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Why I Steal Movies (Even Ones I'm In)
Jamie found a link saying "Like a billion other people, I download things illegally. I'm also an actor, writer, and director whose income depends on revenue from DVDs, movies, and books.This leads to many conflicts in my head, in my heart, and in bars."
Because with ripped movies you don't have to deal with those annoying previews that on some dvds, you can't skip.
Oh, and its cheaper.
And that, my fellow Slashdotters, is the whole point :-)
Living With a Nerd
This constant effort in changing our language is frustrating.
When you steal something you deprive the previous owner of their copy.
Making a copy is an offense but since it doesnt deprive the real owner of their copy its a very minor offense, especially when done without economic interest and for profit.
HTTP/1.1 400
..."I live in London and many of my favo(u)rite TV shows are American. So if I want to see the latest episode of South Park or Friday Night Lights..." I threw a flag right then. If you spend your time downloading and watching Texas' version of Days of Our Lives I have no more time for you. Personal Foul. Good bye now.
You are absolutely correct, if you go into a store and steal a DVD it is exactly the same as any other theft. On the other hand downloading copyright material is not theft. It is copyright infringement. You have not deprived anyone of the original. It seems that you have succumbed to the propaganda of that trailer, which if you watch carefully avoids saying that illegal copying or downloading is theft because they know it is wrong. It is the old association trick:
You wouldn't steal a bag
You wouldn't steal a car
Downloading videos is piracy
Piracy is against the law
Don't watch DVD's on your Xbox, or on any system made by Microsoft or Sony.
Plenty of non-name-brand DVD players don't implement the 'user can't skip' feature. Mine doesn't implement that. I can skip all that crap, and always do.
Speaking as someone who used to work in the retail industry, and the overall music industry, but now work in the tech industry, I think you're missing the importance of what you're interpreting his point-form items to mean.
> I'm lazy and impatient.
Aren't these precisely the reasons for two of the most crucial ingredients which all of the large scale entertainment industries are utterly failing to add to their product?
Convenience and ease of use.
People can order coffee at drive-throughs now. Why? It's convenient, and enough people were lazy and impatient enough that they didn't want to have to park, get out of their car, enter the actual coffee shop, line up, wait, choose from a menu either during or after that wait, order, wait some more for the coffee or other items to be made and delivered to them, pay, get a receipt, return to their car, and get back on the road. A drive through is far more convenient.
If the coffee shop / drive through example had never existed, an entire traffic infrastructure would arguable not exist today. Drive throughs are considered an innovation that was a direct response to customers who were impatient and busy, and who one could argue right now are lazy for using them. But they're considered an innovation.
The *IAA members who currently produce the CD's, DVD's and Blu-Ray discs in their current state lack this kind of innovative thinking. They fail to understand that convenience - especially in an era where a ton of information is very easily available - is a crucial ingredient in their product.
FBI warnings, several delays involving intro animations, menus or warnings, plus copyright notices, then trailers and previews are a nuisance. Then add in:
* DRM
* Regional coding
* Territorial restrictions for a given release
* Territorial delays in release or a complete lack of release in one or more territories
* The whole "back to the vault" scenario.
These are all considered annoyances, and hindrances to consuming the product people actually wanted to buy, and these are precisely the things that are causing people to avoid purchasing their products, but they refuse to remove them. I think it would be a huge wake-up call for even one studio to try releasing a product with at least one of these hindrances removed (but preferably all of them.) I also personally believe that restricting a work from being released in a different territory due to it not yet having a specific licensing agreement is a ridiculous concept in a world that has something called the Internet. iTunes doesn't let me buy some of my favorite artists because they aren't licensed to be released in my country. Of course I'm going to download them any way I can. (I do order physical CD's for exorbitant prices as well, but I'm probably a really rare consumer in this case.)
Even when studios do include a "bonus digital copy", it's restricted, and only available for a preset amount of time. If you try to use that copy past that time, you're out of luck. That's a stupid, stupid idea. I won't always want a new movie to remain on my iPod, and I will more than likely wish to use that feature far further in the future than they will allow. I don't know anyone who uses that feature, and I doubt I would ever choose it over ripping my own copy of the DVD I own so that I can play it the way I want.
As a programmer, "lazy" leads to better code over time because a program or script eventually does more things either I or my clients wanted it to do. As a former retail worker, "lazy" means we had to work harder to make sure people could get what they wanted more immediately, or find things out faster, especially when a store was very busy.
"lazy" and "impatient" are what labels and movie studios should be wanting to address in a way that produces a better product. Recorded music and films are the two biggest industries that resist this approach consistently, and then blame the consumer when they complain about it.
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