Doc Wattson
08-29-2004, 12:52 AM
I always meant to reply to this post but to be honest I forgot about it. Instead of hijacking the XBox mod thread I copy/pasted Dis post to this thread:
Because I work in film and when you DL pirated movies you are stealing money out of my pocket. That's all.
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0915258/
-Gary-
Go Gary... except i have to disagree with you on the terms that piracy is not the root cause of your problem as you've made it out to be all of this time, Piracy is a significant problem for the movie industry yet their problems are more complex than just that.
I don't think Piracy is the root of film related problems as they relate to me (Lack of work in NYC) but it's a large factor. We agree it's a mjor problem but it is also not the only problem.
Your problem is simple: "Outsourcing"
1) Even without piracy, the movie industries see the advantage of making a series or show outside of the United States... there is the cost advantage which is significant in many ways:
a) You dont have to pay the foreign worker quite as much as an American Worker. Most movies made outside of the US tend to be made in either Austrailia or Canada... the wage disperaty isnt that much between us and them... but there are other reasons for locating outside of the USA.
Autrailia isn't really that big of a problem. Even if you include New Zeland that % of films made there isn't as high as some think. Some high profile movies have been made there recently so people think it's the Hollywood out of North America but that isn't the case. As many films are made in Europe (Cold Mountain, Hellboy, etc). Facts are facts though, it's cheaper to make almost anything outside of America as it is in America. Personally I don't mind to many movies going aboard if A) The scenery accually better fits the movie (LoTR case in point) B) They bring some crew members from the states with them (Which 90% of the time they do since we are still the best stagehands in the world by far).
b) Government Regulation: Outside of the United States, it's easier and cheaper to make things go bang or boom. In the USA, it's a legal impossibility to legally acquire a machine gun (which is heavily featured in EVERY action movie) manufactured after 1988... meaning anything new that is up and coming for action movies has to be done outside of the USA to allow for this. (To put a machine gun in the hands of an actor can cost upwards of $5,000 per gun) Also, environmental regulations and our taxation scheme make it harder to business here. Now, i'm not saying that we should just throw out all governmental regulation, but we should make it somewhat easier to do business here... rather than income taxes, and corporate taxes, make all taxation be by sales tax.
To be honest I don't know where you got that info on guns. I have delt with many machine guns made since 1988. I've delt with SWAT guns on Third Watch that are at most four years old. Accually as a Local 52 member I am allowed to carry/transport arms that most can't, like a gatling gun or artillary cannon. Hell, I could carry barrels that say "Toxic poisen to whip out NYC". I was once pulled over by a cop who saw I had a gun, I showed him my local 52 paper work and he let me go.
c) Maximizing profit: Even in a world without piracy, you'd STILL probably be losing your job, there's no significant disadvantages to locating outside of the US Market, and any disadvantages are far outweighed by the advantages. We as a nation need to make the disadvantages outweigh the advantages. Some ways to do this would be:
Some solutions that might work:
I) Simplify Government regulation: US Government regulations are extremely complex, and in fact are way more complex than they NEED to be to have the same result. Remove laws that are either unconstitutional or stupid... If there was the ability to have machine guns (through some legal licensing process) without either paying $5,000 for a gun that costs $586 for the military to buy (I checked, the M-16A2 rifle has a replacement cost of $586) or moving abroad to accomplish the same result.
II) Eliminate corporate & property taxes: If you eliminate corporate taxes, you eliminate a reason for a corporation to either move to a tax haven or to avoid taxes... you can recoup this money by a sales tax.
NYC just passed this month that give tax breaks to films and TV shows that film in the city. Since then Law & Order 4 (yes, they are about to start production on a 4th L&O) and a Mirimax film titled Smoke have stayed in the city because of it. Tru Blue (a movie I was going to work on) still decided to leave town with it's $100 million dollar budget. Still the Tax breaks will help a ton, mostly in keeping films that film half here and half Canada to remian fully in Canada since they already have to set up shop here anyway.
III) Maximize Customs delays: Make it take WEEKS to import anything into the US market under the veil of homeland security...
Umm, not really sure how that helps but even if it did that's the wrong way to go about things.
IV) Force all business located at home and abroad that operate by contracts (phone service and such) to obey a "contract bill of rights" that basically says that either side can terminate the contract without penalty if issues with the service are not resolved properly. (Meaning, that you can get out of your contract with your mobile phone character because they outsource the call center and can no longer understand the representative) This would create a huge disincentive to outsourcing tech/call center jobs, because they couldnt hold anyone to a contract if they are having issues.
Not sure what this has to do with Film/
IV) Force any business in the process of outsourcing jobs to provide all subscribers a committment free exit to the contract.
Again, don't see what that has to do with film. See you go on a anti outsourceing rant.
Some that wont work:
I) Tax companies that are US Companies for every dollar they make no matter where they make it: All they have to do to get out of this, is to incorporate elsewhere and then to pull loopholes to get out of this... this WONT work.
II) Impose tariffs: This will probably start a trade war that we cant win.
Some problems that face the industry as a whole:
1) Failure to innovate: Face it, most companies and businesses who are losing money at this point have totally failed to innovate. Why is the music industry making less money? Piracy itself is part of failing to innovate, by breaking down Napster, they forced everyone to ground and using bulletproof sharing schemes... if they would have embraced Napster and accepted it's offer of 1BN a year, they wouldnt be having nearly the problem they are with piracy.
This is why the Phone Line providers are losing their ASSES now, because of wireless and VOIP providers, because they failed to run fiber when the market was totally dependant on them (because of the cost.) now they are sitting and milking outdated equipment and people are starting to migrate away from it... if they would have ran fiber to every house in the USA, they would have the market on high speed internet, cable, phone service... and instead they are dying and hoping for a bailout or the regulators to regulate any alternative out of existance.
2) Economic Downturn: Starting in Q1 2000, we started an economic downturn, there's less money in the economy, so there will be less disposable income and therefore less people will be buying music or movies.
By now I've realized you aren't talking about film anymore, you are just talking outsourceing and economy issues. I'll comment again if you bring film bak into it.
3) Illegal Activities of foreign governments: Under the clinton administration and under bush, foreign governments have been allowed to dump products onto the US market with near impunity, from the steel dumping of the 90's that put most of the remaining steel producers out of business... to the fish dumping that threatens to put fishermen out of business... these activities damage the US Economy and it's the governments responsibility to stop this kind of thing.
4) Government Regulation: The industries have had congress enact laws that make it harder for people to innovate... the video tape recorder is an innovation that made hollywood millions and billions of dollars... but companies tried to sue it out of existance because it could be used to copy and distribute programs shown over the air... (The industry wanted "video records" that couldnt be copied and would self destruct after a few plays) the "fair use" ability of the recorder made it viable and a lot of businesses grew up around it... Camcorders, Video Rental, the video industry as it and is all revolves around an innovative piece of technology.
Now, there are laws that prohibit any circumvention of encryption no matter the reason, and that is retarding the progress of products coming to market... the natural progression from DVD's are DVD players with hard drives so you dont have to keep using the disc, but this has not happened due to DRM and the DCMA... this would be a boon to them, it'd a) sell more DVD's AND place a device with a large hard disc in the living room of most homes in america... imagine it, a DVD player with a network jack and a hard disc, the ability to rent DVD's that you can watch on your TV that are delivered by the internet... you havent seen this because of DRM and the inability to innovate.
DRM will NOT stop dedicated pirates, because you have to make the discs playable, and if you do that, you make them piratable, and there are enough professional pirates out there that things will always be pirated and stolen... what the corporations have to do is make it easier, faster, safer and with advantages to buying it rather than stealing it... P2P File Sharing would do this for them if they could work it properly... would provide them near infinite amounts of bandwith to distribute legal works... but none of this will be done with the current legal landscape and the businesses that are unwilling to innovate.
5) Unions: The main problem with unions is the fact that in most union heavy areas, the workforce is considered too "militant" and businesses refuse to locate there. Unions also have strikes, which are more often than not violent and make it more and more expensive for companies to locate here.... The unions also weild political power by using their member dues for political reasons.
Ok, I disagree with you very strongly here (at least how it pertains to film). The two main unions stagehand unions of the united states are Local 52 (tri-state area) and local 357 (I think that's their number, the LA union). When a film like Big Fish is made in Alabama do stuidos get all happy that they are filming in a state with no stage hand unions? No, they fly a crew in and put them up in hotels at a great cost. Why do they do this? Because they need skilled labor. Then again Local 52/357 aren't your typical unions, they ae very hard to get in and you have to pass a test that proves you are trained and competent at what you do. Most unions take almost anyone in as long as they'll pay the dues.
I also don't know of one strike that Local 52 has had (I think we have had two in our history) were things got violent.
As far as politcal power, trust me when I say Studios have a lot more pull with the poloticians that crew memembers do.
I might also add you don't know how slimy Producers and Stuidos can be. We need unions. I could give you tons of examples but the most recent I had was this fall doing a film called Heights. One week anyone who wasn't union didn't get paid. Half the PAs were told AFTER they worked that week that they had been made interns without being told, if they complained they lost there internship [sick]. The very last week no one got paid and the producers left the country. My union is still sueing Merchant Ivory but seeing that they are in china right now I don't have high hopes in getting my last pay check, part of my kit rental, and my $700 cell phone bill reimbursed anytime soon.
In closing, your main problem is a lot more complex than piracy, piracy is a very convienent scabegoat for the bulk of problems, and the fact that companies see no downside to not locating here... they blame piracy because it's convienent, and they see piracy all wrong... they see any loss of money as a "problem of piracy" and any gain of money "a testament to our heavy handed tactics as successful" which is probably wrong. Piracy is wrong, and should not be allowed, but blaming it as the sole source of your problems is also wrong.
Again, I'm not blaming it as as the sole source of my problems. In fact my unions stance is that the #1 reason jobs are leaving NYC is because of tax breaks. The second reason in my mind is the explostion of actor's pay checks over the past ten years. Number three is piracy. The fact is though that Piracy takes money from the industry. I don't agree with the dollar numbers Hollywood says they lose but they do lose money. Any way you slice it their lose in profist gets filtered down to the work force.
-Gary-
Because I work in film and when you DL pirated movies you are stealing money out of my pocket. That's all.
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0915258/
-Gary-
Go Gary... except i have to disagree with you on the terms that piracy is not the root cause of your problem as you've made it out to be all of this time, Piracy is a significant problem for the movie industry yet their problems are more complex than just that.
I don't think Piracy is the root of film related problems as they relate to me (Lack of work in NYC) but it's a large factor. We agree it's a mjor problem but it is also not the only problem.
Your problem is simple: "Outsourcing"
1) Even without piracy, the movie industries see the advantage of making a series or show outside of the United States... there is the cost advantage which is significant in many ways:
a) You dont have to pay the foreign worker quite as much as an American Worker. Most movies made outside of the US tend to be made in either Austrailia or Canada... the wage disperaty isnt that much between us and them... but there are other reasons for locating outside of the USA.
Autrailia isn't really that big of a problem. Even if you include New Zeland that % of films made there isn't as high as some think. Some high profile movies have been made there recently so people think it's the Hollywood out of North America but that isn't the case. As many films are made in Europe (Cold Mountain, Hellboy, etc). Facts are facts though, it's cheaper to make almost anything outside of America as it is in America. Personally I don't mind to many movies going aboard if A) The scenery accually better fits the movie (LoTR case in point) B) They bring some crew members from the states with them (Which 90% of the time they do since we are still the best stagehands in the world by far).
b) Government Regulation: Outside of the United States, it's easier and cheaper to make things go bang or boom. In the USA, it's a legal impossibility to legally acquire a machine gun (which is heavily featured in EVERY action movie) manufactured after 1988... meaning anything new that is up and coming for action movies has to be done outside of the USA to allow for this. (To put a machine gun in the hands of an actor can cost upwards of $5,000 per gun) Also, environmental regulations and our taxation scheme make it harder to business here. Now, i'm not saying that we should just throw out all governmental regulation, but we should make it somewhat easier to do business here... rather than income taxes, and corporate taxes, make all taxation be by sales tax.
To be honest I don't know where you got that info on guns. I have delt with many machine guns made since 1988. I've delt with SWAT guns on Third Watch that are at most four years old. Accually as a Local 52 member I am allowed to carry/transport arms that most can't, like a gatling gun or artillary cannon. Hell, I could carry barrels that say "Toxic poisen to whip out NYC". I was once pulled over by a cop who saw I had a gun, I showed him my local 52 paper work and he let me go.
c) Maximizing profit: Even in a world without piracy, you'd STILL probably be losing your job, there's no significant disadvantages to locating outside of the US Market, and any disadvantages are far outweighed by the advantages. We as a nation need to make the disadvantages outweigh the advantages. Some ways to do this would be:
Some solutions that might work:
I) Simplify Government regulation: US Government regulations are extremely complex, and in fact are way more complex than they NEED to be to have the same result. Remove laws that are either unconstitutional or stupid... If there was the ability to have machine guns (through some legal licensing process) without either paying $5,000 for a gun that costs $586 for the military to buy (I checked, the M-16A2 rifle has a replacement cost of $586) or moving abroad to accomplish the same result.
II) Eliminate corporate & property taxes: If you eliminate corporate taxes, you eliminate a reason for a corporation to either move to a tax haven or to avoid taxes... you can recoup this money by a sales tax.
NYC just passed this month that give tax breaks to films and TV shows that film in the city. Since then Law & Order 4 (yes, they are about to start production on a 4th L&O) and a Mirimax film titled Smoke have stayed in the city because of it. Tru Blue (a movie I was going to work on) still decided to leave town with it's $100 million dollar budget. Still the Tax breaks will help a ton, mostly in keeping films that film half here and half Canada to remian fully in Canada since they already have to set up shop here anyway.
III) Maximize Customs delays: Make it take WEEKS to import anything into the US market under the veil of homeland security...
Umm, not really sure how that helps but even if it did that's the wrong way to go about things.
IV) Force all business located at home and abroad that operate by contracts (phone service and such) to obey a "contract bill of rights" that basically says that either side can terminate the contract without penalty if issues with the service are not resolved properly. (Meaning, that you can get out of your contract with your mobile phone character because they outsource the call center and can no longer understand the representative) This would create a huge disincentive to outsourcing tech/call center jobs, because they couldnt hold anyone to a contract if they are having issues.
Not sure what this has to do with Film/
IV) Force any business in the process of outsourcing jobs to provide all subscribers a committment free exit to the contract.
Again, don't see what that has to do with film. See you go on a anti outsourceing rant.
Some that wont work:
I) Tax companies that are US Companies for every dollar they make no matter where they make it: All they have to do to get out of this, is to incorporate elsewhere and then to pull loopholes to get out of this... this WONT work.
II) Impose tariffs: This will probably start a trade war that we cant win.
Some problems that face the industry as a whole:
1) Failure to innovate: Face it, most companies and businesses who are losing money at this point have totally failed to innovate. Why is the music industry making less money? Piracy itself is part of failing to innovate, by breaking down Napster, they forced everyone to ground and using bulletproof sharing schemes... if they would have embraced Napster and accepted it's offer of 1BN a year, they wouldnt be having nearly the problem they are with piracy.
This is why the Phone Line providers are losing their ASSES now, because of wireless and VOIP providers, because they failed to run fiber when the market was totally dependant on them (because of the cost.) now they are sitting and milking outdated equipment and people are starting to migrate away from it... if they would have ran fiber to every house in the USA, they would have the market on high speed internet, cable, phone service... and instead they are dying and hoping for a bailout or the regulators to regulate any alternative out of existance.
2) Economic Downturn: Starting in Q1 2000, we started an economic downturn, there's less money in the economy, so there will be less disposable income and therefore less people will be buying music or movies.
By now I've realized you aren't talking about film anymore, you are just talking outsourceing and economy issues. I'll comment again if you bring film bak into it.
3) Illegal Activities of foreign governments: Under the clinton administration and under bush, foreign governments have been allowed to dump products onto the US market with near impunity, from the steel dumping of the 90's that put most of the remaining steel producers out of business... to the fish dumping that threatens to put fishermen out of business... these activities damage the US Economy and it's the governments responsibility to stop this kind of thing.
4) Government Regulation: The industries have had congress enact laws that make it harder for people to innovate... the video tape recorder is an innovation that made hollywood millions and billions of dollars... but companies tried to sue it out of existance because it could be used to copy and distribute programs shown over the air... (The industry wanted "video records" that couldnt be copied and would self destruct after a few plays) the "fair use" ability of the recorder made it viable and a lot of businesses grew up around it... Camcorders, Video Rental, the video industry as it and is all revolves around an innovative piece of technology.
Now, there are laws that prohibit any circumvention of encryption no matter the reason, and that is retarding the progress of products coming to market... the natural progression from DVD's are DVD players with hard drives so you dont have to keep using the disc, but this has not happened due to DRM and the DCMA... this would be a boon to them, it'd a) sell more DVD's AND place a device with a large hard disc in the living room of most homes in america... imagine it, a DVD player with a network jack and a hard disc, the ability to rent DVD's that you can watch on your TV that are delivered by the internet... you havent seen this because of DRM and the inability to innovate.
DRM will NOT stop dedicated pirates, because you have to make the discs playable, and if you do that, you make them piratable, and there are enough professional pirates out there that things will always be pirated and stolen... what the corporations have to do is make it easier, faster, safer and with advantages to buying it rather than stealing it... P2P File Sharing would do this for them if they could work it properly... would provide them near infinite amounts of bandwith to distribute legal works... but none of this will be done with the current legal landscape and the businesses that are unwilling to innovate.
5) Unions: The main problem with unions is the fact that in most union heavy areas, the workforce is considered too "militant" and businesses refuse to locate there. Unions also have strikes, which are more often than not violent and make it more and more expensive for companies to locate here.... The unions also weild political power by using their member dues for political reasons.
Ok, I disagree with you very strongly here (at least how it pertains to film). The two main unions stagehand unions of the united states are Local 52 (tri-state area) and local 357 (I think that's their number, the LA union). When a film like Big Fish is made in Alabama do stuidos get all happy that they are filming in a state with no stage hand unions? No, they fly a crew in and put them up in hotels at a great cost. Why do they do this? Because they need skilled labor. Then again Local 52/357 aren't your typical unions, they ae very hard to get in and you have to pass a test that proves you are trained and competent at what you do. Most unions take almost anyone in as long as they'll pay the dues.
I also don't know of one strike that Local 52 has had (I think we have had two in our history) were things got violent.
As far as politcal power, trust me when I say Studios have a lot more pull with the poloticians that crew memembers do.
I might also add you don't know how slimy Producers and Stuidos can be. We need unions. I could give you tons of examples but the most recent I had was this fall doing a film called Heights. One week anyone who wasn't union didn't get paid. Half the PAs were told AFTER they worked that week that they had been made interns without being told, if they complained they lost there internship [sick]. The very last week no one got paid and the producers left the country. My union is still sueing Merchant Ivory but seeing that they are in china right now I don't have high hopes in getting my last pay check, part of my kit rental, and my $700 cell phone bill reimbursed anytime soon.
In closing, your main problem is a lot more complex than piracy, piracy is a very convienent scabegoat for the bulk of problems, and the fact that companies see no downside to not locating here... they blame piracy because it's convienent, and they see piracy all wrong... they see any loss of money as a "problem of piracy" and any gain of money "a testament to our heavy handed tactics as successful" which is probably wrong. Piracy is wrong, and should not be allowed, but blaming it as the sole source of your problems is also wrong.
Again, I'm not blaming it as as the sole source of my problems. In fact my unions stance is that the #1 reason jobs are leaving NYC is because of tax breaks. The second reason in my mind is the explostion of actor's pay checks over the past ten years. Number three is piracy. The fact is though that Piracy takes money from the industry. I don't agree with the dollar numbers Hollywood says they lose but they do lose money. Any way you slice it their lose in profist gets filtered down to the work force.
-Gary-