July 19th, 2010 › Pop culture, Rants › admin › no comments ›
My name’s Jim, and I am an ethical pirate. The music and film industry would have you believe that downloading “their” material is wrong, an approach best summed up as “Piracy is stealing, mkay?” But, the reality of it is, that the morality is a great deal less clear-cut. Here, courtesy of an interesting series of articles, well ahead of the curve, from David Pogue are some hypothetical scenarios, all of which describe what is technically piracy. How many of them do you think are morally wrong?
- I own a certain CD, but it got scratched. So I borrow the same CD from the library and rip it to my computer.
- I have 2,000 vinyl records. So I borrow some of the same albums on CD from the library and rip those.
- I buy a DVD. But I’m worried about its longevity, so I make a safety copy.
- I meant to record a movie – perfectly legal – but my recorder malfunctioned. My buddy recorded it, so I copy his DVD
- I meant to record a movie, but my recorder malfunctioned and I don’t have a buddy who recorded it. So I rent the movie from Blockbuster and copy that.
Read more…
Tags: copyright, piracy
June 4th, 2010 › Films › admin › no comments ›
Aberdeen in Scotland isn’t exactly the first place that comes to mind when you think of martial-arts movies. But one man is single-handedly trying to change that perception. Ara Paiaya is a one-man movie studio, writing, starring in, directing, editing and distributing a series of direct to video martial arts action. “Watch them for the fight scenes and stunts,” says Paiaya, with a refreshing lack of cinematic pretension.
Despite budgets that would not pay for sandwiches on a major Hollywood picture, Are has taught himself the art of movie-making through the simplest and most effective method – by doing it. “I find myself learning something new on every movie,” he says, and adds, “I love the entire process!” That has involved the local business community in Aberdeen, and Paiaya describes both them and the general public as “Very supportive” of his efforts. It’s quite a quick process: “Each film in total takes about 1 1/2 months, from having the idea to a completed film, ready to watch,” says Paiaya, who also travels around the world to pick up location footage which he can incorporate into his films.
Ara is currently shooting the revenge action-thriller The Suppressor, which will be available exclusively from his website, www.ara.me.uk, with a release scheduled for December 2010. You can also read our reviews of Death List and Maximum Impact elsewhere on the site, but we also got the chance to quiz Paiaya about his approach to movie-making – you can find that conversation after the jump.
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May 16th, 2010 › Rants › admin › 1 comment ›
Here in Arizona, we have become the center of a political tornado over the past couple of weeks, thanks to the passing of SB 1070. This law says that when police come into contact with people, they must make “a reasonable attempt…to determine the immigration status of the person,” where “reasonable suspicion exists that the person is an alien who is unlawfully present in the United States.” Fairly innocuous, really. Not that you could tell by the reactions of some, who have reacted to the bill with hysterical exaggeration, bordering on the offensive. Read more…
Tags: arizona, immigration, politics