. . . continued from Hot News Don't get me wrong. Stealing is stealing. I think copyright law and even the badly flawed Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA) are worthwhile primarily because the regulations serve to protect the intellectual property of artists and other creative people deserving of that protection. While idiots abound in the creative community, as they do everywhere else, outright thieves find every rational to take advantage of us all (not just the idiots). The thieves steal everything in sight, copy it to their heart's content, sell to anyone who'll pay the right price, and toddle off happily counting their money until such time as they get too greedy and are thereby caught by the authorities who only have the resources to track down and pinch the most egregious offenders. But that's not the point of this story. Hey babe—softly, softly, catchee monkey. Every time. So screw you Jack Valenti. Damn all your offensive caterwauling in defense of an industry which has been rife with inequality, graft, corruption and you-name-it since the early part of the 20th century. That's the point of this story.

How on earth is any common citizen supposed to judge the act of movie piracy in the face of a movie industry which allegedly plaigiarizes, which freely and apparently without governance subverts the creative process...

And to those of you right now hollering that two wrongs don't make a right, I say the gloves are off. How on earth is any common citizen supposed to judge the act of movie piracy in the face of a movie industry which allegedly plaigiarizes, which freely and apparently without governance subverts the creative process, gleefully and without conscience carves the most outrageously artisitic accounting of movie earnings in order to cheat the tax man, cheat the artists and cheat the movie going public. How dare anyone illegally copy any of the Matrix movies! How dare the motion picture industry steal from the artists by subverting their due royalties! And how dare the studio and the Wachowskis steal from Sophia Stewart. Everybody is grabbing everybody else's butt!

Do yourself a favour and don't read or listen to any of the Stewart interviews currently floating around the Internet. She sounds a bit nutty. It may not be her fault either. After all, not everybody does well on camera or in front of a microphone or on the telephone. Above all else, if you do listen to the woman, don't discount the legitimacy of her position and rights just because she sounds peculiar. The old expression about not judging a book by its cover is apt here.

I'm not advocating open season on Hollywood or the movie business in general. I am advocating that the movie industry is sorely in need of restructuring. The present system works well for the rich, the uber-rich, the influential and the studio moguls. The present system does emphatically not work too often for ordinary citizens who arrive at the studio doorstep with big ideas. Go if you must, but arm yourself with good lawyers before knocking on the studio doors.

It's scary out there. It's always been scary out there. People making obeisance before the movie executives need to check their wallets after leaving the rest room. They should also count their fingers after shaking hands. And don't hate the Wachowski Brothers or their oeuvre either because it's not clear that the boys orchestrated the whole Stewart thing.

The next sounds the studios and producers should hear are the footsteps of the mailman and the whine of e-mail servers bringing them tons of letters from irate consumers who are ticked off at a system which supports great wealth borne out of thievery. I've written already. I've stated clearly that in my opinion the Wachowskis are brought low by this distasteful occurence. I've stated that if the movie business wants my money, it's going to have to do a lot more than whine about its alleged losses.

While I believe it's unlikely to happen, the movie industry has to respond with alacrity and verve. It has to step forward with repeated and unrelenting statements and actions which will bring people back into the movie theaters and entice producers, affiliated artists and total independents to trust the studios. The building of trust between those disparate groups will set an example. Thereafter, the movie industry's demands for tighter controls, better security and a crackdown on piracy may be met with greater approval from all of us. It could happen.

Back to Hot News!