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45% of Dutch Media-Buying Population Are "Pirates"
Anonymous writes "A non-government study in the Netherlands found that 4.7 million Dutch Internet users 15 years and older downloaded hacked and pirated DVDs, games, and music in the last 12 months — or, about 25 percent of the Dutch population. But there may be an upside to this unauthorized sharing/distribution: 'The average [Dutch] downloader buys more DVDs, music, and games than people who never download,' with illegal downloaders representing 45 percent of consumers who purchase content legally, according to the Institute For Information Law, which administered the study."
An unscientific look at my friends seems to suggest that the people who buy the most also pirate the most. There actually seems to be a fairly consistent ration between amount downloaded and amount purchased.
On the face of it, it's illogical for them to buy anything but clearly there's some good reason for them to do so.
Exactly. And don't forget, more draconian DRM.
Case in point. I just bought an LG DN898 Upconverting DVD player (not HD, not BluRay). Per LG and the Best Buy rep it would upconvert to 1080i on the component (Analog) output. In reality? "Copyrighted" movies play at 480p (non-upconverted), copied, pirated, and other DVDs will play at the full upconverted 1080i.
Yes, they made it more appealing for the customer to get pirated movies now.
So thanks to this encouragement I have bought my last DVD and look forward to only expanding my library through pirating, as pirated movies will now look *better* on my TV! (Oh and no more commercials, FBI notice, or other crap I can't skip).
* If you don't believe me btw, just check here (Warning PDF), page 5 under component connection:
"For 720p and 1080p resolution on the component video output, only non-copy protected discs can be played back. If the disc is copy protected, it will be displayed at the 480p resolution."
After all, what's a dutchman (or woman) to do when they have the economy blues but hoist the Jolly Roger and go out for a good old pillage on the high seas.
The pride of our national history, the VOC made much of its early profits through piracy. It brought us our Golden Age. It makes sens to go back to those pragmatic mercantile principles, right?
Even our prime minister lauded the VOC mentality a few month ago. (And got criticised for it because that includes slave trade and colonialism, but nobody mentioned piracy at the time.)
That really is insane...
I wonder what the logic was.
"Perhaps if we make sure our paying customers get lower quality products than those who pirate perhaps they won't want pirated moveies any more!"
Then go back to the way we did it for a thousand bloody years before the IP scam was cooked up! In case you didn't know we actually did have music and art before you could set on your ass and draw a check for 150+ years because you wrote a one hit wonder. It was called patronage and live performances. I know, it is a concept! To actually have to continue working like the rest of us poor slobs instead of making one digital widget and pulling a Disney and sitting on your overfed ass forever. How sad it is to actually be lowered to living like the rest of us and having to continue to work. Sheesh.
Our progress is being held back by these IP "holders" and their crazy ideas. News flash-digital bits are NOT the same as owning land! You may want them to be, but they are not! Example, There is NO reason why we shouldn't be able to buy prebuilt little multimedia servers designed to let us rip our CDs and movies and make them available anywhere in our homes. No more dealing with discs, the kids can watch what they want while the adults watch their own movies, etc. It would be very nice. But we can't have anything like that because the IP "holders" say you only have rights to play the plastic. So if the little bit of plastic isn't there than you can't watch it. AARGH!
I will be SO glad when the *.A.As just DIE already! For 150+ years we had sane copyrights until the IP "holders" decided to bribe our lawmakers. So while they haven't put out anything I would consider actually pirating I for one hope they lose tons of money. They ripped us off by stealing the Public Domain away from us, so anything that happens to them is fine by me. I hope they ALL go out of business. And NO bailouts for you!
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
I've got a set-top DVR / DVD burner / etc. that also encourages using pirated stuff, although for a different reason.
I wanted to copy my boxed DVD set of extended LOTR disks to the HD to (a) avoid having to swap them half way through the movies, and (b) keep the originals in pristine condition. This seemed to me to be very reasonable use for a DVR, but the film studios don't agree with me, so the machine won't let me do this for copy-protected stuff because the manufacturers can't obtain the relevant licenses and trademarks otherwise.
Fortunately, the box has in-built DIVX support and a USB port that can read thumb drives directly, so the solution is obvious: download a pirated DIVX version of each movie, stick it on a thumb drive, and then copy that to the HD, an operation that will also save me lots of HD space, and let me make backup DVDs of my LOTR disks with an entire 2-DVD movie on each. Score: Pirates 2, Genuine Version 0.
It should be noted that I haven't actually downloaded a pirate version yet because I haven't previously pirated anything unless it's the only alternative (e.g. I want something that's no longer available commercially), but this short-sighted policy has made me think about it seriously for the first time. I paid quite a lot of money for what amounts to a crippled product that prevents me from using it in a legitimate way that doesn't carry even the potential for any lost sales by the copyright owners, and if that's the way they treat their paying customers, then I can see no benefit in being one. I will not therefore be buying any more of their products unless they're in a bargain bin for price that's low enough to offset the fact that I'm buying a crippled POS whose true value is lower than that of a free version I can easily find on the Internet.
I'm not going to change your sheets again, Mr. Hastings.
--dave
davecb@spamcop.net