A Warning Against Film Piracy

The most memorable DVD "FBI Anti-Piracy Warning" was the one I saw before the start of the 1945 film And Then There Were None, which was based on an Agatha Christie mystery novel, and starred Barry Fitzgerald. In this warning, a computer-generated image of a man is seen in prison stripes walking forlornly into a prison cell. The cell door slides shut, the scene blacks out briefly. He is next shown sitting on his prison cot, head in his hands. Then the "FBI Warning" message crawls up the screen as a mournful harmonica is heard throughout the segment.

If that doesn't send home the message that film piracy has serious consequences then nothing will.

A History Lesson

This unpublished letter-to-the-editor was sent to the New York Daily News "Voice of the People" via e-mail on May 1, 2015.

Dear Editor:

I don't excuse or condone the actions of the rioters and looters in Baltimore. And Voicer Andrew Keats is correct when he stated that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. "didn't sit at home waiting for an excuse to steal, destroy and riot." However, Keats paints a rose-colored depiction of the civil rights movement and Dr. King's peaceful and nonviolent marches. He overlooks the fact that despite Dr. King's nonviolent protests against social injustice, he was still thought to be a lawbreaker, an agitator, and a Communist dupe, if not an outright Communist, by Southern segregationists, conservative religious leaders, and J. Edgar Hoover of the FBI.

Sincerely yours,
Charles Michael Smith