Posts by Russell Brown
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As yet another indication that focusing on Mega is a misguided strategy, it appears nowhere on the MPAA's list of most-wanted sites.
NB: that tip came from Lownes Jordan partner Rick Shera, who is advising Mega. (Otoh, the fact that Rick is advising Mega further suggests that Mega is staying within the law. He's not stupid.)
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Hard News: Movie Disaster, in reply to Sacha,
the big boys got away with not honouring that contracted commitment
That disgusts me, Bruce.
It's worth noting that Jackson himself had to go to court to get what he was due -- and he was reckoned to be risking his future business in so doing. It's a bloody dodgy business.
But it does bear noting that the large majority of the people who live off these productions have no expectations of residuals. The position for actors is quite different to that of skilled tradespeople.
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Hard News: Moving right along?, in reply to Kyle Matthews,
Given that the mayor heads the council that employs the Chief Executive of the council, I don’t imagine how any investigation by him could be called independent. Power over etc.
The review is being conducted independently, by Ernst & Young, and the terms could hardly be broader:
* Any use of council resources within the Office of the Mayor, in respect of the Mayor’s relationship with Ms Chuang, that contravenes council policies (eg payments and procurement).
* Any improper preferential treatment in relation to Ms Chuang’s engagement as an employee, contractor or an advisor within the Auckland Council Group.
* Any other issues that the reviewers or chief executive considers relate to, or arise out of, the above matters.
I guess it could have been referred to the Auditor General, but I can’t see any evidence that the investigation is being constrained.
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Hard News: Mega Strange, in reply to Rich of Observationz,
this comment is copyright me. You may not copy it for any purpose including viewing. Hey, you, Russell and his hosting company (but not your ISP) just broke the law!
In your face, copper!
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Hard News: Mega Strange, in reply to SteveH,
Also is it infringement when I copy it from the harddrive into RAM? What about a copy that gets stored in an ISP’s proxy server as I download it?
At the moment these things are not infringing uses, our legislators having heard the arguments and decided that making such transient copies subject to the control of rights owners would be a terrible idea.
It’s done and dusted as far as our copyright legislation is concerned.
Unfortunately … we may yet have just such a provision presented to us as a fait accompli thanks to TPP.
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Speaker: Ed Kuepper: a legend interviewed, in reply to JacksonP,
And Ed K just favourited my link to the photos on Twitter, which I think is pretty ace.
He's admirably active on Twitter -- he RTd my fanboy gushing after the show too :-)
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Hard News: Mega Strange, in reply to Dylan Reeve,
Actually I’d forgot there was a service that indexed (user-submitted) links to files hosted on Mega… There’s 390,000 files on there apparently, although the usability is terrible and there’s no way to determine how many of those files are still live.
I suppose Mega could (and I think did at one stage) pro-actively remove links featured on that site,
They blocked it way back in February. And there may have been others blocked too.
In this light, focusing on Mega as a piracy-enabler over all its competitors starts to seem quite irrational.
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Hard News: Movie Disaster, in reply to Rich of Observationz,
If we do those things, we boost our film industry, tell our stories and aren’t handing taxpayers money to overseas multinationals.
But even by Treasury's sceptical analysis, the net cost of the grants scheme was about $36 million over seven years -- that is, about $3m less per year than funding a season of Outrageous Fortune. It would cost way, way more than that to maintain a similar skills and technical base to that fostered in recent years by foreign money.
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Hard News: Movie Disaster, in reply to Rich of Observationz,
Typically, they look to offload risk onto suitable mug punters, such as ‘Dumb and Mad’ investors, or governments.
That was more the case during the mad period of tax breaks that gave us Merry Christmas, Mr Lawrence and Queen City Rocker. Investors didn't even have to make good films to come out winners.
The screen production grants are rebates on actual local spending, so the government's chief risk is being drawn into a bidding war.
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Hard News: Friday Music: The Next Kids, in reply to Joe Wylie,
Knox’s kazoo took it to a whole other level.
How could it not?