Don Murphy on Website Pics

Don Murphy the other day decided to add his 2 cents into the court of public opinion regarding the recent spate of Transformers pictures, such as the Bumblebees one, that has been hitting the internet these last few weeks over on his website forum.

What is So Hard To Understand?
Listen
If it were entirely up to me
If it were my $140 million
I'd say go crazy, find secret images and do whatever you want.
I'd even let the criminals trying to profit off out work at transformerthemovie (who tried to sell us the url a year ago) do whatever they want.

Because DON MURPHY (me) believes that fans make shit happen.

I was such a fan of Star Trek in the 1970s that I SUBSCRIBED to fondly forgotten fanzines like THE HALKAN COUNCIL and MENAGERIE.

I've read comics since DEFENDERS #8 at summer camp.

I am a fan who smartly has been able to turn what he loves into a film career.

Fine. Good for me. Who cares.

The problem when something like TF comes about is that you have a lot of other cooks involved.

You have Tom Desanto, a terrific guy, who refused to see the wisdom of the voice actors.

You have Lorenzo DB who jumps on to films and talks about the glory days when he ran a studio and made TWISTER.

You have Michael Bay, a majorly talented director who we were lucky to get, who is a total perfectionist.

You have Dreamworks execs like Marc Haimes and John Fox who sheperded this with me for two plus years.

You have Adam Goodman the president of production, the person who got Steven and Michael on board.

And hell, you have Steven, the most successful filmmaker EVER who wanted this movie more than anything and made it happen/

That's a lot of people.

And we aren't mentioning the dozens internally at Dreamworks or Paramount or those MAKING the film.

Or Ian who watches the cash or John, Roberto and Alex who wrote the thing... Or the dozens at Hasbro who own this behemoth.... etc

And if ANY of these people want to keep a lid on the trailer till Monday...
If ANY of them want to keep photos that they own off the web...
If ANY of these people want to stop some Welsh people from profiting from their images

Is it not their right?

Well, it is.

The people at TONS of sites have been hearing from DW over every leak.
People have been fired.
People have been sued.
That site WILL come down.

This is NOT anti- fans.

This is PRO MOVIE.

Again, if Chokass or any of the Tools from that site want to pay the $140 m plus then I say great, you run the show.

Otherwise, obey the law.

I don't have interests in being the guy who has to deal with the asshole fans.

There are just too many good guys out there who I have met through this board.

On their msg board that suck site comments on my behavior as if THEY DESERVE POLITENESS for behavior that has ruined my freaking day because of all the calls I had to deal with from legal etc.

They aren't fans. Fans don't advertise.

In fact- wait for it- TFW2005 and ALLSPARK and SEIBERTRON - they are run by fans. I met the TFW guy after FIGHTING with the guy and the ill will disappeared in FIVE seconds- because we were both fans and just wanted fans to be happy.

So what the hell am I banging on about-

Hate me, hate Michael, hate whatever the hell you want.

But break the law, someone is gonna call me. Someone is gonna smack you.

And you deserve it.

To sum it up, he is saying don't post unauthorized pics, the work being depicted is not sure yours to make money off of. He personally doesn't care but understands why others do, so stop it. He has a point on that, I definitely see where the others are coming from.

Having said that, it doesn't really change anything. Sorry but on all these sites devoted to sharing and releasing information about movies, entertainment, Transformers, etc, their mandate is information. A picture from the movie is information. Failure to share it fails in their mandate which in turns fails the readers of the sites. Its basically a rock and a hard place. For every site that tries to maintain the "trust" with the studio there are going to be a dozen that doesn't. Keep in mind this trust with the studio is a one way street, which is fine, but it means there is no obligation to listen to them or follow their orders.

This is saying its not "right" just explaining the way things are, like it or not. Its more welcome to the real world, rather then the la-la world of Hollywood where money and how people get it follows its own strange set of business rules.

I am curious to any lawyers out there, how do sharing pictures like this break the law? Its seems like Don et al are on very legal shaky ground claiming that posting a pic is in violation of the law. Also am I wrong, but wouldn't any case they bring be a civil, not criminal case?

Of course all that is moot since the justice system is less about the law and what is "right" and more about who has the means and the money to get what they want. In this case the studio does and the average site owner doesn't so I think most, include myself, will continue to do as instructed when we receive the notice to pull something from a site.

Until then, all I can say is I will try to continue to post information as I get it, pics and all. I will link to sources when I have them as its only fair and I hope I get reciprocated on that. I still want information and any pics you stumble across as it seems of late I find out about only after the studio has done their thing to get the info pulled.

I am looking forward to next year, I want this movie to succeed beyond all expectations as it means we can look forward to the birth of a franchise and all the fun in toys and media (and money for some) that entails. On that, I think all of us, the studio, movie producers, site runners, fans and so forth all share in common.