Oliver Stone's "W" Teaser Trailer

Religulous

A new movie from Liongate Entertainment called Religulous, starring Bill Maher and directed by Larry Charles (Borat, Curb Your Enthusiasm), is coming October 3rd, 2008:

The documentary RELIGULOUS follows political humorist and author Bill Maher (“Real Time With Bill Maher,” “Politically Incorrect”) as he travels around the globe interviewing people about God and religion. Known for his astute analytical skills, irreverent wit and commitment to never pulling a punch, Maher brings his characteristic honesty to an unusual spiritual journey. Directed by Larry Charles (BORAT: CULTURAL LEARNINGS OF AMERICA FOR MAKE BENEFIT GLORIOUS NATION OF KAZAKHSTAN, “Curb Your Enthusiasm”), RELIGULOUS will mark Charles’ first feature project since the critically acclaimed, wildly successful BORAT. Jonah Smith and Palmer West of Thousand Words (A SCANNER DARKLY, REQUIEM FOR A DREAM) and Bill Maher are producing.

View the trailer here.

Yoko Ono Sues Producers of Expelled Movie

I'm a bit late to this, but the Associated Press reported yesterday that Yoko Ono is suing the producers of Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed for the use of John Lennon's "Imagine." From the article:

In a lawsuit filed in federal court in Manhattan, Ono accuses the producers of ''Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed'' of suggesting to viewers that those who guard John Lennon's legacy somehow authorized or sponsored the film.

[...]

Ono's lawsuit claims the producers did not ask for permission either because they knew they couldn't get it or because they did not want to pay for the rights. It objects to the way ''Imagine'' is listed in the film's credits, saying it suggested to members of the news media and others that the song's use had been approved.

''Internet 'bloggers' immediately began accusing Mrs. Lennon of 'selling out' by licensing the song to defendants,'' says the complaint, filed this week.

The producers have claimed fair use, but as has already been pointed out at Sivacracy, I think it's unlikely that that defense will hold up. I'm interested to see how this turn out, not only because I'd like for nothing else than the financial ruin of the producers of a film littered with distortions, misinformation, and lies, but also to see the ruling regarding fair use.

I think Ono has a strong case, as the producers of Expelled clearly fail on factor (1) on the US copyright website describing fair use. I also think that Ono could make a case regarding factor (4) considering the negative publicity she has received because of the song's appearance in Expelled.

This isn't the only copyright infringement that has gotten Expelled into hot water, either. As PZ Myers pointed out, several of the animations appear to be plagiarisms of existing cellular animations by XVIVO and PBS. I'm not so sure that the animations infringement claim is strong enough to provide a case for either XVIVO or PBS to file suit, but Ono's case is solid.

I Need That Record!

More information here.

The Pay-Per-Play Scheme

Something I forgot to mention in my previous post came back to me during a conversation on the train the other day. A friend of mine mentioned that Comcast wants to premiere new film releases by streaming them to subscribers on the day of release. This reminded me of some of the proposals of posters in the Quarter to Three forum thread that making video games a subscription service as a solution to large scale, peer-to-peer file sharing.

The pay-to-play scheme is a content provider's dream. Perhaps most importantly, it removes ownership completely from the consumer, and therefore, strikes out one of the content provider's greatest dislikes -- the doctrine of first sale. First sale doctrine stipulates that once a physical copy is sold that the consumer has the right to resell or give away that copy to another without compensating the content provider. First sale is a leak in the system for copyright holders. Pay-to-play schemes do this by not actually "selling" the consumer a physical product, but by instead "licensing" a copy for a one time use.

Computer software companies have been attacking the doctrine of first sale for some time now. According to the EULA (end user license agreement; that dialog box software users will check the "Yes, I agree" box without reading in order to install the software), computer software is not sold but licensed.

There have been differing court court decisions regarding first sale and software. In SoftMan Products Co. v. Adobe Systems Inc., Adobe attempted to prevent Softman from reselling their bundled software programs separately; however, the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California ruled that the terms of the EULA did not apply because Softman had never agreed to them (Softman never ran the program -- installation is the only point in which the EULA is presented); therefore, Softman maintained the right of first sale because a physical copy of the software was sold in a single transaction. In Davidson & Associates v. Internet Gateway Inc., the US District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri ruled that Internet Gateway had forfeited its first sale rights by checking the "I agree" box.

The two previously mentioned cases appear to uphold the concept that software companies can force consumers to forfeit their right to first sale in order to install their software. But the issue is not so simple because other court cases contradict this opinion. Bobbs-Merrill Co. v. Straus introduced the doctrine of first sale in 1908. In this case, the US Supreme Court ruled that the statute of the right to sell does not also grant the right to limit resale. Bauer & Cie. v. O'Donnell supported this decision and also added that simply calling a sale a license does not make it one.

While the Supreme Court decisions set the precedent of first sale doctrine, the previously mentioned lower court cases are challenging the established law. Specifically allowing software companies to force consumers into an EULA which takes away their consumer rights is only the first step towards a pay-to-play system.

Regarding the suggestions from Quarter to Three posters, the only conclusion I can draw is that many game developers and publishers would prefer this system. There are already precedents -- the most well-known being Blizzard Entertainment's World of Warcraft. World of Warcraft is an MMORPG (massively multiplayer online role-playing game) which is subscription based. Players pay a monthly flat-fee in order to play the game. Players have accepted the idea that such games will be subscription based because the game requires the use of the company servers to play. Furthermore, the game is given constant attention by the company through the release of free updates, patches, and additional content to the game. But many of the Quarter to Three posters want to place all games into a subscription system, or even a pay-to-play system.

Some suggestions mimicked the MMORPG system of a monthly flat-fee. Others were for an hourly-rate, i.e., players would pay based on the number of hours logged into the game. This is basically pay-to-play lite, in that there is still an initial sale of software to the consumer, but that there will also be additional charges to play the game. The next step would be to "license" (for lack of a better term) software to consumers free of charge, but then charge the consumer for each time or for how long the game is played, or charge the consumer based on a subscription fee. This would be much like the arcades of the '70s and '80s. The end result would be that no players would actually own their games anymore.

Such systems would also require 24/7 internet connections, which means that all games would have to be played while the computer is online. Some posters pointed this out as a huge drawback that might cause many players who enjoy single-player games to object to purchasing any future games. Supporters of this system argue that it would be an effective way to combat PC game file sharing. The question is, then, would such a system do that?

If Vivendi Universal v. Jung says anything, the answer appears to be no. In this case, bnetd.org was an open-source software package reverse-engineered from Blizzard's battle.net service (Blizzard's online multiplayer service for its games using the company's servers). The software was licensed under the GNU General Public License, and provided an emulation of battle.net for players on their own privately run servers. Of note is the fact that bnetd.org circumvented Blizzard's online CD-key check, therefore allowing invalid CD-keys full access to the emulated multiplayer service. The United States District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri ruled that bnetd.org violated the DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) by circumventing the copy-protection of Blizzard's games. Despite bnetd.org being shutdown (the website is now under Blizzard's control and redirects to battle.net), other services have popped up in locations that the DMCA does not have influence.

Just as I wrote before, someone will find a way to get around any copy-protection or DRM employed in digital media. The simple fact that in order for encrypted content to be useful for consumers is to hand them the information, decoder, and key will mean that all copy-protection and DRM will always fail at some point. There will never be a hack-proof system that also makes content useful to those who the content provider is trying to prevent certain access.

There are more important reasons than the fragility of such systems for why this is a bad idea. As I have outlined before, these pay-to-play schemes designed to prevent unauthorized copying will stifle creativity and innovation. Users will no longer have access to the content in the same way they would by owning a physical copy. They will be unable to interact with the content to alter or improve upon it. Such limited access cuts a people off from their culture.

Just as the Quarter to Three posters advocate a system of pay-per-play for video games, we see the first steps towards that system with film. Comcast's move to stream new film releases could be the first step in streaming all films in the future. We already have streaming films for a fee via various On Demand services. Adding new releases to the rooster could give the film industry reason to slow, or even halt, DVD/Blu-Ray releases as some point in the future. I don't think it's that much of a stretch.

This Could Have Been A MadTV Sketch

The Golden Compass

I've come across the movie The Golden Compass, set to be released in theatres on December 7, 2007. The movie is a fantasy-themed story about the adventures of a young girl. The girl is given an object called "the golden compass," which is said to give a glimpse of the future. She is then approached by the leader of the Magisterium -- a group which aims to control all of humanity. Her adventure includes talking animals, armor-clad warrior bears, and a world of witches.

Why has this movie perked my interest? Because it's based on English writer Phillip Pullman's book trilogy His Dark Materials, a series of children's books based on anti-religious themes. Of course, such material has already drawn the ire of Bill Donohue, President of the Catholic League and all-around douche-bag. On October 9, 2007, Donohue told interviewer John Gibson of FOX News:

Look, the movie is based on the least offensive of the three books. And they have dumbed down the worst elements in the movie because they don't want to make Christians angry and they want to make money. Our concern is this, unsuspecting Christian parents may want to take their kid to the movie, it opens up December 7th and say, this wasn't troubling, then we'll buy the books. So the movie is the bait for the books which are profoundly anti-Catholic and at the same time selling atheism.

So Donohue is basically arguing that the filmmakers are trying to "trick" parents into letting their kids see this film, and then they'll buy the books for their kids and their kids will be "baited" into atheism.

Wow, that's fucking rich coming from Donohue. Isn't this what religion does in general? Children are tricked into believing in religion because their parents unquestionably subject them to such nonsense throughout their entire childhoods, while also telling their children that such nonsense is literally true. Most children are never given the opportunity to explore multiple religions, or to hear arguments against religion. This behavior is the definition of indoctrination. And now Donohue points the finger at Pullman, charging Pullman with the same behavior that religion has expressed for millenniums? Ha!

I think this is great. It's time we aimed literature at children that encourages thinking, instead of the rigid doctrines of religion. Besides, if religion is true, then no amount of criticism can deter humanity, right? What are the religious so afraid of?

John Rambo

Holy shit!

Frank Miller's 300 Is... Religious?

Over at ScienceBlogs, I read a post pointing to a column by Rabbi Marc Gellman in Newsweek, which argues that in the film-adaptation of Frank Miller's 300:

The Spartan Greeks, led by Leonides, could have chosen to live under the rule of Xerxes and the Persian Empire. They could have traded their imperiled freedom for a secure life of slavery. The choice of Leonides and the 300 Spartans to die in a doomed but heroic battle is the clear choice of those who believe that nothing—no faith, no material wealth, nothing—justifies the surrender of freedom to tyranny.

[...]

Neither Leonides nor Captain America were religious, but both of them stood for that part of the religious world that believes in a God who fights for freedom. They both stood for the proposition that freedom is the foundation of all meaningful life. Religiously speaking, this is the belief that God gave freedom to all people made in His image, and that those who oppose freedom must be prepared to fight God. Leonides and Cap were echoing Moses' message to Pharaoh.

[...]

Leonides and Captain America were heroes not because they entered the field of battle with a shield of Vibranium or were in possession of abs of steel, but because they entered battle with a spiritually authentic idea: that God is free and we are made in God's image to be free as well. We were not placed on planet earth to avoid death. We were placed here so that we could avoid surrendering our God-given freedom to tyrants. [emphasis mine]

Aside from PZ Myers' odd claim that comic books (or graphic novels) have nothing to offer in terms of cultural/social/political commentary -- I point the reader towards the works of Alan Moore, especially V for Vendetta and Watchmen -- Gellman is projecting his faith onto a film which demonstrably rejects religion as the basis for which Leonidas fights for freedom.

I've seen the film twice in theatres since its release, and, if my memory serves correct, every single time a Spartan says they are fighting for freedom, the proclamation is coupled with reason/logic, democracy, and justice. Several times in the film, the Greeks are praised for their reason and logic as the basis of their culture and society -- not for their religion. Additionally, the religious figures in the film are portrayed as abnormal, mutated inbreds. Several times, Leonides calls them swine and he even ponders why these religious figures prevent him from marching to Thermopylae with his entire army to defend freedom. Furthermore, these religious figures can hardly be the poster-children for freedom or morality, considering that they require that the most beautiful Spartan girls serve as sexual slaves to them and that they will only give an audience with a bribe of gold.

It's also interesting to take Gellman's argument one step further -- that freedom is a gift from god. If this is true, why does Gellman's god impose rules (i.e. the Ten Commandments) which cannot be broken if one wants salvation? Doesn't sound a whole lot like freedom to me. In effect, Gellman is not "made in God's image to be free as well."

When I walked out of the theatre, I had a strong sense of anti-religious themes running through the film. But these are the kind of people who get a column over at Newsweek. Being a Rabbi doesn't make one an expert on religion any more than being a politician makes one an expert on government -- it just makes one a tool for the system in which one identifies.