Creative Commons - Belgium

[Wouter Vanden hove <wouter.vanden.hove AT telenet.be>]

bruno AT indymedia.be wrote:
> hello list,
>
> I'm working on an article about the effects of downloading films (be it 
> 'legal' or 'illegal' copies) on the movie business, ticket sales, income 
> of film makers. I would like to compare the view points and arguments of 
> ABDF and the like (www.houdedief.be) with that of theatre owners, film 
> makers, journalists, copyright/left scholars & activists.



> some questions to ask: is there a problem, yes or no, 
I don't see any problem.

Movie-lovers can download some movies, but nearly all ISP have 
download-caps. Most people can only download 10GB/month. I believe the 
overall effect to be neglegible.

And what is the difference of creating a movie-collection with your 
computer, compated to creating one with your VCR of movies that have 
been broadcasted on TV?


why & what's
> people's solutions if there is one? 


what do figures say?
Figures coming from **independent** sources don't even find a problem in 
downloading music, let alone movies.
Take a look at:
The Effect of File Sharing on Record Sales An Empirical Analysis
http://www.unc.edu/~cigar/papers/FileSharing_March2004.pdf




 what about the
> role of the dvd sales?

DVDs are the future.

No sane individual is going to invest large amounts of money anymore
in creating a personal music-library based on CD's.
That is the real reason why the sales of CD's drop.
Buying CD's is quickly becoming the same as buying LP's.


> I would like to ask you people if you have any suggestions for this 
> article.

1) You should mention the case of Jon Johansen, who legally bought a 
DVD, and unsuccesfully tried to play it in his GNU/Linux-computer.
Then he wrote some software himself and some others,
And guess what? The movie-industry sued him.
Eventually, he won the case.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jon_Johansen


2) You should look at the history, and the things that were predicted in 
the past by the film/music-industry.

"the VCR is to the American film producer and the American public as the 
Boston strangler is to the woman home alone." -- Jack Valenti, President 
MPAA.

While nowadays rentals of videocassette account for roughly 60% of 
Hollywood's income.

For a brief overview of the BETAMAX-case, see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_Corp._v._Universal_City_Studios
this is the case where the movie-industry tried to outlaw the 
video-recorder.


3) The recent controverse (and victory) surrounding the "Broadcast Flag"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broadcast_flag
http://www.eff.org/broadcastflag/
http://www.publicknowledge.org/issues/bfcase




> are there people you think I should talk to?  studies I should
> look at?  other interesting info?  do you know about previous articles
> about this?

have a look at the box-office records:
http://www.the-numbers.com/movies/records/
Do you see any signs of a crisis in the movie-industry?


Here are some sources on the Copyright-debate :
http://www.opencursus.org/archief/copyright/

I'll recommend:
Free Culture - Larry Lessig.pdf


some organisations:
http://www.eff.org/
http://www.freeculture.org/
http://www.publicknowledge.org



Wouter Vanden Hove
opencursus.org
skepp.be
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