You know what is so funny? This just occured to me... maybe it isn't really relevant to the issue at hand, but I'd like to hear some thoughts about it nonetheless.

You know those countless Star Wars novels that are published? Lucas pretty much disowns them from the "intellectual property" standpoint. I mean, he's said that they don't have any bearing on his "official" SW universe- that is, he can make the trilogies however he wants to, ignoring whether his "vision" is at all in conflict with the "vision" of others. (I mean, if one of those books has another take on Anakin's boyhood origins, Lucas says that doesn't matter. What we see in Ep. 1 is the "real story".)

That's fine... but are the novels then *his*, or someone else's (the author's)? I ask because I am willing to bet that Lucas takes a larger cut of the book sale's $$ than the chumps they pay to write these books. "But he owns the entire SW UNIVERSE!!" Sort of... I mean, he owns some of the characters, and some of the settings. But aren't a lot of those books pretty original? I mean, tons of new characters and planets and technologies? Does he own Mara Jade? Someone else invented her, but if he *wanted* to, he could put her in a SW film. Would he have to pay royalties to the author invented her? I don't know...

Like I said, this is a bit of an aside to the issue of bootlegging and piracy, but anyone who can offer insight into the whole empire of the SW franchise would be helping me understand. I just want as broad a picture as possible of how LUCAS profits from other people's creations.

The way he profits is no different than the way any other company makes a profit.

Lucas hires an author to write a book. The author agrees to a fee and writes the book. Lucas owns the book, as long as he pays the author as stipulated in the contract.

This is no different than movies. Sony hires Sam Raimi to direct Spiderman. He agrees to a fee and does it. That doesn't mean that he now owns Spiderman. Sony does. And Marvel. And other companies.

<BLOCKQUOTE> • Quoth Five Cent Deposit •<HR SIZE=1>The realm of morality is rarely, if ever, shaded in black and white. <HR SIZE=1></BLOCKQUOTE>

Truer words may never have been spoken.

das

Right, I know. I just want to understand the stipulated terms of those contracts. I'm just trying to point out that Lucas profits off of other's artistic creations, perhaps more than they do. And... if it weren't for all of the books, cartoons, what have you, would there have remained such a strong interest in creating the prequel films?

I dunno, I just think that basing any argument about bootlegging Lucas films on whether he, the "artist", is getting paid in full is going to open up all kinds of weird moral uncertainties. That was my point (if I had one. :lol: )

:up:

Five Cents, your really throwing other things in to the mix without them needing to be there. first off, Metallica's little deal was worse because they were going after those who weren't selling the stuff, they were just going after those who downloaded the stuff.

Like I stated before, which I'm sure you overlooked because you figure I was just repeating myself -rolleyes- Fine, your going to get a bootleg, knock yourself out, but the issue here is When the final comes out on dvd buy and support that.

As for the damage that is caused by bootleggers. If you are going to make a copy of it and charge someone for it, there is something wrong there. If you want to go back to star wars and relate it to the metallica issue, fine lets put it this way, if bootleggers distributed the movies for free, or for the meer cost of the supplies to make it then it wouldn't be bad. But as it is, they are making a profit off someone else's work. Regardless if it is OOP or not.

as for the limited run deal. A lot of studios do this, they have been doing this for decades. the SW box sets were always put OOP after some time, Lucas never really anounced that they were going away intill next year or whatever. they just were placed OOP. You can see Universal with the E.T. deal pimping that out.

Now, my thougths are all over the place but the loss in money is not about what he is losing right now it's the potential loss in the sense of what happens when Lucas does release the dvd's and people keep the bootlegs over the official release. This is where the lose in profit he is concerned about comes into play. As I stated already, You can't keep everyone happy all the time so even if he does make a kick arse set, there will people there to complain about it. I don't mind the wait considering he is pretty damn busy making ep III, but many people don't seem to realize that and are just demanding a barebones release for the time being. What happens when the sets are released and people see it's only the SE or it has new scenes add or something of that nature. People have different images of what they want from a star wars dvd and if they are not pleased they will keep the boots as there version instead of buying the set. And don't give me some bull that they wouldn't have bought them because it wasn't what they wanted. It's star wars, half the profits from sells of any star wars movie is from people who bitch and whine about it 2 seconds after buying it. ;)

It's his creation, if someone is making a profit off his work. you will feel the same way if they made profit off something you created.


and to end with a lighter note:
http://www.penny-arcade.com/images/2002/20020429l.gif

You are being a bit liberal with the word "creation." Luca$ created the setting, the characters, and most importantly ... the hype (sure, one could argue Luca$ only borrowed archetypes from Homer and Tolkein among others, but that's pushing it). No one would have purchased these books, cartoons, what have you, had Luca$ not created the myth and the hype surrounding them.

It's no different from anything. When a company hires a software developer to create something, yeah the developer is doing some creation of his own, but the company pays for the office, the power, the compilers, the benefits, etc, and more often than not, the company is both footing the inital investment and coming up with the big idea to begin with. Luca$ took the risks. Luca$ created the <B>Star Wars</B> universe.

If you want to write a story based on his creations, I don't see any moral abiguity in paying for that ability. Afterall, it wouldn't exist had he not created it. The author gets paid for his contribution to the new "creation," and Luca$ gets paid for his contribution.

I think Luca$ is full of crap on his bootlegging whining, but I'm not sure I see how there's a moral uncertainty in his collecting profits from his creation. And yes, there would have been interest for the prequels even if nothing had happened between 1983 and 1998. The more accurate question you should ask is whether there'd be an interest in the books, cartoons, what have you without the original 3 films?

das

For a fan book, or a fan fiction, you can by all means write one and not get the hammer smashed down on you. pass it around and everything. it's if you try to sell that book that you will get the law suit. ;)

Considering there has been figures in circulation and other movie toys out there, the original trilogy would be alive and strong still.

Since stealing is apart of life, can you post your address and savings account number so we can all steal from you.

Stealing is ok if it happens to someone who has more money than you, but I would bet you would be very angry (maybe even like George Lucas is) if some stole anything (big or small) from you.

Someone stole my daughters $15 shoes and I was very upset. I could afford to buy another pair, but the shoes were ours not the person who stole them. Do you think it would be right to steal shoes from George Lucas or Bill Gates? No it is not right.

Your logic is very flawed, "Life sucks. People steal. It's part of the game." Has the game ever been played on you and how did you feel. Happy, I dought it.

He is also "complaining" about the future. In 5 years or so, the only thing that will keep the movie/music industry in business are honest people. Everyone else will be downloading for free or buying bootlegs.

Then, there will be no movie/music industries to put out DVDs/CDs.

I agree...there is a shift in the way people choose to get their movies and music. That doesn't mean the industry will die, it just means they will have to change the way they do things. Big whoop. It's like back in the 40's all these studios worrying about what TV would do to radio. Radio is still around, but radio shows aren't as popular. People chose to get their home entertainment in a different way. In the next 5 to 10 years, I see no reason why the Internet and TV cannot become one and people can watch whatever TV show they want and whatever movie they want thru broadband on their TVs by ordering it for a fee. There is a shift in the way things are done and how people get their entertainment, and it's an either do or die for the studios. Lucas can get with the program or he can hide behind a podium and blame people who cannot help him change anything and die broke because he can't shift his paradigm.

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Iron_Giant
In 5 years or so, the only thing that will keep the movie/music industry in business are honest people.

---

Actually, another thing that would help is releasing quality product...

They said that with tape cassette and with VHS.

The movie and music industries were still strong during the height of those 2 formats.

Is it a coincidence that Lucas didn't complain until TPM hit the theatres?

You are pretty much right about everything, and have obviously put a lot of thought into your post, which I appreciate. I wish I could say the same of myself, but...

I posted that message in the space of time that I'd usually reserve for gathering up my wallet, keys, and other crap before trudging off to work. I really didn't have any cohesive thought in it- I often do this right before work because I want to have something interesting to come back to on my lunch break (right now). I did try to make it clear that even *I* didn't see its relevance. :lol:

I wasn't saying that there was any moral uncertainty in Lucas collecting $$ off of the SW expanded Universe.

I guess (in retrospect) I wasn't trying to measure one man's contributions to a fictional universe against another's (Lucas vs. book authors). I was really just sort of amused by the naive idea that only the "artist" is entitled to financial profit. People were saying that Lucas is the only one who deserves to make money off of his creation, and I thought that was kinda silly, so I tried to point out that Lucas himself makes a profit off of the works of others. None of it really gelled in my post though.

Anyway, what is most interesting about this whole debate is this argument:

Premise #1: Stealing is always morally reprehensible.
Premise #2: Bootlegging is the same as other kinds of stealing.

Conclusion: Bootlegging is morally objectionable.

This is the thing that makes me shake my head. Premise #1 is moral absolutism, which is really pretty worthless. Premise #2 is moral equivalency, which is also pretty worthless. Neither exist in the real world.

To my critics who would say that some of the things I've posted are "unnecessary" or pointless or whatever, the whole reason I am broadening the discussion to include other examples of copyright infringement and examples of limited market availability is to show that you simply can't apply an absolute moral equation to the SW bootlegs if you can't apply it to other situations which amount to the same basic dilemma (Do I steal or do I not steal).

Das, I'm interested to know what you think of the rest of my posts, if you have the time and inclination to share. I wasn't trying to draw direct comparisons, I was trying to show that every situation is different.

I studied ethics in college. I'm no expert, and I do find myself disagreeing sometimes with the experts. But the thing that sticks with me from years ago is that moral "rules" are really pretty worthless. Ethical guidelines are all that can be safely applied. We as a culture will almost all agree that ethically, it is "wrong" to do something which hurts some for the benefit of others in certain situations. But to reach agreement on specific situations, we have to all figure out a way of measuring the pain versus the gain (utilitarianism). With that in mind, I can't find the units of measurement where, in this case, bootlegging hurts George Lucas more than it benefits the fans of his "art". Hey, that's just me though. I'm open to other's ideas.

I also am amused that whenever people gripe that George is greedy, his defenders rush out to say that he isn't. Many of us have been taught that greed is always bad, and we can't stand to hear a man we like called something "bad". Personally, I think Lucas is greedy, and he is also possessive. I'm not passing judgement on the right or wrong of it- he has every right to be greedy and possessive. He's also not really hurting anyone (except maybe himself). But his greed does annoy me. Saying that I'm pissed off about his greediness isn't the same as saying that he's wrong or that he's hurting people. I wish some of his rabid defenders would recognize this.

What did you state that I overlooked?

I'm not going to buy a bootleg, if I can buy from Lucas instead. I stated that very clearly. I'm going to buy everything that Lucas puts out, provided I can afford it all. :)

Once again, the communication process has broken down.

I never stated in any of my posts that stealing is right or that bootlegging is right. I never stated that Lucas has no right to be angry.

My point was that in almost any industry with almost any product, there is a certain amount of loss that is due to theft. This has always been the case in the entire history of commerce. Yet, other industries do what they can to minimize those thefts and they continue on with business. I just don't buy Lucas' contention that the sky is falling and that this will be the end of the film industy or the artists.

In addition, I stand by that fact that hearing any multi-billionaire bitch about losing money evokes exactly zero sympathy from me. I have the world's smallest violin and it's playing just for Lucas. I also have the world's second smallest violin and it's playing just for the RIAA.

There's nothing wrong with what Lucas said.

Piracy is stealing, and it's illegal. There is no justification. Just because something isn't out on DVD, doesn't make it any less of a crime to buy an illegal copy.

It's lame to even try to justify it.

I mean I speed all the time. I don't try to justify it all the time by saying things like "the speed limits to low." I know it's illegal, and wrong, I just don't care.

If people are going to pirate something, they should just do it and shut up with their lame excuses.

Stealing is wrong.

So is alienating your customer and fanbase by technologically assuming that everyone is pre-guilty. ("We are the office of Media Pre-Crime!")

That doesn't mean that media makers can't do certain preventative steps to try and minimize low-level (non-expert) theft of product.

But once they cross the line where they ruin the experience and fair use of their product, they do the exact opposite of what they are trying to fight: they encourage piracy by making it an exciting challenge and make thieves feel like heros by standing up to "the man."

You see how disastrously it has gone for the RIAA. If the MPAA follows suit they will lose on a scale that makes the Napster debacle look tiny.

<BLOCKQUOTE> • Quoth Five Cent Deposit •<HR SIZE=1>You are pretty much right about everything<HR SIZE=1></BLOCKQUOTE>

You are wise. ;)

<BLOCKQUOTE> • Quoth Five Cent Deposit •<HR SIZE=1>[You] have obviously put a lot of thought into your post<HR SIZE=1></BLOCKQUOTE>

You are foolish. ;)

<BLOCKQUOTE> • Quoth Five Cent Deposit •<HR SIZE=1>Anyway, what is most interesting about this whole debate is this argument:

Premise #1: Stealing is always morally reprehensible.
Premise #2: Bootlegging is the same as other kinds of stealing.

Conclusion: Bootlegging is morally objectionable.

This is the thing that makes me shake my head. Premise #1 is moral absolutism, which is really pretty worthless. Premise #2 is moral equivalency, which is also pretty worthless. Neither exist in the real world.<HR SIZE=1></BLOCKQUOTE>

You and I are in complete agreement.

<BLOCKQUOTE> • Quoth Five Cent Deposit •<HR SIZE=1>I studied ethics in college. I'm no expert, and I do find myself disagreeing sometimes with the experts. But the thing that sticks with me from years ago is that moral "rules" are really pretty worthless. Ethical guidelines are all that can be safely applied. We as a culture will almost all agree that ethically, it is "wrong" to do something which hurts some for the benefit of others in certain situations. But to reach agreement on specific situations, we have to all figure out a way of measuring the pain versus the gain (utilitarianism). With that in mind, I can't find the units of measurement where, in this case, bootlegging hurts George Lucas more than it benefits the fans of his "art". Hey, that's just me though. I'm open to other's ideas.<HR SIZE=1></BLOCKQUOTE>

I agree with this to an extent, but as with your other argument, I'd be careful of absolutes even in this instance.

Having read your posts in this thread, while I don't agree with all of it, I too appreciate the attempt to cut through the black and white that often dominates these ethical discussions.

What makes something "stealing?" Is it the loss suffered by another. Or is it the gain received at low or no cost. Or is it both at the same level? Or different levels? There was a time when the gain of one meant the loss of another. This isn't always the case when it comes to technology. If I copy my <B>Free Willy</B> DVD (is there even a DVD for that?), and throw it in the trash, I have created and discarded a gain without harming anyone. What if I copy it and give it to a monkey? I have now created a gain and distributed it without harming anyone again. What if I copy it and give it to my cousin who has never even heard of the film? One could argue that somehow he may be exposed to it and purchase it due to marketing, but it's most likely that again I've created gain without loss. What if he really likes the film (he's a distant cousin), and he ends up purchasing the DVDs for it and all the sequels. Now let's say I sell it to my cousin at adequate cost for the product. Again, I've created gain, this time for me. He's purchased a good, so there's no gain/loss for him. Now, say he knows the film and would buy it on DVD, but I sell him a copy instead for cheaper. Depending on his level of interest, we both gain, and the studio loses. Now I don't use an exact duplicate, but a cheap knock-off. Then an SVCD. Then I do it in bulk to people who care about quality and get ripped off by the inferior product I've sold them. And so on ...

Are all these things stealing? Are they different levels of stealing? How about morality? As you and I have both said in previous posts, black and white ... or somewhere in between? Capital punishment, abortion, cloning ... black and white ... or somewhere in between?

Ramble ... ramble ... ramble. In any case, I believe there's no defined line of who's right and who's wrong, legally or morally, in many such cases. Is it "right" for Di$ney to purchase and bury foreign films? Legally? Morally?

People will invariably fall on different sides of all these issues, some at the extremes, many in the middle. As has already been discussed, the issue here isn't really whether bootlegging DVDs is wrong. It's that the landscape of entertainment is changing, and those changes benefit the smaller companies, the independents, those who can't purchase a small island at will. Megaproducers like Luca$ and $pielberg, megacorps like Di$ney (not just film, but TV) and GE, megajackasses like Metallica and the RIAA, are all hiding behind the veil or morality to stop the change, becuase these changes highlight quality over bankroll. In the past, if you had a lot of money, you could turn it into more money simply by keeping anyone else from entering your marketplace. Now everyone gets to play, and it scares those in power, because they're losing control, and the prime source ... the Internet.

At the forefront is music and television. The RIAA doesn't care that I'm downloading Metallica songs on mp3. They care that I'm downloading new music that my radio station refuses to play, that the suits aren't forcing down our throats, and my options have expanded. I'm slipping out from under their thumb. And $18.99 CDs with 1 good track and 9 crap aren't interesting me anymore. The broadcast networks are equally scared, buying up cable channels in bulk using classic bully economics. And don't get them started on how evil TiVo is.

Bootlegging may be morally wrong. I think it's debatable. Regardless, it's not the source of the yelling from Luca$ and co. He's not losing a dime from it (and if he is, it's a statistical insignificane ... he could very well be profiting from it by the same small margin). He does however stand to lose if being filthy rich starts taking a backseat to producing quality in the entertainment marketplace.

das

Note: I'm watching football and randomly typing what pops into my head. I'm not re-reading what I just typed. If it makes no sense ... oops.

Hmmm, well, I said my peace at the start of this thread.

I think that some of you are mistaking Lucas's annoyance for bootlegs with the OT boots, when I think he's talking about TPM and AOTC boots.

TPM was one of the most pirated movies ever, TPM was the first movie avalible for download on the net on a large sale (this had as much to do with broadband becoming more avalible at the time, then it did with the hype around the film.) There are fans of Star Wars all over the world, and since TPM didn't open in those countries until many months later, boots were very popular over there.

I guess Lucas should have realised that it might have been a better idea to hold back the release and finish all the dubbing, then do a world wide release. He learned from the mistake and did that for AOTC.

I wouldn't say TPM was the first movie available for download on a large scale. Films like Titanic and Saving Private Ryan were very heavily distributed well before TPM even hit theaters.

das

Well, neither of us can guess how many of each were made, so maybe I'm wrong here as to which was first :)

But with the hype around TPM, and broadband reaching so many people, it did get really bad for TPM, which is what pissed Lucas off on bootlegs :)

BTW, why is everyone acting like Lucas did this alone? Peter Chernin has most of the quotes associated to him.

Das, biz might be wrong about the whole TPM being the first to be massivly bootlegged, but he is correct on why it presented the problem. Release dates.

Since it wasn't released worldwide at the same time. Once it was released here and bootlegged, other countries had boot's of it before it was released in there region. It was a big mess and who knows if it took a punch into the final box office price or not, but if you see your product/movie getting bootlegged, I'm sure you would want to do something to stop it and this is one major reason I think lucas wants to stop it.

Huh. This is an interesting bit of film industry history. It definitely sucks that people were trafficking in TPM boots prior to its theatrical release in some regions. But obviously, Lucasfilms and Fox learned from their mistake. Like I noted, these are business people who know how to maximize profits. When they saw that the new technology had created a situation where they *might* have lost money, they did everything they could the next time around to avoid the same situation.

I wonder what they truly lost in Box Office $$ due to the bootlegging of TPM though. It is very hard for me to imagine that the film could have done better than it did. This is really an impossible question. Was the Box Office performance of AOTC better than TPM? No. There are so many factors involved, I can see how one could make an argument that bootlegging actually helped the BO of TPM.

Can you give me the arguement on how Bootlegging helped BO of TPM? Don't use the method of "Well if they saw it on vcd they were more likely to see it in theaters when it was released" because as everyone puts it, TPM was so bad.

Not to mention that if you are going to put it into prespective like MP3's really helping an artist, the difference between Music and movies is big. with music you can easily make a good quality version on little amount of room. With movies the amount of space needed to make a decent quality is huge. So after watching five minutes of said movie on VCD, I personally would not enjoy the quality enough to enjoy it. Not to mention that music only last about 3-5 minutes. makes for more repeat listening while movies are 2 hours. Once you watched it, 2 hours is a commitment to spend another 2 hours on it.

Then I reitterate my stance that if the product is good, no matter how good the bootleg is, people WILL go to buy the official DVD when it comes out. The fact of the matter is if sales fell because of bootles on TPM, it's because people found out the movie stunk and didn't want it rather than because they already had an inferior copy on their hard drive or bootleg DVD.

And I am not defending people getting those bootlegs, but I also want to go back to another point I made earlier: the way people get their home entertainment is changing, and studios need to change the way they do things. Why can't Lucas do what MP3.com does, and offer to allow people to download his movies for a fee, then if they decide they like the movie, they will buy it, but if not, then no big deal, he made money off the download and the person got their look at the movie before they bought it blind. People want to have this ability to access it, and I know Lucas would probably worry about people being able to get the movie file from their hard drive, but there is technology available where those don't store on your hard drive. There is quite a bit of stuff online that you cannot capture. Lucas can complain he's losing money, but until he's willing to change the way he does things to accomodate the changing needs of the buying public, I really don't care what he has to say.

My €0.02 (and then some) comments!
 

Folks,

(Getting on soapbox)

While I think Lucas may have some salient points, let's consider the technology of pirating DVD movies and CD audio discs.

In the case of CD audio discs, it is not very hard to do nowadays. What with the low cost of CD recorder drives and CD recording media, not to mention programs that can rip into high-quality .MP3 and .OGG digital audio formats (which are relatively small in size) from an audio CD, no wonder why the RIAA is very concerned about music piracy. Mind you, RIAA's decision to price album-length audio CD's at US$18 per disc contributed much to the environment that offers lots of economic incentives to pirate audo CD's. When you set the .MP3 encoding at 160 kbps data rate, it's pretty much undistinguishable from the original CD for the majority of audiofiles.

However, pirating DVD's is quite another matter altogether. DVD recorder drives and DVD recording media costs quite a bit more than their CD recorder drive and CD recording media equivalents, and no DVD recorder drive can create the double-layer DVD's commonly found on pre-recorded DVD's today. You could rip a DVD movie into the DiVX format, but the unlike the .MP3 and .OGG digital audio formats DiVX files are massively huge--about 360 MB per 60 minutes of movie from a DVD. Downloading a rip of a two hour movie in DiVX format would be a daunting task even for today's broadband Internet connections, to say the least; also, the DiVX format is inferior in picture quality to the original DVD disc. Finally, because the MPAA has allowed the motion picture industry to price DVD movies using the low retail price sell-through model for home video sales that was pioneered more or less by the Walt Disney Company, DVD's are priced at levels that it's actually worth it to buy the DVD at the circa US$20 price for new releases and circa US$10 price for older releases. I mean think about it: you can get the four-disc Extended Edition of The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Rings for under US$30 from many retailers; that price is a huge bargain considering not only do you get a longer version of the movie with both Dolby Digital 5.1 and DTS-ES 6.1 soundtracks with four subtracks of commentaries, but also two additional supplemental discs so full of background material it would take days to go see it all.

(Getting off soapbox)