Another retarded idea
According to a post on boingboing, Movie theater copies of Indiana Jones are being peppered with areas of Blank sound in order to "watermark" the film. The problem is that not only does the sound drop out at random moments, it also ruins the enjoyment of the audience. It's a common thing to complain about poor sound quality in a theatre (placing the blame on that theatre), but imagine deliberately marring a blockbuster film to give your company the information you need to pinpoint the theatre where a movie "rip" was recorded. The people who were good enough to pay money to see your film are being punished in order to find pirating sources. One commentor reports that they lost sound during an important section of dialogue.
http://www.boingboing.net/2008/05/28/paramount-silencing.html
It's sad to think that I have fond childhood memories of watching Star-wars, Indiana jones, ET, Close encounters and so on, only to have them ruined and abused by the grasping hubris of the people who made them and then grew out of touch. So many times now we try to recapture the special feeling we had when we saw (for example) Star wars in the theatre, only to leave with the suspicion that we were milked for our sense of lost nostalgia. You can say what you like about the depth of the Transformers movie, but at least that was true to the essence of the original content.
http://www.boingboing.net/2008/05/28/paramount-silencing.html
It's sad to think that I have fond childhood memories of watching Star-wars, Indiana jones, ET, Close encounters and so on, only to have them ruined and abused by the grasping hubris of the people who made them and then grew out of touch. So many times now we try to recapture the special feeling we had when we saw (for example) Star wars in the theatre, only to leave with the suspicion that we were milked for our sense of lost nostalgia. You can say what you like about the depth of the Transformers movie, but at least that was true to the essence of the original content.