We took Repo Man sequels to Universal and proposed they do it, but they weren't interested. What they did instead is they brought out a movie titled Repo Men and pretended that was the sequel.

Universal Studios has an antipathy towards Repo Man and towards Walker. I don't think they will ever bring out a good version in the US. I can't understand why Universal won't do a sequel given how much money they made off the original Repo Man. It's an institutional animus. The kinds of people that get jobs in studios tend to be fearful of their superiors and that's how they keep their jobs. The guys at Universal, even though they were 13 when Repo Man came out, they've been told by their superiors: 'We don't like that film'. And that's the official attitude from generation to generation in the studio. They have an institutional animus which almost makes you think that corporations really could be people.

It's so corrupt. Now they want to have longer copyright periods because they say the young artists are relying on this money. The young artists never see any money because they sign away that money to big media corporations, like Universal and Viacom. We, the artists, lose all of our rights to these massive corporations, who then come down heavy on these kids for downloading films and music that we never see a penny from. It's complete bullshit. I want to encourage your audience to go and pirate a bunch of my stuff right away.

We are writing to ask you for help on an issue that is one our top business priorities – content theft on the Internet, which is a major threat to the strength of our business. Our major guilds and unions are joining us in the fight to keep our businesses strong so that the tidal wave of content theft does not kill jobs. But if the current trend continues, it’s not too strong to say that this threat could adversely affect our business relationship with you.

In July, we informed you about the creation of and Warner Bros.’ involvement with Creative America, a grassroots coalition uniting the entertainment community and others against one of the biggest threats we face as an industry: content theft. Thank you to those of you who have already joined and supported Creative America. This is an important first step, but there’s still more we can do.

Thieves in the U.S. and abroad continue to make millions of dollars off our work, talents and creativity. For instance, “The Big Bang Theory” is one of the most popular targets of digital content thieves, with more than 600,000 illegal digital downloads thus far in 2011. Meanwhile, “The Hangover Part II” was illegally downloaded some 700,000 times in the first five months since its theatrical release.

Content theft doesn’t just affect a single show or film or even studio. It affects residual benefits, pension funds and health plans as well as jobs that our industry supports—whether directly or in ancillary markets and businesses. Therefore, it’s in all of our interests to stand behind Creative America.

CBS Corporation, NBC Universal, the Screen Actors Guild, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Twentieth Century Fox, Viacom, the Walt Disney Company and Warner Bros. Entertainment

The service is part of an attempt by studios to harness pay-TV as they seek new ways to sell movies and counter shrinking DVD sales. Few customers will purchase the premium rentals unless the quality of the movies improves and the price comes down, White said in an interview.

“They’re priced too high for consumers,” White said. “We didn’t choose that price, but that’s where the studios forced us to be.”

"The court found large scale copyright infringements, that iiNet knew they were occurring, that iiNet had the contractual and technical capacity to stop them and iiNet did nothing about them."

Regardless of the actual quality of the evidence gathering of DtecNet, copyright infringement is not a straight 'yes' or 'no' question. The Court has had to examine a very significant quantity of technical and legal detail over dozens of pages in this judgment in order to determine whether iiNet users, and how often iiNet users, infringe copyright by use of the BitTorrent system. The respondent had no such guidance before these proceedings came to be heard. The respondent apparently did not properly understand how the evidence of infringements underlying the AFACT Notices was gathered. The respondent was understandably reluctant to allege copyright infringement and terminate based on that allegation. However, the reasonableness of terminating subscribers on the basis of non-payment of fees does not dictate that warning and termination on the basis of AFACT Notices was equally reasonable. Unlike an allegation of copyright infringement, the respondent did not need a third party to provide evidence that its subscribers had not paid their fees before taking action to terminate an account for such reason.

One need only consider the lengthy, complex and necessary deliberations of the Court upon the question of primary infringement to appreciate that the nature of copyright infringements within the BitTorrent system, and the concept of 'repeat infringer', are not self-evident. It is highly problematic to conclude that such issues ought to be decided by a party, such as the respondent, rather than a court. Copyright infringement is not a simple issue. Such problems as identified are not insurmountable, but they do weigh against a finding that the respondent could conclusively decide that infringement had occurred and that it had the relevant power to prevent by warning, suspension or termination of subscriber accounts, even if it had the technical capability to do so.

They send us a list of IP addresses and say 'this IP address was involved in a breach on this date'. We look at that say 'well what do you want us to do with this? We can't release the person's details to you on the basis of an allegation and we can't go and kick the customer off on the basis of an allegation from someone else'. So we say 'you are alleging the person has broken the law; we're passing it to the police. Let them deal with it'.

"I find that iiNet simply can't be seen as approving infringement," said Justice Cowdroy.

Justice Cowdroy found iiNet users had infringed copyright by downloading films on BitTorrent, but he found that the number of infringers was far less than alleged by AFACT.

More importantly, Justice Cowdroy said that the "mere provision of access to internet is not the means to infringement".

"Copyright infringement occured as result of use of BitTorrent, not the Internet," he said. "iiNet has no control over BitTorrent system and not responsible for BitTorrent system."

The fact worldwide piracy was rife "does not necessitate or compel a finding of authorisation, just because it is felt there is something that must be done", he said.

Two recent stories illustrate the sort of threats Hollywood is facing. First, the New York Times profiles some of the many online video startups that have sprung up in the last couple of years. These sites develop a variety of different types of content and are built on a variety of different business models. Some are producing "webisodes": scripted, episodic video programs. Others are creating low-budget comedy clips to spread virally. For example, this silly clip of Will Farrell arguing with a 2-year-old has apparently racked up nearly 50 million views. At the opposite extreme, TechCrunch reports on Blowtorch, which has raised $50 million in venture capital to launch a new low-budget movie studio. The company plans to produce movies for about $5 million each, and has lined up 600 theaters near college campuses to show their movies. They're planning to solicit short films on their websites, and show the best short films on the big screen before their movies. It is, as TechCrunch puts it, "a movie company that is thinking like a cable channel": providing users with content whenever and whereever they want it, instead of trying to force users to watch content on the studio's schedule.

Now, it should be emphasized that it's far from certain that any given company will succeed. A lot of the content on these sites isn't that great. But with so many companies trying so many different approaches, it seems likely that some of them will create some hits. And if the flow of new content from Hollywood dries up, that's obviously going to create a huge opening for these sites. And once one of these companies creates a loyal following, Hollywood is going to find it awfully difficult to lure them back.