1、Unit 1Pirates of the InternetIt nos secret that online piracy has decimated the music industry as millions of people stopped buying CDs and started stealing their favorite songs by downloading them from the internet. Now the hign-tech thieves are coming after Hollywood. Illegal downloading of full-l

2、ength featurefilms is a relatively new phenomenon, but its becoming easier and easierto do. The people running America movies studios know that if theydondot something-and fast-they could be in the same boat as therecord companies. Correspodent: “ Whatreallys at stake for the movieindustry withall t

3、his privacy?”Chernin:“Well, Ithink,you know,ultimately, our absolute features.” Peter Chernin runs 20th Century Fox,one of the biggest studios in Hollywood. He knows the pirates of the Internet are gaining on him. Correspont: “ Doyou know how manymovies are being downloaded today, in one day, in the

4、 United States?”Chernin: “ I think it probablys in the hundreds of thousands, if notmillions . ”Correspondent: “Andit s onlygoing to grow.Chernin:” “It sonly going to grow. Somebody can put a perfect digital copy up on the internet. A perfect digital copy, all right. And with the click of mouse,send

5、 out a million copies all over the world, in an instant. ” 5And it alls free. If that takes hold, kiss Hollywood goodbye. Cherninrecently organized a “ summit ”between studio moguls and some highschool and college kids-the people most likelyto be downloading.Chernin:“ And we said, Let s come up with

6、 a challenge. Let s gfive movies, and see if they can find them online. And we all sat aroand picked five movies, four of which hadn t been released yet. And thenwe came back half an hour later. They had found all five movies that wegave them. ” Correspondent: “Eventhe ones that hadneventbeenrelease

7、d yet? ”Chernin: “ Eventhe ones that hadn event been releasedyet. ”Correspondent: “ Did these kids have any sense that theywerestealing?” Chernin:“ You know it s it sy.aI weirdthink theydichotomknow it stealing, and Idonthink they think itwrongs. I think theyhave an attitude of, It s here.” The Inte

8、rnet copy of last yearstarring Mel Gibson, was stolen even before director M. Night Shyamalancould organize the premiere. Correspondent:“The movie was about to bereleased. When did the first bootleg copy appear?”6Shyamalan: “ Twoweeks before it or three weeks before it. Before the Internet age, when

9、 somebody bootlegged a movie, the only outlet they had was to see it to those vendors on Times Square, where they had theboxes set up outside and they say, Hey, -weit haves notSignseven outyet. And you walk by and you know it s illegal. But now, because itdigital age, you can see, like, a clean copy

10、. Its no longer the kind of thesleazy guy in Times Square with the box.It just, oh, it ons thisbeautiful site, and I have to go, Click.”Correspondent:“ Homovies get on the Internet? How did that happen?”Chernin:“ Throuabsolute act of theft. Someone steals a print from the editorroom;ssomeone steals

11、a print from the person; the composer whosdoing themusicabsolute physical theft, steals a print, makes a digital copy, anduploads it.” Correspondent: “And there you go. al copies”Digitlike this one of The Matrix Reloaded have also been bootlegged from DVDs sent to reviewers or ad agencies, or circul

12、ated among companies that do special effects, or subtitles. Chernin: “ Theother way that pre-releasedmovies end up (stolen) is that people go tothere are lots of screeningsthat happen in this industry People go to those screenings with a camcorder, with a digital camcorder, sit in the back, turn the

13、 camcorder on ”Correspondent:“ Andrecordit.”Thisisoneofthoserecorded-off-the-screen copies of Disney s Pirates of the Caribbean. Not great quality, but not awful either. And while it used to take forever to download a movie, anyone with a high-speed Internet connection cannow have a full-length film

14、 in an hour or two.Saaf: “Well,this is just one of many websites where basically people, hackers if you will, announce their piracy releases. Randy” Saaf runs a company called Media Defender that helps movie studios combat onlinepiracy. Correspondent:“Look at this, all these new movies that I havene

15、ven seen yet, all here.” Saaf:“ Yep. ” Correspondent:“ Secondhthat just came out. Sometimes I feel like I mthe only person in this country who has never downloaded anything. But maybe there is a fewothers of us out there. So I m going to ask you to show us Kazaa, thatsthe biggest downloading site, r

16、ight? Saaf:” “ Right.This is the Kazaa media desktop. Kazaa is the largest peer-to-peer network. ”It calleds peer-to-peer because computer users are sharing files 8with each other, with no middleman. AllKazaa does is provide thesoftware to make that sharing possible. When we went online with RandySa

17、af, nearly four million other Kazaa users were there with us, sharingevery kind of digital file. Saaf:“ Audio,images,documents,software, andvideo. If you wanted a movie, you would click on the video section, and then you would type in a search phrase. And basically what this is doing now, it is aski

18、ng the people on the peer-to-peer network, WhohasFinding Memo ?”Within seconds, 191 computers sent an answer: “ Wehave it. ” This is Finding Memo, crisp picture and sound, downloaded free from Kazaa a month before its release for video rental or sale. If youdon t want to watch it on a little compute

19、r screen, you dono. On t havethe newest computers, you can just“ burn”it onto a DVD and watch it onyour big-screen TV. 5.And thata sdagger pointed right at the heart ofHollywood. Chernin: “Where movies make the bulk of their money is on DVD and home videos. 50 percent of the revenues for any movie c

20、omeout of home video ” Correspondent:“ 15 percent? ” Chernin:“ 50so that if piracy occurs and it wipes out your home video profits orultimately your television profits, you are out of business. No movies willget made. ”Even ifmovies did get made, Night Shyamalan says thatwouldn bet any good, because

21、 profits would be negligible, so budgetswould shrink dramatically. Shyamalan: “ And slowly it willdegradewhat possible in that art form. ”Rosso: “Technology always wins.Always. You can t shut it down.” Wayne Rosso is Hollywood s enemyThey call him a pirate, but officially he sthe president of Grokst

22、er, another peer-to-peer network that works just like Kazaa. Correspondent:“ Ok, I havedownloaded your software.”Rosso:“ Right.”Correspondent:“ Ok,did I pay to do that? ”Rosso: “ No,it frees. Correspondent:” “ Sowho pays you? How do you make money?” Rosso:“ We. reWelike radioare advertising-supporte

23、d. Correspondent:” “Andhow many people useGrokster?Rosso:” “ Tenmillion.Correspondent:” “ Tenmillionpeoplehave used it.”Rosso: “ Amonth. ”Correspondent: “ Everymonth, tenmillion people?” Rosso:-huh,“uhUh-uh. And growing.”10Correspondent: “Use it to download music, movies, software, videogames, what

24、else? ”Rosso: “Iwillassume. See, we have no way ofknowing what people are downloading.” Correspondent:just a fig“ That sleaf. You are facilitating,allowing, helpingpeople steal.”Rosso: “Wehave no idea what the content is, and whatever it is ”Correspondent:“ Well,you may not know the specifics, but y

25、ou know that s what yoursite ”Rosso: “ Andwecan stop it. We have no control over it.”Correspondent:“ But you are there for that purpose, that is why you exist,of course it is.” Rosso:“ No, no, no,. ”no,Correspondent:no,“ Comeon, this is the fig leaf part.” Rosso: “ No, no, no, no, no.” Shyis totally

26、 conformable with putting on his site a stolen piece of material.Am I wrong inthat? Ifmy movie was bootlegged, hedbe totallycomfortable putting itonhissite? ”Correspondent: “BecauseIhavenothing to dowithit.”Shyamalan: “ Yeah,right.”Correspondent:“ BecauseI just provided the software. Shyamalan:” “ Y

27、eah,right. So, immediately, how can you ever have a11conversation with him? Because hetakens a stolen material and he istotally fine with passing it around in his house. All these, all these areillegal activities. So, I m not, it s just my house, I m not doinwrong. ” But it is Rosso who has the law

28、on his side. A federal dgeju has ruled that Grokster and other file-swapping networks are not liable forwhat their downloaders are doing. Rosso: “Sowe are completely legal, and unfortunately this is something the entertainment industry refuses toaccept. They seem to think the judges decision was not

29、hingbut a typo.” The studios are appealing that court ruling. And they may follow the music industry and begin to sue individuals who download movies. And they are fighting the pirates in other ways, with ads about people whose jobs are at risk because of the piracy-people like the carpenters and pa

30、inters who work on film sets. At the same time, Hollywood is trying tokeep copies of movies from leaking in the first place. Chernin: “ You will very seldom go to an early screening of a movie right now where,probably you don t notice until you pay attention, someonefront of that auditorium with inf

31、rared binoculars looking for somebody s not in thwith a camcorder. 12”And once a movie is released, or copies do begin to leak, the studios hire people like Randy Saaf to hack the hackersSaaf:. “What were just trying to do is make the actual pirated content difficult to find. And the way wedo that i

32、s by, you know, serving up fake files. It”calleds “ spoofing. ” Saaf and his employees spend their days on Kazaa and Grokster, offering up thousands of files that look like copies of new movies, but aren t.Correspondent: “ Soif I had clicked on any number of those Finding Nemo offerings, I could hav

33、e clicked on one of yours, or somebody like you. And what would I have found after my hour and a half ofdownloading?” Saaf:“ it might just be a blank screen or something. Youknow, typically speaking, what we push out is just not the real content.Correspondent:“ What you are trying to do is makethiss

34、o impossible, soinfuriating that people will just throw up their hands and say it justeasier for me to go rent this thing, buy the DVD or whatever, it justeasier.Saaf:” “ Right. Correspondent:” “ That yours goal. ”Saaf： ：“ Right. ”13Correspondent: “Doesthat work? Is that a good idea? ”Rosso: “No.Itd

35、oesn workt. I mean I donblamet them but it doesn workt because what happens is that the community cleanses itself of the spoofs. He” means that downloaders quickly spread the word online about how to tellthe fake movie files from the real thing. Correspondent:“ It s likrace(軍備競賽）, isnt it?” Chernin:

36、“That s exactly what its like. Ian arms race. There will be, you know, they re gonna get a step ahead.We regonna try and get that step back. ”Rosso: “ ButI tell you onething: I llbet on the hackers. Correspondent:” “ Thatthey willbreakwhatever ”Rosso: “ Thestudios come up with.”Correspondent: “ Thec

37、ompanies throw at them.”Hollywood knows that downloading off the Internet is the way millionsof consumers want to get their entertainment-and that isnt going away.Chernin: “ Thegenerally accepted estimate is that more that 60 millionAmericans have downloaded file-sharing software onto their computer

38、s.”Correspondent:“60 million.”14Chernin:“ At 60 million Americans, that s a mainstream product. Thatnot a bunch of college kids or, you know, a bunch of computer geeks. That s America. ” So, instead of trying to stop it entirely,thestudios are looking for ways to embrace it, but get paid too. Wayne

39、Rosso says the best way is to negotiate some kinds of licensing deal with him. Rosso: the movie industry acts now and starts exploring alternatives andsolutions with guys like me, hopefully they won thave a problem.”Correspondent: “ Whatif they try to buy you? ”Rosso: “ I selld it in alheartbeat. Co

40、rrespondent:” “ Youwould sell, Grokster would sell to amovie studio?Rosso:” “ Sure,call me.”The idea of making deals withwhat Peter Chernin calls “a bunch of crooks ”doesnappealt to Hollywood. Instead, Fox and other studios have just launched their own site, Movielink, where consumers can download a

41、 film for a modest fee,between three and five dollars. Chernin:“I think you would love the ideathat you don t havegototo the video store. You can do this. And thatwhat we15 re workingon. But in order for that to be effective, we have to stop privacy, becausethe most effective business model in the w

42、orld can t compete with freeNot that Peter Chernin is interested, but he wont have the chance to buyGrokster, at least not from Wayne Rosso. A few days ago, Rosso announced that he is leaving Grokster to take over as president of another file-swapping software company, this one based in Spain. Groks

43、ter will continue under new management.Unit 2A plan to build the worlds first airport for launching commercial spacecraft in New Mexico is the latest development in the new space race, a race among private companies and billionaire entrepreneurs to carry paying passengers into space and to kick-star

44、t a new industry, astro tourism.The man who is leading the race may not be familiar to you, but to astronauts, pilots, and aeronautical engineers basically to anyone who knows anything about aircraft design Burt Rutan is a legend, an aeronautical engineer whose latest aircraft is the worlds first pr

45、ivate spaceship. As he told 60 Minutes correspondent Ed Bradley when he first met him a little over a year ago, if his idea flies, someday space travel may be cheap enough and safe enough for ordinary people to go where only astronauts have gone beforeThe White Knight is a rather unusual looking air

46、craft, built just for the purpose of carrying a rocket plane called SpaceShipOne, the first spacecraft built by private enterprise.White Knight and SpaceShipOne are the latest creations of Burt Rutan.Theyre part of his dream to develop a commercial travel business in space.There will be a new indust

47、ry. And we are just now in a beginning. I will predict thatin 12 or 15 years, there will be tens of thousands, maybe even hundreds of thousands of people that fly, and see that black sky, says Rutan.On June 21, 2004, White Knight took off from an airstrip in Mojave, Calif., carrying Rutans spaceship

48、. It took 63 minutes to reach the launch altitude of 47,000 feet. Once there, the White Knight crew prepared to release the spaceship.The fierce acceleration slammed Mike Melvill, the pilot, back in his seat. He put SpaceShipOne into a near vertical trajectory, until, as planned, the fuel ran out.St

49、ill climbing like a spent bullet, Melvill hoped to gain as much altitude as possible to reach space before the ship began falling back to earth.By the time the spaceship reached the end of its climb, it was 22 miles off course. But it had, just barely, reached an altitude of just over 62 miles the i

50、nternationally recognized boundary of space.It was the news Rutan had been waiting for. Falling back to Earth from an altitude of62 miles, SpaceShipOnes tilting wing, a revolutionary innovation called the feather, caused the rocket plane to position itself for a relatively benign re-entry and turned

51、 the spaceship into a glider.SpaceShipOne glided to a flawless landing before a crowd of thousands.After that June flight, I felt like I was floating around and just once in a while touching the ground, remembers Rutan. We had an operable space plane. Rutans operable space plane was built by a compa

52、ny with only 130 employees at a cost of just $25 million. He believes his success has ended the governments monopoly on space travel, and opened it up to the ordinary citizen.I concluded that for affordable travel to happen, the little guy had to do it because he had the incentive for a business, sa

53、ys Rutan.Does Rutan view this as a business venture or a technological challenge?Its a technological challenge first. And its a dream I had when I was 12, he says. Rutan started building model airplanes when he was seven years old, in Dyenuba, Calif., where he grew up.I was fascinated by putting bal

54、sa wood together and see how it would fly, he remembers. And when I started having the capability to do contests and actually win a trophy by making a better model, then I was hooked.Hes been hooked ever since. He designed his first airplane in 1968 and flew it four years later. Since then his airplanes have become known for their stunning looks, innovative design and technological sophistication.Rutan began designing