P2P File Sharing Ruining Physical Piracy Business

TorrentFreak has a short post up talking with a former physical data pirate, who sold his wares in flea markets and made buckets of money in the 90s. By the end of the last decade, his money flow had dried up, and he places the blame squarely on the shoulders of P2P file sharing. "Tony is very clear about why his rags to riches story has gone back to rags again. 'File-sharing, P2P - call it what you like. When you asked a customer why he wasn't buying anything, 9 times out of 10 it was BitTorrent this, LimeWire that ...' P2P is a very powerful machine and although Tony could see that his operation was feeling its effects, he admits that he sat back and did nothing about it and consequently, his business has paid the ultimate price. Other industries affected by P2P should take note: Don't be a Tony. Overhaul your business model. Quickly." One would imagine overseas media sellers will have similar issues, as P2P networks become more common outside of the Western world.

Comments

Nonsense.

[Whiney Mac Fanboy]

Utter nonsense - not everyone has the time & patience to download 1 gig files, then the knowledge to convert them to stanard DVD format so you don't have to watch on your PC. Tony should have taken advantage of this gap.

One would imagine overseas media sellers will have similar issues, as P2P networks become more common outside of the Western world.

No, one wouldn't imagine that. You any idea how (relatively) expensive bandwidth is in much of the third world? Much cheaper for one pirate (yarrr!) to download & sell copies to everyone (this is the way real free markets tend to work).

Re:Nonsense.

[timeOday]

Utter nonsense - not everyone has the time & patience...

OK, that's your speculation. But a real pirate who used to make good money at it, no longer does. Something has changed. And to quote the summary, "When you asked a customer why he wasn't buying anything, 9 times out of 10 it was BitTorrent this, LimeWire that ..." Seems pretty conclusive to me. Do you have some more reliable source of information you forgot to mention?

Re:Nonsense.

[franksands]

I have. I live in Sao Paulo, Brazil. We have dozens of "physical pirates", and I think they are doing pretty well, considering they are open for years. And I'm not talking about Mr. Tony with the CDs on the side walk, I'm talking about whole BUILDINGS with pirate stores, that sells movies and games as they are launched in the US, and sometimes sooner. Ask anyone who lives in Sao Paulo and they will tell you the same thing.

Re:Nonsense.

[rtb61]

Personally I think the most damage being done to 'for profits pirates' (versus happy to give away for free, pirates?, no, hoods as in robin) was by DVD bargain bins at supermarkets.

Pirates were charging $5 dollars a disk, pretty much the same price as a supermarket bargain bin, who would bother with the questionable illegitimate quality.

Yeah, I know you don't get the latest releases, but with the sheer volume of content available on DVD why bother with the latest releases, especially as most of the latest releases basically suck.

Re:Nonsense.

[tm2b]

Utter nonsense - not everyone has the time & patience to download 1 gig files, then the knowledge to convert them to stanard DVD format so you don't have to watch on your PC.

Perhaps not, but they don't need to. They only need to know somebody who does. Fans of content generally like to share the joy, especially if they can get friends to supply them with free media.

Re:Nonsense.

[Kadin2048]

Bingo. I think this is a big part of it. Physical piracy was a bigger industry back when DVDs were more expensive. Anyone remember when those things first came out? They were downright extortionate. When a legit copy ran $25 at Suncoast, a $5 pirate copy looked pretty attractive. But when you can get a wide selection of movies at Walmart for under $10, there's not a whole lot of room for pirates.

Black markets thrive on high markups. When the whitemarket's profit margins collapse, the blackmarket gets squeezed out (well, not hardly -- they move on to other things where the markups are still high).

I suspect that DVD videos would be a tough sell in the First World (probably less so in other parts of the world, where the cost of a movie relative to other goods, like food, is much higher), however, higher-margin information products like expensive software (Photoshop, Logic, etc.) will still be widely pirated and counterfeited, in both electronic/P2P and physical forms.

Re:Nonsense.

[Kjella]

It's quite clear to me what happened: "Inside 30 minutes, 90% of the stock would be gone with some customers taking 2 or 3 cases each, presumably to sell on." They were being wholesale pirates, one step up from the peddling to end-users. Clearly as burners got reasonably priced the bottom fell out of that market, sure there's the guy buying a few discs for themselves but anyone with a CD burner (later DVD burner) could do their own side business. I know several of the first people that got CD burners used that to part finance it.

Oh and bandwidth in the third world is expensive, but there's more to "outside western world" than that. Try going to South Korea for Internet connection, and you'll be pleasantly surprised. Remember that much of the cost is digging up the countryside, and where there's cheap labor ditch diggers aren't expensive either. Some of the poorer skipped phone lines altogether and went directly for cell phones and satellite, when they dig up it's either modern cable designed for Internet service or fiber going in there.

Re:Nonsense.

[able1234au]

In China DVDs are $US 1 each or less. Cheaper to get 100 DVDs than the time and money required to download them. And given that you would need to burn them to DVD anyway, you can see why the pirates operate. Like most markets it is price driven.

Re:Nonsense.

[Psx29]

I agree with you because I have friends who don't know/don't care to download anything but go right out and buy these shitty bootlegs that someone burns in there home.

Re:Nonsense.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, they are raided every now and then in Sao Paulo too (I live here as well), but they come back... 5 minutes later (I am not joking, I actually witnessed once).

Re:Nonsense.

[Dogtanian]

I live in Sao Paulo, Brazil. We have dozens of "physical pirates", and I think they are doing pretty well To be honest, my mental image of Sao Paulo (based on what I've heard and read) is somewhere where people are either
(a) Humungously rich, and could afford to buy three or four diamond-encrusted solid-gold genuine Windows Vista Ultimate install disks, simply using the spare change they found down the backs of their sofas, or are
(b) Mindbogglingly poor, living in slums, and would need to save up for a year to buy one of those 99-cent calculators.

Okay; I'm exaggerating, but not by that much. Sao Paulo has been called the most unequal place in the world, and I would have assumed that people would either have more than enough money to easily afford non-pirated software, or would be too poor to afford the computer to run it on, whether or not it was genuine.

Re:Nonsense.

[Anonymous Coward]

Ehm, convert? Why not just turn on your tvout card and watch the d/l movie over your stereo and tv? No burning or converting needed. That is sooo 90s.

Re:Nonsense.

[xtracto]

I agree, the speculation about the end of time for the "physical pirates" is pure bullshit. I am from Mexico, and, the prime example is the Tepito Market where people sell copies of movies and DVDs before they are available even at the cinema. They even sold the Xbox360 *before* it was out in Mexico (and the release time was the same in Mexico and the USA, usually what they do is assault trailers with merchandise).

If anyone wants to practice their spanish, here is a really good description of what the Tepito market is famous for in Mexico. Gosh, one of the main reasons why no one makes anything against it is that usually the heads of those markets (and the people moving the money) are the same of the people from the government!

So yeah, there is still *plenty* of demand for pirate DVDs and CDs (and even VHS!!) in the street.

Re:Nonsense.

[Anonymous Coward]

Pirates were charging $5 dollars a disk, pretty much the same price as a supermarket bargain bin, who would bother with the questionable illegitimate quality.

My supermarket bargain bin *is* selling Chinese pirate copies. The staff don't know the difference, I have no idea how far back up the supply chain you have to go to find someone who knows what they are selling isn't the real thing. People like Tony seem to have been squeezed out by the big people with enough money that they are called executives, not criminals.

Of course, I'm in a non-region 1 part of the world, where we get dumbed down releases for twice the price, months later than the US. Why would you buy the real thing here when you can get a better version while the advertising hype is still fresh?

Re:Nonsense.

[Anonymous Coward]

But that can change. I, for one, used to buy lots of pirated software/music/video - and now I can't even imagine me, or any friend, paying for pirated content. It may take time, but the change is happening. Most smalltimes like Tony are gone now, even in São Paulo.

Re:Nonsense.

[Fordiman]

I can tell you, though; the ones in Philadelphia are getting shafted by the internet. Of course, it's the states and most people do own a computer. And the ones that can't use it proper are also the least likely to buy a bootleg disc. Somehow, the computer illiterate are more likely to avoid picking up hot merch.

Re:Nonsense.

[1u3hr]

Same in Hong Kong when I visited 18 months ago. There's a whole building on Hennessy Rd dedicated to selling pirated CDs and DVDs. They get raided every so often

Slight exaggeration. You're talking about 298 Hennessy Rd. This is a three-floor computer mall with hundreds of shops. At any time maybe 20 of these are selling bootleg software. But most sell hardware and media. There actually several selling legit software. Back in the 90s, bootelgging must have been more profitable, software was sold by the floppy at HK$20/disc (about US$2.50). When CDs came in, they were about HK$50. But as CDRs and burners became commodities, the price went down, to about HK$10 per CDR. Then there was a crackdown, and lots of shops lost their stock. Now they mostly are fairly fly by night, having lists of software you order and they burn to demand, for HK$30-40. Thus they reduce having any stock on hand as evidence. I sort of miss the old days, the bootleg vendors were quite knowledgable about their goods and would discuss the pros and cons of Excel vs Lotus, for instance. These days the front men just collect money and have no idea what they're selling.

Re:Nonsense.

[Sique]

I can't talk about Saõ Paulo (never been there), but about Recife in the Northeast of Brazil.

And there is something called a middle class. They might not be that large in numbers, but they go shopping at Carrefour (the one I was talking about had a defective last "r", thus converting the shop into a Carrefou or Crazy Car) Supermarkets, they have their home with a little garden around (and a high wall with glass shards on top to ward off burglars), they work as attorney, clergyman, consultant, banker...

I was staying with a 70 year old woman (a distant relative of my wife), who was still working as attorney. She had her computer (about one year outdated compared with the U.S. or Europe) for her files, she was using it everyday, and I doubt that all the software was fully licensed from Microsoft.

Of course there is a market for computers and discount software licenses in Brazil. And Brazil has nearly 190 mio inhabitants, so if only 10% of them fall anywhere in the "middle class" range, it's still a market of 19 mio people for a portugese version of Microsoft Products.

Re:Nonsense.

[Dogtanian]

Maybe so; but I was thinking specifically of Sao Paulo (rather than Brazil in general) and that has a notorious reputation for inequality. Rest of Brazil? Yep; I'm quite happy to believe that there's a healthy middle-class there, it's not that I ever thought of it as North Korea...

they go shopping at Carrefour (the one I was talking about had a defective last "r", thus converting the shop into a Carrefou or Crazy Car) Ha ha ha :-)

Re:Nonsense.

[Constantine XVI]

I sort of miss the old days, the bootleg vendors were quite knowledgable about their goods and would discuss the pros and cons of Excel vs Lotus, for instance. These days the front men just collect money and have no idea what they're selling.</p></quote>

I remember when the legit vendors used to do that too. Maybe it's not just the people?

Re:Nonsense.

[franksands]

Look, don't get me wrong, there is middle class in Sao Paulo, and it is quite expressive. There is a huge inequality in Sao Paulo, but it is not so different from NY or Mexico City, or any other metropolis.

But my point here is that p2p is in no way ruining "physical" piracy. As far as I know, those pirate stores most likely use p2p to get their stuff.

Re:Nonsense.

[syrrys]

Patience? Convert to standard DVD format? Umm, I open a torrent file and let it go while I sleep. In the morning it is done. And as far as converting goes, its pretty standard now for the downloaded files to be in .AVI, which I burn right to DVD and they play just fine with good sound and video quality. Not sure which torrent sites YOU are going to. Good luck.

Re:Nonsense.

[Dogtanian]

the bootleg vendors were quite knowledgable about their goods and would discuss the pros and cons of Excel vs Lotus, for instance Wouldn't it be ironic if the pirates were giving better customer support than the big companies with their do-not-deviate-from-the-script-and-keep-the-call-u nder-10-minutes peons?

Re:Nonsense.

[Vexorian]

In what software concerns I could recon an issue for physical pirates. Thus dropping earnings.

Downloading 1GB Is not that bad, even my slow connection can do it in a week, and most of the times that's less than waiting for the physical pirates to have it on their 'shelves'.

Then you have the real reason P2P beats physical pirates, the physical guys use low quality disks that get damaged too soon, sometimes in the way back to home from the place you bought them... ...So then the stuff you bought gets frigged up. Gets lockups when you try to install or if it is a movie it has bad issues sometimes. And when you want to exchange they get "difficult". So it seems more confortable and less prone to errors to use P2P...

And I could swear I saw DVD downloads in .ISO format, so convertion might not be that much of an issue.

Re:Nonsense.

[mikael]

Really, I don't understand people who would pay $20 or $25 for a DVD. How many times could you possibly watch the same movie in your life?

My parents have bought DVD's of their favourite sitcoms. They seem happy enough to watch the same episodes more than two or three times, even if these series are more than thirty years old. Their argument was that there was nothing else good on TV.
(They have freeview satellite TV, but don't see the point in paying an extra $20-£30/month just to see the shows they already have the DVD's for).
Their tastes are light comedy - all the shows that the whole family would sit down to watch on a Saturday night back in the late 1970's/80's

However, their greatest complaint is the lack of consistency between the menu interfaces of every different DVD. In some cases, the menu is so badly laid out,
that trying to find out which icon the "next page" event is mapped to, is like playing an Sierra adventure game. Just discovering that there was a second page of episodes was a bonus. Having a red/yellow/blue box around individual menu items with no consistent up/down/left/right is not a good interface. A simpler and more efficient system would be to have a jukebox style menu system.

Re:Nonsense.

[fishbowl]

>How many times could you possibly watch the same movie in your life?!

Depends on the movie. There are some I have watched >50 times. There are some that I will watch a scene from many, many times.
There are some which are very nice to have among a collection, for guests to enjoy. There are many, many movies that I would watch
maybe once, and be happy that it's over with. If the criteria were the same for everyone, there would be a simple formula.

Re:Nonsense.

[colourmyeyes]

In Russia, at least as late as July 2006, it was this way as well. Stores (in downtown St. Petersburg, not just stalls in markets) stocked with pirate CDs, DVDs, and loads of software, all dirt-cheap. Many Russians who own computers do not have an internet hookup in their house, and if they do it's a prepaid dial-up line. OS DVDs typically come with large drivers (nVidia/ATI video card drivers) and large freely downloadable service packs on the disc because they know people won't be able to download them.

Physical piracy is alive and well.

Re:Nonsense.

[Junior J. Junior III]

But a real pirate who used to make good money at it, no longer does. Something has changed. And to quote the summary, "When you asked a customer why he wasn't buying anything, 9 times out of 10 it was BitTorrent this, LimeWire that ..." Seems pretty conclusive to me. Do you have some more reliable source of information you forgot to mention?

More credible than TorrentFreak? I shudder to think that such a thing could exist! Even the New York Times publishes outright lies and fiction these days.

Re:Nonsense.

[franksands]

As a matter of fact, they do. Did you ever try to return a PC game in a "real" store. It is a real pain in the ass, that's for sure.

With the pirates, you say you want to change the disc, and voila, in a moment they go into the back of the store and come back with a new copy.

Look, let's get one thing clear: I'm against piracy. I go to the stores and buy the CDs because I want to give something back to the artist, even though it's just a minimum percentage from the US$20 I pay. But I can't deny that the pirates have a better customer service :P

Re:Nonsense.

[rtb61]

The flip side to desirable, widely used, expensive proprietary software is of course open source solutions. Sure looks like the pirates really don't have much to look forward too, even over priced music cds is a becoming non-entity, where independent music and attracting people back to live venues is becoming the focus.

Computer games becomes the last real thing to protect, but do you need lots of licence generating crap to protect it, like the failed M$ Vista (FU)DRM or do you just need restricted read only media and a restricted reader to read it (something so simple as a cd/dvd that spins in the opposite direction, ahh, when greed and licence fees interferes with K.I.S.S.).

when

[mastershake_phd]

When will people learn that piracy takes money from the pockets of hard working people like Tony?

Re:when

[elronxenu]

Next up ... legitimate pirates (like Tony) join forces with the MPAA and RIAA to battle the scourge of P2P.

Re:when

[DigitAl56K]

To quote myself from another site on the same topic:

Maybe nobody feels bad for Tony, but think about what will eventually happen to the genuine distributors and consequently developers. If Tony couldn't even sell pirate software any more then how will anyone sell software?

Sure, there is that old argument, "the people buying from Tony probably wouldn't have bought it retail anyway". But stop and think about what's happened here: He had a big house, fast cars, expensive holidays, rented a warehouse, employed several people - that's all money that the real developers never saw a penny of. And you have to wonder - we live in a world where the younger generation (of which I count myself part) just tends to pirate everything. It has become the common culture. Apparently these days the majority of people under 30 "wouldn't have bought it anyway" all of the time - yet look at the masses of stuff they have pirated over time.

First Tony will go out of business, followed by the software houses we know and love, if it hasn't happened already. The article ends "Overhaul your business model. Quickly.". This assumes that there will still be enough people around who will be willing to pay at all. I know many people who go out of their way to pay for nothing - be it software, music, or movies.

Basically, if you're writing commercial software, you better have an online service or technology licensing program attached to it to make decent profits.

Re:when

[Anonymous Coward]

I download my movies, but buy my computer games, even though they're far more expensive. A movie gives two hours of entertainment, a game hundreds. Therefore, even ten bucks is too much to pay for a movie, but fifty bucks for a game is still good value. Games are available for download at the same sites I get movies, but I prefer to buy a legit version.

Re:when

[thrawn_aj]

Next up ... legitimate pirates (like Tony) join forces with the MPAA and RIAA to battle the scourge of P2P. LMFAO! I wondering when the RIAA and the MPAA would make it into the thread *roll*. But yeah, it is rather disturbingly sweet how people seem to care so much for the small guy here :P. Screw those rich freaks who actually write the software yeah? Wait...

Re:when

[DigitAl56K]

Okay, but think about the consequence of this behavior - you're consuming several forms of entertainment yet financing only one industry.

The same problem exists even if one parent company funds branches in two or more industries - nobody wants to finance a loss. The same problem even exists if you download software and pay for only what you consider the best of it, because this means that you will tend to fund only the biggest players, and startups won't have as much of a chance to break through. If we're really being honest, many people who claim they pirate to "try" software are full of it - ever hear of a demo? Demo's are a section of the game or an otherwise limited version that the distributors actually want you to try out legally, and base your purchase decision upon.

Now, believe me when I tell you that in my opinion the MPAA and RIAA are full of crap in most statements they make regarding piracy statistics. But based on the attitudes of many people I know in real life I actually believe we may end up in a situation where the populace is simply taxed at some flat rate for piracy, beyond what we have already seen for blank media in certain countries, simply because there will come a breaking point where the practice of piracy is so widespread that we'll face at least a partial collapse of certain industries. I already believe that if you ask most people about piracy today you'll simply be told that "everybody does it".

I do make an effort to pay for the software, music and movies I use. In the sense that many people I know simply download the same products you could say this makes me foolish, "wasting my money". On the other hand, when I put myself in the position of the developers, artists, and producers, I look at a real problem they're facing, no matter how inflated it may be in the industry stats presented to us by the media.

My main gripe, however, remains with the freeloaders - people who seem to see no value in any of the products they consume, or who delude themselves into believing that by simply "making a copy" they aren't "stealing" anything. Okay, so piracy is not quite the same as theft, but developers, musicians, and so forth produce works that contribute to society and culture. In that sense freeloading is most equivalent to not paying your taxes - those people who do pay are essentially funding various works from which you benefit. At some point the burden that is shifted onto the shoulders of those who do pay will become too great.

Re:when

[Tom]

No, it's a story about a business model failing due to evolution taking over.

I don't buy many games anymore. Frankly, I'm sick and tired of being hyped up for a year by some paid-for ads-cloaked-as-previews and then sitting down to play the game for all of 2 or 3 hours before it starts to suck because it was launched early, is full of bugs and the gameplay was never quite finished.
It isn't worth the 50 or so uros they charge these days.

On the other hand, I have bought great games after playing the pirated copy halfway through. I've bought the entire DVD series of Hellsing after having seen them all in ripped-from-TV downloads. A few years ago, I watched most new movies in my home theatre courtesy of bittorrent, mostly because I enjoy original versions over (often) crappy localisations, and the originals launched 3-6 months earlier in the US than the localised versions showed here. Nowadays, with simultaneous worldwide launches, I find myself going to the cinema again quite often.

Quality still sells. Listening to market demands still sells. Crap doesn't sell as well anymore.

Re:when

[DigitAl56K]

Hey Tom,

I understand what you're saying - but you have to realize that this isn't about what you do, or what I do, it's about the behavior of the overall population. If you believe that the overall population tends to follow your habits, then that is one argument. If, on the other hand, there is a growing population of freeloaders, then that's another problem.

Although I'm essentially replying to you here, I make this point more globally because I see similar responses everywhere the topic of piracy is discussed, and I think that except in very few circumstances they mask the real issue.

P.S. "Crap doesn't sell as well anymore.", agreed!

Re:when

[Benaiah]

"Ever heard of a demo?"

Most companies don't release demos. Or if they do it is way after the release of the real game.
So with my bandwidth I can download the demo? or the real thing?

If the demo was available before release, this game might be on my pre order list.

The real game has to offer something.

Starcraft/Broodwars is in my collection. I can play on free servers or the real deal. I have 2 copies aswell so when I have a mate over we lan it up.(Used to)

Purely single player linear games are a waste of time.

Re:when

[poopdeville]

Sure, there is that old argument, "the people buying from Tony probably wouldn't have bought it retail anyway".

There's another side to this argument. People that are willing to buy it retail wouldn't have bought from Tony.

Let me offer a parallel to the phenomenon I'm trying to describe. We regularly hear about people trying to convince their bosses that open source software is a worth while investment. And often, the bosses veto the suggestion. Open source software is often better than proprietary software, and yet the bosses feel the need to buy proprietary. Why? Lots of reasons: support, CYA, fanboyism, etc.

Pirated software does little to satisfy those reasons. Private enterprise makes up the majority of IT spending.

Re:when

[MadTinfoilHatter]

Maybe nobody feels bad for Tony, but think about what will eventually happen to the genuine distributors and consequently developers. If Tony couldn't even sell pirate software any more then how will anyone sell software?

If nobody is able to sell software, that's a very, very good thing. If the incentive to make proprietary software goes away FLOSS will have won, liberty will be restored, the Dilbertization of IT http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/03/17/175 256 will stop and Microsoft will die. Party like it's 1999.

Re:when

[argent]

If Tony couldn't even sell pirate software any more then how will anyone sell software?

By writing it, and selling it to the people who aren't looking for something that fell off the back of a truck.

I mean, consider this as a survey. If someone went to a bunch of pubs and surveyed people about their drinking habits, you'd end up with different results than if you went to a bunch of churches and passed around the same paper. All this article shows is that among people who are already looking to buy stolen goods, the demand for high priced poor quality knockoffs is way down.

Re:when

[MassEnergySpaceTime]

I remember reading something about how the movie industry was once afraid that the rising popularity of the television would end up destroying their business, because people could simply entertain themselves at home for free, instead of going out to entertain themselves with a movie. One could make the point that if everyone just watched TV, then no one would want to make any movies.

But that never happened, because movies were a different form of entertainment than TV. It had a bigger screen better sound, and then there's the social experience of going out with your friends. In today's terms, I think the same is still true for movies. While people could download a movie to watch it, they'll pay to watch it in a good theater with few annoyances.

But for music and software, I've drawn a blank on that one. How do you get people to enjoy the experience of buying music and software? By making it cheaper and an easier decision for the consumer? By making it more convenient somehow? By selling music CDs at social places like coffee houses? Those are my guesses.

Re:when

[Aceticon]

Similar experience here: I just got fed-up with buying games which were overhype by game review sites in the pockets of their advertisers (hi IGN) and turned out to be riddled with bugs and/or fast becoming boring and repetitive and/or have little more replayability than the demo.

Also i use Windows 2000 and although many Windows XP-only games will work fine on 2000, some don't.

On top of this, here in the UK the law that allows you to return unwanted items within 7 days explicitly excludes software, CDs and DVDs (way to go guys!) - so no way to return a game that turns out to be crap or not work in 2000.

So i just download games and try them. Those i like make a point of buying (at full price), those i don't like, i don't use and also don't buy.

Just recently this has saved me from spending my hard earned money on "Supreme Commander" which has been overhyped by the press (89% average rate) and it turns out it's almost a perfect clone (very little new here) of a successfull 1990s game (Total Annihilation - one of the first 3D RTSs). Guess most of present day game reviewers weren't gamers when Total Annihilation came out ...

Re:when

[zotz]

"This assumes that there will still be enough people around who will be willing to pay at all. I know many people who go out of their way to pay for nothing - be it software, music, or movies."

And if there aren't, there are a few possibilities...

Creators will stop creating as they are not being paid and there won't be much at all to pay nothing for.

Creators will insist on getting paid up front for creating things.

Creators will create anyway because they are driven to express themselves.

Instead of really well produced, high budget junk, those people will only get poorly produced, no budget junk for their no-money.

Etc.

"Basically, if you're writing commercial software, you better have an online service or technology licensing program attached to it to make decent profits."

Hey, markets change. Trends change. Tastes change. Granted, this is not fair but... The pet rock vendors are not doing too well these days from what I understand. At least not on the pet rock line.

all the best,

drew

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vcaf2ThG7q4
UFO seen in skies over Winton!

Re:when

[Dog-Cow]

There is nothing especially moral about propping up an industry just for the sake of history. It doesn't matter *why* content producers can't sell their wares, if they can't, they will go out of business. Before the turn of the 20th century, there was no such thing as "content producers" outside of book/magazine publishers. Despite what the RIAA or MPAA may want you to believe, there would be no real loss to our culture if there were no more movies or pop bands published anymore.

Re:when

[themusicgod1]

Somebody has to do distribution, production and word of the work has to get out somehow; it can either be done with the hands and tools of employees of an industry (in the case of movies and music) who are not just stuck in a mid-20th century system filled with inefficiency and graft; but all too trigger happy in sending SWAT teams and lawyers after innocent people...or it can be done with free agents, choosing to trade information in a free market. Take your choice.

The real freeloaders are people who take one copy, and never distribute it to the rest of the world. People who are on the p2p nets and who do *not* share anything in return. People who shop for music at walmart. They are, for the most part, information and culture sinks.

Re:when

[senatorpjt]

I don't think anybody (individuals) should feel bad about pirating business software. It's intended for business, and priced accordingly. It only helps the producers of the software to have individuals who know how to use it available on the job market. It's not like the game market, which depends on individual purchases - if the businesses buy it, there's no reason for individuals to.

Re:when

[Anonymous Coward]

That's idiotic - you can't have a "sink" for information which is in the public domain and can be effortlessly copied. No unique information is being hoarded or lost to the world.

Re:when

[Anonymous Coward]

"You know it's hard out here for a pimp (you ain't knowin)
When he tryin to get this money for the rent (you ain't knowin)
For the Cadillacs and gas money spent (you ain't knowin)
Because a whole lot of bitches talkin shit (you ain't knowin)"

Re:when

[Anonymous Coward]

Red Hat, Ubantu, Sun, IBM, Suse, Mandriva, all doing well and profiting despite the fact that you can download these things legally for free (I wish I could download beer for free!)

Piracy isn't killing for-profit software. It's killing the established business model. Adapt or die.

Re:when

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, it does matter what You, Tom, or I do. As long as a profit can be made, the producer will stay in business. So long as there are sufficient numbers of people willing to pay, and the item is available, profit is assurred.

It doesn't matter how many people "pirate" it so long as there are enough people willing to pay.

The industry's problem is that they want blood from a turnup. Joe College student can't afford Photoshop, so he "pirates" it. Joe sixpack can't afford every single copy of every single song ever made, so he "pirates" them. Joe isn't going to pay no matter what. There is no profit to be made from Joe. The moral issue here doesn't apply to the possible profits - there are no profits to be made from Joe. Period.

The industry's problem is that they want a profit from every single copy, and that is a totally unreasonable expectation. There are sufficient numbers of people willing to pay for content, but here's the kicker - those of us willing to pay aren't willing to be robbed. Ten or fifteen bucks for a movie? No problem. A hundred bucks for a movie? Fuck you and the horse you rode in on. We're not bending over for industry thieves, and we don't take kindly to thieves calling us thieves.

And thieves you are, and you have shown yourself to be. Honest people expect hionesty of people, thieves expect thievery. What you don't grasp is that most people ARE honest. But if you try to screw us, you're going to lose.

Re:when

[Tom]

mod parent up, please.

It gets better, even. I'm very sure Adobe realizes very well that
a) lots of students copy Photoshop
b) many of them will buy it later because they're used to it

Looking around, there's a lot of software that is strong in its segment and one of the reasons is that it is pirated so often. Photoshop, 3D Max, Windos... if there were absolutely no way to get windos without paying for it, OSX and Linux would at least double their market shares within the week.

Re:when

[danpsmith]

Hey Tom, I understand what you're saying - but you have to realize that this isn't about what you do, or what I do, it's about the behavior of the overall population. If you believe that the overall population tends to follow your habits, then that is one argument. If, on the other hand, there is a growing population of freeloaders, then that's another problem. Although I'm essentially replying to you here, I make this point more globally because I see similar responses everywhere the topic of piracy is discussed, and I think that except in very few circumstances they mask the real issue. P.S. "Crap doesn't sell as well anymore.", agreed!

Let's return to your original assumption then: that there's a growing quantity of freeloaders. If your assumption is correct, then indeed the market does have to change its way of working. Distribution is cheap and people are sick of middlemen driving up prices. I must admit that lately even though I used to download a lot of movies I find myself buying them more: the price just isn't worth me downloading what I can buy. The younger people have less money and when you have no money but a lot of time, you'll work within those bounds. As you get older you'd rather just buy it because it isn't worth the hassle. I think that's the overall market. But let's say that these people don't become customers. At least in software's case, let's face it: OSS has them beat as a model. With FOSS, you don't really have to pirate anymore. A lot of my time in the last two years instead of cracking commercial products like I might if I wanted to pirate has just been to find an open source alternative to whatever product I used to use. Because I don't even have to crack it. It's free and available. I used to use freeware for this in the past, but there were no real alternatives when it came to office components and things, now there is. There's alternatives to almost everything: ranging from amateur to professional.

So, we don't need to pump money into software companies in order to make software happen conceivably, what else is left on your list?

Entertainment mediums: mainly TV, movies, and music. Let's say that nobody that pirates buys these things, it's a bad assumption, but let's make it. If nobody watches TV, TV would I guess eventually wither and disappear. This segment would eventually be offered in direct to web, like episodes are available now direct to web. I would guess that the production companies would be paid the same way they always are: by ads (this time on the web instead of the channel). So let's see....NOT a big deal.

Okay, how about movies. People start downloading and not purchasing movies. First we'd have to have the assumption that nobody really wants to see movies in a theater anymore. Well, that's another bad one, but let's assume it. The movie business as you know it withers and dies. What happens is low budget creations (like the kind featured on youtube for free already) ramp up in ambition and independent movie makers with other day jobs fill the void. Distribution is the segment that gets hit here. All the bloat in movie productions and the people who like to see special effects more than good acting or good writing also take a hit. Big budget blockbusters fall off. That's it. Movies still exist: the people creating them change. For better? For worse? I don't know, I think it would be better personally but that's a matter of opinion.

Okay, now music. Everyone downloads their music. Now we're going to assume that not only do they download all their music but they don't pump money into major acts with overpriced tickets sold by ticketing firms. What happens? Well, this is another would never happen scenario, but if it does, let's see. All the entrepreneurs that try to pretend to be musical artists will have to find other avenues in which to make their millions, as nobody really pays for music anymore. Bars and venues will still have to pay touring musical acts because

Re:when

[Kiffer]

"Supreme Commander" was supposed to basically be an improved remake of TA.
I guess you didn't get that memo.
I'd have bought it because I knew it was going to be a new TA with shiny new models, graphics and so on... but then I found Spring and a friend of mine on the SC beta said it wasn't so great, so I just stuck with Spring.

Re:when

[Anonymous Coward]

test

This is severely damaging the freemarket system!

[edwardpickman]

I say he should sue the P2P services for restraint of trade. How is he supposed to sell his pirated wares when they're just giving it away?

I would have RTFA...

[lhpineapple]

but I downloaded the audio book instead.

Re:I would have RTFA...

[noidentity]

Audio book? Boring. Give me the video game version of this article with some real-world dilemmas.

Don't Be A Tony?

[gbulmash]

Don't be a Tony. Overhaul your business model. Quickly.

Yes, you pirates. You need to find another way to make money by leeching off the honest work of others. Art forgery perhaps? Maybe consider a payday loan business... legally charge loan shark interest rates by calling them "service fees".

- Greg

Re:Don't Be A Tony?

[ResidntGeek]

Or they could get respectable jobs like: middle management, where they try to pass off their employees' work as their own. Or law, where they encourage weak people to sue blameless corporations for high fees. Or on a school board, where they try to decide which of the topics they know nothing about their kids should learn about next. Or as policemen, where they have power over anyone who annoys them. Or as soldiers, killing innocent people for the good of the country.

The world is unfair, and people are unfair. Pirates pirate because they're just like everyone else. They just do it more openly. Try not to feel so morally superior, it makes people dislike you.

Re:Don't Be A Tony?

[Blue Stone]

>"Yes, you pirates. You need to find another way to make money by leeching off the honest work of others."

Set up a record company??

Re:Don't Be A Tony?

[gbulmash]

>"Yes, you pirates. You need to find another way to make money by leeching off the honest work of others."

Set up a record company??

Exactly, or become agents, or managers. Showbiz is all about finding a hot property, helping sell it, and taking as big a chunk of that sale as you legally can for yourself. It's just all aboveboard and any theft is done contractually instead of piratically.

'Course, Tony was a software pirate. What's the equivalent of a sleazy agent in the software biz? "Licensing advisor"?

- Greg

bread and cheese for the whine?

[Xiph]

You should reconsider what you're doing, if your target-customers are ruining your business.

Its like the pot calling kettle a jerk

[Ayal.Rosenthal]

I remember the good old days when CD peddlers would sell counterfeit CDs for cheap in the Manhattan flea markets for $5... well, $3 if you knew how to haggle and tell a good joke (I did not). Now I have take time out of busy day and download music. Such a pain. Its cheaper (free) but makes me do work, such as pressing a bunch of keys (like now). I miss the old days when other people did it for me.

Re:Its like the pot calling kettle a jerk

[Anonymous Coward]

Back in '98-2001, I was selling dodgy CDs for £3 a time. No artwork; labelled with a magic marker, and a handwritten insert. These ones were only good for listening to. I made all my survival money that way -- I hardly ever had to go to the HITW because I always had cash from the CDs. I got out of the business quickly once I could see it was dying.

Point is, whichever side of the fence you're on, you have to be prepared to adapt.

sell drugs instead

[Anonymous Coward]

Tony, start selling cannabis, you'll make heaps more money.

until we finally get it legalized, then you'll have to find some other criminalized act to profit off.

Re:sell drugs instead

[Timesprout]

Tut tut. Bad advise. We all know its smarter to start importing cigarettes and booze into many european countries where govt tax has seriously impacted consumer pricing, opening a huge profit potential. The main benefit is you just just get a smack on the wrist if you get caught as opposed to life for drug trafficing.

Yeah

[rolfwind]

Who would have thought, customers of your illegitimate and illegal goods would leave you out in the cold when a better, cheaper opportunity comes. Especially when they buy said goods from you only because you are cheaper than the real thing, not that you giving them something they can't get elsewhere.

Haha

[Anonymous Coward]

Where's the "Haha" tag for this one? Deserving if any story is.

I think there is another morale to this story

[rolfwind]

This guy was clearing almost $2,000 a week at the peak for a couple years, now he has to get a job. He said he enjoyed fast cars and a nice house - where does the money always go? Why can't people be satisfied with a nice new but still economical honda or something when they make it big? Why always blow it out on frivolous shit?

This is the old tale of the ant and the grasshopper. Tony still could be living well today if he actually squirreled away some of it. I wonder how many people in the late 90's early 00's tech boom were blowing money the same way that have very little to show for it now.

Re:I think there is another morale to this story

[Anonymous Coward]

Because people don't want to be rich and happy, they want everyone else to know they're rich and happy. Why do you think SUV's are so popular? It sure as hell ain't cause people are offroading. Nike Platinum stores anyone? Are you seriously telling me that shit makes you run/jump/fly faster? Maybe for a tiny, tiny percent of the population, the rest is all just people showing off.

We all do it, in one form or another. For the geeks, it's the iPod. There's better, more economical choices, but people pick the iPod...

You can argue with my why the iPod's better than the cheaper options, but then I can argue with you while a Ferrari is a lot better than a Honda!

Re:I think there is another morale to this story

[Timesprout]

Exactly. I advocated Linux during the early years and my Karma soared. Now I am in a position to say that Vista is good with out caring what the mods think.

Re:I think there is another morale to this story

[Anonymous Coward]

Argh. I meanm, argue with me, not my. Duh.

And also just FYI, yes, I have an iPod.

Re:I think there is another morale to this story

[Tom]

Why can't people be satisfied with a nice new but still economical honda or something when they make it big? Why always blow it out on frivolous shit? Because money has to be visibly spent in order to count (J.P. Carse). In other words: If you want to use your money to improve your social status, you have to spend it so that other people see that you have money. Contrary to popular believe, money isn't an end in itself for the rich, it's ammo in a game called "society".

Re:I think there is another morale to this story

[Anonymous Coward]

And just like ammunition, you want to fire in short bursts. You don't want to hold the trigger down and waste it all. Spend your ammo when it counts.

Re:I think there is another morale to this story

[geminidomino]

Bah... there's little that's geeky about the ipod... a REAL geek gets a Neuros II (clearance 80GB for $250, that's just over $3/gb!) or other Ogg-capable player (function over form, baby), if it doesn't do video then he grabs a PSP or GP2X for that, a PDA, smartphone, and all sorts of other goodies... and he never has to worry about being confused with Bono!

The Way of the BatBelt is NOT DEAD!

Re:I think there is another morale to this story

[geminidomino]

That's funny. I always thought the purpose of money was to make yourself capable of living, maybe even happy and comfortable. Fuck the socialites. I'd rather spend my money on my rig, motorcycle, geeky toys, and other things that help me enjoy life, even if the frisbee-deep sky-nosed douchebags can't see it (ok, they can see the motorcycle, but even that one I didn't get a HD to save money).

Re:I think there is another morale to this story

[26199]

You must mean the old tale of the ant, the grasshoper and the squirrel.

Re:I think there is another morale to this story

[mpe]

This guy was clearing almost $2,000 a week at the peak for a couple years, now he has to get a job. He said he enjoyed fast cars and a nice house - where does the money always go? Why can't people be satisfied with a nice new but still economical honda or something when they make it big? Why always blow it out on frivolous shit?

He made the all too common assumption that the only way his profits could go was up. Whereas what actually happened was his business model became obsolete.

Re:I think there is another morale to this story

[Shajenko42]

This guy was clearing almost $2,000 a week at the peak for a couple years, now he has to get a job. He said he enjoyed fast cars and a nice house - where does the money always go? Why can't people be satisfied with a nice new but still economical honda or something when they make it big? Why always blow it out on frivolous shit?

One word: women.

Re:I think there is another morale to this story

[phoenixwade]

You must mean the old tale of the ant, the grasshoper and the squirrel.

I think it's the moral of the story about the Pimp, the Crack Dealer, and a game of Three card Monte

Re:I think there is another morale to this story

[19thNervousBreakdown]

Because he was nigger rich. (Yeah, yeah, mod me down, it's just an expression.)

It's the same thing you'll see with drug dealers. When they get out of the game, for whatever reason, they leave with nothing. I don't think such high-risk endeavors are compatible with the mindset that puts money in the bank and/or goes to college.

What really drives it home is that this guy got out clean. He didn't get busted, fined, thrown in jail--nothing. He could have put just $500 a week away and even if he only did that for two years have over $50k in the bank--more than enough to get started on a lot of legitimate businesses.

Re:I think there is another morale to this story

[Cernst77]

"I wonder how many people in the late 90's early 00's tech boom were blowing money the same way that have very little to show for it now." *raises hand* I'm one of those people. I was getting $50k a year in 2001 and now pretty much nothing for job offers, and also saved nothing from those times. - I am in school though to get my 4 year. if the economy just keeps going in an upward direction for 10 years straight like it did in the 90's it is pretty hard for a (then) early 20 something kid to see that there might be a dark tunnel ahead to prepare for =/

Re:I think there is another morale to this story

[Tom]

One fairly successful strategy is the "bluff". If you want to create the impression that you have more money than you actually do have, spending money as if you had lots works like a charm.

Plus, first impressions count for more than second and third impressions.

When it comes to emotions (and social status is more a matter of feeling than of understanding), rationality doesn't always apply.

Re:I think there is another morale to this story

[fair_n_hite_451]

Funniest post of the day award!

Re:I think there is another morale to this story

[Anonymous Coward]

(ok, they can see the motorcycle, but even that one I didn't get a HD to save money).

So not only did you save money, you managed to buy an actual motorcycle rather than an ugly, slow, overpriced, anachronistic fashion accessory - nice one!

Re:I think there is another morale to this story

[StikyPad]

Why can't people be satisfied with a nice new but still economical honda or something when they make it big? Why always blow it out on frivolous shit?

The same reason people without money drop $4k on some shiny rims, I guess.

I'd say the lack of prudent spending habits is more of a national problem than a class one. You definately don't have to be rich to squander money.

$5 for a hard copy current movie= good model

[Sad Adam]

In Russia, Ukraine etc. you can get a DVD in a plastic sleeve with a color photo of current release movie or software for about US$5.

Plus you don't need to screw around with downloading.

The saving in labor from downloading, plus physical medium including packaging for that price seems like a pretty good business model to me.

Now, all they need to do is to work out how to export this model internationally....

But an effective franchise for this business model - THAT is a real moneymaker.

Re:$5 for a hard copy current movie= good model

[Technician]

In Russia, Ukraine etc. you can get a DVD in a plastic sleeve with a color photo of current release movie or software for about US$5.

Now if the legal copies were about this price, that market would not exist. $20 for a copy of Open Season? What are they thinking. It's high prices that cause a piracy market to exist.

Re:$5 for a hard copy current movie= good model

[dubbreak]

"It's high prices that cause a piracy market to exist."

I'd wager it is also releasing to dvd long after the theatre release. It isn't as long now, but I fail to see why most movies aren't simultaneously released to theatre and dvd. I may be projecting, but I hate the theatre. Movies look and sound great at home, they cost less, the food is better, the seating is much better, I don't have to sit near some unhygenic stinkhole, no one sits infront of me and blocks my view, random cell phones don't go off during the film, I can pause if I have to go to the bathroom or need another drink, I can drink booze while I watch (possible in some parts of the world I assume but not where I live), etc etc..

True there are some movies that look better on the "big screen", but I can always go there to watch it after I've screened it at home. The "big screen" isn't even a push anymore. Home projectors now cheap (cost less than what a 32" crt tv was a few years ago) and most people have a decent surround system. It's affordable to make a better movie theatre at home.

What I really want (which won't be happening any time soon) is to be able to get a movie on release date in full quality at home. Do it as a download, do it as preordered dvd's, do it as cable-provider pay-per-view... I don't care how, just do it. The movie theatre has lost its appeal to me. Back in the day of 20" TVs and VHS there was no substitute for the movie theatre. Times change, try to keep up you #@$^!! dinosaurs.

Re:$5 for a hard copy current movie= good model

[Cramer]

BINGO!

Back in the VHS tape days, there really was a reason to change 20-30$ for a tape. It takes a long time to make a video tape -- even with their specialized hardware it still takes 15-30min to "press" a 2hr movie. A DVD takes, litteraly, a fraction of a second to press; a single press can churn out hundreds of discs per hour. A factory with hundreds or thousands of presses can pump out millions of discs. Each disc costs pennies. As with everything, it's all a matter of greed... $20 for something that costs under a buck to make.

Look at video games. Most are $49.99 at release. They drop to $39.99 a few months or even weeks after release. A year later, $29.99 and lower.

Re:$5 for a hard copy current movie= good model

[startled]

Now if the legal copies were about this price, that market would not exist. $20 for a copy of Open Season? What are they thinking. It's high prices that cause a piracy market to exist.

Sure, but then you're competing with the margin on blank DVDs. Where the REAL inroads to piracy are to be made are the fact that people are buying movies at all.

If you REALLY want to fight piracy, just make a product that no one wants at any price. It's a desirable product that causes a piracy market to exist. Extra bonus: if you're trying to ensure nobody wants your product, think of all the money you'll save in marketing!

Re:$5 for a hard copy current movie= good model

[geminidomino]

That's what I don't understand myself. DL DVDs are still upwards of $2 a disc... At that price, they're not good for anything BUT burning things you're not supposed to be burning. A $2 disc for a $40 video game? Sure.

For a backup of $HOME? Not so much. When do we get a price drop?!

Re:$5 for a hard copy current movie= good model

[mpe]

I'd wager it is also releasing to dvd long after the theatre release.

There's also the whole staggered release thing.

Re:$5 for a hard copy current movie= good model

[trawg]

What'd be cool is if the movie industry would just bite the bullet and actually try releasing a new release DVD for like $5. Just to see what happens.

Re:$5 for a hard copy current movie= good model

[NiroZ]

Ah, no. Off the top of my head, simply making a disk would cost far more than that because you still have to pay for the electricity to burn the disk, employees to maintain the factory and transporting costs. Then, you have to cover the advertising expenses, the cost of making the film if it wasn't covered by the release to the cinema, various taxes, and so on. Then, once it has hit the store shelf, the shop has to make a profit off that that batch of DVD's, cover for any shoplifting as well as products which aren't selling as well. If you think that making and selling DVD's are sold for rippoff prices, why don't you startup your own business as see for yourself?

Re:$5 for a hard copy current movie= good model

[Technician]

What'd be cool is if the movie industry would just bite the bullet and actually try releasing a new release DVD for like $5. Just to see what happens.

As long as they don't repeat what they did on Laser Disks. Movies were over $60 for anything decent. In a more affordable range were wonders like "How to watch Pro Football".

http://www.bigemma.com/index.php?main_page=product _info&cPath=21_32&products_id=10156

Re:$5 for a hard copy current movie= good model

[gauauu]

Five dollars? That's crazy expensive. They only charge about 75 cents for them in China.

Re:$5 for a hard copy current movie= good model

[Kjella]

Now if the legal copies were about this price, that market would not exist.

Then again, if the legal copies were that price, the product might not exist? A duplicator doesn't care if what you're putting on it is your local bands playing worth about 1$/GB or 100000 manhours put into creating a software app that's maybe worth 1000$/GB. Or at least, if you don't agree with the word "value", then it's certainly "what do we need to earn to produce this".

Re:$5 for a hard copy current movie= good model

[petermgreen]

For a backup of $HOME? Not so much
depends how you value your time and physical space i guess (and of course on how much data you have in /home).

my guess though is that dual layer DVDs have remained expensive because they have limited use (other than copying dvd based games). Most movies can be recompressed to fit on a single layer while keeping the quality loss to a level most people won't notice. For backing up a media collection or similar they aren't really big enough (imo the only people who are going to try and back up a large hard drive to DVD are those who already have too much time on thier hands and so are going to go for the cheaper per gigabyte single layer) and for backing up really important data they are generally bigger than nessacery.

Re:$5 for a hard copy current movie= good model

[Technician]

Or at least, if you don't agree with the word "value", then it's certainly "what do we need to earn to produce this".

In the 1970's when LP's were king and singles were popular, the average record purchases per capatita in the USA was about 2 LP's per year. If MacDonalds followed the same roadmap, they would not be closing all over the place like Tower Records.

Would you reather sell 2 copies of a hit album at $18 each or sell 20 copies at $5 each? I get a daily newspaper even though I don't always read it. I don't pick up CD's (AOL CD's don't count) very often because they are expensive. I also ignore overpriced new releases of DVD's. I typicaly pick up movies used at 2 or 3 for $20. It's the same movies, but at 1/2 to 1/3 the price. There is no CD rental outlets where I can buy previewed CD's. Most old catalog stuff is listed as remastered and at the same prices as new releases with only a few notable exceptions.

The 30 year old Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon on the 30th Anniversary Edition (Copy Protected SACD) is still over $10. I can buy DVD's of movies of the same age for less.
The WAll, is over $15. I can buy 2 year old films at Blockbuster 2 for $20. The industry then wonders why I don't buy CD's anymore.
http://www.amazon.com/Dark-Side-Moon-30th-Annivers ary/dp/B00008CLOA
http://www.amazon.com/Wall-Deluxe-Packaging-Digita lly-Remastered/dp/B000006TRV/ref=pd_sim_m_2/002-54 12195-6336807
How many people would pick up these in regular CD's (Not copy protected and not compressed. The original dynamic range was outstanding.) for $5 each. Trying to make money and setting prices where I don't bother are a balance where they have not attempted to increase their sales.

Re:$5 for a hard copy current movie= good model

[Cramer]

I don't need to run my own CD/DVD factory to know it's a ripoff. I know of several such factories, and they do make money faster than the mint. You make it sound like it takes a dozen people to make a disc. If you're using a PC to burn 'em, then that's true. However commercial manufacturers use presses, not burners. They can (and do) churn out thousands of discs without a single human being in sight.

If what you say is true, the discs should never land in the bargin bin. At 5$ each, they should be losing money. Yet, in the bargin bin at $5 to $8 each, they're still booking a profit on those discs. They don't have to sell them at 20-30$ to make any money. They sell them at 20-30$ because a) it provides a tremendous profit, and b) there are enough people willing to pay the "ripoff" price to make it economical.

Why do you think there's a pricing tier? So many people will pay $29.99. Once everyone willing to pay that has bought it, guess what, they lower the f'ing price. This continues all the way down to the supermarket checkout isle bargin bin. This is all a process to maximize profit. (which I label "greed") One might say they're milking their consumers.

Re:$5 for a hard copy current movie= good model

[geminidomino]

Exactly my point. Not quite sure about the "too much time on my hands" part, but yeah, the discs are essentially worthless short of burning games and movies (if you must have the bonus features or are otherwise too lazy to rip up the DVD)

Re:$5 for a hard copy current movie= good model

[petermgreen]

Not quite sure about the "too much time on my hands" part
if you are doing a big backup job to DVD then it probablly means that time has a very low value to you and the time saving from using dual layer probablly isn't enough to make you buy the media.

Re:$5 for a hard copy current movie= good model

[geminidomino]

It's not "big". Just slightly TOO big for a single layer. I can think of a few uses for DL at the price of current SL discs, but nothing at $2/ea

Re:$5 for a hard copy current movie= good model

[mink]

Having worked in video retail (Lackluster) back when LD was still strong and DVD was not even an idea. Pricing worked like this:

New release film on VHS $100 (people actually would pay this) months before the wide video release ($25-$35).
The exact same film on the exact sam day that the only VHS you could buy was $100 would set you back about $40 to $60 (the latter less often) on LD.

We had people come in angry and yelling about it (price difference between new release LD and VHS) and we explained how things were being done by the movie studios not by us.

Mod parent up

[Kadin2048]

I have no idea why this is modded 'Redundant.'

The situation outlined in TFA is interesting precisely because it runs contrary to what you might expect, namely that people would be too lazy to actually download multi-GB files themselves. But the story shows that this indeed is the case; at least the people who are cheap enough to buy pirated software at flea markets put a low enough value on their time to download the stuff themselves in order to avoid even the minimal cost of pirated discs.

I'm not sure what the lesson is here. There's a big question in my mind whether lessons from the 'grey (or black) market' can be taken as indicative of movements in the regular 'white market' -- online distribution probably is a lot more attractive to the kind of low-rent geeks who are buying hot software at flea markets than to very busy middle-classers with little time to spare or technical expertise.

Re:Mod parent up

[shutdown -p now]

But the story shows that this indeed is the case; at least the people who are cheap enough to buy pirated software at flea markets put a low enough value on their time to download the stuff themselves in order to avoid even the minimal cost of pirated discs.

It might be different still. People do pay to the likes of allofmp3, so it seems that some pirates at least are doing very well. Time spent downloading is not time wasted - even on a slow connection, you can just do something else meanwhile. It does save one a trip to the store, though. I know I'm willing to pay for that convenience (which is why I use allofmp3).

Re:Mod parent up

[Anonymous Coward]

There is no extra time cost from downloading a 6 gigabyte file compared to a 6 megabyte file. You start it downloading then switch your attention elsewhere. You come back to it later and use it.
The only difference is that you might have to leave your PC running longer than you normally would. Big deal...

Re:Mod parent up

[hcdejong]

But the story shows that this indeed is the case; at least the people who are cheap enough to buy pirated software at flea markets put a low enough value on their time to download the stuff themselves in order to avoid even the minimal cost of pirated discs.

I, for one, don't avoid pirated discs because of the cost issue, but because it's less hassle and faster to download a movie [1] than to have to go out, find a physical pirate store (Hell, I wouldn't know where to find one) and buy the movie I want.

1: Sure, the actual downloading takes a few hours, but the only effort for me is a few minutes on thep(cough)ay.org or somesuch.

Re:Mod parent up

[Matt Perry]

...people who are cheap enough to buy pirated software at flea markets put a low enough value on their time to download the stuff themselves in order to avoid even the minimal cost of pirated discs.

Could you clarify what you mean by this? P2P seems like it would take less time, and therefore be a better use of time, than going out to purchase a physical pirated copy. It's not as if the person has to pedle a bicycle to keep bittorrent or limewire running. They click a link and walk away until it's done. The computer is working, not the person.

Re:Mod parent up

[Kadin2048]

That's assuming that you have the P2P software installed and running, and moreover that you have the requisite knowledge of how to set up the P2P software, and to find out where you find the links to the actual files that you want to download using the software. Not to mention the cost of the broadband connection that we're assuming is available, and which I bet even the majority of people in the U.S. don't have.

All of that is non-trivial. There is an implied investment of time into the endeavor, that might be a 'sunk cost' to a computer geek, but wouldn't be to someone who wasn't interested in computers as a hobby. To them, just going to a place where they know movies are sold, and buying one, might be a lot easier (particularly if they're only interested in a small number of pirated titles, infrequently).

Now, if you don't live down the street from a Pirate Mart, it's probably easier to fire up Google and start reading about how to install P2P software than to drive to a major city where you might presumably find pirated discs for sale. But the rural equivalent of the 'physical pirate' is to just find a local computer geek and ask him/her to do the downloading for you and put it on a disc, and I think that's what happens pretty frequently in the U.S.

Bunch-O-Crap

[DumbSwede]

What a bunch of crap. Having been to China where piracy is a big time moneymaker they know how to do it right. High quality product in attractive packaging with a rock bottom price. Why would I download a DivX compressed file when I can get the original mpg for 50 cents to a dollar?

P2P only makes sense when there isn't an affordable convenient alternative. Tony just priced himself out of business evidently. It's all about volume and price point. If Tony had focused on improving his productivity so he could lower his sale price he'd probably still be in business. Even in the black market you have to continue to innovate.

Tony got in when he thought he could make money easy, he wasn't bothered by the ethics of his choices. I have no trouble believing he'd be too lazy to work harder and charge less to give the same product. Even so I am highly disinclined to believe this story at face value. There may be a high volume of Slashdotters out there doing P2P for video, but Joe-6-pack is just barely able to share mp3s and spends a lot on DRM products. Joe would easily plunk down two dollars for a bootleg DVD if Tony where selling them.

Re:Bunch-O-Crap

[Anonymous Coward]

Why would I download a DivX compressed file when I can get the original mpg for 50 cents to a dollar?

You're downloading from the wrong sites, man, or you live somewhere where bandwidth is too meager or expensive. You should be downloading the full, ripped DVDs over a few nights. It's not like you're going to bank the bandwidth that you don't use.

Go take a look at some of the better sites (they're not hard to find): you'll find full ripped versions, including high quality artwork just waiting for your printer. If you don't yet have enough cheap fast bandwidth to do this, just wait: you will. And that is the point of noting this economic shift.

Re:Bunch-O-Crap

[djupedal]

I confirm - I'm living/working in Southern China now, and I pass by a minimum of a dozen sidewalk DVD sellers, each day, between my apartment and the office. If anything is going to impact them, it will be pressure to switch to stealth mode as we get closer to the Olympics. No way can I imagine PTP having any effect at street level. Current price example is US fifty cents per - less if you know how to haggle :)

Why can't Hollywood....never mind.

Re:Bunch-O-Crap

[mpe]

P2P only makes sense when there isn't an affordable convenient alternative. Tony just priced himself out of business evidently.

Probably more significently Tony's market changed, low cost high speed Internet access came to the part of the world Tony was operating in.

It's all about volume and price point. If Tony had focused on improving his productivity so he could lower his sale price he'd probably still be in business. Even in the black market you have to continue to innovat

If anything you need to innovate more in a "black market" than in a "white" or "grey" market.

Re:Bunch-O-Crap

[Dogtanian]

You're downloading from the wrong sites, man, or you live somewhere where bandwidth is too meager or expensive. You should be downloading the full, ripped DVDs over a few nights. It's not like you're going to bank the bandwidth that you don't use. For 50 cents to a dollar? I'd skip the hassle of making sure I find a legit copy, downloading it, leaving my computer on over a few nights, using up a portion of my bandwidth and (possibly) burning it. Sure, it's still not that big a deal, but a dollar is hardly a lot of money either.

Re:Bunch-O-Crap

[kamapuaa]

Actually, pirating movies online is extremely popular in China. Cheap can't compete with free. Many of my friends here in Shanghai have broadband, they never, ever will buy a bootleg DVD. Even half a dollar, with good packaging, just isn't worth it . Much wackier would be buying legitimate DVDs, they go for maybe $3 and you can only find them at a few government stores in the center of town. *Nobody* buys them, you'd have to be a nut (actually, it's for foreigners who don't know any better).

People who talk positively about piracy's effect on business, like it encourages sales of the best products as a try-before-you-buy, or it's financial pressure encouraging CD sellers to sell at a more reasonable $5 price, are fooling themselves. Piracy guts the creative industry.

Re:Bunch-O-Crap

[Per Wigren]

You're downloading from the wrong sites, man, or you live somewhere where bandwidth is too meager or expensive. You should be downloading the full, ripped DVDs over a few nights.

A few nights? Maybe you live somewhere where bandwidth is too meager or expensive, or you're downloading from the wrong sites...

Hungh?

[BrynM]

P2P File Sharing Ruining Physical Piracy Business Man, I thought I hit the wrong link and was looking at The Onion for a second there. I know it makes perfect sense, but that obviousness was part of the reaction.

Re:Hungh?

[SkyDude]

P2P File Sharing Ruining Physical Piracy Business Man, I thought I hit the wrong link and was looking at The Onion for a second there. I know it makes perfect sense, but that obviousness was part of the reaction.

So, what do you think - maybe there's a need for the PPRIAA (Physical Pirates Recording Industries, etc) now?

Modgods - that was an attempt at sarcasm.

He could and would have iff

[Anonymous Coward]

he had a republican in his pocket! But if you do not pay your local republican, then you can not get protection.

Chinatown?

[Kadin2048]

I think they still do sell burned CDs down in Chinatown. Not sure what the selection is like (if your taste doesn't run to Japanese pop or Bollywood showtunes, may be out of luck), but I'm pretty sure they're there, if you know where to look.

Heck, the last time I was in NYC, there were still people down in Chinatown selling bootlegged cassette tapes, and this was only a few years ago. Their stock looked a bit ... dusty, but it was still out there.

No different than America

[WindBourne]

Tony is simply the punk on the street. There are LOADS of pirate who work out of regular businesses selling Windows based software, DVDs, and CDs. Funny thing is, that if the RIAA and MIAA were smart, they would allow the net the gut to the brick based businesses FIRST, and then go after just the net. But alas

Re:No different than America

[Seumas]

And remember, according to all the do-gooders, little johnny downloading a $1,200 copy of Photoshop via bit torrent so he can play with photos on his blog is just as evil and bad and harmful to corporations as the middle aged guy manufacturing and distributing tens of thousands of copies of the $1,200 application for a hundred bucks a piece. Or whatever.

Re:No different than America

[glesga_kiss]

Funny thing is, that if the RIAA and MIAA were smart, they would allow the net the gut to the brick based businesses FIRST, and then go after just the net. But alas

Nah, they are trying to prevent the next generation of kids from habitually downloading all of their future content. Get 'em young as the catholic church used to say. It's a campaign of shock and awe intended to win over their hearts and minds. Rarely works...

Re:No different than America

[Anonymous Coward]

Get 'em young as the catholic church used to say. Yeah, but they stopped saying it after a lot of their priests did just that and it caused a major scandal ;-)

Riiiight...

[lilomar]

So let me get this straight: Cheap piracy is more popular than expensive piracy? And...?

Allofmp3 is almost in a league of its own.

[Kadin2048]

This is a valid point. Although, allofmp3.com is in a fairly unique situation -- they offer not an inferior product to legitimate versions, but an actually superior one, at a better price, with an interface that's arguably as easy if not easier to use, than most legitimate services. The black/grey market rarely has the white beat on so many fronts at once. Usually, in order to get the cheap price, you need to compromise on quality or convenience (need to go to sketchy part of town / flea market, etc.), so that it's only a certain segment of consumers (usually, those who place a low value on their time) who get the pirated version. But allofmp3.com has the legitimate outlets so thoroughly beaten -- or rather, the legitimate outlets suck just that damn badly, and cost so much -- that it can draw consumers from all across demographics, and not just the downmarket (cheap) segment.

Re:Allofmp3 is almost in a league of its own.

[cp.tar]

The black/grey market rarely has the white beat on so many fronts at once. Usually, in order to get the cheap price, you need to compromise on quality or convenience (need to go to sketchy part of town / flea market, etc.), so that it's only a certain segment of consumers (usually, those who place a low value on their time) who get the pirated version.

I'm not certain where you live, though based on your attitude I will surmise you live somewhere in the developed world.

There are places in the world where the price of software is quite disproportionate - for instance, here in Croatia Photoshop costs about two or three monthly salaries IIRC. And even in the richer parts of the world, there is quite a lot of software which costs a great deal of money, and is still relatively easy to find in the gray/black market.

If the price of the software runs up to several hundreds or even thousands of dollars, and the probability of you getting caught is slim, buying from a pirate is putting a rather high value on your time - it doesn't take more than a few hours, and the savings are vast.

But then, what do I know... from where I stand, capitalism seems to be based on the principle of getting something for nothing as much and as often as you can.

Re:Allofmp3 is almost in a league of its own.

[shutdown -p now]

Although, allofmp3.com is in a fairly unique situation -- they offer not an inferior product to legitimate versions, but an actually superior one, at a better price, with an interface that's arguably as easy if not easier to use, than most legitimate services.

Whether it is legal or not, it hardly matters to most of its customers. Not the ones I know (myself included), anyway. What matters is the quality of the tracks they offer for download, and the convenience of use. For the price they ask, they do offer a lot there.

Re:Allofmp3 is almost in a league of its own.

[Kadin2048]

But then, what do I know... from where I stand, capitalism seems to be based on the principle of getting something for nothing as much and as often as you can.

If you really wanted to sum up Capitalism with a one liner, you're fairly close, but really, it's a system where everybody tries to get the best deal for themselves, at every possible opportunity.

AllofMP3 succeeds because it offers individual purchasers a better value than alternatives. It offers a wide selection of tracks, in a variety of formats, with a not-too-shoddy interface, at a very good price. Other services either have less selection of music (eMusic), or have fewer/less-flexible formats (iTunes), crummy interfaces, high prices, or combinations thereof. Sure, they also have the Department of Justice Seal of Approval, but frankly the value added there is pretty low. (And at least last time I checked, the AllofMP3 folks insisted they were legitimate, using the argument that you're 'buying' the tracks in Russia, where they're legit with the Copyright organization, and then importing them into the U.S. electronically. But this is irrelevant, because most people don't care if something as abstract as international copyright infringement is illegal except insofar as it's likely to get them arrested or in trouble.)

But anyway, you are chiefly correct: one major assumption in the capitalist system is that all actors will approach each transaction with the goal of getting the best deal for themselves. FWIW, I think this is a pretty solid assumption. (Even in economies that aren't generally regarded as 'capitalist' if you go down to 'street level' and actually look at what individual people are doing, it's mostly the same.)

No, they were not.

[WindBourne]

I was buying these in 95-96 and they were $9-10 for brand new ones. My player cost me 400 ON CLEARENCE at the time (still a pretty good one even after more than a decade). But the actual movies were 10/pop. In fact, is was not until about 97-98 that they shot up in price (and shot up was the word for it; upt to 15-16 at that time).

Re:No, they were not.

[Kadin2048]

Could have been I was looking in the wrong stores, but back in the mid 90s I definitely remember going into Suncoast / Sam Goody / similar places (which is where I used to buy videos, prior to the internet and the construction of the local Walmart and similar discount stores) and seeing prices for DVDs that were definitely over $20, and a significant premium above VHS for the same titles. They were probably fairly recent releases, but there wasn't much in the way of a back catalog at that point on DVD.

Maybe they were cheaper before then, and spiked up at about the time I bought my first player (I skipped the first generation of machines), but I ignored the whole business early on.

Re:No, they were not.

[WindBourne]

Wow, you were ripped off. Here in Colorado, First place that I was buying from was Target. They were trying to build up the industry so they had them cheap (mostly 10; sometimes 12). About a year later, Walmart came out with them and between the 2, I was paying 10. I did ask the walmart folks how much it is was costing them. Found out that it was anywhere from 5-8 (typically 5 for a re-release and 8 for a new), so they were obviously doing build-up of the market. The reason that I remember all this, was that in late 96, I was trying to talk some friends of mine into doing a website to sell DVDs. The idea was to automate the machine for delivery of such and then to offer volume discount. DVDs are pretty much standard size.

Re:No, they were not.

[operagost]

I call BS. What you're claiming simply has never happened with tech. It always starts out expensive and drops in price as volume increases. By the way, the DVD was not released until 1996.

Re:No, they were not.

[twistedsymphony]

Suncoast and Samgoody have always had ridiculous pricing on DVDs... I believe most DVDs at the Suncoast near me are still in the $25 range for something you can get at Walmart for $15.

Re:No, they were not.

[linzeal]

Fry's Electronics in Sunnyvale was selling them for 10-12 dollars from day one. Not much has changed besides the cost of the DVD player themselves and 5-6 dollar bargain DVDs.

What I see killing the DVD market in the future if they do not keep up is 40-50 dollar DivX DVD players.

YRO??

[Anonymous Coward]

Please help me understand: What is the tie-in to "Online Rights"? You don't have a right to priate copyrighted material without permission.

Clever Sao Paulo pirates!

[Anonymous Coward]

They're operating out of BUILDINGS while, for all these years, HRS Copyright has been searching the high seas.

Physical piracy still evident in far east Asia

[Anonymous Coward]

Every time I've travelled through China, Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia, even as late as August 06 I could see no reduction in the volume of physical warez and pirate video media sold at markets - OK in the markets in the big cities you may have to ask the store owner to see it as it's not as frequently on blatantly display out in the open as it used to be but it's still definitely there.
I've noticed a big fall in warez sold in Japanese, Korean and and Taiwanese flee markets over the last 3 years but again I'd bet it would be there if you knew who to ask you'd have no issues procuring it.

Cute!

[NekoXP]

So basically the RIAA/MPAA loses money and the pirates don't make any.

Either that balances out or it means the aforementioned studio mafia are justified in suing grandmas and teenagers.

Re:Cute!

[Jugalator]

It balances things out alright -- but perhaps rather to make piracy an as expensive deal for copyright holders as before. Less "fleamarket piracy", and more P2P piracy. That still doesn't justify suing dead people or stroke victims, but it justifies suing others as long as those are in violation of law. Of course, despite this, pirates are free to choose to keep doing their thing, keeping this in mind. And some even tries to make it so they can keep doing without getting sued the legal way, in Sweden they're represented by the Piracy Party, for example.

Tony was not a pirate, just a leech.

[GuyFawkes]

I've been around this scene since the 5.25" floppy days, and there were always leechers who would sell you something, and true warez people who would give or trade you something.

Tony won't have been cracking anything, creating anything, "value added" anything, Tony is a leech.

It's easy, always was, beige box FTP server on a decent pipe and start couriering, what Tony was trading on was usenet and a stack of dupe burners, and don't forget to take other groups work and rebrand it with your own nfo file tone....

I applaud the fact that another leech has bitten the dust, and can no longer make an easy living selling the fruits of other people's works to noobs and lusers.

Re:Tony was not a pirate, just a leech.

[Hal_Porter]

Is that what the artists say about the "true warez people"? I mean, they spend far less effort that the people who create the material originally, even if they spend a bit more than Tony.

Re:Tony was not a pirate, just a leech.

[shudde]

I've been around this scene since the 5.25" floppy days ...

I'm really hoping that you're not still in the scene, most of us got over it before we were 20.

I applaud the fact that another leech has bitten the dust, and can no longer make an easy living selling the fruits of other people's works to noobs and lusers.

I'm going out on a limb here and presuming you're referring to the work of suppliers/crackers/couriers rather than the people who created the stuff. Warez scene != work. It was and is a game, race some other kid to up a release on a top 10 site for rankings and bragging rights.

It's not like the scene was ever as pure as people made it out to be. Plenty of the bigger groups were giving out carded hardware for suppliers or shell boxes.

Re:Tony was not a pirate, just a leech.

[Registered Coward v2]

I've been around this scene since the 5.25" floppy days, and there were always leechers who would sell you something, and true warez people who would give or trade you something.

Tony won't have been cracking anything, creating anything, "value added" anything, Tony is a leech.

Unlike those who crack something, thereby creating "value"; who aren't leeching off of the original producers whose work they cracked.

I applaud the fact that another leech has bitten the dust, and can no longer make an easy living selling the fruits of other people's works to noobs and lusers.

That's fine, but those who's efforts you applaud are no different - instead of creating something of value they leech off of those who do, and then delude themselves into thinking they are superior because they do it for free; in the end they are no different than Tony except maybe that Tony was smart enough to make money.

"Patience"?

[Dobeln]

Several factors are limiting the impact of "low patience".

1. Broadband penetration is high now - even slow broadband can download most apps if you just leave it on overnight.

2. A lot of broadband isn't slow anymore, especially outside of the US. I am sitting on a 24/8 mbit line, and 10 and 100 mbit (full duplex) fiber isn't unusual. "A gig" is a few minutes worth of downloading most of the time using a decent DC hub or torrent.

3. Burning CD:s and DVD:s isn't hard.

4. Even if you find downloading and buring hard, you most likely have a geek in your circle of friends who doesn't.

5. But sure, there *is* a niche for cheap pirated stuff for those who can't/are too lazy to download. But that's much smaller than it used to be - and that was the point of the article. Stop thinking in binary.

As a student

[goldcd]

I may have done something similar, although on a much smaller scale - it may even have been where my name came from.
Never really made any money, but came out the other end of two degrees with only a modest amount of debt (not that I'm defending it) and am now a good tax paying little legit drone.
I was never part of the scene, so all my stuff used to come in as trades and I still remember the joy of opening jiffy bags with foreign stamps to see what weird and wonderful contents they would contain. I'm sure part of it was an aspergers like desire to try to collect everything there possibly was available - whether or not I or anybody else actually wanted/needed it.
Had a fun time and it's left me with all manner of fond memories - playing a pre-release version of MGS throughout the night as we couldn't work out how to save the game, or what was actually going on (I've still not quite grasped Japanese), realizing ThrillKill wasn't released as it 'wasn't actually any good' to nervously opening my door to a car-load of scarey looking people in the small hours and them asking very sweetly if I could chip their PS.
I stopped (assuming I'd started) all this many years before the guy in the article threw in the towel (I never made it onto DVDs). The premise of the article that P2P killed physical piracy is probably right. I doubt it's that everybody has know learnt how to download whatever they want and make their own copy - it's more that pretty much everybody knows a friend or colleague that can. Towards the end I used to temp in offices over the holidays - and every single one of them would have the guy who'd come in with a pile of disks in the morning for people (and get a pint if anything returned to him at lunch).
Death of LikSang reminded me of their initial incarnation as supplier of DrV64s (I could never afford a Z64) and the fun I'd had resoldering the guts of what they delivered into a working machine and trying to track down a CD drive that didn't gulp enough power to max out the piss-poor PSU it came with. Dug out my old folders of disks and had a nostalgic trip down memory lane. Most of them were dead, cheap ones had flaked and I'd managed to eat through a load using a big solventy magic marker.
All in the bottom of a landfill now.

Re:As a student

[harborpirate]

Congratulations! You write in such a random and confusing a manner as to make me certain you could become a novelist.

to Wit:

William Gibson, is that you?

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

The truly big time for profit "pirates"

[iminplaya]

are "off the books" distributors, but make no mistake, they pay a big cut back to the "owners" for the privilege of doing business with them, as I said here. Copyright regulates who gets to distribute information, and creates a nice black market like any other prohibition. Which is actually controlled by the industry itself...until the damn internet and its P2P came along, and started blowing its cover.

This just in

[deblau]

For the benefit of the RIAA and MPAA, here's a picture of your typical filesharer.

Re:This just in

[rizole]

Slashdotted.....gotta torrent?

Re:This just in

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought it was http://cbg.nohomers.net/images/newgrab4.gif

Law suit

[stud9920]

So, when is the PIAA (Pirate Industry Association of America) going to sue p2p networks ?

Re:Law suit

[CommunistHamster]

Won't somebody think of the pirates?

$500 million

[DrSkwid]

Fuck Pirates of The Carribean

Fuck all you $10 million a movie "stars"

Way to kick a guy when he's down

[giafly]

Even pirates have some standards.

Re:Way to kick a guy when he's down

[slashdotusername]

There is honor among thieves!

Tony should move to Ukraine

[Viol8]

Piracy of DVDs and CDs is flourishing there. Most people don't even have a computer , never mind an internet connection and if you go down the local markets you will find tons of pirated material (most of it done badly it must be said). Its about time people in IT whether media types or coders really wrenched themselves out of this western mindset where they seem to believe that because they have broadband and a flash PC then the whole world does.

Newsflash: most of the people in the world don't even own a radio never mind a computer.

In other news

[ady1]

RIAA/MPAA agrees to the news of p2p piracy ruining actual piracy (read: their business) word by word.

Takes another one of their anti-piracy reasons.

[Bert64]

A lot of anti piracy advertising often states that the money from selling copied media goes into drugs and other forms of crime.
If you download for free, your not giving money to anyone, not the pirates who finance drug dealers, nor the software companies and whoever they might be financing.

Piracy supports terrorism.

[Overzeetop]

The recent scourge is terrorism. Piracy supports terrorism. C'mon - get with the program, your government is counting on you.

You really need to pay more attention...piracy doesn't support drugs, drugs support terrorism.

And, as if I even needed to mention it: Think of the children.

PIAA??!!

[narftrek]

OMG what won't those bastard pirates not steal? PIAA (http://www.piaa.com) is a headlight/foglight company. Now their trademarked name has been commandeered by the barmy scallawags of the digital high seas? Won't somebody think of the Corporations? /sarcasm and general stupidity

He should know better!

[AskChopper]

Arr.. Any decent pirate knows he should be buryin' his treasures! Not frittering 'em away on wine, women and song!

Much more likely...

[Joce640k]

It's much more likely that the drop is due to proliferation of CD/DVD burners in the home.

Laptop computers are the big thing to have thanks to social networking and every one of them has a device in it which copies shiny disks.

Pirates VS. P2P

[DrYak]

Pirates useful against file sharing ?

I feel a great disturbance in the MAFIAA.
As if thousand of lawyer's head exploded and then suddenly disappeared in a puff of logic.

Too bad

[AusRob2003]

Well, live by the sword, die by the sword. Technology is an interesting beast, it's good money when you stay up to date, and it can bite hard if you don't. This guy didn't stay up to date, and he isn't alone - just ask the recording industry and their cohorts. I guess 'Tony' will have to go back to his old job, selling real estate..

LOL what a funny article!

[bradavon]

The only reason P2P has taken off is simply because Western Police forces actually enforce the law. This simply doesn't happen in most Far East Asian countries, walk down any Bangkok street and bootleg VCDs/DVDs are blatantly sold. The copyright laws aren't worth the paper they're written on.

As another poster has said there's no way P2P will replace hard copy media any time soon, if at all.

Flea Market?

[night_flyer]

pfffft... I used to sell (legitimate) stuff at a flea market... once a month someone would get busted for selling bootleg stuff... they are keeping an eye on sellers now since the Flea Market itself can be held liable if they try and feign ignorance concerning bootleg material.

Call me cynical

[phishtrader]

. . . but I think that the article is satire.

Re:Call me cynical

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't believe I had to get all the way to the bottom of the comments before someone pointed that out.

Haha...

[Vr6dub]

Everyone point and and laugh at the dork!!

You are soooo l33t

I applaud the fact that another leech has bitten the dust, and can no longer make an easy living selling the fruits of other people's works to noobs and lusers.

I hope you see the hypocracy in your statement.

Oh noes, the poor darling!

[Cloud K]

Don't get me wrong, I'm no angel (let he without sin blah blah) and have done my fair share of "borrowing" software myself.

But are we supposed to feel sorry for this guy or something? I mean it's one thing downloading Photoshop for your personal use (arguably strengthening the brand for when you're in a position to buy it at work etc), but actually making money and getting rich from ripping off other people's work... he acquired his wealth dishonestly, so surely he has no right to complain when he loses what he 'stole' in the first place.

A better business survival tip might be to, you know, earn it?

Elements

[tepples]

And remember, according to all the do-gooders, little johnny downloading a $1,200 copy of Photoshop via bit torrent so he can play with photos on his blog is just as evil and bad and harmful to corporations as the middle aged guy manufacturing and distributing tens of thousands of copies of the $1,200 application for a hundred bucks a piece. And due to the statutory damages rule, little johnny downloading a $100 copy of Photoshop Elements is just as bad as little johnny downloading a $1,200 copy of Photoshop full version. (Bring out the GIMP?)

Crime doesn't pay

[Anonymous Coward]

The hypothesis that piracy funds drug-dealing implies (in the mathematical sense) that drug-dealing runs at a loss. If it were the case that dealing drugs is not self-funding, then for what possible reason would drug-dealing exist? The idea is absurd.

PS: The CAPTCHA is "flawed". How appropriate.

I wonder who is really winning. . ?

[Fantastic Lad]

Okay. So Walmart is a big, giant money funnel from the West to Asia.

Asia ignores copyright and never pays for Western Media, distributing it like crazy to all corners of the East.

Those two things are different.

The West sending all its money to Asia is a way to go broke. But. . .

Getting everybody hooked on Western media is the way you totally decimate a local culture and re-forge it in your own image.

So if the West goes broke and blows away in a giant dust bowl, does it matter if it has re-spawned over in the East and swallowed the other half of the world?

An interesting question, but one which is totally academic since most of Asia is going to exist under three miles of pack ice within the next decade or so.

-FL

So let me get this straight...

[Anonymous Coward]

Haven't we been told that the money that goes into physical piracy is oftentimes funneled into terrorism? So if the **AA is agressively going after P2P sites, which are apparently very effective at shutting down the physical piracy operations, doesn't that mean that the **AA is pro-terrorist?

Re:when (and why)

[A_Non_Moose]

Why do I get the feeling this will wind up on a pirated DVD of the Soprano's?

It won't end well when Mr.Soprano finds out.

Demos

[TFloore]

If we're really being honest, many people who claim they pirate to "try" software are full of it - ever hear of a demo? Demo's are a section of the game or an otherwise limited version that the distributors actually want you to try out legally, and base your purchase decision upon.

I have a problem with demos. You aren't really supporting what I'm complaining about, but I'm going to complain anyway.

My major problem with demos is that, by their very nature, they *require* a clean uninstall procedure. I have yet to see one that has one, though. Most least cruft lying around all over. Some through simple incompetence (which inspires such confidence in the full version...) and some on purpose. After all, for a timed demo, they have to leave something behind to say "you installed this once already, you can't uninstall/reinstall and reset your timer".

For software that is explicitly try-before-you-buy there has to be a clean way to choose not to buy, within the rules of the game.

This is a generic problem with a lot of Windows software, I admit, and not just with demos. But it is more obvious with demos, because you are supposed to try them out and them get rid of them after some (usually short) time period.

Now, admittedly, this doesn't make any sense for the "I'll pirate it instead" argument, because if you pirate it, you still have the program installed and its crap all over your drive. And the full version is unlikely to have a better uninstaller than the demo version. But it does make the demo option less tolerable.

Adapt or Die - He didn't adapt

[TheRistoman]

[...]He had a big house, fast cars, expensive holidays, rented a warehouse, employed several people[...] So because he wasted his money on things he normally couldn't afford I'm supposed to feel bad for him when his business tanked? I'm sorry, but this has nothing to do with piracy. It's called financial literacy. Some people know how to live below their limits just in case something like this happens. Had he set aside some money every month he probably wouldn't be whining about his situation on /. Had he had a budding VoIP business that tanked after Vonage rolled around you wouldn't feel so bad for the guy now, would you?

we live in a world where the younger generation (of which I count myself part) just tends to pirate everything. It has become the common culture. I'm most likely younger than you, and I can tell you that I pirate things that I consider to be not worth the price the labels/majors/developers put on it. Civil disobedience, if you will. I'll pay the $11 to see '300' on the big screen because it's an experience (I did that this weekend). I'm not gonna pay the same amount for Saw III on DVD because I know I'll feel gipped out of money when the end credits start rolling. So I DL it, watch it and trash it.

First Tony will go out of business, followed by the software houses we know and love, if it hasn't happened already. Please do not compare a disk smuggler with Adobe (the first SW house I can think of that I like). There is still an enterprise level that can afford Creative Suite (like the design studio where I work) because they make a living out of it and have sufficient income and reasons to hold a valid copy. They don't have the choice that single users do.

I know many people who go out of their way to pay for nothing - be it software, music, or movies. Is adding an isoHunt search tool in Firefox considered "going out of [my] way"? I've said this many times and I'll keep saying it. The old business model cannot work for digital material, it did for a while, when all consumers had was dialup, and even then Napster was still the rage. Yet most houses that produce fair to subpar software/movies/music don't understand that today the end user can make a decision on his own on whether what the house is offering is worth its price or not. The fact that most people will "go out of their way" to reduce costs shows you that most times, it isn't. Look at the Vista adoption rate among businesses. Even the gov't knows it's not a sound investment right now!

Dubious

[JackSpratts]

one writer's anecdote does not a trend describe. i'm dubious in the extreme. - js.

Re:Fear of Getting Caught?

[vertinox]

Joe would easily plunk down two dollars for a bootleg DVD if Tony where selling them.

Maybe Joe feels uncomfortable buying from a person face to face who he doesn't know if they are a cop or not?

Piracy either way is illegal and if Joe feels more comfortable downloading and less hassled with the fact he feels like he is buying drugs he might go that route.

Moral of the Story

[ajs318]

And the moral of the story is, enjoy it while you've got it -- but never forget you may not have it tomorrow.

If you've got a profitable sideline, that's great. But don't forget how you got there. Fashions change. People change. If you forget that, if you take your eye off the ball for a moment, you lose. Hookers and charlie are great fun, and it's almost rude to all the people who want to be you if you don't; but for the sake of all that's decent, pay a bit off your freakin' mortgage already!

Sounds like he just got too carried away with it all, spent it on the wrong things, and now the fickle public have left him skint. But it's not easy to muster up any sympathy for someone who had it all and blew it. And when your whole business opportunity only ever opened up in the first place precisely because someone else wasn't keeping up with the times, then you've no excuse for not doing that yourself.

surely it is

[misanthrope101]

I went to Panthip Plaza in Bangkok once and was simply enthralled by the piracy opportunities. All the Adobe stuff, Microsoft, CAD software, the whole bit. I went back a few years later and there was no point in buying any of it. Software, movies, music--why buy the pirated stuff when it's all online? I live overseas and I see people buy pirated DVDs all the time for $5USD, but it's only because they don't know how to find it online. I think the technophobes are the only ones keeping old-school pirates in business.

Come on people

[Anonymous Coward]

Pirates losing money to piracy?

There has got to be a Soviet Russia ironic twist joke in here somewhere...

I suppose I'm a case study in this trend,...

[Anonymous Coward]

...at least for bootleg (not counterfeit) music CDs.

I used to buy bootleg silvers (stamped CDs, before CD-Rs became common) of my favorite bands at collector conventions in the late 80's/early 90's, and the going price was about $25 per disc. Quality obviously varied, but that's what Goldmine and some other more sly publications were for - to tell you what to seek out and what to ignore. Over the course of a decade or so, I may have spent something approaching $1,000 on boots - they were special indulgences, not something I always even sought out, and I'd agonize over most such purchases.

I started trading CD-Rs by mail in '97 or so (having chunked out $500 AFTER rebate for a 2x CD-R (NOT -RW) drive), and ALMOST completely stopped buying silvers. Other than a couple I've chanced upon in used CD shops for cheap, I haven't bought a single "bootleg" since I got broadband. In the past couple years, I've downloaded (at that presumptive $25/disc rate) WELL over $125,000 worth of commercially unreleased live/outtake/broadcast recordings, and the goobers who sell, or try to sell, the same recordings at collector shows or on eBay (who barely police audio recordings at all) can suck my big hairy DAT deck. The main reasons they're not quite fully becoming extinct are a) that most of the best bittorrent trackers are closed/limited membership, thus limiting the number of people who can take advantage in the first place, and b) that, yeah, a big percentage of the great unwashed just wouldn't want to spend the minimal amount of effort to learn to deal with bittorrenting.

re: age old argument

[King_TJ]

When it comes to piracy of entertainment content, yes - I do believe practically "everybody is doing it" these days. I also believe it makes much less difference in the overall economics than the industries would have you believe.

For every "freeloader" out there collecting thousands of computer games and movies without paying, there's another individual who is inspired to make a new purchase based on a pirated download.

The bottom line has always been; if you release QUALITY content, it will have monetary value. All those pirated copies of high-end CAD software, photo editing packages, and so on mean their users have NO support after the sale. Copy-protection cracks may even mean some portions of the software don't really work 100% properly anymore, and the pirate just didn't delve deep enough into the program to notice that. If you use a product as part of making your living, you're *probably* going to just purchase the thing, no matter how many teenagers pirate it just so they can say they have a copy.

By contrast, when most new video games (entertainment, mind you - NOT a product that can earn you money by using it) are released, they really only hold their value for a short time. The reason someone would pay $50-60 for a single game? Basically, to have it first and show off to their friends. After a game is out for a while, no matter how good it is, the initial luster is gone. If they don't price it cheap enough to make you say "Hey, may as well buy this instead of trouble myself with downloading and burning it." - they're not going to sell a lot of it.

Piracy is no more the "enemy" of developers as it is their "friend" (by creating free advertising and good word-of-mouth as pirates recommend that others buy the product). If anything, developers need to learn that it's not enough to release a great entertainment title once a year and sit around, expecting it to pay all the bills. Instead, they need to continuously release fresh content - ensuring that a given game isn't already owned by "everyone on the block". That said, it's probably unwise to create titles with massive up-front production costs. That's the wrong direction to go. Witness Nintendo's strategy with the Wii. Be creative but keep it simple. All the heavy-duty graphics and sound raise the price of the game titles. You're better off using your imagination instead of dazzling them with CPU power and special f/x.

Sad, really

[cdrguru]

Wal-mart has certainly responded to this by stopping all sales of CDs and DVDs. Best Buy closed their CD section just last month. Music stores just don't exist anymore. Some folks had a clever idea about a used DVD store a while back, too bad it isn't worth anything today.

You have all seen this, right? Or have you? You know, Wal-Mart is a pretty financially responsible outfit that is unlikely to stay in a business very long if they are losing money. So, can you find a Wal-Mart selling CDs? How about DVDs? Does this perhaps tell you that your internet file-sharing model of the world needs a slight adjustment to conform to reality?