Striking writers copy The Pirate Bay
p2pnet news | TV:- Striking Hollywood writers have ripped a page out The Pirate Bay’s book.
When Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG’s IFPI (International Federation of Phonographic Industry) forgot to renew its .com domain name, TPB pounced on it and made it theirs.
TPB didn’t have ifpi.com for long, thanks to WIPO, but it was fun while it lasted
As far as the writers go, “When the Hollywood studios say they don’t know enough about the Internet to pay writers what they seek for the streaming and downloading of their shows, they might not be kidding,” says the Los Angeles Times.
A group of, “opportunistic writers unveiled a website lampooning the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, which represents the studios in labor negotiations,” says the story.
They were able to do that because the alliance had forgotten to register amptp.com and amptp.net, so the writers stepped in, and promptly built two fakes sitesd with identical wording.
Say amptp.com and amptp.net:
We are heartbroken to report that despite our best efforts, including sending them a muffin basket, making them a mix CD, and standing outside their window with a boombox blasting Peter Gabriel songs, our talks with the WGA have broken down. Quite frankly, we’re puzzled as to why this happened. We talked about it all the way home – after we walked into their hotel room, slapped our list of demands on the table and abruptly left the negotiating session – and none of us could figure out what went wrong.
While we’re not going to point fingers or assign blame, we do feel justified in saying that they are entirely at fault.
The AMPTP has successfully concluded 306 major agreeements with unions since its founding in 1982, and there has never been an incident like this. Except for that writers’ strike in 1985. And the directors’ strike in 1987. And that other writers’ strike in 1988. Aside from three isolated incidents, however, this strike is completely without precedent.
And so on. That’s collective thinking for you.
Those writers 
‘Softness on a new ratings formula’
In other news, as they say, “Fourth-ranked broadcaster NBC has quietly begun reimbursing advertisers an average of $500,000 each for failing to reach guaranteed ratings levels, the first time a network has taken such a step in years, media buyers said,” states Reuters.
CBS, ABC and Fox also are, “doling out make-goods, primarily for the first quarter,” says the story.
But the networks’ problems, “emerged even before the Writers Guild of America went on strike November 5,” it says, going on:
“The networks had enough first-run shows to get them through November, and repeats and replacement programming will not begin in earnest until January – when their problems will likely start to worsen.”
They blame “softness on a new ratings formula,” but, “media agencies disagree.”
None of the networks would comment, says Reuters.
Also See:
thanks to WIPO – WIPO, ifpi.com and The Pirate Bay, December 1, 2007
Los Angeles Times – Coming up short in domain name game, December 11, 2007
Reuters – NBC refunds advertisers as ratings plunge, December 11, 2007
Want to help p2pnet stay online? Please click here.
Use free p2pnet newsfeeds for your site. It’s really easy!
Subscribe to p2pnet.net | | rss feed: http://p2pnet.net/p2p.rss | | Mobile – http://p2pnet.net/index-wml.php
