, the students, just as the rich. Everything else in our society is based on a progressive tax, just as most "extras…
The BBC also makes a lot of money selling it's programming around the world, presumably most Danish TV is in the Danish language so it would be difficult to sell on.
Having said all of this, I'm in Ireland not in Britain. :-) Our TV licence is €160/annum but out national broadcaster airs commercial ads (unlike the BBC).
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Don't even joke about that. In Denmark we pay "license" to the state, to keep the public television and radio channels going. Mind you, this isn't part of the tax and it's completely optional whether you want to pay it or not. Except, if you have a television, an internet connection, a cellphone, a radio or any device capable of receiving a television signal via an antenna or internet connection - you have to pay. Af…
In the U.S. we have the Corporation for Public Broadcasting created by an act of Congress. Funds are entirely tax-based and not optional (not even in theory). Americans largely don't have a problem with this due to the high quality of the programming, although there's an outcry of protest every so often.