ROOOBOOOT HOOOOOUUUUUUSE

bogleech:

wilwheaton:

Reinforcing the fact that Chris Dodd really does not get what’s happening, and showing just how disgustingly corrupt the MPAA relationship is with politicians, Chris Dodd went on Fox News to explicitly threaten politicians who accept MPAA campaign donations that they’d better pass Hollywood’s favorite legislation… or else:

“Those who count on quote ‘Hollywood’ for support need to understand that this industry is watching very carefully who’s going to stand up for them when their job is at stake. Don’t ask me to write a check for you when you think your job is at risk and then don’t pay any attention to me when my job is at stake,”

This certainly follows what many people assumed was happening, and fits with the anonymous comments from studio execs that they will stop contributing to Obama, but to be so blatant about this kind of corruption and money-for-laws politics in the face of an extremely angry public is a really, really, really tone deaf response from Dodd. 

Wow. Chris Dodd is not only an asshole, he’s a stupid, tone deaf asshole.

It shows, yet again, that he just doesn’t get it. People were protesting not just because of the content of these bills, but because of the corrupt process of big industries like Dodd’s “buying” politicians and “buying” laws. To then come out and make that threat explicit isn’t a way to fix things or win back the public. It’s just going to get them more upset, and to recognize just how corrupt this process is. If Dodd, as he said in yesterday’s NY Times, really wanted to turn things around and come to a more reasonable result, this is exactly how not to do it

Not that it matters, and not that I’m some kind of rich mogul, but I’ll say this again: I have lost more money to creative accounting, and American workers have lost more jobs to runaway production, than anything associated with what the MPAA calls piracy. Chris Dodd is lying about piracy costing us jobs. Hollywood’s refusal to adapt to changing times is what’s costing the studios money. That’s it.

So I haven’t touched on it much myself, but there’s something I’d like to add to all this SOPA/PIPA/ACTA stuff:

We don’t see any filmmakers begging for change on the streets because people watched their films for free on the internet. Ever.

You know what we DO see?

Independent creatives breaking into the industry and making it big because people watched their films for free on the internet. This is the new entertainment industry. This is how it’s going to be. The battle against “internet piracy” is not a battle to protect creators from theft. It is a battle against progress that threatens the obscenely bloated bank accounts of a racket.

A racket which wastes horrifying amounts of money on self indulgent nonsense that the audience will never see and meddles in every project they back to neuter creativity and pander to the worst common denominator. It’s an industry that will collapse if it cannot gracefully adapt to the real world and deserves to collapse, kicking and screaming, if it keeps refusing.

I haven’t paid for a movie in over a decade. That’s not to say I pirate them, either - I’ve watched them with friends on their DVD’s, which were often given to them by other friends who didn’t watch them anymore, who originally bought them from discount bins. I bet that makes people like Dodd furious.

hotdiggedydemon:

The term ‘Brony’ has been coined to denote men between 18 and 30 who enjoy and partake in the fandom of Lauren Faust’s reboot of My Little Pony, titled My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. From the fact that this vernacular exists in the first place we can infer not only that Bronies…

Some good, concise thoughts on MLP:FIM.

Yeah.