Shaw-Brothers_Reloaded vs. Celestial Pictures !!

[Athena]

*From the mouth of MA HISING YI himself, thank you Ma !! :

"A few words in reference to the Shaw-Brothers_Reloaded vs. Celestial Pictures controversy and to give you some facts :

In the early days of Celestial, SBR and CP worked together with mutual appreciation and no economy in mind. But since Mr. Pfeiffer and most of the crew left/were fired and the newest head honcho together with a... bunch of incompetent replacements took over, the fan-site Shaw-Brothers-Reloaded faces heavy enemy fire. Finally, in 2010, Celestial tried to shut down SBR several times. They failed to do so legally. Their bitter grudge against this fan-site comes from the fact, that SBR also has a complete “Shaw Brothers stills/promo material/lobby card/posters Archive” (an archive which has been given to them by several intl. collectors). Those collectors bought the materials directly from Shaw Brothers (HK) Ltd. Stills Department way back in the days of the 1970ies/80ies, long before ASTRO bought the Shaw library to give it to Celestial for commercial purposes.

But Celestial is adamant that they are the sole owners of all materials in respect of the Shaw library. You know, if you want to show a movie still on the web, in a newspaper, on a DVD sleeve or in a book, CP charges between 100 and 300 US-dollars per single still/picture (depending on region/publication) and they are furious that all their materials are shown for free at SBR. They don’t care about the fact that the materials were legally purchased and they don’t give a toss about the fact, that out of respect for Celestial, no picture is shown in full glory (75-135 MB/per picture) which SBR could easily do if they wanted. As CP could not terminate SBR, now, in February 2011, they attacked the host server company to force them to shut down SBR. To nobody's surprise CP failed once more, as there are no legal grounds to terminate the web presence of SBR.

Sadly, the stupid war between Celestial and SBR will surely go on, as Celestial simply wants to destroy SBR. Celestial would be much better advised to strike a partnership deal and to encourage SBR to show and... promote their products and merchandise day-in-and-day-out but the fools in HK are stubborn and don’t see opportunities even if they are right in front of their eyes. SBR would work 24/7 for free and – out of love for Shaw – would help Celestial with stuff even Celestial does not have, but “NO SIR, we are a big company and we want to make money!” Well, it’s hilarious and CP is doomed to lose every time, as SBR will outlast them and will return time and time again. "

Thank you MA !! A nice & clear rundown !!

Xiexie, Athena

[SMK]

Thank you for posting this Athena.

Mahsingyi is a good friend, one whom without, my original website 'ShaolinChamber.com' would not have been as good as it was.

I can DEFINITELY understand what Mahs is going through. My YouTube account was deleted because of complaints YouTube received from Celestial Pictures. My entire channel, only consisted of original movie trailers of martial arts movies, including Shaw Brothers movies. For whatever reason, Celestial felt it was copyright infringement, but I honestly felt that it was nothing more than promotion. There are still TONS of Shaw Brothers videos, trailers and even FULL MOVIES all over YouTube, hopefully they will remain.

Shaw Brothers Reloaded is most definitely the #1 SHAW BROTHERS RELATED WEBSITE on the internet. Far better than anything even Celestial has to offer themselves.