You're right, ideas ARE like furniture

Update: Hi Boingboing readers! I think you're neat.

So, of course I've been working (sort of) on repairing my woefully broken real blog, just not very hard. In the mean time, this was just too awesome/awful to sit on, so I had to post it somewhere.

The MPAA established a website called My Movie Muse, and claimed that it would be a way for them to get meaningful information from moviegoers. In reality, it appears to be just a astroturfey push-poll. They ask you fluff like "who's your favorite movie monster" (as if the MPAA cared, or didn't have exactingly precise data on that topic already). And then they start asking you very loaded questions. A recent poll asked you if you thought various acts were illegal (downloading TV shows from P2P nets, for example) then asked you if you'd ever done them. If you answered yes, it asked you why you did something that you considered illegal in a very scolding tone.

They sent out this newsletter today. I've added emphasis to the good parts. Basically, their poll seems to have confirmed that they can indeed fleece consumers into thinking that ideas can be physically posessed, and that there's no such thing as Fair Use or The First Sale Doctrine. I'll add some commentary after the email:

newsletter
October 2006

WELCOME TO THE FIRST
MY MOVIE MUSE NEWSLETTER!

FIRST SURVEY RESULTS ARE IN
Thanks to all of you who filled out the first My Movie Muse survey.  We wanted to share some of the results with you, and with Halloween just around the corner, we asked you:

Which of the following is your favorite MOVIE MONSTER?
Dracula - 27%
Alien - 26%
King Kong - 16%
Frankenstein - 11%
Predator - 9%
Godzilla - 8%
The Blob - 3%

Here are some other results from the survey that you might be interested in:

Favorite Movie:
The Lord of the Rings Trilogy

Favorite Movie Adapted from a Book:
The Lord of the Rings Trilogy

Favorite Movie Quote:
"Go ahead, make my day."

Copyright Knowledge
One-third of you know that copyright protection came from the U.S. Constitution.
86% of you feel that creative ideas are property, just like furniture.
99% of you feel that people should be compensated for their creative works.
64% of you would feel angry or violated if you found out that someone was selling a picture you painted on eBay.

Entertainment Preferences
You watch movies on DVD, VHS, or TV more frequently than you go to the theater, to sporting events, or to music concerts.

HALLOWEEN TRIVIA
In honor of Halloween, we rounded up some scary movie facts for you.  Did you know that...

Michael Myers never actually appeared in the third installment of the Halloween movies.
Jason Voorhees of 'Friday the 13th" killed more people than Freddy Krueger, Michael Myers, and Candyman.
"Psycho" and "Scream" both contained the line, "We all go a little mad sometimes."
Johnny Depp got his first acting job on "Nightmare on Elm Street".
"The Exorcist" was the only horror film to be nominated for 10 Academy Awards ®.  It took home 2 Oscars for Best Sound and Best Writing Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium.

BOND, JAMES BOND
With the next 007 installment due to hit theaters on November 17th, we found some Bond factoids that you may or may not know.

While the villains' plots usually involve world domination, in "From Russia With Love", the villain simply wanted to kill James Bond.
There were 58 women in all of the Bond films - 29 brunettes, 25 blonds, and 4 redheads.
James Bond actually got married in "On Her Majesty's Secret Service".  His bride was killed before the movie ended.
Ian Fleming got the name James Bond from an orinthologist who wrote a book on birds.
James Bond holds the title of Naval Commander.

2006 BOX OFFICE HEATS UP
2006 has been a promising year for the film industry.  And improved box office receipts - up 5% from 2005 - confirm what you have been telling us:  Good stories - good films, bring more people to the movies.
Here's a quick list of the top films as of the end of September:
   1.  Pirates of the Caribbean 2: Dead Man's Chest
   2.  Cars
   3.  X-Men: The Last Stand
   4.  The Da Vinci Code
   5.  Superman Returns
   6.  Ice Age: The Meltdown
   7.  Over the Hedge
   8.  Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby
   9.  Click
   10. Mission: Impossible 3

HAVE AN IDEA FOR A SURVEY?
We want to make sure that we offer you surveys on topics you're interested in and care about. Is there something specific you want to tell us? Let us know any ideas you have on movie-related topics, and we'll do our best to incorporate them into future surveys. Just email your survey ideas to support@mymoviemuse.com.

Thanks!!

Your My Movie Muse Team

www.MYMOVIEMUSE.com

• If creative ideas are owned like physical objects, just like furniture, can I buy them at Ikea? And is it expensive for me to think of new ideas, because I have to pay for thought-materials and thought-warehouses and thought-customer-service?
  
• If people should be compensated for their creative works, and creative works are the same as ideas, why isn't anyone paying me for all the ideas that I have every day?
• If selling a painting on eBay makes an artist feel violated, does Sotheby's make them feel REALLY violated?
• If "good stories" are what brought up box office numbers this year, why is that movie list's mean RottenTomatoes score only 59.4%? (54%, 77%, 57%, 24%, 76%, 57%, 75%, 72%, 31%, and 71%, respectively.)