[Reader-list] Thought Thieves Steal Ideas FROM YOUR HEAD!

[Rana Dasgupta]

Am in Paris right now.

In french cinemas before the film starts you get this chilling 
anti-piracy warning in grey and black which is made to resemble the 
funereal message on the side of cigarette packets over here.  For 
cigarettes it says "Smoking seriously damages your health" ("fumer nuit 
gravement a la sante").  The message in cinemas, with the same graphic 
design, reads "Piracy seriously damages the health of cinema" ("pirater 
nuit gravement a la sante du cinema").

The gesture does not lack creativity.  Piracy becomes, without the need 
to state it, a sort of carcinogen provoking the deformation from inside 
of the healthy body of the cinema industry, and finally destroying it.

R


Aniruddha Shankar wrote:

> Shining defender of freedom of expression, originality and author's
> rights, Microsoft Corp.,  is running a short film contest to win 2000
> pounds of film and video equipment vouchers. The subject ?
> 
> A film on how you would feel and what you would do "if you saw your hard
> work being passed off as the property of someone else". The short film
> on "intellectual property theft" has to be in by the first of July.
> 
> O apathetic masses, "Think about it: what would a world look like
> without protection for intellectual property?"[1]
> 
> Any takers ? And you, yes, you in the green shirt and the overly long,
> tangled hair, I know what you're up to! You're trying to STEAL MY IDEAS
> FROM MY HEAD!! Luckily for me I've wrapped my head in tinfoil so your
> SinistroWaves cannot penetrate through to my precious, wetly throbbing
> intellectual property. And don't think that recension/fair use/parody
> crap will stand up in courts forever! What's that ? Microsoft infringed
> Sun's[2] copyrightand trademark? SPX's[3], Eolas'[4],Intertrust's [5]
> and Stac's[6]  patents? Well, Microsoft is reformed now, and they're
> trying to support independent filmmakers. Cynic. I bet you're trying to
> steal my ideas right now.
> 
> The contest poster is at
> http://www.msn.co.uk/img/en/en-gb/portal/specials/thoughtthieves/poster.PDF
> The contest website is www.msn.co.uk/thoughtthieves
> 
> [1] http://www.msn.co.uk/thoughtthieves/creating/
> [2] http://tinyurl.com/8v3wu
> [3] http://tinyurl.com/ajcbk
> [4] http://tinyurl.com/a8taf
> [5] http://tinyurl.com/77btz
> [6] http://www.base.com/software-patents/articles/stac.html
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