I know I don't normally delete posts (much to the wrath of many board members ), so I thought I'd better explain the reasons why I will deleted some posts today.

They are very simple. Posts are deleted that:

1) advocate hatemongering (hatemongering is not simple criticism. You know what it is. It's opinions like those so-called Christians saying God is killing soldiers because the US isn't killing fill-in-the-blank.)

2) provide private information about Chris Potter or his family (or any other celebrity for that matter) such as home address and so on.

3) advocating or provide information for illegal activities such as commercial bootlegging.

Members periodically offer to share their personal tapes, zines and articles with other members, especially the hard to find things, much like the sharing of old Grateful Dead recordings. Fans sharing with fans is one thing, but commercial selling of bootleg (aka pirated) materials, particularly DVDs, is illegal and does harm to Chris Potter and the rest of the people who worked on the original material.

I know the collector's zeal, the desire to possess everything available about a subject and yes, I've been tempted by the collecting fever myself to go to ridiculous lengths to try and acquire materials. But the commercial pirates and bootleggers are doing it strictly for the money just like the paparazzi. The paparazzi aren't chasing the celebrities and these guys aren't making copies because they're fans. These people are simply crooks looking for your money.

And chances are good they will also sell your personal information, steal your credit card number and in general do anything they can to make a buck off of you. Face it, if they'll sell illegal goods, they aren't honorable and they don't have any scruples -- so if you only end up on a few thousand spam lists, you're lucky.

To quote an email I received from someone in the business who visits this board about a recent post:


It's my fault for not getting these rules listed permanently (which I'll try to do in the next couple of days), so no one should be pointing fingers or naming names, okay? Meanwhile, if you are hunting for a missing piece of CP filmography or publicity, please ask folks to email you privately about trading. And if you do stumble across CP's private contact information, please don't post it. Be subtle. Let us know you're doing the Happy Dance and let us all gossip wildly amongst ourselves about what makes you grin like the cat in the cream. I don't think I have to even say anything about hatemongering...

Thanks, and again my apologies for any inconvenience my tardiness has caused.

thanks for leting us all know that this is happen on all the web pages and iam doing more then just the happy dance i don't look at it at all want i do is i delete it" i love to delete thing i don't like that i know i s 'junk mail" thats all it is is junk" from kb. from canada.

It's an interesting bit of synchronicity that this topic came up at this time. As most of you are probably aware, the WGA (Writer's Guild of America) voted to go on strike late last week and as of Monday will not be working. One of the main reasons they're on strike is over residual payments from DVD's, web viewings and downloads, and why they aren't getting paid.

At the risk of being accused of trying to get taller by standing on a soap box, that right there is a big reason why not to patronize video bootleggers. Aside from the fact that they're making money on other people's hard work, a lot of them have really poor quality and no recourse if you don't like what they send you. IF they even deliver the goods.

If you read the article from the attached link, you'll hear the full reasons why the strike was called for and what it's all about.
This Revolution Won't Be Televised

What it basically boils down to is this (and I'm paraphrasing here): while you and I may pay $15-$20 for a DVD, 80% of that goes to the studio for "production costs". By the time everyone else gets paid off from the remaining 20% (producers, directors, actors, musicians), the writer may get something like $.04 from all that. They want to get a bigger payout. I think they're asking for double that - so they'd make a whopping $.08 on a DVD when you and I buy one. All in all, not entirely unreasonable, IMO.

We seem to have this discussion come up periodically as some "new" website crops up with yet another alleged "great deal" on something that isn't (legally) available yet. I think in a lot of areas, the general consensus is that if fans are willing to share resources with other fans, mostly for trade or the cost of materials and postage, it's not that big of a deal. But when you do this without legal permission and for profit rather than for fannish enthusiasm, that's where a lot of people draw the line. When you start doing it for profit and it gets plugged on a fan site like this, even innocently, it can look as though Carolyn is endorsing that particular site and we get into a slippery slope.

Carolyn has provided us with a cool playground, IMO. I like it here and would like to see it stay around and not get shut down over something dumb.

Didn't mean to get started so I'm stepping off the soapbox now.

re the writers' strike:

Apparently, writers (and probably some actors as well) aren't getting anything AT ALL for things like iTunes downloads.
I have no idea if there's any real money to be had from things like network website full episode streaming (some have advertisers and some don't), but writers (and probably some actors) don't get anything from those either.
Nor, by the way (serious bias here), do any of the crew who work so hard on TV and film productions.
The studios (ie: the folks who DO get paid for these things) are throwing out ridiculous excuses such as: well, we don't really know what these new pies ARE yet, so how can we reasonably cut the writers a piece of them?
Clearly, they need writers, even if only to make their excuses sound plausible.

Pan made an excellent point about downloads. The last 3 years of Silk Stalkings are now available for download by Amazon.com, but that they will not be releasing them on DVD. It makes me wonder about what percentage is due to cast, writers, and crew and other involved parties that they're currently not getting. As one of the local LA entertainment reporters said, "if it's not on the page, it's not on the stage" - that's how important an issue the strike is.

The bad guys here in the writer's dispute seem to be the studios. There have always been shady ways to hide profits from those to whom they are due and banks of accountants who do nothing else but find other ways to do it. I believe it was columnist Cleveland Amory who sued one of the studios several years ago and blew it all out into the open when he was denied rightful profits from something he'd written.

The bottom line in the strike seems to be the division of profits; that's what it all seems to be about.