What is Digg?188 Comments
- krakelohm, on 10/12/2007, -10/+83Well it looks like we are off to a good start with the insightful commentary here.
- xpgeek, on 10/12/2007, -22/+76Utterly f****n ridiculous. As you'll see by reading the entire post, they have requested an image, pertaining to the upcoming Transformers movie, to be taken down before, and The Movie Blog immediately complied. So why couldn't they have just asked this time as well?
As I said in a comment to the post, "all they had to do was ask, one simple email, but they just go over your head, pound their chests, and get the site shut down."
F****n shame on you Paramount.
And the real shame of it too, is just that, The Movie Blog is one of my very favorite movie sites, I listen to their, Podcast of the Year Award winning, podcast three times a week, and I haven't heard anyone more excited about the Transformers film then they are at The Movie Blog, and they just flushed an enormous amount of free publicity and praise for their film down the toilet. - gamabunta, on 10/12/2007, -3/+54Does it really surprise anyone that a movie studio is full of *****?
- topher1078, on 10/12/2007, -1/+49Here's the entire post for everyone to read while the site gets dugg -
"An Angry Open Letter To Paramount"
Last night at around Midnight EST. Paramount filed a complaint with The Movie Blog's hosting company about an alleged copyright violation. This complaint resulted in The Movie Blog being taken down for 7-8 hours this morning.
It should be noted that we at The Movie Blog did not receive a single request from Paramount to remove the image in question.
Following reading Paramount's complaint, I was outraged. I wrote the following letter to them which I share with you now. Needless to say, you'll never see another piece of Transformers the Movie news or talk on this site.
Am I over reacting a little in this matter? Perhaps I am. Fair enough. But this has really pissed me off. Here is the letter I sent them:
Greetings. This is John Campea, Founder and Editor of The Movie Blog - www.themovieblog.com
The Movie Blog is not one of the larger sites on the internet, right now we only have just over a million readers per month. For almost a year on both our site and on our Podcast (which won Podcast of the Year handed out at the SXSW festival this year) we have almost daily been hyping, talking about, and gushing over your Transformers the Movie project.
We've done nothing but tell the world how we think it's the best movie coming down the pipe. We constantly talk about how we think Michael Bay is the best man for the job. On and on we go crazy about the Transformers.
That is over. No more.
Last week I received a request from two of your representatives asking that I remove a picture of the character "Bumblebee" from our website. I responded by asking if you were SURE you wanted us to take it down since it seemed to be generating so much positive publicity and buzz for your project. Your representatives both said "yes". So, without delay I took the picture down. I can understand this. The Bumblebee picture gave away a character secret.
However, this morning I awoke to find that my website had been taken offline because YOU PEOPLE had filed a copyright complaint with my hosting service. The copyright complaint wasn't for any scene of filming. It was a candid picture of 4 actors standing around off camera posing for a picture together. That's all it was. There was no notice of copyright on the image, and being just a posed picture of 4 actors who were all already announced as being in the picture, I had no way of knowing you would have any problem with this image being online. And WHY did I have no idea you would have a problem with it???
Because not once did you ask me to take it down. Not one easy email to say you didn't want it online. IT WOULD HAVE BEEN 10x EASIER FOR YOU JUST SEND ME A 2 LINE EMAIL LETTING ME KNOW YOU WOULD PREFER THAT IMAGE NOT BE ONLINE than the 4 paragraph legal letter sent to my hosting company.
This has caused me a world of inconvenience and headache and disappointed me tremendously.
Is this how you treat your fans? Is this how you treat the people who are out here heaping loads upon loads of free positive fanboyish publicity and hype on your movie?!?! I am nothing short of disgusted by how you have chosen to deal with this.
You shut my site down. A fan who has been trying his best to make Transformers the most talked about film in production. A fan who has been praising your project almost daily. A fan who already once took down an image that you wanted down with just a simple request. And this is how you treat your fans? Shutting them down without so much as a 2 line email request or to at least let us know you were upset with something.
Fine. If this is how you treat people... then that is how you shall be treated. From now on The Movie Blog will not mention, reference or talk about anything to do with your movie or your project. Heavens forbid that I may say something that you don't like and wake up to find my site taken down again.
The Movie Blog is nothing. A small tiny site by most standards with only a million readers. I'm sure this won't effect you at all. But seriously folks... just a little common decency is all you needed to show. Just a simple 2 line email to ask "hey, can you take this down". That's all. I already proved I respond to your requests. I had no idea this particular image was a problem for you.
But instead you decided to "Show me who's boss" and shut my site down.
Well you did it. You really showed me who's boss. Do you feel all big and tough now? So well done. You lost a fan, and you lost a whole years worth of free positive hype and publicity. I hope it was worth it to you.
As an aside, I'm being quite reserved about my feelings on this. If you are at all interested in the full extent of our anger over this, just have one of your people listen to our Podcast Friday night.
John Campea
Editor of The Movie Blog
www.themovieblog.com
john@themovieblog.com
Perhaps my letter to Paramount came across a little like a temper tantrum. As I said earlier, perhaps I'm over reacting a little. But I've got to tell ya folks... in the almost 3 years that I've been doing The Movie Blog, nothing has made me this angry. I am very disappointed with Paramount, and disgusted beyond words.
Some will think I'm just being a suck. Fair enough. But to quote the immortal Boby Brown: That's my prerogative. - jgreene777, on 10/12/2007, -26/+69Your points would be so much better taken had you written them in some coherent language.
- DarthTurducken, on 10/12/2007, -2/+31"was wondering how that movie made $8.50 at the box office"
Two words: Scarlett Johansson - yakk0dotorg, on 10/12/2007, -3/+29Bumblebee can't be a Volkswagon. VW doesn't want their products associated with "war toys" and won't let Hasbro have the license.
- SilentBobSC, on 10/12/2007, -11/+32Every bit more I hear about this movie, the more I'm convinced it's going to be a horrible abortion of what I remember from the 80s, Bumblebee is a *#&@in Camaro? Michael Bay? wtf Hollywood get a clue and stop making 1.5hr car commercials and start making MOVIES that are true to their source material. This is quickly speeding up my "wait for Netflix" list.
- Purist, on 10/12/2007, -2/+22I guess you'd rather see a 1982 VW Beetle for Bumblebee.
- vhold, on 10/12/2007, -1/+20They sent a legal threat to his provider and had him shut down. That is actually pretty freaking hostile. His reaction to that is tame in comparison.
- Purist, on 10/12/2007, -2/+20I enjoy reading them. Just goes to show you the power a movie studio can have over your site. I had no idea posting pictures of actors on a set was illegal. But I'm glad I found out Anthony Anderson was in it this way, so I could lower my expectations.
- Moocat, on 10/12/2007, -1/+18@invader
Yes, actually it is the movie's perogative to ask him to remove every individual offending picture. Why? Because there are a ***** of pictures that aren't copyrighted, or are allowed to be shown. Not only that, but the two pictures were entirely different, one being of a part of the movie, the other being an offset snapshot. This is called copyright, and this is the way it is supposed to work...except for the whole Paramount going flipside on the poor guy. - spyrochaete, on 10/12/2007, -1/+16When the movie is released, express your boycott on this page http://thepiratebay.org/
- innerspirit, on 10/12/2007, -2/+17"Paramount had them shut down for 8 hours"
and now digg will have them shut down for a couple of days :)
503 service temporarily unavailable - neomits, on 10/12/2007, -2/+15The picture in question needs to spread like crazy now just for spite.
- DanteDefiance, on 10/12/2007, -3/+16NERD FIGHT! >_>
- Dack12, on 10/12/2007, -2/+15Personally I thought the letter was an appropriate response. The guy wakes up to find his site taken down with so much as a request from Paramount? I think any of us would be righteously freaked out.
I actually think the letter was reserved. Good for John! - david76, on 10/12/2007, -19/+32xpgeek, meet the period. Period, meet xpgeek.
- Filoviridae, on 10/12/2007, -2/+14Or ANY of Michael Bay's movies yet?
- Purist, on 10/12/2007, -2/+14They didn't post them. They were taken by some fan geeks and circled all throughout the movie blogs.
- joshlrogers, on 10/12/2007, -1/+12I fail to see his infringement I guess. It is a picture of actors on a set standing around. I can understand the bumble bee picture, but actors standing around? I don't believe this is any big movie secret. Maybe if any of you saw the picture you could elaborate. If a set is in the background that gives away a key part of the movie then I understand, but they truly should have contacted him first or the hosting company could have had the balls to contact him themselves and ask him first before they just close down the entire site. They would have his contact info, call the guy on his phone. A day or two of downtime can kill a sites traffic in the long term.
- jonnyeh, on 10/12/2007, -0/+11Starbuck is now a 'chick', Apollo is still a dude
- henryaj, on 10/12/2007, -2/+12@invader and david76
I think the point is really that Paramount, instead of emailing the guy politely requesting he take the image down, went to the length of having its legal team write a C&D to his web hosting provider without even contacting the site owner. So the argument about them having to email people for every single copyright infraction is moot, because they apparently go to extreme lengths anyway. - david76, on 10/12/2007, -2/+12@moocat
I would really love to know where you found this "if it's on the internet" fair use doctrine, because as far as I know there isn't one. In fact, here's some information about using works found online:
http://www.utsystem.edu/ogc/intellectualProperty/useofnet.htm (University of Texas, Office of General Council) See the section "Individual liability for using works found online".
Just because you find an image on the internet doesn't mean you can appropriate it for your own use. Even if you can't find the original owner you can't just use something because it's there. (http://www.utsystem.edu/ogc/intellectualProperty/permissn.htm, see the section Unidentifiable / Unresponsive Owner)
Further, fair use generally requires attribution. Failure to attribute the work mitigates against arguments for fair use. I don't believe he attributed any source.
I'm not sure you can substantiate the argument regarding the nature of his use. He most certainly was using the image to add value to his blog and attract additional readers.
And, if I'm not mistaken, they already notified him on a separate ocassion regarding his use of another copyrighted work. While he took down the first image, I don't believe it's incumbent upon the copyright holder to contact the offender in order to have the offending materials removed. Yes, I tihnk they went overboard, but do you really think it's their responsibility to notify you by e-mail every time you infringe? From their perspective, they probably don't think he took them seriously the first time. - ahhell, on 10/12/2007, -1/+10Paramount is going to need as much GOOD publicity as they can get regarding Transformers, otherwise this movie is going to be a complete and utter disaster.
Hardcore fans are always the most vocal. Pissing them off is a good way to kill a project.
Bad move, Paramount. - Klowner, on 10/12/2007, -0/+9The dude was generating _free_ genuine hype for their movie because he was obviously pretty excited about it, going around and stomping on fans is a really, REALLY stupid thing to do. Agreed Paramount's actions are legally acceptable, but they've obviously crossed a social line into a place full of very angry transformers fans.
- Canthros, on 10/12/2007, -4/+12@SilentBobSC: ... Have you watched any of those cartoons recently? The 1980's show is not exactly high theatre.
- felyduw, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8I think he was being ironic when he says "The Movie Blog is nothing". It IS something and Paramount should know it.
- panic, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9He's probably getting more than enough hits right now from his exposure on digg to make up for the downtime.
- dclowd9901, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9"Or ANY of Michael Bay's movies yet?"
Haha, good point. "The Island" wasn't exactly a shining beacon of film perfection... - Purist, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8That's precisely the issue.
- KyleRayner, on 10/12/2007, -2/+9I hate to say it, but Transformers fans such as yourself, G1 purists, who just watched G1 and like nothing else, arent the target market. Truth be told, guys like myself, who watched G1, RiD, Armada, Energon, Cybertron, and read the comics, we arent the target market either.
They are aiming this movie at the same crowd that they aimed Spider-Man and Superman Returns. People who vaguely remember having an interest in it as a youth, and want to see this new stuff along with their kids. - spyrochaete, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7It's damaging to reveal that the Transformers movie will have transforming robots that blow things up? Maybe Paramount didn't see the episode where those things happened.
- sirshannon, on 10/12/2007, -6/+13the site linked to threw up a javascript box asking me to install some sort of "cleaner", then tried to install that "cleaner" when I closed the window. NOT cool. Bury this crap.
- innerspirit, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8that is not the point, and he does mention a couple of times that his site is not an important one
- Daedalus81, on 10/12/2007, -3/+10And he could have done without the capslock.
- halvertos, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7"We constantly talk about how we think Michael Bay is the best man for the job."
^ That's their first mistake. - Dizzy149, on 10/12/2007, -7/+13Bumblebee WAS a VW Beetle.... So yes, I would.
It's like trying to remake Star Wars, and using Jet Fighters instead of X-Wings. Why bother if you're just gonna F it up. - anonymonk, on 10/12/2007, -4/+10I actually enjoyed The Island (rented the DVD) and thought the whole idea of the film was quite cool.
- davidlow, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7The legality of Paramount's move is not in question, and Paramount doing whatever is necessary to ensure that the studio acts in the best interest of its actors does not require taking legal action as a first resort.
Also, Paramount should be pandering to its potential audience and especially to its fans. When a fanboy acts like a fanboy it only emphasizes that this is a person with whom Paramount should be cultivating a positive relationship. If they instead make threats it is unreasonable to expect the fanboy to suddenly act out of character. Transformers is not designed to apeal to the businesslike, after all. - wil2197, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6It's such a shame really. Publicity is key to a movie's success and they just lost a loyal outlet, while creating negative publicity for themselves.
- Purist, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6I don't know, there were far more damaging shots released before-hand, with pics of vehicles and robots half transformed.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -3/+9@Kyle You forgot Battlestar Galactica. Boomer as a hot Asian Chick? Apollo as a chick?!? Blasphemy!
- KyleRayner, on 10/12/2007, -4/+10You need to wake up about your "source material." For one thing, the Transfomers have had many different alternate forms over the years in the 'toons and in the comics. Prime has been a fire truck, a futuristic triple-changer, and a gorilla. Soundwave is a stealth fighter jet right now as a matter of fact.
Secondly, the Transformers was created as a marketing vehicle. The 'bots will always have alternate forms that have been sold to the highest bidder. As long as Bumblebee's personality is like it was in G1 and in the comics, you should be happy. - MiamiGuy, on 10/12/2007, -10/+15He whines too much. Once paramount sees that letter they'll just simply throw it away.
- Foxphoto, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6We need to flood the web with those pix... make them hurt :)
- phantom42, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6sorry, but as much as i liked seeing the pic of bumblebee, themovieblog was in the wrong. that said, paramount probably could have handled the situation a little bit better.
right or wrong, the movie studios have plans for how and when certain information is released.
i spent 6 weeks total (1 week last october, and the 5 weeks in jan/feb) working as an extra on pirates of the caribbean 3. the first thing we did both times was sign our NDA's. this means we werent allowed to take photos on set, post any photos we didnt take before it was all public knowledge, and we definitely couldn't talk about whatever plot we heard about while on set.
after our work in october, someone leaked some of the photos of us horsing around on set (which none of us took, of course) to a johnny depp fan site. the site was contacted by disney and ordered to remove them. they complied. the person who leaked the photos was also tracked down and legal action was pursued. needless to say, he was not invited back for the shooting in january.
one of my friends was a cannibal in potc2. as soon as the trailer came out showing him as a cannibal, his photos (which he, of course, didnt take) of himself as a cannibal were pretty much fair game. so he went ahead and posted them - disney has not said anything to him about it.
similarly, i've posted some photos of the black pearl and the flying dutchman that i took, and have received no contact from disney.
does posting spy photos from the set generate hype? sure. but its not according to the studios laid out plan.
as for him not "knowing" that the photos were copyrighted - don't be ridiculous. he knew full well that the photos were spy photos, and thus very likely to be tagged for removal. - Character0, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Which was an exact copy of his previous movie, Bad Boys 2, when cars instead of train axels were being tossed off a moving vehicle. Although I must say that Scarlett is a big draw for me to any movie.
- ericwb, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6I got hit with 3 consecutive javascript windows with the same crap in it. Ditto when I pressed backspace to get back to Digg. Those were outrageous and pushy advertisements for software that probably contain mal/spyware. Way to go.
- DarthTurducken, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Jesus - who was the a-hole with the damn 50 terabyte Spiderman animated GIF as his sig?
It's because of tards like that that I like Digg -
Show 51 - 100 of 185 discussions
The Digg Toolbar for Firefox lets you Digg, submit content, and keep track of Digg even when you're not on the Digg site. Download the official 
© Digg Inc. 2009
— Content created and posted by Digg users is