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MPAA censors film about itself

How do you stop a film that exposes how the film industry assigns a rating (G, PG, PG-13, R) to a film?

Rate the film NC-17. Rating a film NC-17 stops the movie from being advertised, limits which theaters will even show it, and effectively censors the message.

The Independent Film Channel (IFC) has stepped up and will show it uncut in Fall 2006, after the film’s debut at Sundance this January.

The film industry is broken – from the hypocrisy in how it rates films to how what films are made to it’s excuses why total revenue is down. And this just highlights how Big Media continues to abuse its power.

Evil Corporations #3: Macrovision

I haven’t done an Evil Corporations story in over two years, and it’s definitely time. The focus: Macrovision.

From their About Us page on their website:

Macrovision helps solve the global need for content protection, DRM and software licensing solutions.

Now we all know that I’m no fan of DRM or Digital Rights Management, and right there in their company description Macrovision makes it a point to let you knwo that’s exactly what they’re about.

Macrovision’s claim to fame was protecting VHS tapes in the 80s – did you ever try and copy a videotape from a rental store, and got those rainbow lines at the top and bottom? That’s them.

Even though it’s legal for you, as a consumer in the United States, to make one copy for backup and archival purposes, they make sure you can’t.

The latest story hitting the web today, is a follow-up to one from June. In June, Macrovision sent a cease and desist letter to Lightning UK!, makers of DVD Decrypter. DVD Decrypter lets you strip the DRM off a DVD so you can archive to a hard drive or make a physical copy. Macrovision claimed the ability to strip the DRM violated their patents.

Well, the latest story has Macrovision claiming they’ve bought out Lightning UK!, and sending takedown notices to websites hosting DVD Decrypter. I’m sure they paid off the original developer thinking if you can’t beat ’em, buy ’em (ala Microsoft).

This is unfortunate for two reasons – one, reverse engineering should not be illegal, and in the U.S., under the DMCA, it now is. Two, if the developer had released this under a free software licenses, such as the GPL, the code would be in the wild. Now, due the evil greed of one corporation, we’re going to lose the ability to back up our DVDs. I know, as the father of 2 (almost three!) children, that I want to back up the movies they watch a lot and put them on a home theater PC. No more scratching and wrecking movies – which has happened with a few already.

But no, I’m no longer allowed to. And that’s why Macrovision is being added to my list of evil corporations.

Watching all 6 Star Wars (at the same time)

And… we’re back.

Not that this hasn’t already posted everywhere on the intraweb right now, but is still very cool. Someone with way too much time on their hands has transcoded all 6 Star Wars movies and is watching them simultaneously and noting all the similarities.

Some are to say, at the least, quite interesting parallels in some of the movies, just from a time perspective.

Check it out here.

Miyazaki Film Festival

Via BoingBoing:

CartoonBrew.com is reporting that Turner Classic Movies is planning to air 9 Miyazaki films (the one’s Disney acquired distribution rights for) in January. The titles include Spirited Away, Kiki’s Delivery Service, Princess Mononoke, My Neighbor Totoro, Nausicaa: Valley of the Wind, Castle in the Sky, Porco Rosso and Whisper of the Heart.

If you haven’t seen a Miyazaki film – even the popular ones such as Princess Mononoke or Spirited Away, you owe it to yourself to check out these animated classics. It’s unknown at this time whether they will be dubbed or sub-titled, but either way this is some of the best animated movies you’ll ever see.

Remember, Remember, the 5th of November

The trailer for V for Vendetta has been released. Available in standard Quicktime, or 1920×1280 HD in Quicktime 7 using the h.264 codec.

I had read the graphic novel over 10 years ago, and bought it and re-read it 3 weeks ago. I absolutely love the author, Alan Moore, and this particular story – though his books are 10x better than the movies that are turned out based on his source material, as he’s never been involved in any of the movies made from his books.

The imagery and themes seem very true to the comic book, though I’ve heard a few things about the movie that don’t ring true.

We’ll see – the Wachowski brothers adapted and produced it, and it stars Hugo Weaving and Natalie Portman.