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Investigating Online Movie Piracy?
kewsh writes "There's an excellent piece from the LA Times via Yahoo! News which explains the interworkings of the movie, music, and software piracy scene, including quotes from former and current scene members: 'Common to most groups is a disdain for selling pirated goods in favor of giving free access to anything and everything'." The article also notes: "Not everyone in the scene is so pure. Some players... are suspected of selling pirated movies and music to commercial bootleggers."
is increasing (slowly but surely). what...10 mbits common place by 2007? say hello to zooming movie downloads :)
Disclaimer: I don't know what I'm talking about.
"The scene is closed to much of the world; would-be participants have to gain the trust of insiders and prove their worth before gaining entry. And the lifespan of groups tends to be short, at least on the Net, where players come and go."
It's only closed to those who don't know about P2P apps, IRC, FTP, WWW, E-mail, CDR/DVDR, and any other method of transferring data... and the easiest way to gain entry is to type something like "/join #warez950". As far as the players, they don't come and go, they just change their names and keep doing what they're doing. I'm sorry, but how silly is this article?
...the more they stay the same. I find it kind of funny that you can replace the word "Movie" with "Software" and voila! You have an article about the warez scene in the 80s.
Granted, we didn't have FTP sites or Broadband. You young punks don't know how lucky you have it! Why, back in my day we had to courier stuff at 24oo baud! (Ranting fades...)
Still, I miss those days. I'm glad I gave it up though. I'd hate to be caught now, in my 30s, and have my life ruined.
plus
what kind of loser would even consider sending a 1Gb file via email!
oh I remember, an Outlook user
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
Wrong. Piracy happens because:
a) People want something for nothing.
b) People want something before it's officially made available.
c) People want to impress other people with something they have but the other's don't.
It's nothing to do with competition - just the opposite. Every audio CD, piece of software or DVD that is released these days is done so at a price that *takes into account* the fact that "x" number of copies of it will probably be pirated - that means we all pay more as a result.
Competition results from not being a pathetic consumer, nothing more.
If you don't like CD protection, then don't buy protected CDs...
If you think a retailer charges too much for a product, don't buy from them...
If a movie isn't released on DVD quick enough, email the studio and don't buy any of their other films...
If enough people do the above, the vendor or producer has to relent.
I'm neither condoning or criticising piracy - I just wish people that do it would admit they do it for one of the reasons above, rather than trying to justify it as though they are acting as modern day "Robin Hoods".
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
"Every audio CD, piece of software or DVD that is released these days is done so at a price that *takes into account* the fact that "x" number of copies of it will probably be pirated"
No, every such such product is priced according to the maximum that the market will bear. Hence region lockouts on DVDs, with vastly different prices in different regions. Consider; if, in Bangkok, 90% of copies of a particular CD are pirated, that does not lead the local CD distributor there to increase the price of CDs. In anything, it may lead to lower prices, because the market will not bear an inflated price.
Piracy has mixed effects. On the one hand, it helps to keep the movie/music/software industries on their toes, making sure that the consumer gets value for money, and that the product purchased is worth more to the consumer than a copy. (e.g. the recent trends to add more "extras" to movies/cds).
However, on the other hand, it has a negative effect on the marketplace for the industries. This can (probably does) lead to some problems. e.g. some smaller production companies closing due to lack of sales. For example, imagine a small software house producing an innovative new software package, but then closing due to lack of sales. The package is now not going to be developed any more, even though there maybe many users (some using illegal copies). So piracy can cause the consumer to lose as well.
I think the current system is probably self-sustaining, with a degree of piracy keeping industry from degrading value-for-money too much, and the laws keeping piracy from wiping out the industries. Piracy and the industry keep eachother in check. I suppose it's a bit like walking a tightrope...
This shit is way off base - Kazaa? That virus-laden piece of trash? "Topsites"? Aren't those the fake sites that promise me LORD OF THE RINGS NEW GREAT QUALITY - JUST VOTE FOR US IN ORDER 1 2 3! Please. Bit Torrent, Win MX, and DC++ are the future. The fact that these people still quote Kazaa as the file sharing service of choice when there is far more material on DC++ alone is very indicative of how little of a clue these so-called "experts" and "tech editors" really have.
This is one of the things that really annoys and gets my goat every time I see it.
People selling pirated movies and music at car boot sales, markets, roadsides, ebay, etc. This is totally wrong and I think is what the RIAA/MPAA should target and not joe bloggs downloading britney spears from kazaa.
The people selling this stuff are not only tax dodgers, but are often taking the customers for a ride, some people often mistake these copies for the real thing and are buying in good faith, only to find out they have been ripped off by a shoddy inkjet printed jewelcase inner and an un-stickered cd-r costing next to nothing.
What irritates me further, is that some people are also under the impression that those who do download for their own PERSONAL use are looked upon in the same league as those who download, copy, and sell to people for huge profits.
>>No, every such such product is priced according to the maximum that the market will bear.
But most music is owned by about 5 big music publishers and movies by a few major film studios. Go into any music/movie store and every new release CD/DVD is priced about the same. That's as a result of monopolistic price fixing by the manufacturers and the retailer. The market "bears" those fixed prices because most people are too stupid and mindless to NOT pay those prices.
>>On the one hand, (piracy) helps to keep the movie/music/software industries on their toes, making sure that the consumer gets value for >>money, and that the product purchased is worth more to the consumer than a copy.
Piracy pisses off the industry to the point where the industry is prepared to spend some money to wipe it out and reap more profits as a result.
It does not reduce prices because, as I stated above, average Joe Bloke is too stupid to use an Internet connection to download stuff free anyway and instead pays over-inflated prices at the local store.
Even if there are 100,000 illegal copies of a movie (probably an inflated figure anyway), what percentage of movie goers and DVD buyers is that globally?
The fact is, the publishers *believe* they can make more money as a result of stamping out piracy than they spend on trying to kill it.
That means that normal users have to put up with being treated like criminals, do not get fair use of a product due to CD protection and DVD regioning, all because of piracy.
>>This can (probably does) lead to some problems. e.g. some smaller production companies closing due to lack of sales.
No, because the model I have stated above states that people will flock to buy a product if it does what they want it to at a fair price. It's nothing to do with size of a company, it's just about quality and reasonable pricing.
If you don't believe me, look at the number of small games companies charging a *REASONABLE* price for downloadable games on the Internet - there seem to be an increasing number of these (Small Rockets, BigFish Games, etc.) implying that this is a burgeoning industry based on the Shareware model that worked so well for companies like ID, Apogee, etc.
Films are out of the league of small companies due to the costs of making them but there is also a *growing* industry of musicians that publish their own music.
All this happens *DESPITE* piracy, not because of it...
>>Piracy and the industry keep eachother in check.
No, they do not, they are mutually exclusive. Film companies originally added extras to DVDs to encourage the consumer to ditch their VHS video collection and replace it with DVD. Extrass, now, have become the norm because everyone expects extras on DVDs they buy.
Again, as I said in an earlier post, I'm not going to moralise on piracy - what pirates do is up to them - but please don't try to tell me that pirates are doing ME a big favour by doing what they do - they do it because purely for reasons of saving a few bucks/pounds/Euros and for notoriety, nothing more.
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
It's probably because your netadmins want the bandwidth to themselves.
Nothing is more annoying than some luser consuming all the bandwidth when you really want the last rar-archive of the latest release
"Films are out of the league of small companies due to the costs of making them"
Only if by "films" you mean $200,000,000 Hollywood movies. The problem for small film companies is not raising money to make movies for a couple of million dollars, it's getting them distributed when the big movie studios own or control the vast majority of the distribution channels.
Most cinemas would rather take a crap Hollywood movie than a good independent movie because they know that Hollywood will spend another $100,000,000 advertising their crap and bringing in customers to buy the popcorn and soft drinks that make the profits, and that the studios will punish them in the future if they show non-Hollywood movies.
a) People want something for nothing.
Er, no. People want something for a fair price. What is a fair price is a good question, but regardless of the answer there is one reality and that is that over time the price of content approaches zero. For different bits of content, the times at which this marginal change takes place vary, but the reality is that once content is no longer timely then the price tends towards zero. Want proof? See how much you have to pay for stock prices delayed by 20 minutes. Then see how much a real time price feed is. The difference? Timeliness.
Music, movies, everything - no different. The metric of when this zero pricing starts, changes but not the reality. For movies it probably starts about a year after it is "released". Go and ask a distributor to show the ROI over time for their product. Even with their bullshit anti-competitive behaviour it is still true.
b) People want something before it's officially made available.
Officially, Ofsmishilly, they made the fscking DVD available in HK 2 years ago, they just don't think there is enough of a market in the US to justify and official release, but can you just buy the HK version and use in the US? No, because of the freakin' regional encoding (replace countries and times with parameters of your choosing and the statement will still be true). The whole parallel importing thing is just reaching offensive levels at the moment. The industry is trying so hard to screw over consumers, the line will soon be crossed. Watch cdWow for the battlefield.
c) People want to impress other people with something they have but the other's don't.
Some people just have small dicks, they have to have something to compensate. Better this than have them driving Porsches, makes the world a safer place IYAM.
Piracy (and it really is such a bad word) exists because the price at which the product is offered does not reflect its actual value and bad law is in place to force the price. On top of that most people are enourmously price sensitive to these products, they will take a shitty copy of a movie camcordered from a screening for nothing, but if you offer them a legit copy, for 2$ they still won't pay because it is the zero cost that makes the product purchasable. This is not the same as what you said "People want something for nothing", but rather it is true that, for some things, people will take a thing if it costs nothing, but that same thing at any price over zero has no utility. Given that they are already paying for their broadband connections the marginal cost of this movie or that song, is zero. Mind you, there are a number of purchasers that are not so price sensitive to the acquisition of this content and so they will pay something for a legit version, but the vast majority of those people are being frozen out of the market because the content creators are still above their utility level in the vast majority of cases. But even then, some not, because DVD and CD are still being sold. The issue is that the model the industry uses to determine price is so contrary to the realities of their product that they will continue to suffer until they work it out. And, no, $0.99 a song is not the right price, just better than $10.00 for 15 songs, 12 of which you don't want.
As for your list of things to do. I follow 'em all. Plus, I don't buy DVD at all (anymore) since I will not play their stupid game of funding their crusade against my rights of fair use. I am unable to resist going to the cinema, but at least the cinema owner gets (some microscopic at times) part of my money and I never go in the first few weeks to try and make sure they get the most possible, but I am close on boycotting it totally. Plus I don't download priated material. Sure, I have less amenity in my life than I would have if the industry sorted itself out, but I simply will not fund their erosion of my rights to use my purchases as I wish.
"The first thing to do when you find yourself in a hole is stop digging."
I watched in wonder a few weeks ago as an aquaintance logged into an FTP site he owns with some friends, populated with something like a thousand ripped movies, and downloaded a movie, burnt it to CD, and handed it to me, saying 'try this'. (I did not like the movie).
We're only a year or two away from seeing *massive* movie trading on p2p networks.
Anyone who claims this is about fair use is obviously trolling. It's about cheating, getting something for nothing.
But that does not mean it's necessarily going to be bad for the movie business. There is still a world of difference between watching a movie on the big screen and watching a movie at home. The video/DVD rental industry, however, is definitely going to die, I think.
The key to "anti-piracy" is to understand that the warez kids never pay anyhow. Whatever they're ripping/cracking/hoarding, it's always stolen and it's always for kicks, not because they want a quiet evening at home with the wife.
The only significant market for media sales (music, movies, and probably software too) is the bulk of non-technical people who look for the easy solution, for decent quality, and are willing to pay for it.
The music industry lost this market when it dropped the Napster ball. The movie industry still has a chance...
The film industry has perhaps 2 years to make a paid service for downloading / burning movies to protected DVD, if they miss this window of opportunity, they will find that their main market is already getting their stuff for free.
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Unfortunately, you're entirely correct and I don't know how things in the movie & music industry will change until the consumers themselves become more discerning in their tastes. With the software industry & the Open Source movement, the whole "Linux or Windows" thing is happening because there is a "change in taste". The people driving the Open Source movement are more than likely those that have been in the industry for years and are just not satisfied with the commercial, mass-market offerings. (That's a statement of fact, not an attempt to start a Linux v Windows argument in this thread). The movie & music industry is targetted at the "eighteen to twenty somethings" who desire nothing more than to be "part of the pack" and are generally therefore happy to accept the same old recycled plastic pop & bland movie sequels simply because "everyone else is doing it". It's an ideal situation for the media companies, a group of customers that will happily buy anything that's churned out if it's cool enough. Unless they change their tastes, I don't see smaller music artists or low budget films ever getting the popularity they deserve. As someone in his early 40s, I actually don't mind this too much in many respects. As a big fan of classic rock music from the 70's and 80s, because the stuff I like is a minority taste, I get to see bands now in 1000 seater venues that, 10 to 20 years ago, were "ants" on a distant stage in an 80,000 capacity stadium - and because I'm too old now to care about fads and fashion, this suits me perfectly.
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
> Talk to your average user, I doubt they even know that the Office they're running which they borrowed off the neighbour is actually breaching the EULA. Again, the average user doesn't understand because they see it as a victimless crime.
I don't agree with this statement. I think that most people know that this is a violation of something (a law or license, or both.) The know that they should be paying for the software. They also know that they should be paying Microsoft for Office or Windows or whatever, and think that "Bill Gates has enough money already" It is easy for most people to justify not giving any more money to a company that is already one of the richest in the world. If it was only a few bucks to share an existing license with a second machine I think that most people would pay and MS would have even more money.
There are always people who want something for nothing. There are also those who want to copy things for the thrill, or as a way to get friends, or for other reasons. These people won't go away - as long as the technical means exist (and in a free society, the means will always exist) people will copy works. I think that these people make up a small segment of the market - that doesn't mean copyright holders shouldn't protect their works, but this set of people is unlikely to destroy the business of selling recorded works.
DVD copying will run rampant if the MPAA decides to screw their customers. The music industry (the larger labels, anyway) raised the prices of CDs, homogenized much of the product, made CDs hard to use, and tried to extract money from customers for fair use rights that weren't theirs to sell. Record companies (RIAA labels) have a product that people want, but they decided that they could get more money from their customers than their customers wanted to pay. Once P2P apps came around, the large set of people the record companies angered had an alternative - copy the music and pay nothing. There would have always been copying at a low level, but the frustration of people with the record labels meant that as soon as a means to get records some other way came around, people would take it. Had there not been significant frustration with record companies in the first place, most of the people who get their music from file trading would not have gone through the trouble to do so.
The means to copy digital media is not going to go away. What will determine whether copying becomes rampant or not is the level of frustration of the customer base (and the cost of the product - e.g. high-end software). If it becomes very easy to obtain copied movies, more people will do it as well - but they probably won't try as hard if they aren't frustrated in the first place. At least, IMHO.