Jason Dunn
08-12-2004, 03:00 AM
<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,117314,tk,dn081104X,00.asp' target='_blank'>http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,117314,tk,dn081104X,00.asp</a><br /><br /></div><i>"One of 321 Studios's last corporate acts will be paying off the companies that drove it to extinction. The St. Louis developer of commercial software for copying DVDs and other digital content posted a closing notice on its Web site last week, saying court injunctions barring U.S. sales of its software leaves it with no choice but to discontinue operations. On Tuesday, the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) announced a settlement deal with the now-defunct company. 321 Studios will make a "substantial" financial payment to the motion picture studios it had been battling in court, according to the MPAA. Those funds will be donated to the motion picture industry's antipiracy campaign."</i><br /><br />Ah, the irony - 321 Studios, who fought so hard for the right for people to use their software to copy their DVDs (owned or, cough, rented) has been gutted and their remains are being used to fund anti-piracy commercials. I'm personally against movie piracy - I only buy or rent DVDs, but I also watch movies in the theatre quite frequently. I've seen about four movies in the past month, and when I've paid my $12 CND to see a movie, the last thing I want to see is s preachy ad with a movie stunt guy telling me that I shouldn't pirate movies. Um, HELLO? <b>I'm IN THE THEATRE, PAYING FOR THE MOVIE!</b> <i>I'm not your target audience</i>. Whoever is coordinating this campaign needs to be smacked around - what the movie companies should be doing instead is flooding the P2P networks with 700 MB dummy files and making it more trouble than it's worth to download movies (although I personally feel it's already at that point now).