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?

本篇听力取材较早，内容是一家名叫Movielink的公司推出在线下载电影服务来对抗盗版和网络剽窃。问题涉及公司成立时间、提供的新服务、可供下载的电影类型、网络盗版每年造成的损失和服务使用区域。五个题目均是常见的细节题，考生在听力过程中只要抓住具体细节信息并做好笔记即可选出正确答案。

本篇听力的主要难点如下：

1. 专有名词较多，比如Paramount, Warner Brothers, MGM等，还出现了电影名称，如Brokeback Mountain是《断背山》，如果平时生活中看电影等不注意，可能听不出来。

2. 出现一些比较难的词汇，如Academy Award winner奥斯卡获奖影片，blockbuster大片，pirate盗版商，online theft网络剽窃，filtering mechanism过滤机制，distribution发行，licensed许可的，digital file数码文件，protection protocol保护协议等，也是要求考生有一定词汇储备的。

3. 注意力要求较高。Question 19答案位于前半部分，而Question 20则在最后一句话。考生很容易在中间这部分注意力分散等，所以，听力考试时坚持仔细听到最后一刻是十分重要的。