[Rumori] Fan Edits Targeted

[Steev Hise]

hmm. kind of wish i'd heard about this site before this happened.  :(

steev

On Nov 27, 2008, at 8:25 AM, PeterALopez wrote:

> via: http://fanedit.org/
> A DMCA WARNING BY THE MPAA CASTRATES FANEDIT.ORG!
>
> We all knew this day would come, but on the other side we all  
> hoped, it would never. 3 days ago the MPAA has filed a DMCA warning  
> against our download links. The result: 2 days of downtime, in  
> which we removed all download links and all reference to them,  
> making Fanedit.org just a showcase for fanedits without any  
> possibility for the visitor to download.
>  Our torrents page: Gone. Our Rapidshare lists: gone. And it’s the  
> same on the forum.
>  Yes, this is a heavy and painful blow by the movie industry  
> against a free art form, against creativity without commercial  
> interest, against sharing between people, who all own the original  
> versions. It seems you own your own DVDs a lot less than you  
> thought you did.
>  BUT: We will prevail. Even without the links we will continue to  
> inform you about new releases, because one thing is for sure:  
> FANEDITS ARE NOT DEAD. It is just a bit more difficult to get a  
> hold of them. But the internet is a vast place and he who searches  
> will find it somewhere else.
>
> report below by:
> http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20081123/1816122932.shtml
>
> MPAA Effectively Shuts Down Largest Fan Edit Movie Site
> from the can't-make-stuff-better dept
> One of the great things about Matt Mason's The Pirate's Dilemma  
> books is the never-ending examples of how allowing people to take  
> content and remix it leads to greater overall creativity and almost  
> always opens up new opportunities for the original -- even as the  
> original creator sometimes freaks out about it. A great example of  
> this is with movie fan edits -- attempts by fans of certain movies  
> to make the movie even better by re-editing it, changing scenes  
> around, cutting out certain scenes, adding in new special effects  
> or even new scenes entirely. Such efforts are non-commercial, and  
> tend to increase attention and interest in the original film. The  
> first such popular fan edit came after the release of The Phantom  
> Menace, back in 2001, when fans were upset about a variety of  
> things (Jar Jar Binks' character being a big problem). What came  
> out of it was The Phantom Edit. The resulting attention caused many  
> more people to get into the business of editing films.
>
>  TorrentFreak reports that one of the biggest sites for sharing  
> such fan edits has effectively been shut down by the MPAA, which  
> sent a DMCA takedown to the site's hosting provider, forcing the  
> site to pull all of its download links. Prior to this, there were  
> no specific complaints, and Lucasfilm apparently was a big  
> supporter of various fan edits. Considering the nature of fan  
> edits, it's difficult to see how these are likely to diminish the  
> commercial value of a movie. Some might claim that people will be  
> drawn to the fan edits, rather than the authorized cuts of a movie,  
> but that seems unlikely for most people. Realistically, the only  
> folks who are going to invest their time in watching a fan edit  
> would be someone who was already a fan of a specific movie, and was  
> interested in how other fans had re-imagined and re-cut the film.
>
>  Lucasfilm has been able to build up tremendous goodwill among fans  
> by allowing such fan edits, knowing that they tend to make fans of  
> various films even more attached to the originals. It's  
> disappointing, though not surprising, that the folks at the MPAA  
> would rather shut off such creativity rather than encourage it.
>
> http://torrentfreak.com/mpaa-castrates-worlds-biggest-fanedit-movie- 
> site-081123/
> has an interview with the site owner.
>
> http://www.faneditforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=5059
> copy of the letter from the hosting service about the complaint.
> _______________________________________________
> Rumori - the Detritus Discussion List
> http://lists.detritus.net/listinfo.cgi/rumori-detritus.net

Steev Hise | steev at detritus.net | http://detritus.net/steev
------------------------------------------------------------------
"Passionate hatred can give meaning and purpose to an empty life.
Thus people haunted by the purposelessness of their lives try to find
a new content not only by dedicating themselves to a holy cause but
  also by nursing a fanatical grievance. A mass movement offers
them unlimited opportunities for both."
		   -- Eric Hoffer