MPAA Finds First Actual DVD Copiers in U.S.

MattW writes: "Yahoo! is reporting that the first pirate DVD bust has occurred. Funny, isn't it, how the pirates don't need to crack any encryption to make copies of DVDs, but we have to ban DeCSS anyhow?"

Comments

A wholly inferior product?

[Tom Rothamel]

"Pirates seek to profit off the enormous popularity of DVDs by using the latest in technology to illegally manufacture DVD copies of Hollywood films, and again dupe consumers into purchasing a wholly inferior product," MPAA Chief Executive Jack Valenti said in a statement.

Hm... This is an interesting statement. I wonder if the people who they busted were actualy copying existing DVDs, or whether they were instead videotaping movies in theaters (or from other sources) and burning them onto DVDs. In the latter case, I don't think that CSS would be involved at all.

Re:No, some actualy are inferior

[Rogerborg]

• would you rather pay $10 for a pirated DVD or go pay $7/person to go see it in the theatre. For those people that have surround sound systems and large tvs, there's not really much argument.

Hey, maybe some of us like spending two hours having our seat kicked, eating $10 popcorn, listening to cellphones going off, and enjoying the rich gossip and giggles of eleven year old girls in an R rated movie. And I'll tell you what, I'd like to shake the hand of the guy that thought up the idea of monthly/annual tickets. No, not the hand, what's the word? ... throat.

Every wonder at what point the question became "What's the better experience?" to "What's the least shitty experience?"

Before anyone starts on the "why do you put up with it?", I'll mention that I've seen exactly three movies in theatres in the past three years, one of which was made in Hollywood. The other two were subtitled, which meant I saw them in nearly empty theatres, except for the guy who exclaimed "Is it all in Japanese?" two minutes into Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that there is really very little reason to cut Hollywood any slack at all any more. Cutting the bullshit out, their argument is this: if we can't control every aspect of your life, we won't keep making content.

Two points. First, that's not true. Greed and coke habits will take care of that. Second, would it really be such a great loss? I don't agree with commercial piracy, but I'm rather at a loss to understand why there's such a market for it.