bit-tech.net | MPAA illegally copies movies:
MPAA illegally copies movies

Posted 10:41 - 25 January 2006 - by Wil Harris

Oh the irony. The MPAA is being forced to justify its actions today, after reports emerged that it has been engaging in unauthorised copying of movies.

The movie in question is called This movie has not yet been rated, and is a documentary featuring examining the actions and the structure of the MPAA. The MPAA itself is a collection of anonymous individuals who are solely responsible for the ratings of films in the USA, yet have little-to-no accountability. The documentary attempts to find out who these people are, and then examines the attitudes of the association to things such as sex v violence, heterosexual v homosexual content, the treatment of indie films v the preference allegedly given to big studios.

By way of justification, the MPAA said that the spying and intrusion on its employees warranted it distributing copies of the movie to its employees.

Here's a quote from the Ars story:

'Director Kirby Dick submitted the film for rating in November. After receiving the movie, the MPAA subsequently made copies without Dick's permission. Dick had specifically requested in an e-mail that the MPAA not make copies of the movie. The MPAA responded by saying that 'the confidentiality of your film is our first priority.'

Dick later learned that the MPAA made copies of the film to distribute them to its employees, despite the MPAA's stance on unauthorized copying.'

Hands up if you hate American monopolists? Yeah, us too. Over in the UK, we have the British Board of Film Classification, an open and identifiable body that has a reputation for being progressive and friendly with its ratings. Then again, it doesn't have to deal with the American schizophrenic attitude to sex, which must help.

What do you make of the MPAA's actions? Are they acting responsibily for the good of their members, or are they swiftly making themselves into a laughing stock? Answers on a postcard please, or alternatively, in our forum. "

I've had a problem ever since I started using my work computer with some of my programs trying to load two copies at startup. It became obvious because I use Trillian and it will actually load twice, unlike most others that just ignored the second attempt to load. I found the solution in the Trillian Forums:


Trillian Discussion Forums - Trillian starts twice. Two icons in tray.:
timstyles
Junior Member
"I've found out why Windows runs everything in my startup menu twice. I had previously deleted the Startup folder in my user directory (C:\Documents and Settings\\Start Menu\Programs\Startup) and put program shortcuts in the common directory (C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Start Menu\Programs\Startup).

There are two pairs of keys in the registry which point to these two folders. When one folder is deleted, the keys which pointed to it are modified to point to the remaining folder. The result is that both pairs of keys point to the same folder and things in it get started twice.

[...]

Note - you have to recreate the folder C:\Documents and Settings\\Start Menu\Programs\Startup if you deleted it, or the key will just change back.

hammo1j
Junior Member

[...]

People should go to:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\User Shell Folders

And change the %ALLUSERSPROFILE% to
%USERPROFILE% on the entries which will obviously have been modified from this setting.

If you reboot the machine the changes will be automatically propagated to the other directory.


ME:

Thanks to both for the instructions!