Hollywood propaganda flics
p2pnet news | movies:- If you’ve been to a theater recently (at least in the US), you’ve been treated to propaganda sponsored by the MPAA. You know what I’m talking about. Those slickly produced, ‘human interest’ shorts that have common folk such lighting grips, limo drivers, boom operators, etc, related to the film industry in some way or other, talking about how piracy has cost them employment.
I call Bullshit.
The biggest problem concerning job losses in the film industry isn’t piracy, but runaway production.
What is runaway production? That’s when a film produced by American companies and film makers are filmed outside of the US, unnecessarily.
For a number of movies it makes sense. If your flick takes place in say Vietnam, or Thailand, or other Asian countries, it makes sense to film there. But when you’re making a movie ’set in Chicago and you shoot it in Toronto, that’s a runaway and these are what’s cost US jobs, (in particular the ‘below the line jobs’).
Here’s a good example:
From the DGA November 2003–Last year production spending in Chicago was the lowest since 1977, as 18 films with Chicago story lines including My Big Fat Greek Wedding, set in the city’s Greek neighborhoods, and Chicago, the Oscar-winning musical were made in Toronto. These two blockbusters were among 57 feature films with Chicago backdrops that have been shot in Canada since 1985, taking an estimated $1.9 billion and 17,000 jobs from the local economy, according to the city’s film office.
How serious is the problem?
Pretty darned serious, I’d say.
At this point 32 States have passed legislation to encourage movie productions to stay in the US. This is usually in the form of tax incentives to help save the production companies $$$, and to compete with out of country tax incentives.
Montréal, Vancouver and Toronto actually give 22% driect tax rebates for Canadian labor hired. The Directors Guild Association has been lobbying congress for years over this very issue.
From Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Runaway_production The non-profit group The Film and Television Action Committee (FTAC) reports that the problem of runaway production is “not based upon rational economic factors such as productive ‘A’ list crews, infrastructure and the availability of (foreign) production facilities but on the basis of how much (foreign) governments offer to pay the 6 major studios and media corporations in the form of subsidies and other economic tax based incentives.” FTAC studies state that “in just the past six years, the film production subsidies ranging as high as 44% of payroll, have removed three quarters of U.S. long form television production and one quarter of U.S. feature film production from our (U.S.) shores. These films are now shooting in the 19 foreign countries that offer these subsidies. The economic impact of this crisis has been devastating to the 250,000 (American) film workers, and the 10,000 small businesses that derive their income from the production of American filmed entertainment products.”
Bill Evans – p2pnet
[Evans founded Boycott-RIAA.com, but is no longer associated with it.]
Also See:
propelled itself – Universal in Dispute With Apple Over iTunes, July, 2005
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Tired of being treated like a criminal? They depend on you, not the other way around. Don’t buy their ‘product’. Do bug your local politicians. Use emails, snail-mail, phone calls, faxes, IM, stop them in the street, blog. And if you’re into organizing, organize petitions, organize demonstrations and then turn up on your local political rep’s doorstep, making sure you’ve contacted your local tv/radio station/newspaper in advance. Don’t just complain. Do something!
July 4th, 2007 at 8:59 am
I too watch movies with “buying pirated dvd is a crime” and “copying is stealing” type of messages.
But I have another take.
Such messages are in fact legal advise and answer the questions one would ask a lawyer, and the answers are wrong.
Buying a pirated dvd is surely not a crime. Making the pirate dvd and then selling it is a crime. The customer of such a dvd or of a fake watch or a fake purse is not the criminal.
The message that copying a dvd is a crime is absurd, as there are many (legal) reasons why someone may want to copy a dvd. There are also dvd films that are in fact in the public domain and there are countries where the dvds may wind up that have different rules that may not even be understood.
The opinion here is that published legal advise should only be given by lawyers who put their name and license number on the document, meaning tat they accept reposnsibility for the advise they give. MOVIE STUDIOS ARE NOT LAWYERS.
July 5th, 2007 at 6:39 am
Also the dvd could not be sold in areas where the lawyer that gives the legal advise is not licensed to practise.
For example, a dvd with advise by a California licensed lawyer should not be sold in Canada (or even Texas?), only in California.
Clearly if a California licensed lawyer gets someone from Canada, a Canadian, into trouble because of wrong legal advise, where will the Canadian complain? The Canada Bar Association? No kidding.