Listening Comprehension 4

QUESTION 16-20 ARE BASED ON THE FOLLOWING TALK.

At the same time that Brokeback Mountain hits video store shelves, savvy computer users can download the entire movie legally. The Oscar-winning drama is the inaugural release of a new video-on-demand service from Movielink.

Five of the major Hollywood studios started the California-based company, Movielink, four years ago in 2008 to offer time-limited online rentals of feature films, but Movielink Chief Executive Officer Jim Ramo says purchasers can now own a downloaded digital copy to watch over and over again. He said, "What we've tried to do with our launch is having a great mix of Academy Award winners, blockbusters and classics. We have a little over 300 titles in all with our launch."

Of course, video pirates already have those options. Warner Brothers Home Entertainment president Kevin Tsujihara says the new plan provides a legal alternative to online theft estimated to cost the entertainment industry more than $4 billion annually. Movielink CEO Ramo says the company's experience with some 100,000 rental downloads per month demonstrates that illegal copying can be prevented.

With a high-speed connection, a full-length film takes about 90 minutes to download. The digital files are in Windows Media format and will only play on a PC. Purchasers can burn backup copies to DVD; however, those discs will not work on a standard DVD player. Mr. Ramo says that will change when copy protection protocols can be perfected. He also notes that the downloads will not work on Macintosh computers and suggests Apple, which pioneered video downloads through its iTunes site, may have its own film distribution plan in the works, perhaps with Disney.

Movielink has films from Warner Brothers, SONY, Universal, Paramount, Fox and MGM in its catalogue. However, Mr. Ramo says the download-to-own service is only available within the United States. “Movielink was only licensed to do business in the United States, so we had a filtering mechanism that made sure that the only people who could get Movielink were within the United States. Having said that, I think we’re happy to see now that Movielink has already licensed other distributers around the world. There have been announcements recently in the Netherlands, the UK and Germany, so I think there are certainly more and more countries that are going to be opened up for digital delivery.”

Question 16 When was the company Movielink founded?

Question 17 What new service is offered by the company now?

Question 18 What kind of movies are not offered with the launch of this new service?

Question 19 How much does online theft cost the entertainment industry annually?

Question 20 Where does Movielink not allow download outside the United States at present?

本篇聽力取材較早，內(nèi)容是一家名叫Movielink的公司推出在線下載電影服務(wù)來對抗盜版和網(wǎng)絡(luò)剽竊。問題涉及公司成立時間、提供的新服務(wù)、可供下載的電影類型、網(wǎng)絡(luò)盜版每年造成的損失和服務(wù)使用區(qū)域。五個題目均是常見的細節(jié)題，考生在聽力過程中只要抓住具體細節(jié)信息并做好筆記即可選出正確答案。

本篇聽力的主要難點如下：

1. 專有名詞較多，比如Paramount, Warner Brothers, MGM等，還出現(xiàn)了電影名稱，如Brokeback Mountain是《斷背山》，如果平時生活中看電影等不注意，可能聽不出來。

2. 出現(xiàn)一些比較難的詞匯，如Academy Award winner奧斯卡獲獎影片，blockbuster大片，pirate盜版商，online theft網(wǎng)絡(luò)剽竊，filtering mechanism過濾機制，distribution發(fā)行，licensed許可的，digital file數(shù)碼文件，protection protocol保護協(xié)議等，也是要求考生有一定詞匯儲備的。

3. 注意力要求較高。Question 19答案位于前半部分，而Question 20則在最后一句話。考生很容易在中間這部分注意力分散等，所以，聽力考試時堅持仔細聽到最后一刻是十分重要的。