John Moore, director of the upcoming Max Payne film adaptation starring Mark Wahlberg, has a few words to say about the Motion Picture Association of America--the United States' ratings group for films--and most of those words are profane.

"The Motion Picture Association of America gave The Dark Knight a PG-13 rating and basically sucked Warner Bros.' cock," Moore said to DasGamer, referring to the blockbuster film sometimes thought too dark for the PG-13 rating.

Moore's outburst stems from attempts to secure a PG-13 rating for Max Payne, which would theoretically allow for some mature content while avoiding the age restrictions and reduced revenues of an R rating.

"I have a serious amount of issues with the MPAA," he continued... Read more

Indiana's Senate Economic Development and Technology Committee has approved a bill aiming to legally restrict sales of video games featuring explicit content, the Indianapolis Star reported today. Authored by Republican state senator David C. Ford and Democratic state senator Vi Simpson, the bill was passed 5-2 in committee by three Democrats and two Republicans. It would impose a $1000 fine on those who sell or rent M-rated video games to minors.

"You become the character, for better or for worse," said Simpson on video games, pointing out the seemingly age-old video game tradition of "kicking (a prostitute) out of a car and then beating her to death." She added, "If you think (children) are not playing these games because there's an 'M' on the box, you're badly mistaken."

Industry trade organizations such as the Entertainment Software Association and Entertainment Merchants Association opposed the bill.

Currently, ESRB content ratings are voluntarily enforced by retailers, similarly to MPAA ratings in the film industry. Various attempts have been made to enforce the ratings by law, though such measures have typically been struck down on constitutional grounds. This current bill is currently on track to continue on to the full Indiana Senate for voting.

An interesting piece on Internet2 Ty Stallard pointed the way to I thought may prove for some good discussion. What is generally referred to as the "next-generation" for the internet isnt just a concept but is in place right now. Over 180 universities and medical centers are connected and using it right now.

Take a movie like "The Matrix," the 1999 sci-fi thriller ... When they tried the exercise over Internet2, the movie downloaded in about 30 seconds. [...] "This will come into our homes," he promises. "Existing cable and even the fastest form of DSL will hook up very well to Internet2." But when? Van Houweling won't set a date. "Look how fast the original Internet took off. There's no reason to think that this won't be implemented even faster. I will say that 10 years from now, the Internet world will be unrecognizable to us today"

So that's great and all and we will have this wonderful bandwidth floating around, but how are they gonna get it to our homes? Oh yeah and that example about downloading The Matrix in 30 seconds is probably a big part of why the MPAA is antsy about things.

This will prove entertaining. Just as the RIAA managed to get Napster basically run into the ground for most average users, the MPAA is now getting ready to try and shut down Gnutella. Hey if it makes pings go down, good! :P

The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) has sent hundreds of letters to major Internet service providers and universities, warning them that some people on their networks are violating the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) by trading copyrighted movies through Gnutella.

@Home is playing along too, sending out letters to their customers saying they need to quit sharing movies or they get their cablemodem turned off.

Ok this story is being sent in by way too many people not to post. The MPAA and a few others are working on getting a new standard pushed into VCRs and other recording devices (TiVo anyone?) that would prevent people from recording particular broadcasted shows. There is of course quite a bit of objection, the HRRC is leading the charge.

copyright holders want the FCC to require that circuitry be built into nearly every digital TV device - receivers, VCRs and set-top boxes - that will prevent recording programs carrying copy protection information set by the program's owner.

Damn it, and I just figured out how to program my VCR to record those 3am Skinemax flicks.

We havent beaten the Napster dead horse for a little while have we? Well I'll be brief. This new study looks to confirm what many young Napster users have been screaming for a while. Napster users buy more music than most anyone.

Jupiter said it surveyed more than 2,200 online music fans about whether the money they spent on music purchases had increased, decreased or remained the same [snip] All (ed: except one which remained the same) groups said they had increased spending as a result of online music use, Jupiter reported

My concern though is of course students are going to say they buy more music. I dont have a better idea though.. so there. :) While we're on that topic, not to be left out in the cold the guys at Scour.com have been slapped with a lawsuit by the MPAA. Basically the same situation as Napster but the Movie industry. Thanks [Venger].

News on CNet that there is a hack available for Napster, called Wrapster that allows distribution of any kind of file over the Napster network, which was built for MP3 transfers. Interesting is that CNet has no links in the story to the Napster site, but does link to RIAA and MPAA. What is up with that?

ZDNet is carrying a story about the Hollywood vs Open Source battles that have been going on lately. As we all know the recording industry hates MP3 audio as they feel it's costing them money (sales went up 6% last year btw). Well with the release of DeCSS the Hollywood folks are getting all bent out of shape about the DVD industry now. Hollywood has a history of this stuff, hell they even fought against the VHS tape being released.

The DVD CCA, which is targeting Pavlovich and at least 70 other defendants, alleges that simply linking to DeCSS code amounts to trade-secret theft. The MPAA, meanwhile, is wielding the DMCA, accusing, in two federal lawsuits filed in Connecticut and New York, four people of using DeCSS to circumvent its copyrights.