MPAA President (Sort Of) Tries To Make Peace Over SOPA

[geizr]

Anyone else take one look at this guy's face and get an instant vibe that you can't trust this man at all for any reason? It's the way his face screws up into that weasel-like, sinister smirk that just screams "THIS IS THE VILLIAN OF THE STORY!".

 

[Something Amyss]

not doing a very good job is he ......

About as well as any politician (so no).

no, there will be peace when some one that has a way to actually combat piracy with out fucking every one else over in the process steps up, or this guy dies I'm ok with ether really

The former won't happen and the latter won't stop them, so we have a problem.

No surprise the white house decided not to go through with investigation. As Dodd himself said, he's sending them paychecks.

I think it's naive to expect politicians in Washington to investigate corruption, regardless.

 

[Something Amyss]

Defeating the pirates by destroying them is near impossible and likely harmful to your paying customers. Rather than stop pirates from their ways, compete with them (to take an idea from Extra Credits). They are already giving away your shit for free and without all the annoying crap the big publishers do to make it seem less worth it (DRM for games, poor translations for anime/manga, etc). Instead of making it seem more worth it to get our products from them, why not make us want to pay for the products your are selling? I've paid for most of my entertainment and am willing to pay for more so long as the quality doesn't diminish. But if it does to a degree where pirates offer better quality for free, then there isn't even a question of why we'd go for them.

I really do wish, if they learned one thing from all this, it's that they're only punishing their customers.

 

[Lunar Templar]

not doing a very good job is he ......

About as well as any politician (so no).

no, there will be peace when some one that has a way to actually combat piracy with out fucking every one else over in the process steps up, or this guy dies I'm ok with ether really

The former won't happen and the latter won't stop them, so we have a problem.

true enough :/ sadly

 

[RJ Dalton]

The MPAA was never high on my list of organizations I cared for. The past few months have just cemented their position on my list of organizations that should be destroyed.
In fire, if possible.

 

[SL33TBL1ND]

Basically, he's managed to (possibly irrevocably) harm both his and the MPAA's reputations with a large number of Web users

That sounds about right. Since I don't live in the US I'd never really given the MPAA much notice, but after this fiasco I definitely count myself as one of those people.

 

[deathninja]

...I just want to say that the colors of my eyebrows and hair don't match naturally. (Hair is red, eyebrows are blonde for some reason)

And we should trust you why...?

(Then again, I have skewbald hair, 1/2 a black eyebrow, 2*1/2 brown and 1/2 a blonde, guess I'm as deceptive as they come...)

 

[FalloutJack]

The line "It's nothing personal, just business" has NEVER been reassuring to anyone ever in life. It's on the same ticket as "We were just following orders" and therefore lacking in anything worth listening to. Ergo...

[HEADING=1]GAME ON.[/HEADING]

 

[Something Amyss]

That evil man will never die! He will probably live on, maybe even transfer his mind into the internet which he and his company loves to battle pirates (and everyone else for that matter) even after his mortal shell fades away.

That implies someone, somewhere at this level of the industry understands the internet, or modern technology period. Pretty sure we're safe.

 

[jpoon]

Anything done to destroy this mans reputation is a great thing. Dodd is a dipshit, who apparently just fabricates "truths" as he sees fit (1/4 of all internet traffic is piracy?). Screw Dodd, screw his bullshit bill, I hope he is brought down several more pegs along with the MPAA.

 

[LadyDeadly]

No chris. Go away. We dont like you.
That and its not like you stood a chance once you took your side.

 

[CrystalShadow]

"We cannot draw up a business model that accounts for the wholesale theft of our product. It's true for pharmacies. It's true for the automobile industry. It's true for software developers. And it's true for us."

Lol.

Of course you can. As long as the proportion of 'theft' is predictable, and the direct financial cost (Ie. Cost already paid, NOT potential loss of hypothetical income) doesn't exceed your net income...

Retail deals with this all the time.
A large retail store I worked with briefly had a business model that accounted for upwards of £10,000 in shoplifting a month being 'normal'.

Theft is something that you can work around as long as it doesn't get out of hand.

 

[CrystalShadow]

Foreign thieves and knockoff artists are a HUGE issue and one that is hurting the US to a tremendous degree. Some of the world's most powerful economies, like that of China, are robber economies whose success comes at a direct cost to the US and other nations whose businesses and prosperity are largely based on innovation.

The problem is that those issues have nothing to do with SOPA no matter how much they dress it up. A nation like China isn't going to stop analyzing drugs and selling then, counterfeiting designer jeans, or even stealing media, because of US laws. Indeed the problems exist because they ignore the laws of the US and other countries entirely, instead setting their own policies where this is okay... and why not since it benefits them.

Ugh, it's... you xD

No, China are doing exactly the right thing by ignoring retarded US patent and copyright laws, their economy is booming, every US company wants to go into business with them anyway cause they are so cheap and they will likely be #1 nation in the world soon, and not because they are "foreign criminals who exploit technology to steal American ingenuity and jobs", but because they aren't retarded enough to listen to lobbyists and implement ever more draconic backwards laws that actually hinder their evolution and do the exact opposite of furthering innovation, watch this: http://vimeo.com/36881035 and read this: http://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/0,1518,710976,00.html

Yes it's me.

Actually there is no way for China to justify doing things like analyzing drugs or knocking off patents and selling them at cut rates, it's theft pure and simple. The fact that China's economy is booming is EXACTLY why they do it, because they have very little of their own to sell and promote.

We let China get away with this for a very long time because we hoped that it would be a self correcting problem, with the economic prosperity leaking down to the common man, leading to that man making demands and no longer working in sweatshops, and a less oppressed populance innovating it's own things and wanting them protected and following international laws for patents and copyrights. It didn't work out that way.

Your 100% correct that as things are going, China will be the #1 nation in the world because it's feeding it's prosperity into the military specifically so nobody will be able to stop it, and also because it plans to invade other countries (and internally makes no bones about wanting to colonize other nations in the name of vengeance, and to spread out it's population and deal with it's own overcrowding problems). It's navy, anti-satellite/missle systems and other things are all moves in that direction.

With the US and it's allies being unwilling to go to war with China, businesses are increasingly willing to do business with them, in hopes of having positive ties/investments there should the focus of global power change. Not to mention that since the US won't take action to protect their business interests, using Chinese manufacturing and sweatshops is the only real way for them to see any profit at all, doing business with China at least leads to them making SOME money as opposed to none at all.

In the end though, like most things, it comes down to us or them. There is no absolute right or wrong here. China doesn't do this and it's going to sink back into poverty and irrelevency. If the US let's it continue it and it's allies are going to lose global control and gradually be rendered poor and impotent as money no longer flows into our coffers and we lose the intellecual properties and related services that we've been largely based our economy off of.

In the end though the US is too moral to go to war and kill hundreds of millions of people pre-emptively when it can, and prefers to wait for ideal solutions. On the other hand China is entirely immoral and willing to do whatever it can to dominate, including mistreating it's own people to use them for glorified slave/sweatshop labour while it builds it's military. Basically the situation exists because western powers will not act outside of a moral box of it's own creation.

No matter how you dress it up, that's the bottom line. In the end I think we agree on the details, and where things are going, just not on what should be done about it, if anything. One key differance is that in seeing the problem I'm willing to quash a rival and kill hundreds of millions of people for the prosperity and dominance of my own people, and you (presuming your from the US/West) are not and see the change as being inevitable because there is no way we can change things within narrow moral cooridor that you allow yourself to walk.

Me, I believe MAD has ensured world peace/stability and American dominance, but it loses meaning if nobody fears it. Truthfully with the way the militaries line up if we went to war tomorrow I think we could still slap China around (though this would be less certain as soon as 10 years in the future) if we did it properly and just set about leveling them as opposed to engaging in a police action or the quitessential stupidity of a land war in asia. In the end though the point of mutally assured destruction is simply that if the US goes down, we take everyone with us. Going down can mean anything from invasion, to simply being destroyed economically. I think the world needs some solid reminders that the US still has the firepower to destroy the entire world 10x over if it decides to use it, and if it looks like we're not going to be on top, everyone is going to die... period. As crazy as that sounds it's pretty much been the state of affairs for decades, it's just that recently people seem to be ignoring it because they don't believe the US will pull the trigger. Leaders like Obama who are so anti-war it isn't funny (when you get down to it) doesn't help with preception. Basically we need a warrior in the big seat that the world is going to fear, not someone crazy enough to convince them that he's liable to start shooting off nukes and sending out invasions for no reason, but someone who is understood to be willing to nuke people or kill hundreds of millions for the sake of his own people. The more people believe we'll do that, the less likely the US will go down, or actually have to do it. I'm a firm believer of the "speak softly, and carry a big stick" doctrine, but that only works if people believe your going to beat them to death with that stick if they don't listen, and your being nice by choosing to talk as opposed to having no other option. Right now we have the big stick located in a safe behind 30 differant security doors each of which requires the unianimous consensus of eternally bickering commitees to open, ensuring that all we do is speak softly and the big stick is not a threat and can't be taken seriously as one. "If you don't listen, maybe I'll thump you with my stick, if I can convince someone to give it to me and give me permission despite stringent anti-stick policies and political commiteees" doesn't work.

Wow. That is one of the most unbelievably depressing things I've read in a long time.

Probably all the worse for being very likely to be true.

I guess I have the worst possible combination of pessimism and idealism though.

I wish things worked in a way that wasn't absolutely disgusting to think about, but the evidence quite clearly speaks to the contrary.

(And this is apparent right down to the smallest details of the universe. Everything new is built from something old. - Which implicitly shows that to make anything at all, involves destroying something else. Me being alive comes at the expense of many plants and animals. To say nothing of inanimate matter that is typically given even less regard.)

So yeah... Thanks for reminding me of all that... >_>

 

[Signa]

I'm positively surprised about any comments by them where they don't use the phrase "foreign thieves" as their newly-coined term for "piracy" like this happy fellow [http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/08/opinion/what-wikipedia-wont-tell-you.html]...

On the other hand some of them apparently start to see [http://torrentfreak.com/sony-music-boss-censored-youtube-videos-cost-us-millions-120224/] and even speak up on how the Internet is a chance instead of an enemy to be fought, and yet others like movie directors seem to be going on long rants [http://www.quora.com/What-do-directors-think-when-people-make-a-torrent-for-their-movie] cursing the MPAA and their role.

I totally have to quote that last one, it's that good for the most part:

Spoiler: snip

What do directors think when people make a torrent for their movie?


Heather Ferreira, film director, 90s H'wood combat vet


As someone directing a feature right now, but who has been forced at certain times to consider downloading music otherwise made distinctly unavailable by the startlingly small cabal of corporations who now own all media in the US, and who dislikes monopolies, I agree with Quora respondent Mr. Lipkowitz. But my feelings are not mixed.

Things are getting better, but I've never been rich. I understood for years what it feels like not to have enough cash in pocket to purchase a listen or a view. I also know what it feels like to contact media companies, beg them to make now-forgotten artist or soundtrack XYZ available for purchase so I and others could spend our money on it, and then be met with either bemused surprise "that we even owned that property" or a stonewalling, bewildering "f--k off". The MPAA and RIAA tell audiences large media companies invite purchases of the movies and songs both organizations claim they are "protecting", and that finding whatever audiences want to buy is easy for the audience. That's not true in all cases.

For instance, I chased a certain 1980s science-fiction movie soundtrack the right way for more than a decade, tracking down and phoning all who had rights to the recording, and begged them all to sell a copy to me. I offered hundreds of dollars for the recording. It originally retailed on vinyl for less than $15.99.

After being ignored for years, talked to rudely by record label and motion picture score licensing executives and their assistants, told "I didn't know we owned that recording...", and directed in circles leading absolutely nowhere, at the end I found a dedicated aficionado who blogs about rare movie soundtracks because they are the passion of his life, and who can tell you every Prokofiev composition John Williams has er, homaged, because movie music is his life's passion, whose blog serves as a public resource to inform audiences of great movie soundtracks the large corporations are not making them aware of, and to make them available to those who want to learn about and love them -- and the gentleman sent me a copy of my desired soundtrack, which he had, free.

Is what I did wrong? Or is what he did?

After fruitless years of searching and begging the rights owners "the right way"?

Here's how it affects me, directing: If my next film fails to be mediocre enough to satisfy the taste of those delicate little former intern studio execs who sip lattes, name their babies "Brooklyn" and "Max", and take spinning classes at Crunch, and because it is violent it is not made available to mass audiences; and if those audiences however loved it at the tiny festival that ran it; and then can't find a DVD of it because I was too stupid or lazy to make it available -- and then, in frustration at me and the studios they find and download a torrent of it, and love it all over again, does that make those audiences "criminals"?

Come now, folks; come on.

We're all familiar with recent attempts by former Senator Chris Dodd, lobbyists for his Motion Picture Association of America and for the Recording Industry Association of America, and certain not at all well-meaning Congressmen, to enact and get passed two terrible ideas, SOPA and PIPA. We've been told these two bills are harmless to the internet, and that their lamblike only intent is to stop piracy, because the movie and music industries are desperately losing blood, and only the MPAA and RIAA exist to heroically save them.

Here's my problem with that.

I am directing a movie. I've written a B movie that got made by an actual studio.
(Cue pimp voice.) "Chris Dodd, where my money at?"

The MPAA has six major studios, such as Warner, Disney and others, listed as "members" of it. But a little research reveals the MPAA started as the MPPDA, or the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America. MGM and two other studios formed the group in 1922. They chose a former Presbyterian minister, Bill Hays, as their Chairman. Unlike Chris Dodd, who's no prize, Hays was a Republican: in fact for three years he was Republican National Committee chairman. This guy became the head of the MPAA with their blessing. (Indie producers at the time disliked him and the MPAA, and sued them, calling them a "trust" -- which like then they still are.) Bill Hays enacted what we call the Hays Code, which drafted draconian rules censoring what movie directors like me, and some of you out there reading this, could show or say in a movie.

One of the rules the MPAA gave us was we could never show homosexuality in a picture. They called it "the sex perversion". (Google and Wikipedia this for extra credit.)

Another thing our friends the MPAA told us we could not depict were interracial relationships. Their term for this was "miscegenation".

(Visit www.mpaa.org/about/history for a great belly laugh at how frantically today's MPAA tries to spin this era in their history.)

Thus what I see when I examine the MPAA is not a friendly guardian of feature film directors' rights, even at the studio level. Instead, I see a very large lobby that began as a Christian right-wing organization instituted to keep minorities off motion picture screens, promote racism and homophobia, and restrict creative freedom in America. That's how the MPAA began.

Now they are curiously interested in the internet.

This is the moment we would instruct the score composer beside us in the editing room to cue an ominous minor key double whole-note on the contrabasses and cellos.

The Motion Picture Association of America has never written me a paycheck for anything. They're not backing my picture. These are not nice guys. They are not in this business to help filmmakers at all.

They're censors waiting to pounce my film and yours with an NC-17 rating for violence or for showing two consenting adults laughing while enjoying sex (rape however is okay), while curiously no one censors the news media for showing my toddler second cousin Josh Powell's house burning down on daytime television with two toddlers just like her inside it, or informing me over breakfast that some Canadian guy sliced off a fellow Greyhound bus passenger's head and began to eat him while other passengers screamed, or showing eight-year-olds Paris Hilton's latest upskirt with very little pixellated out.

Isn't that pauseworthy? If there's no censors for the news, why for dramatic movies and television?

Anyway, I owe the MPAA nothing. They're not my or any other feature director's friends. They are a censoring organization not entirely dissimilar from The Parents Music Resource Center.

Cut, back to one.

Many musicians and singer-songwriters I know here in New York, and knew in Los Angeles, who never received a paycheck from the RIAA, feel the same. Where are the class action lawsuit award paychecks for these musicians from RIAA v. Jammie Thomas-Rasset? If either the MPAA or RIAA made actual financial support efforts towards filmmakers and musicians, e.g. the MPAA earmarking 10-30% of all anti-piracy legal victory awards towards funding independent filmmakers and their projects, or the RIAA making regular and substantial donations from their anti-piracy legal victories to musician-support foundations such as the JFA, or pointing portions of those awards towards funding music education in schools, then I might understand their philosophy. But the fact stands the MPAA and RIAA benefit nobody except their overhead and their attorneys.

There is profit in crusading. That's why there are so many charities. Do you really think Komen gave a real damn about saving women? As someone who has given to charities -- and I am sure you have too -- haven't you at time wondered why we still haven't found that cure, or gotten those children fed, after all this time and exhaustive money, really?

It might be because if these things ever did get truly done, the money to their charities would switch off. Think about it.

Crusading against others "fur die Kinder" has always been profitable. The MPAA and RIAA are using the same gimmick to line their pockets. "It's for the artists!" they claim. That's a very interesting claim.

Not one member of my industry I know has ever received dime one from them. They use us as hostages to strengthen their lobbies, as human shields to promote their fundraising campaigns (aka court cases), and alienate the audience against us with hysterical, hyperbolic legal jihads designed to make them and their professional paid lobbyists richer, but directors, musicians, songwriters, audiences, and American culture all the poorer.

And then they censor us.

What the MAFIAA fails to realize is p2p is not a black and white issue of "piracy is wrong; all of it; and if you didn't pay us, you're a criminal."

Lots of good people have been trying to pay to see lots of good films and hear lots of good music. But when those who moved aggressively to buy "ownership" of film and music are making aggressive efforts clearly designed to suppress public awareness of and access to quality entertainment and instead push, promote and force audiences to the mostly substandard media of this present era, and making few or no efforts to meet audience demand for the "good stuff", what is an audience to do?

If you want audiences to like your product, so make good, original new product, make it affordable in this economy, and turn the volume down on those movie trailers. Seems simple enough to me.

Mr. Lipkowitz is further correct when he says, "On the neutral side, unless the director has equity participation in the film, piracy does not directly impact their paycheck. Their fee is contractual." That's absolutely spot-on.

Piracy does not affect me at all, which is why, for example, Penelope Spheeris' stumble head-first into a hornet's-nest of online infamy and ridicule by openly criticizing something that does not affect her filmmaking future continues to confuse me and make me feel sorry for her. Spheeris apparently wanted notoriety, and believe me, she got it. I disagree with her and am fine with people downloading my films. People have downloaded mpegs of television material I've directed. They later came back and bought DVDs of it because they prefer DVD quality and that "hands to the touch" feeling of actual ownership. Most people do, and the MPAA pretends this isn't true and they don't understand this. If they like it well enough, they'll contact me for the real thing.

Lipkowitz continues, "On the negative side, piracy causes investors and distributors to reduce their revenue projections for future films. This will result in fewer films getting made and reduced budgets for those that do. Fewer films means fewer jobs for all creative and crew. Reduced budgets (among other things) can result in lower fees for key creative." I would amend his otherwise spot-on commentary so that the final sentence reads instead,

"Reduced budgets (among other things) can result in lower fees for key UNION creative."

For independent non-shop filmmakers and key crew, reduced budgets should not impact production quality or quality of life reflected in salaries. What reduced studio budgets adversely impact are studio features made that cost $150MM, the standard A-list movie budget today. One significant reason for these obscene prices is union pressure.

When a picture becomes shop (union), you should multiply your budget by at least three, because in the case of directors, which you asked about, a union director is DGA. All DGA pictures must be "maintenanced": this means only union crew members can work on it. This is when you begin seeing crew end credits such as "assistant standby", and your location fills with people who will not even be moving things or working, but instead standing joking and chewing gum and eating craft services while not actually doing anything, and your budget must pay them all union wages, health and pension. That's bad for the unions and bad for us. It's insulting to unions.

At its worst, the set then becomes an exclusive little "club" of 1 percenters who readily claim they are 99 percenters off set, with a knowing wink to each other, and erect 2-story rubber rats to terrorize films and companies who won't lie down for the beatdown as commanded.

Unions are ripping moviemakers and studios off: not as individuals, mind you, because true union men and women work hard at their craft; but there are many freeloaders who get union cards because of luck or connections, and won't do a damned thing on set, but get paid for it -- and owing to the power of numbers and the threat of what together those numbers can do -- called by one side terrorism and by the other solidarity -- you can't escape being maintenanced, and the moment your film is, its budget inflates to seven, eight, or nine figures.

As the individual workers themselves, unions are just awesome and that is all. As collective organizations, they are as nuanced and corrupt as the studios they despise, and absolutely 100 percent as greedy, and possibly more.

Bear in mind also that most A-list celebrities are members of Screen Actors Guild. Their top actors are also members of the 1 percent and make more in 45 days than any teachers in America will make their entire lifetime, and more than the GNP of many small developed countries.

They make $25MM+ per picture because their union, the Screen Actors Guild, is well-financed and extremely corrupt, and what SAG wants, SAG gets. They have rigged the industry so you virtually cannot make an A-list picture without kissing the ring of the capodecina and depositing a third of your little laundromat's income to their Mafia. Lowered movie budgets automatically point a bright Maglite of purity upon this dark, swirling cesspool of corruption.

I welcome reduced budgets for motion pictures. Lower budgets increase the creativity on location. More camaraderie often develops. Stories get smarter; tighter; better. The fat gets trimmed and we're brought down to the lean, the true grit of the story. That's what filmmaking's for. If torrent piracy causes this by forcing budgets to come down and fewer films to be made, then so be it.

If in retrospect we find that piracy is what it took to do that, it was long overdue, the industry was bloated and ill and frankly needed it, and then maybe tough love was the answer and it was worth it to save the movie industry and force a return in it to ingenuity, hard work and creativity.

So this rather long answer, at least from this movie director, is that my response to those who download a torrent of my current film is meh, with an addendum of:

?"Thanks. I hope you enjoyed it."
?"Please make the effort to track down my studio and contact me. Give me notes on what you liked or didn't about the film, so I can do even better."
?"If you really liked it, please consider buying the DVD of it in the future, when your finances permit that you can. I promise to include cool easter eggs and other goodies you couldn't download, and make it worth it."
?"Then, because of your support, I can make more of it."

That's all, really. Any further commentary to them would be shrugworthy. They're a potential paying future audience member. The technology has changed. The playing field is different now. We need to adapt to it, not it to us. The above is my adaptation. Thanks for asking me this fascinating question!

Thanks for posting that. It was a long read, but very enjoyable. It's nice to see some people actually get what's happening here.

 

[Chanel Tompkins]

Oy...hey Mr. Dodd...how about you stop kicking us in the crotch with DRM and ridiculous prices when we want to buy stuff legally, and maybe we won't go pirate shit to get the product we feel we deserve.

 

[samsonguy920]

If this guy had the spine and brains he likes to claim he does, he would put himself in a room with one of his opponents and try to explain his reasons that way. And then see how well he does defending them in the debate.
But you know he won't, because he has nothing to back his claims short of imagined figures, and too much fear that the skeletons in his closet will get out in the light of day. He knows the MPAA has already crossed the line as far as copyright law on their own side, with their own blatant breaches as well as their stepping on fair use. If this were allowed to become a true forum for debate instead of attempts at steamrolling bills through Congress, people would very quickly discover that small-time piracy pales in the shadow of the MPAA's and the RIAA's own crimes.

Snipped for space.

Yes, that is very true today as far as where China stands. The only solution to stop that, though, is for the US and other western countries to embargo goods from China. Any government leader who proposed that idea would swiftly get taken out of office by any conglomerate of corporations who are making money hand over fist because of their outsourcing to China of manufacturing and shipping. India is benefiting just as much because of that.
Part of the issue with that is the US, among others, is swiftly going to a sole service-oriented industry. People don't want to have to break a sweat working in a factory line all day. They want an easy cubicle or counter job and then hit the fast food and super-department stores after for their shiny gadgets and food that they don't care where is from. And then go home to their internet and digital satellite/cable to finish their day.
If you need an example of why this is true, then you need only look to Detroit and ask why that city is a wasteland. People complain about illegal immigration and yet they don't step forward to work the jobs that the immigrants are more than willing to take on, regardless of how long those citizens have been out of work and living on welfare.
Don't blame China for destroying our economy or being the worst player in the piracy affair. China is merely filling a niche that we see fit to open up with our demands of more entertainment, more bling, more techy gadgets, and all of it cheaper. I think that merely falls into the category of good business.
And China isn't so eager for war, as they have too many economical allies who would be alienated by that. It has come to a point today where a world war would destroy so much that corporations would do anything they can to prevent it. Instead smaller wars such as Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, and such are encouraged to create certain needs as well as burn off steam that would otherwise build up until too many countries ended up involved. It is true that China has the largest army in the world, but it isn't the best trained army, and most of it would be used as cannon fodder in any exchange.
Shortly before William of Normandy took over England, King AlfredHarold Godwinson was dealing with a viking invasion with its own aims to take over the isle. In one key battle, the viking army sent one man to hold a bridge which stood between them and AlfredHarold's considerable army. That one man took down over a hundred of AlfredHarold's soldiers before he finally fell himself, giving the Saxon king's army passage over the bridge to deal with the viking army. The vikings fell, but not before making Alfred pay a high price for the victory. This was a major factor that led to the Saxon King AlfredHarold losing the battle against the Norman William. When William made his bid to take over England, he did it with a smaller contingent of troops than what AlfredHarold had. But through poor policy decisions and not enough funding to military training, AlfredHarold Godwinson put himself at a position to lose long before the vikings even invaded.
China does have the largest army, yes. But they don't have the best training, nor ideal facilities for their soldiers. They are also focused on improving their economic ties to build their trading and manufacturing, which takes money away from their military budget. That is something that can not change overnight.
I don't worry so much about China. What I worry more about is the apathy and avarice the West builds upon to the point where things such as intellectual property are more important than human and civil rights. And we only have ourselves to blame.

 

[BlackStar42]

le epic snip

Just so you know, that king was Harold Godwinson, not Alfred.

Anyway, if this idiot thinks the internet forgives and forgets that easily, he's in for the shock of his life.