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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."
"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?
Bandwith "can never get high enough".
Already I have seen DVD rips of an entire set of DVDs, making it more than 10 GB. Even with 10mbps it will take some time to download.
My lecturer in Distributed Communications said that "increasin bandwith will just result in software makers letting their software use more bandwith", which off course brings us back to where we started.
...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.
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.
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
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."
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.