Dear Helen Wong and especially the Editors of The Daily Californian: On today’s opinion page, I see that you have decided to share your thoughts (we’ll call them thoughts) on the subject of piracy, predicated on your desire to see the film Captain America: The Winter Soldier. After trying unsuccessfully to view this film through a legal and relatively cheap ...
Well, what have we learned about pre-release piracy and its likely impact on this past weekend’s lackluster performance of Expendables III at the box office? About two weeks ago, someone who had access to a DVD-quality file of the franchise’s latest installment leaked that file for the purpose of upload to illegal file-sharing sites; and prior to film’s release on ...
People like to quibble about the harm done to the motion picture industry by online piracy. They split hairs over things like whether or not each pirated view represents a lost sale or chime in with arguments that piracy is a form of promotion or a natural market reaction to outdated practices. If a lot of the arguments for piracy ...
I can’t help but be aware of a disturbing harmonic buzz in my head when I read two stories on the same day that point to a particular digital age dichotomy. Remember Sarah Jones? You might have helped her story go viral. Sarah was a camera assistant, who was killed when she was struck by a train during filming of ...
From time to time, one encounters an editorial that so deftly weaves the offensive with the inaccurate that it leaves the reader stammering. I suppose this was the goal of the latest OpEd from digital futurist Bob Lefsetz, which appeared in Variety last week under the title “Film Biz Can Learn a Few Things From the Music Industry When It ...
