Microsoft: The Movie
p2pnet.net News:- Check this out:
Bill and the Boyz and the movie and music cartels are now undeniably stroking (to be polite) each other.
Microsoft is sponsoring Thought Thieves, a UK movie project, “about people stealing and profiting from your creation or innovation:.
“Think about it” says the promo blurb. “how would you feel if you saw your hard work being passed off as the property of someone else? What would you do? We want to know!”
“Send us your short film on intellectual property theft by 1st July 2005 for your chance to win £2,000 [just over $3,650 at the time of writing] worth of film and video equipment vouchers. And finalists will be invited to attend a special screening of their films and presentation ceremony in London.”
The theme, “should be about how intellectual property theft affects both individuals and society,” says Microsoft.
“Think about it: what would a world look like without protection for intellectual property?”
“Your short film should be between 30 and 45 seconds long and sent to us digitally on either DVD or CD-ROM in a format compatible with Windows Media Player.
“ Films should be your own original work and should not include any third-party materials (such as music in which you do not own the copyright).
“ Films can be of any genre – live action or animated, silent or talking, colour or black and white.”
OR …….
Does this unbelievable arrogance seriously piss you off? And are you an amateur or pro film maker?
If you answer YES !!! to both questions, make a film about how things really are and we’ll post it here on p2pnet.
The theme should be about how the people upon whom the music, movie and software industries depend for their very survival are being screwed over time and time again.
Think about a world in which intellectual property is meant to help and nourish the arts instead of further enriching the already bloated entertainment corporations.
Your film should be 30 to 45 seconds long and sent to us by one of the methods outlined below.
Films should be your own original work. Content is up to you. And so is the title ; )
Films can be live action, animated, silent or talking, colour or black and white.
When it’s ready, email jon[at]p2pnet.net, with your name, the title and video file name. And don’t forget to attach a .jpg screenshot.
We’ll also accept submissions anonymously, but please give us something to work with, even if it’s only the country you live in.
We’ll take and post submissions as they arrive. And we’ll archive them here so people can check them out as and when.
To get your movies to us, ftp to ftp://p2pnet.net, login as ‘anonymous’ and upload your video file into the ‘incoming’ directory.
If you haven’t used ftp before, try these programs:
Windows – try Filezilla: http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/filezilla/FileZilla_2_2_6_setup.exe?download
Linux – try KFTPGrabber: http://kftpgrabber.sourceforge.net/ (Thanks, DaBlade : )
Mac OSX – try Fetch: http://www.fetchsoftworks.com/
If all else fails, get in touch and we’ll figure something out : )
Something you think we should know? tips[at]p2pnet.net
June 17th, 2005 at 8:32 pm
Someone should make a video of Windows OS and show what it has taken from the Apple OS. That would be good.
June 17th, 2005 at 9:05 pm
How many ideas or how much code has Micro$oft taken from other companies and called their own? These people really have a lot of nerve. For those who still use Windows products, beware! Micro$oft wrote your operating system. They have complete control of your computer. Will they supply your name to the media cartels if they see that you are downloading something they do not want you to download?
This is something that is very possible. I would definitely be afraid to use Windows on any computer that connects to the Internet. Time to switch to other operating systems such as MacOS, BSD, Linux, Solaris, or anything else that is not sold by Micro$oft. Let’s tell Billy Boy that we do not appreciate him going after fileswappers. VOTE WITH YOUR WALLET!
June 18th, 2005 at 7:42 am
Wasn’t this done in 1999?
Pirates of Silicon Valley
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0168122/
June 18th, 2005 at 11:47 am
From Xerox you surely mean
Apple didn’t invent anything they stealed just like M$ and just like M$ they’re piece of shit and just like Gate$ Job is a mo-fo billionaire that deserve to die
June 18th, 2005 at 2:02 pm
I have to think of this great Microsoft offer.
If I do the movie, I will call it the “The biggest music theft and mystery in history”. It will be about how the music of my father was massively stolen in plain sight by music publishers and how a federal judge saw nothing wrong when it came time for sentencing for damages, awarding us a grand total of $21,000 of which not a single cent has been paid a year after the sentence.
The only problem we are broke and cannot afford to buy a cheap camera or make the movie. We are broke because of the theft, which has caused that we earn no royalties (the royalties were stolen too) and which forced us to incurr in huge legal bills, over $250,000 so far, o claim our music ownership rights. After all, the music is among the greatest written by a single composer in the 20th. century. This is real drama. Certainly no one can beat this story, Microsot will agree, to show how the theft of intellectual property hurts economically.
But there is more. Many record compnies, including RIIA members Sony and Sonolux have made and sold many records using my father’s songs without any licence and without ever paying any royalties to us. First the RIIA members made the recordings without licenses and then, after selling millions of records. they went on to one of the publisher thiefs, got licenses from them and then paid them, while refusing to pay us, the owners. The courts have already confirmed we are the owners. This is real dramatic.
As I write this, a thought came into me. Microsoft does nor really want this kind of story, where memebers of of the big publisher and recording associations are the thiefs. They want the thiefs to be kids and others that know nothing about copyright laws and downloaded songs.
We, so much for a good story.
Anyway, anyone interested in the story, not available as a movie yet, can read it here: http://www.gvenegas.com
Rafael Venegas
the thifsthat download.
June 18th, 2005 at 3:58 pm
Few quick thoughts:
Yes, they take code from many other places. It is funny that they are the most visible “software manufacturer” part of comically named organizations like the “Canadian Alliance Against Software Theft” who also has some of the largest infringement claims against them. When they do a raid their ex-customer may have damages in the thousands, but when Microsoft is found guilty it tends to be in the millions or billions. Who are the real “pirates”?
Microsoft may own/control that specific OS and office suite http://www.flora.ca/russell/drafts/code-is-law-speedgeek.html , but what percentage of it they actually wrote it is another question that is constantly being debated in the courts
The control is extreme and well underway, with the changes to the copyright act to be tabled soon in Canada (US DMCA type stuff) being part of this. Anyone still running BSA/CAAST software MUST read the TCPA FAQ http://www.againsttcpa.com/tcpa-faq-en.html Are they people really choosing to give up control (and thus an important part of ownership) of their otherwise “personal” computer and communications devices (home entertainment, etc), or are they simply misinformed?
As to “anything but Microsoft”, they are just the most successful company with the “software manufacturing” methodology for the production, distribution and funding of software. There is nothing special about them within that methodology other than their success, and switching to another “software manufacturing” operating system doesn’t accomplish anything. People should be critical/skeptical of hybrid systems like MacOS-X which is part-Free/Libre and Open Source Software (Darwin – http://apple.com/darwin/ ) and part “software manufacturing” which can implement the same remote-control that Microsoft is promoting. Some of the discussions about Apples move to Intel chips relates to possible TCPA issues.
June 19th, 2005 at 5:37 am
How about when Ole Bill got started. Stole the DOS operating system from Big Blue and called it MSDOS. What a hippocrit!
June 20th, 2005 at 11:43 am
No, Bill Gates did not stole DOS from Big Blue, in fact he bought it very very cheap form someone else and LICENSED it to IBM. What is interesting is WHY would IBM License a software to a stupid teenager instead of just buying it for $100000 bucks or whatever…
June 20th, 2005 at 1:39 pm
You are right about the last part. I will stick to Linux, BSD, or even Solaris simply because I can audit the code.
June 20th, 2005 at 1:53 pm
“Microsoft is sponsoring Thought Thieves, a UK movie project, “about people stealing and profiting from your creation or innovation”
Here is an idea for a movie plot:
The plot: A medical lab in a poor country produces medicines in violation of patent law. This has a devastating effect on the wealthy shareholders of the big pharmaceutical industry. It is also bad for the American trade deficit. The movie must show that the benefit of saving lives is nothing compared to the loss of the shareholders. The movie must also show that the patients that buy the “pirate” medicines to save their lives are also thiefs because they should know that the medicines are “illegal”, just like kids that download music must know that the songs are “pirated”.
Some background thoughts:
1. The American trade deficit that is published is fictitious because it is based on the importation and exportation of manufactured goods only. The trade figures do no account for IP, financial services, and other overseas profits.
2. Millions of Africans, Asians, Latin Americans die because the medicines they need are patented and because they are patented they are not available at a low prices precisely because the patents give the “discoverer” a monopoly on the production of the medicines.
3. While patented medicines may be called “creation and innovation” they are just discoveries of natural phenomena made by the ones with the most money in the wealthy countries. The money comes from government taxes, tax breaks and the excess money paid by consumers of medicine.
4. The race to discover what nature created is an unfair race to begin with. The ones with the money (and the education that is paid with the money), are way in front when the race starts and always win. As a result the “winners” wind up patenting monopolizing the medical benefits of nature.
5. A medicine that costs $.01 (1 cent) to manufacture winds up costing one dollar to the American consumer. That’s right, the cost is multiplied a hundred times. While politicians try to show that they are concerned about the cost of health of retired and uninsured patients, they are not really interested in the costs to manufacture the medicines r to control the costs to the consumer. Why? That is the subject, i hope, of another, forthcoming movie by Michael Moore.
6. The shareholders never create or innovate anything. They pay others to do that, with profit money, of course. The whole idea is to take money out, not in.
June 20th, 2005 at 8:31 pm
another “Kill Bill (Gates)” sequel would be nice to see.