(From Boy Alley)
Ok, I’ve raised over $14,000 for the FSC in the past, because I believed in its stated mission, and because quite frankly it’s the only organization that this industry has.
However, it’s a clusterfuck. I thought for a while that was due to the changing of executive directors, but now that the new one’s been in place for a while, it’s still a cluster fuck.
1. Where’s all the money going? How much has been raise? What’s the yearly budget? How many members are there? How much are attorneys charging us to fight 2257? How much has been spent on 2257 altogether so far?
It apparently refuses to release financials, or at least I’ve never spoken to anyone that’s seen them. Why? I’ll tell you some possible explanations I’ve heard. According to at least one employee, they’ve had serious money problems and they don’t want anyone to know about it. I heard some time ago from one of them that things were so bad, that they were dipping into payroll funds to put toward the 2257 fight and employees weren’t even sure if they were still going to have jobs or not.
I suspect the other reason why is that we’d all blow a goat if we knew exactly how much money some of these attorneys have banked so far.
I have no idea what I’ve heard is fact and what isn’t. That, to me, says more about the lack of information flowing from the organization than anything else.
2. They suck shitty ass at communicating with their members. Hell, even I, who has raised a ton of cash for them, can’t even manage to get a ballot sent to me come “election time”, and despite the fact that I’ve updated my name and address and phone number with them no fewer than 4 times, they STILL have it all wrong from a “data entry mix-up” they made over a year ago.
Their press releases are never timely, and there’s never any follow through.
They suck at communicating on the boards (where 99% of their members get their industry new from), to the point where they’re bragging that they made a total of 30 posts regarding 2257 since the new proposed regs took effect.
WOW THIRTY WHOLE POSTS JESUS CHRIST SON OF A WHORE THAT MUST HAVE BEEN A LOT OF WORK!
I can fart out more than 30 posts in 10 minutes that are of more substance.
3. Their membership “subscription levels” are gayer than I am and are about as intuitive as performing cunnilingus.
4. I haven’t even been able to pay my dues this year assuming I’m suppose to yet (because I have any idea when the hell they’re even due), and my 3 separate emails to find out when they are due and how much I owe this year were of course ignored. Did the FSC outsource to Epassporte’s Customer Service department?
5. They have a total lack of focus. They can apparently barely afford to keep the 2257 lawsuits going, and have not had any success with the fight, yet they’re now starting to sing the battle hymn against piracy?
Get real.
This isn’t like the RIAA or the MPAA where there are only a handful of studios that exist that can all come together to kick pirates’ ass (and you see how unsuccessful even they’ve been). There are THOUSANDS of producers in this industry. If someone steals exclusive content from my little program is the FSC going to go running out to sue the thiefs into oblivion? I think not.
I’m willing to bet this entire initiative would be nothing but a way for a handful of huge dvd producers to save themselves a shitload in legal fees by having all of us pay for their anti-piracy efforts through the guise of an “FSC Initiative”. I can smell that a mile a way.
