One of the most common problems documentary filmmakers face is the incidental appearance of copyrighted art, music and other media in the world they are documenting. This really interesting comic by three law professors takes a look at the legal barriers to documentary filmmaking.
Check it out: Bound By Law
Thanks to The Photos Blog @Wired for the link.
– Suramya
Funny. The scary part is that most stories/news reports I have read about the US govt. data gathering read almost the same…
Check it out: Template for News Stories on Government Data Gathering
Thanks to Schneier on Security for the link.
– Suramya
Tried out Pandora today.. It is an amazing service that recomends songs based on your prefrences. Basically you give it an artist or a song name and it will use it to play songs that are similar to it. If you don’t like a song its playing you can tell it and it will use that to figure out what kind of songs you don’t like and what kind of songs you like and will recomend new songs based on that.
I really like it and the best part is that if you like a song you can learn more about it (or the artist) with a click.
Check it out: Here
Thanks to Adam Fields (Weblog) for the links
– Suramya
A couple of days ago I was talking to Surabhi and she said something to the effect of how come you don’t post stuff like you used to on your blog… you know stuff like how you feel about something or what you think about it? So I was like, hmm good question. Guess I haven’t been thinking much about stuff recently, or when I have I got too lazy to post about it.
So here’s some of my thoughts on Movie Piracy:
Last week I went and saw X-Men: The last stand. Yes I actually went to the theatre to watch it. The big deciding factor was that it actually released in India at about the same time it released in the US. I like watching movies and I don’t want to wait for over 1-2 months for a movie I want to watch to be released in India.
One of the examples is: Underworld: Evolution. I really wanted to watch this movie. I had been waiting for a while for the movie to come out and when it finally released I checked the local movie listings to find a theatre that was playing it… Guess what? It hadn’t been released in India yet. I waited for almost a month before giving up and watching it online. I wanted to see it in the theater but since it took almost 3 months (give or take a couple of weeks) for it to come out in India and by then I had already seen it elsewhere and thus didn’t go watch it in theater. If they had released it at the same time I would have seen it in the theater.
Another example, during X-Men they were showing the trailer for ‘The Punisher’ and I was like why are they showing the trailer for a movie that old… then at the end of the trailer a message came up that said ‘Coming soon to a theater near you…’ and thats when I realized that it hadn’t been released in India yet. What the hell… The movie is more than 6 months old. Why don’t they release it world wide at the same time? If not the same time then release it within a couple of weeks. So that people like me who actually want watch the movie will watch it in theaters instead of downloading it.
Other than the delayed launch another big issue is censorship in India. You take any movie and you will find that its been chopped up like anything and its not just the nudity vulgar scenes (Those I can understand.. somewhat) its cutting up stuff like jokes, fights anything the censor department felt like. Case in point: Bad Boy’s II. The movie is a Action/Comedy movie correct? If you ask someone in India who saw it on the big screen they will be like ‘What comedy’ the movie was an action movie. Guess what? the censors chopped out all the jokes in the movie… and the movie ended up making no sense.
Watching the X-Men I got the feeling that some of the scenes in the movie didn’t quite flow together so I think the censors might have taken a go at it also… Wont’ know for sure till I get the DVD and watch it.
So in my opinion why is movie piracy so strong in India:
1. The movies are launched in India a long time after their launch in the US. People don’t want to wait to see the movie.
2. The movies are censored so much that it doesn’t make any sense anymore.
3. The ticket prices are high (My dad suggested this reason. Not sure I agree with it).
What do you think?
Thanks,
Suramya
Hey Everyone,
Its time for me to make everyone jealous as hell. 🙂 I got a new phone on saturday: The Nokia 6270.
I love the phone, it has a 2 Megapixel camera (My favorite part), FM Radio (Which I prob wont use at all) and a mp3 player. I also got a bluetooth headset for it and both work really well together. 🙂
Will take some pics using it and post them online.
– Suramya
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