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| 教 育 專 題 深 入 報 導《2006-04-07》 |
| 本期內容 | |
| ◎國際專題：我家電腦就是電影院 | |
| ◎盜版產生的兩個黑幫暴徒 | |
| ◎吾思吾師 找回教師熱情與尊嚴徵文比賽 | |
| 國際專題：我家電腦就是電影院 | |
| 策劃、編譯■唐澄暐、侯美如 | |
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從今天開始，想在家看電影不必再跑DVD租賣店了，電影大廠突發奇想，決定讓主流電影進入網路世界；據洛杉磯時報報導，將來，電影DVD上市的那一天，只要滑鼠一點，熱門電影就可以馬上輕鬆下載到影迷們的電腦裡。 然而，天下可沒有白吃的午餐，便利的代價可不便宜：下載《斷背山》、《金剛》和《傲慢與偏見》等片可能要比買DVD貴個2倍，而且下載的版本只能在電腦上播放，不能以DVD放影機讀取。環球製片總裁兼執行長里克‧芬可斯坦（Rick Finkelstein）表示，合法網路下載將可以彌補DVD市場：「你可以在線上觀看、或是創造自己的數位電影館，下載是消費者觀賞電影的新選擇。」 下載影片侷限於電腦觀賞 而提到網路下載當然就不能免除盜版的問題，電影廠商也早就想好對策，所有下載的電影都有嚴格的盜版防護，消費者可以自行燒錄光碟備分，但那些電影光碟無法用DVD放影機放映；換句話說，線上下載的電影永遠就只能在電腦上觀看，對於這點，沙發族可能要失望了。至於將來是否會出現突破反盜版機制光碟？芬可斯坦認為，消費者寧願按照規矩下載電影或是租借DVD，也不會苦等新的非法DVD燒錄技術問世。環球目前也正趕工讓一百部電影可以合法線上下載，以打擊時下氾濫的盜版風潮。不過，他同時也表示：「這是現在我們唯一可以做的，我們的遠程目標也是希望提供消費者能夠在DVD放影機上播放的影片。」 而這一切的便利都要感謝網路的發達，分析公司Jupiter-Research一份「2005─2010美國線上零售預測（U.S. Online Retail Forecast, 2005 to 2010）」的新報告中顯示，美國去年有65％的網路使用者有線上購物的經驗，網路消費者比例估計會在2010年前將提高到71％；此外，去年線上零售消費額共810億美元，預估今年可增加到950億，2010年時更可望成長到1,440億美元。該公司資深分析師大衛‧卡德（David Card）也表示：「線上電影下載是塊真實存在的市場，電腦的另一端有大學生、有上班族、也有小孩。」但他也指出，供需之間缺乏的連結就是「讓下載電影也可以在電視上觀賞」。 雖然都是透過網路，每家公司的做法也稍有不同：目前環球製片和英國的Lovefilm合作，提供線上電影下載及DVD寄送服務；華納在德國的據點In2Movies除了電影，還提供電視影集的下載，此外，它還採用類似BT（Bit-Torrent，一般HTTP站點或FTP站台下載易有同時間多人下載、速度就變慢的問題，BT採用多點對多點的傳輸原理，使得下載的人越多，速度就越快，提升下載效率）的資源共享技術。 而儘管已有不少網站加入電影網路化的行列，電影下載仍是限制重重：舉目前最受歡迎的合法電影租借網站Movielink和CinemaNow為例，Movielink只接受美國地區的下載，CinemaNow下載的電影則只能在一台電腦播放，無法多機分享，另外，電影超過試用期就無法再播放、也無法燒錄成DVD放映機可以讀取的光碟等等，在在都顯示出經濟競爭在電影進入家庭時扮演的角色。此外，不只租借網站對消費者設限，電影廠商同樣也不輕易讓租借網站公司占便宜，為了不怠慢DVD零售商，它們和租借網站的交易價格較高，同時設限也較多，畢竟DVD銷售量為電影廠商帶來的利潤還是不可小覷。 網路終將與電視連結 亞當斯媒體研究公司（Adams Media Research Inc.）指出，DVD銷售額占電影公司收入的46％，為上映票房收入的兩倍多。貿易聯盟數位娛樂集團（Digital Entertainment Group）也提出數據，去年DVD租售市場共為美國賺進了243億美元，並估計2010年前可超過3百億。對此，線上電影租賃公司Netflix的執行長里德‧赫斯丁茲（Reed Hastings）認為，DVD市場仍然是塊大餅，因此電影公司還是會專注現有的市場──像是研發新世代的高畫質DVD光碟格式：藍光光碟（Blu-ray）及HD-DVD──而非轉而分神照顧線上新產業。不過他也表示：「一方面，電影公司對大規模影像授權躍躍欲試；另一方面，網路終有一天會和電視連結，這兩個因素環環相扣，將來網路下載的影片一定可以用電視觀看，但那絕不會是今年的事。」 除了DVD市場較吸引電影公司目光的窘境之外，線上電影租借公司也表示執行上有困難。Movielink總執行長詹姆士‧拉莫（James Ramo）就說，「雖然提供線上影片下載已是敝公司服務大宗，這項已執行4年的服務仍在掙扎中求生存，因為我們提供下載的電影DVD往往已上市了個把月，到處的租賃店都可以買到了。」不過，拉莫仍對供應線上電影感到樂觀，他表示今年將是個轉捩點，因為市面上有愈來越多輕鬆將網路接上電視的硬體，「而我們提供的，正是消費者想要放進電視裡的商品」，他說。 抓住影迷的心 業者降價對決 拉莫表示，新的服務為消費者提供更合理的費率，更為影痴們提供創造數位電影館的機會，他說：「我們認為新的數位市場不只針對習慣使用電腦執行下載的族群，它更打動影迷的心」。從1969年的經典《逍遙騎士》、1962《梅崗城故事》到最近的《藝伎回憶錄》，消費者可以輕鬆點選下載自己喜歡的影片收藏。而雖然下載一部電影需花費20到30美元不等，幾乎是大零售商沃爾瑪公司（Wal-Mart Stores Inc.）一片DVD要價（15美元）的兩倍，拉莫對這項新興產業仍有信心；他表示，雖然價格較高，但好的服務會反映在使用的便利性和自由度上，從Movielink下載的電影還可供兩台電腦主機分享，使用者還可以將電影燒成備份光碟以供日後在電腦上播放回味。 拉莫對網路電影下載這麼有信心其來有自，瞧瞧Movielink背後的電影大廠：米高梅（Metro-Gold-wyn-Mayer Inc.）、派拉蒙（Paramount Pictures）、新力（Sony Pictures Entertainment）、環球（Universal Studios）以及華納（Warner Bros.），很難不去想像未來Movielink的亮麗表現。Movielink也努力爭取，將趕和DVD上市同一天提供《斷背山》的網路下載。同樣身為合法網路電影載點大廠，CinemaNow自然也不甘示弱，將和新力家庭娛樂公司（Sony Pictures Home Entertainment）、米高梅、以及獅門電影公司（Lionsgate）合作，推出75部電影可供下載。CinemaNow打低價牌，下載一部熱門新電影需花19.95美元，經典老片則只要9.95元；另外還有促銷活動，不論使用者下載的第二部片是新是舊，一率4.95美元；新興網路電影工業競爭之激烈，可見一斑。 e化之路有前車之鑑 這波線上電影下載的風潮令人很難不想起音樂界當初對線上音樂下載的反彈。1990年後期，Napster網站供應使用者直接交換MP3音樂檔案的平台，不但方便而且為不少消費者省下購買唱片的支出，自架站後每天全世界約有7千5百萬人透過Napster下載音樂，其後，在知名公司提出「未來5年傳統唱片市場將因為自由共享網站崛起而損失31億美金」的分析之後，美國唱片協會RIAA終於在1999年12月6日以「輔助及代理著作權侵害」為由，對Napster提出著作權侵害的控訴。不過，其後傳統音樂產業和下載網站之間的拉扯漸形緩和，2001年Pressplay和新力唱片及環球音樂合作，提供合法的音樂下載，再晚期的iTunes線上下載公司也與蘋果電腦聯手，提供更便宜更自由的線上音樂下載。已有經驗的iTunes Music Store這次也加入線上電影下載的戰場，看來電影e化的過程應該不會像音樂最初網路化的過程一樣掀起一陣腥風血雨。 回到電影工業，CinemaNow總執行長柯特‧馬維斯（Curt Marvis）認為電影界的「完美境界」應該是滿足所有的消費者，但限制下載電影無法在電視上觀賞的確不是多理想的服務，但他樂觀地表示：「這是個好的開始。」 （資料來源： http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-fi-movielink3apr03,1,464900.story?coll=la-headlines-entnews&ctrack=1&cset=true） Coming Sooner to PCs: Movies Starting today you can download big studios' films the day they're for sale on DVD. But you can't watch them on TV. Major studios today will make mainstream movies available for downloading the same day they are released on DVD - a signifi-cant step in Hollywood's tentative migration to the Internet. But movie fans will pay for the convenience: Downloadable flicks such as "Brokeback Mountain," "King Kong" and "Pride and Prejudice" may cost as much as twice what the DVD versions do and play only on a personal computer. New releases can't be rented online, just purchased. The constraints on services from Movielink and CinemaNow illustrate the central role that economics plays in the evolution of home video distribution. As they experiment with offering online video on demand, studios are keeping prices high and restrictions tough so they don't alienate retailers, whose DVD sales still pro-vide the vast majority of revenue. "We think this is a great consumer offering that complements the DVD release," said Rick Finkelstein, Universal Pictures' president and chief operating officer. "If somebody wants to get their content online and create a digital library, this gives them the opportunity to do that. This is another way for consumers to ac-cess movies." Piracy fears also prevent online services from giving techno-logical early adopters what they really want - the ability to watch downloaded movies on their televisions. That's because the stu-dios insist that downloadable movies include rigorous safeguards on copying. Users, for instance, can burn a DVD of a downloaded movie, but it will play only on a PC. Finkelstein said people eventually would be able to watch downloadable movies as they would any other DVD. But rather than wait for the technology to burn it securely, Universal is rushing to make more than 100 movie titles available online to provide a legitimate alternative to Internet piracy. "At this point, we wanted to get out there," Finkelstein said. "This is the only way we could do it at this time. The intent and goal is to allow people to also be able to have a DVD they could watch on their DVD players." The download-to-own services starting today are among a variety of studio experiments that take advantage of the instant gratification of the Internet. Universal Pictures partnered with online rental service Lovefilm in Britain to sell movie downloads for the computer, and also ship the DVD by mail. Warner Bros., meanwhile, sells movies and TV shows online in Germany through In2Movies, a service that distributes video using a file-sharing technology similar to BitTorrent's. But in some ways, the efforts by Movielink and CinemaNow are reminiscent of the music industry's response to Napster in the late 1990s. Early label-backed online music services such as Pressplay, launched in 2001 as a joint venture by Sony Music En-tertainment and Universal Music Group, were more pricey and less flexible than Apple Computer Inc.'s iTunes Music Store, which was launched later. "Watching movies on a PC - it's a real market," said David Card, senior analyst at JupiterResearch in New York. "There are college students, there are business travelers and kids in the back seat of the SUV. But the missing link to this kind of an offering is getting it on the TV screen." U.S. consumers spent $24.3 billion buying and renting home videos last year, according to Digital Entertainment Group, a trade association. And with sales projected to grow to $30 billion by the end of the decade, the studios are more focused on sup-porting their existing business - and backing a new generation of high-definition video disc formats known as Blu-ray and HD-DVD - not cannibalizing the market to support downloads, said Reed Hastings, chief executive of online movie rental service Netflix Inc., which mails DVDs to 4.2 million subscribers. "At some point, the studios will be interested in broad-scale licensing," Hastings said. "At some point, the Internet will be connected to the television. We see those as the two linchpins. That will happen eventually, but it won't happen this year." DVDs account for 46% of studios' sales - more than double movie box-office receipts, Adams Media Research Inc. said. Movielink Chief Executive James Ramo said the ability to buy digital downloads filled a void in Movielink's service. Until now, the 4-year-old service has struggled to attract a wide audience because the films it rents online have already been out for months on DVD and at the neighborhood video store. "There's no question that 2006, in part with the addition of this offering, is becoming a crossover year, as the hardware commu-nity is beginning to make it easier and easier to get from the In-ternet to a TV set," Ramo said. "And we are, from our side, de-livering the kind of content that a consumer would want to put on his TV set." Ramo said the new service offered fresher fare and let movie lovers create digital movie libraries of contemporary films such as "Memoirs of a Geisha," and classics such as "Easy Rider" or "To Kill a Mockingbird." "We think that this opens the digital downloading market not only to PC early-adopter types but really now to movie lovers who want to create these libraries," he said. Ramo said download-to-own movies would sell for $20 to $30 - up to double the $15 that discount retailers such as Wal-Mart Stores Inc. charge for DVDs, with downloads of clas-sic titles for $10 to $17. He said the premium reflected the conve-nience of the service and the flexibility to transfer the digital download to two computers, as well as the ability to create a backup DVD that also would play on computers running Mi-crosoft Corp.'s Windows operating system. Movielink will have a greater array of movies available to pur-chase than CinemaNow - including "Brokeback Mountain," when it's released Tuesday on DVD. The service is jointly owned by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc.'s studio unit, Viacom Inc.'s Paramount Pictures, Sony Corp.'s Sony Pictures Entertainment, General Electric Co.'s Universal Studios and Time Warner Inc.'s Warner Bros. CinemaNow will sell 75 downloadable films from Sony Pic-tures Home Entertainment, MGM and Lionsgate. Prices will range from $19.95 for new DVD releases to $9.95 for classic films such as "Taxi Driver" or "Easy Rider," although the service will offer an introductory promotion in which the second movie download of any film will sell for $4.95. CinemaNow Chief Executive Curt Marvis acknowledged that offering movie downloads locked to the computer was far from an ideal consumer proposition but called it a good first step. Marvis said "in a perfect world" the studios would introduce an offer that satisfied all consumers. "Unfortunately, it doesn't work that way," he said. "They need to take a first step to get into digital distribution for a variety of reasons. That's what this is, a first step." |
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| （回目錄） | |
| 盜版產生的兩個黑幫暴徒 | |
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南非電影《黑幫暴徒（Tsotsi）》甫獲奧斯卡肯定，電影的名聲就已在街頭巷尾傳開；因為盜版已在南非全國街頭公開販售了。 電影本身不論在國內外都頗受好評，甚至連真正的《黑幫暴徒》都湧入了戲院。然而，他們只要在街上花30元南非幣（台幣162元）就能買到盜版。但盜版片的結尾和原本電影的結局有些不同。 根據阿索爾‧富嘉德的小說改編的電影，是一個來自破碎家庭，被稱為Tsotsi的年輕暴匪的故事。當他在劫持的車後座發現一個男嬰時，他的良心戰勝了原本的他。當嬰兒在Tsotsi的窩裡陪伴時，他的溫柔面也逐漸浮現。這讓他想起他不快樂的童年：死於愛滋的母親，還有幼年時為生存而掙扎。最後他決定將嬰兒還給家人，此時，「正版」和「海盜版」的劇情開始出現歧異。 「正版」電影的最後一幕是渾身溼透的Tsotsi把嬰兒還給他父親後，被警槍團團指住。「海盜版」就比較戲劇化了。Tsotsi被警方圍住，嬰兒大哭因此Tsotsi伸手進口袋拿出嬰兒的奶瓶。一名警員以為他打算掏出武器，立刻射殺了他。奶瓶砸在地面上，牛奶灑落，Tsotsi倒在地上。 《黑幫暴徒》的導演蓋文‧胡德表示，盜版者從他們的電腦裡偷走了早先的電影版本，因此有了兩個互相衝突的結局。胡德表示，原本的電影還沒有推出DVD，等到推出時，會包含以下內容：電影的「正版」、導演評論，以及另外兩個設想過的結局，包括Tsotsi被槍殺以及逃跑的結局；此外，再加上導演另一部22分鐘的短片《店老闆》以及獲頒奧斯卡之後光榮返國的紀錄。 （資料來源：http://www.int.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=13&art_id=vn20060319115824167C350414） The real tsotsis are selling pirate DVDs Fresh from Oscar glory, the movie Tsots's street credibility now has a different meaning - pirate copies are being sold openly on street corners throughout the country. So successful is the movie - at home and abroad - that even real tsotsis (thugs) are thronging to cin-emas. However, they are also buying pirate copies for as little as R30 on the streets. But pirate copies have a different ending from the original movie. The movie - based on a novel by Athol Fugard - is a tale of a rough young gangster called Tsotsi, who comes from a broken family. His conscience gets the better of him when he finds a baby boy on the back seat of a car he has just hijacked. Tsotsi's softer side comes when he spends time with the baby in his shack. It reminds him of his unhappy childhood - losing his mother to HIV/Aids - and his struggles as a young boy. He finally decides to return the baby to his par-ents. Now this is where the legitimate version and the pirate one differ. The last scene of the original movie shows a sobbing Tsotsi surrounded by police pointing guns at him after handing over the baby to his father. The pirate version is more dramatic. Here Tsotsi is surrounded by police. The baby cries and Tsotsi responds by reaching into his pocket to take out the baby's milk bottle. It is then that he is shot and killed by a policeman who thought he was reaching for a weapon. The bottle hits the ground and the milk splatters as he falls. Gavin Hood, director of Tsotsi, said the pirates had stolen the earlier version of the movie from their computer, hence the conflicting endings. Hood said the original movie is not out on DVD yet and when it does it would comprise the follow-ing: the real version of the movie, the director's commentary and the two other endings that were considered, ie the one where Tsotsi is shot and the other one where he runs away, a 22-minute short film by Hood called Storekeeper and homecoming scenes after the Oscars. |
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| （回目錄） | |
| 吾思吾師 找回教師熱情與尊嚴徵文比賽 | |
送舊迎新囉！迎接新的一年，讓我們滿懷感恩的心，感謝過去教導我們、使我們智慧增長的師長，用一千字以內的短文與大家分享溫馨感人的真人實事。全教會贊助入選者稿酬每字2元，來稿請以電子檔寄young@lihpao.co-m﹐附真實姓名﹑身份字號﹑銀行帳號。本報有權刪修來稿﹐來稿者視為同意本報集結出書時﹐不另支稿酬。 |
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