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MPAA Fights Pirates with Gentle Threats
Gillious writes "Wow! It seems the MPAA has learned from the RIAA's mistakes. It seems we aren't going to get mass-lawsuits for grandmothers and 12-year-old kids. I find this quote most interesting: 'The movie industry, he said, has to ask itself what the music industry should have asked years ago: 'Why do they want to steal from us?' The answer, he said, is simple: 'Because you won't sell them what they want.' The technologists say that what went wrong with the music industry can easily go wrong for movie companies, too.'"
I would be MORE than willing to part with a couple of bucks an episode if CT could let me download every Samurai Jack episode, or every ATHF episode in a format I can either watch on my PC, via my PC, or have the option to burn to a CD or DVD to watch with my DVD player.
Hear that content providers? As Samurai Jack currently stands, I'm willing to give you $100 right here and now. But alas, you seemingly don't want my money.
Looks can be deceiving. Or CAN they?
Or perhaps he's a college-educated, 60-hour-a-week working South American in a country like Uruguay, Peru or Argentina. My own (Peruvian) relatives earn about $800 a month doing work that would get paid about 10 times that in the US (lawyers, doctors, financial professionals). For paying for housing and food and even internet access, that's all well and good, because the costs are relative. For things like consumer electronics, DVD's and CD's, videogames and the like, those are even more expensive in real terms than in the US, and are essentially true luxury items. If I were them, I would be almost exclusively watching movies I downloaded online. Those goods were priced for US markets.
My brother in law always gets me BestBuy gift cards for the holidays. So since my bd is around this time of year to I normally end up with a couple of them. While shopping around I was going though the DVD section and saw all sorts of great deals. DVDs for ~15 USD and many even closer to ~11 USD. While some did get a little more costly they were all very reasonable for what they gave. A movie, which was produced at a rather high cost on average, some bonus material that is always fun to have, and lastly the knowladge that even though the silly DSS is there the quality of both the sound and picture will be quite good.
Then I was looking around in the music area and the prices were at least +5 to +10 dollars on average higher than the DVDs! And some of the albums that they were selling for clost to 20 USD were quite old. Many had to actually come on 2 CDs due to the size. Also, while for the majority of the CDs I saw there was no real protection on them, the quality could be kind of iffy depending on the metholigy they used to make it. (AAD, ADD, DDD. Thanks for not telling us anymore!)
So, after a bit of thought I game up with a few generalizations. I can buy a DVD with more content, the knowladge that this movie at some point had a lot of cash sunk into it (At least as much as it would take to record an album.), more than likely some extra stuff, and on average a better price. The only bad part is the DSS and the region but whatever. They are pretty trival to overcome if you care that much.
On the other hand I can buy a CD that is old tech, for typically more money, of questionable quality sometimes, but with no real protection to speak of.
Now maybe each respective orgnization can do a survay of what is right and wrong about each diffrent model and figure out how exist without continueally pissing people off but of the two I choose the lesser evil, the MPAA, as being able to survive. The RIAA is wayyyyy to far behind in the game to even come close to pulling their heads out of the sand.
Really, I know what I'm doing...Ohhhh, look at the shiny buttons!
What, you can't afford a DVD, but you can afford a computer and broadband internet access?
Seriously, the relatively low price of a DVD, coupled the hassle of finding a quality rip of a movie I want to see and the nuisance of waiting hours (or days) to DL the rip is one of the reasons I continue to prefer buying DVDs and watch movies in theaters. I've had plenty of opportunities to DL ROTK, but I'd still rather see it in the theater first and buy the DVD later. Keep the quality of the product up, and that won't change..a lesson the recording industry still hasn't learned. Dling movies is still just a curiousity, not a preferred method of aquisition.
You're using her as bait, Master!