« Why Use DRM If It Doesn't Work? |
Main
| Furdlog on Cynicism and DRM »
May 7, 2004
The Latest Hollywood Movie Villain
Posted by Ernest Miller
Today premieres the new Mary Kate and Ashley movie about the Manhattan misadventures of a pair of twins with dissimilar characters, New York Minute. According to the marketing campaign, hilarity ensues.
Every formulaic comedy needs an incompetent antagonist and New York Minute has two. There is the excellent Eugene Levy as a truant officer obsessed with catching one of the twins. Of interest to Copyfight readers, however, is the other adversary, a Chinese gangster. Why is this criminal after the twins? According to the review in the Hollywood Reporter, the gangster seeks a microchip the girls accidentally acquired (Review: New York Minute):
It's interesting to track what constitutes villainy in Hollywood movies today. Whereas once villains were bank robbers, drug dealers, white-slave traders, psychotic losers and abusive husbands, this movie's villains are intellectual property thieves as the microchip contains pirated music and movies.
'Nuff said.
Comments (3)
+ TrackBacks (0) | Category: Misc.
- RELATED ENTRIES
- › Oh and by the Way
- › Tor Sees No Increase In Illegal Copies After One Year DRM-Free
- › Free Publication on "Seismic Shift" in CA Copyright Law
- › EFF Challenges Bad Patent Filings - But There's a Bigger Issue
- › Video Game Development Game Ironic Piracy
- › British Photo Copyright Orphans' Concern
- › Mike Masnick Curb-Stomps Jaron Lanier
- › Microsoft Appears Ready to Relent on Xbox DRM
1. Jason Schultz on May 7, 2004 1:10 PM writes...
Anti-piracy education is the new product placement? :)
Permalink to Comment2. Allen on May 7, 2004 1:14 PM writes...
non-obvious: these types of subject matter have been popular for years, witness james bond films.
equally, in fact, the evidence shows that these types of "information society" crimes are becoming the staple of activity: criminals are moving into counterfieting and piracy rather than drugs and so on. you try and dispute this as much as you want: but customs and police figures show it, and they don't care less about movie studios, they just want to catch crooks.
surely you can substantiate your arguments with better claptrap than this?
Permalink to Comment3. Ernest Miller on May 7, 2004 1:39 PM writes...
I know James Bond. James Bond is my friend. And you, Mary Kate and Ashley, are no James Bond.
If this were a Bond film, the data on the microchip would be Russian killer satellite codes or blueprints for a doomsday device.
Actually, I don't dispute that criminals are involved in copyright infringement. Of course, most of that is of the device kind (those cheap DVDs you can get on the street of New York) and is mostly overseas. However, even the criminals haven't really figured out how to make money off of P2P.
In any case, this isn't an argument, merely a mildly humorous observation.
Jason, Mary Kate and Ashley movies are almost entirely product placement, so it is kind of hard to tell.
Permalink to Comment