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trinityvixenThere's still no confirmation that I've seen that this guy was actually fired, but chances are good he was. For reviewing the bootleg copy of X-Men Origins: Wolverine that circulated recently.
The reason for such a harsh reaction would be, presumably, that the Fox folk don't want to get sued for damaging the marketability of the movie. Previously, Ang Lee's Hulk, the last major studio film to be leaked before its opening weekend, went on to do horrible business. The poor advance word-of-mouth was blamed. I say: WORST COMIC BOOK MOVIE EVER. So there is a reasonable case to be made that someone's already illegal action--piracy--is worse because there is some nebulous effect it might have on people before the movie comes out. As in, the stuff that will happen anyway if it's a bad movie after a week or two of being in the theater, happening earlier will cost the studio some untold number of tickets that otherwise ignorant, credulous people would have paid, sight unseen, for a movie they only hoped was good.
(I discount the idea that the pirates themselves, no matter how many downloads this got, wouldn't all go to the movie. First off, many of them would likely never have paid to see the movie. I make this claim with some certainty because anyone who is happy with a low-quality, unfinished bootleg doesn't care enough to pay $12 for a ticket. Secondly, any who would pay, will probably still do so as the movie studio has confirmed that this was an un-edited, un-reshot version. Anyone interested in the Wolverine movie will have to pay for the theatrical version. Or they won't--see point #1.)
But is it really the journalist's fault that he tried to access this? Under our reactionary copyright, et al. laws, yes. He's a criminal, he's luck he's not in jail or fined within an inch of his life. As someone reporting on a story, however, I don't see that he couldn't have downloaded it (or found a pirate friend who had--it's like shooting fish in a barrel) just to see what the story was about. After all, he's doing research. It's not like Fox Studios was letting more copies go for news outlets to write about. (Certainly not after this.) I just don't think this is an appropriate response. It's a predictable one, but a ludicrous one. (Moreso because, what the shit, is Fox going to sue itself over this?)
The reason for such a harsh reaction would be, presumably, that the Fox folk don't want to get sued for damaging the marketability of the movie. Previously, Ang Lee's Hulk, the last major studio film to be leaked before its opening weekend, went on to do horrible business. The poor advance word-of-mouth was blamed. I say: WORST COMIC BOOK MOVIE EVER. So there is a reasonable case to be made that someone's already illegal action--piracy--is worse because there is some nebulous effect it might have on people before the movie comes out. As in, the stuff that will happen anyway if it's a bad movie after a week or two of being in the theater, happening earlier will cost the studio some untold number of tickets that otherwise ignorant, credulous people would have paid, sight unseen, for a movie they only hoped was good.
(I discount the idea that the pirates themselves, no matter how many downloads this got, wouldn't all go to the movie. First off, many of them would likely never have paid to see the movie. I make this claim with some certainty because anyone who is happy with a low-quality, unfinished bootleg doesn't care enough to pay $12 for a ticket. Secondly, any who would pay, will probably still do so as the movie studio has confirmed that this was an un-edited, un-reshot version. Anyone interested in the Wolverine movie will have to pay for the theatrical version. Or they won't--see point #1.)
But is it really the journalist's fault that he tried to access this? Under our reactionary copyright, et al. laws, yes. He's a criminal, he's luck he's not in jail or fined within an inch of his life. As someone reporting on a story, however, I don't see that he couldn't have downloaded it (or found a pirate friend who had--it's like shooting fish in a barrel) just to see what the story was about. After all, he's doing research. It's not like Fox Studios was letting more copies go for news outlets to write about. (Certainly not after this.) I just don't think this is an appropriate response. It's a predictable one, but a ludicrous one. (Moreso because, what the shit, is Fox going to sue itself over this?)
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TLDR 2
Date: 2009-04-08 09:41 pm (UTC)It's kind of like when my mom went on a HUGE rant when she got a ticket for running a stopsign in her gated community. Cops had set up a trap, she rolled through the stopsign like she always did, she got caught, fined, and (I think) a point on her license.
And while I thought that was too bad, I didn't have any big sympathy for her, and didn't hold it against the cops. I don't drive much, but I've always taken my driving instructor's advice and done a rockback stop at all stopsigns, even if I think no one's around. (that's a full stop to the point where you feel yourself rock back in your seat, gently). Does it delay me by an extra ten seconds per stopsign? Sure.
But I've never been stopped and ticketed for that. It's the rule, it's a simple one to follow, and if you choose not to, you're handing the cops a reason to stop you. You choose to take the risk and gamble, particularly when it's a gamble it's easy *not* to take, I don't think you get to bitch when you get caught. You have weed in the car? You don't speed or run stop signs. In your pocket? You don't jump a turnstile. Can't afford a ticket? Don't fucking run stop signs. (don't want to get pregnant, don't fuck without condoms. Accidents happen, yes, but it's way more common that, when pressed, people like the dude who knocked up Bristol Palin, and my sister, and my cousin will admit that they used birth control *almost* every time. In that case, your birth control didn't fail. *YOU* failed at correctly using birth control. And got handed the consequences.
And if you care about keeping your military job, wait till you're out to do porn. Wanna be a public figure politician with aspirations? Don't fuck around on your wife or screw prostitutes or drive drunk. Wanna work for a media outlet sharing a name and an owner with a huge movie studio? Don't brag about doing something the movie studio has a vendetta against.
Re: TLDR 2
Date: 2009-04-08 09:52 pm (UTC)Where that gets people into trouble is, as you say, when they violate rules more specifically about not doing that. However, there's a letter-of/spirit-of sort of conflict here in that, like porn, most people don't really care about shaming file-sharers. Even those who have a media outlet job. There are arguable fair-use type things that he could have used to justify seeing the bootleg (that, granted, do not apply to bragging about bootlegging and how easy it is) that most people would shrug it off. Because he was obnoxious about it (and possibly because he was negative about the film he saw), he got busted.
I think it's too hard on him to toss him out for making what seems to be at turns a sly or else incredibly naive sort of article. Either he has no idea what is this "bit torrent' of which you speak, or he, like most people, knows only too well and is going "Gee gosh, you can get so much stuff that way" tongue firmly in cheek. It's open to interpretation so far as his first few paragraphs go. Either he's sincere in the expression "Wow! This piracy thing is awesome!" in which case he's and idiot and got what was coming to him, or he's rolling his eyes through type. Being that I see cynicism everywhere, it read more like the latter to me, is all, and for that I wouldn't think he deserved to be fired.
He did review the movie, though. There, whatever his intentions in the disseminating information about file-sharing, he goofed. Saying things like "the film was unfinished, effects weren't completed, there was no score," etc. are less damning than a full review even though both imply that he downloaded and watched the movie. So he goofed, but we only hold him responsible because he related too many details in a specific way. If we were really concerned with "NO PIRACY" he should be hosed either way. But it's open to debate whether or not his editorializing (which he, as a media "journalist" ought to be doing) made him more of a target for being busted for the same crime.
Re: TLDR 2
Date: 2009-04-08 10:17 pm (UTC)Oh I know. :) I just let that rant get away from me, sorry to imply that you did.
And I think you're right that had he been more sly, or less critical, or less blatant about *gee, filesharing is awesome, ask me how*. And there likely were other reasons contributing to the firing. But his blatantness is where he totally loses my sympathy. If you're doing something where any sane person would know that you're taking a risk... you need to at least give plausible deniability. The thing with rules that are imperfectly enforced and stuff that people tend to let slide is... yeah, people can use that excuse to justify other behavior. A racist cop can use a broken tail light or a run stop sign to justify stopping a black guy, and that's super fucking sad and annoying that, as a black guy, you might have to be extra careful about shit white guys get away with.
But when you're consciously breaking the rules, a) you pays your money, you takes your chances and b) you don't jump up and down and rub it in the law/man/boss's face. You don't brag loudly about all the office supplies you stole while the boss is in the room. When a cop stops you for running a stop sign and asks what you're up to, you don't say, "Just came back from buying some primo chronic, officer." And you maybe, at the very least, coyly allude to having seen a workprint of the film while visiting a friend. In that case, yeah, they might come down on you for partaking, or to teach your friend a lesson, but you give them an out to look the other way. You've made it possible for them to look the other way.
If you don't. If you're REALLY stupid and flaunty about it, like this guy apparently is, you're kind of taking away the rule-enforcer's option to look the other way. You're daring them, and you're making it so the mid level dudes whose job it is to enforce this shit are in the position where they have to deliberately ignore your flaunting of their rules/policies/laws. If head-honcho guy gets wind of this, he basically has every right to go to otherwise sympathetic mid-level guy and be like, "Why the fuck aren't you doing your job. Do you your job or you're fired."
You've given them no other choice *but* to enforce a law/rule/etc that they otherwise might not bother to. If piracy were my big soapbox issue, I'd come down on him for the obvious or the subtle, sure. But as someone who (er, HYPOTHETICALLY) might "know" people who engage in this technically illegal, rule breaking activity, I know it's in the interest of the community to keep this shit on the down low. He went way in the other direction. In a hugely public way.
If he were more subtle, or at least given TPTB the option to ignore his rule-breaking behavior, I'd be more sympathetic. As it was, he forced their hand. And it's not hatred of piracy that makes me think his firing was perfectly justified, its my firm belief that if you choose to deliberately break the rules (however lame those rules might be) you need to at least do it in a semi-smart way, avoid it as much as possible in cases where the rules are super obvious and/or a sticking point for people who have direct control over you, and you need to not shove that rule breaking in the face of the enforcers.
Otherwise, you totally reap what you sow. YMMV.
Re: TLDR 2
Date: 2009-04-08 11:25 pm (UTC)So it's easy to target him--he did some fairly stupid-seeming shit in the public eye--but as a response, this is a little too convenient. And it still doesn't change the fact that, like porn/prostitution/etc., piracy is only busted as crime when it can serve a lesson. Doesn't change the fact that he broke the law, but he's far from the only one at fault and hardly anyone (again, besides Fox) cares. If anything, they should be focusing their efforts on busting the leaker--he/she would seem a much better target.
Re: TLDR 2
Date: 2009-04-09 12:04 am (UTC)I doubt that if he talked of smoking weed they'd have reacted this way, but I really don't like the idea of them censoring him. They gave him the rope, he hanged himself. And I'm not sure Piracy is only busted when it can serve a lesson. I think that's a factor, but I think Piracy is also a lot more likely to be busted if it's really flagrant and really public. Pass off dupes of this film to your non-industry-and-law-enforcement friends in private, you're probably okay. Pass out dupes in the open at, say, Comiccon under the noses of industry professionals, and the lesson teaching is a factor, but the flagrancy is also an issue.
Wave it in their face, and the face of the public and large, and they're forced to enforce the rule - because letting it slide as the might otherwise do is a public renunciation of their own rules, and an implicit approval of all breaking of said rule.
The fact that hardly anyone but Fox cares is a nonissue, I think. If you accept the premise that Pirating has at least *some* negative affect on the movie industry's bottom line (debatable, sure, but a not unreasonable assumption), then pretty no one *but* Fox is in the position to be damaged by piracy. Hardly anyone but the owners of public property that have to repaint it care much about graffiti, but that doesn't mean they don't have every right to enforce anti-graffiti laws. I'm sure they are focussing their efforts on the leaker, but it's not a zero sum game, and he/she was at least smart enough not to post on their company blog, from their company address, so they made themselves a hard target.
This guy made himself an unavoidable target, because if they didn't go after him bragging about breaking their rules while within their space, they basically would be making a tacit approval of an activity that directly harms them - even if it doesn't harm anyone else, and no one else cares.
Re: TLDR 2
Date: 2009-04-09 12:23 am (UTC)