Slashdot Mirror
Rights Holders See Little Point Creating Legal Content Sources
aesoteric writes "Six weeks after Hollywood lost a landmark internet piracy case in Australia, it appears the film studios have gone cold on the idea of helping develop legal avenues to access copyrighted content as a way to combat piracy. Instead, they've produced research to show people will continue pirating even if there are legitimate content sources available. The results appear to support the studios' policy position that legislation is a preferable way of dealing with the issue." The industry-controlled kill switch is a popular idea all over the world.
I don't even bother turning on the TV, using Piratebay to steal the shows is easier (on the West Coast, so TV shows are available at about the same time). Of course the same is even more true for DVDs or movies. There's no possible business model better than piratebay, the only alternative is encouraging people to feel guilty for piracy, or criminally prosecuting pirates.
Slashdot: providing anti-social weirdos a soapbox, since 1997.
When no legal methods exist for consumers to obtain content in a way they demand, of course the only option left for them then is to illegally obtain that which they desire.
Over the years, the social contract between publishers and the society that has created the copyright monopoly has been abused to such extent, and has created such disproportionate amount of wealth for the few lawyers that run the business, that it is hard to see how they are going to accept a scheme that potentially cuts deep not only in their revenues, but in the justification of the existence of copyrights in their present form.
It's not about piracy. It's about control. Control of the networks is more valuable than any of the content they produce.
How about we get some new rights holders? In particular, how about some rights holders that won't keep trying to sandbag back the ocean?
I just can't care about 'fair' when there's enough money being milked to make multimillionaires out of actors. Maybe the end product wouldn't cost as much if, say, an actor in a top end show made $80k/year. Maybe content producers could then produce MORE good content to get their profit.
I dunno, I guess I'm just crazy.
Litigation is more profitable than content creation.
-uso.
What you hear in the ear, preach from the rooftop Matthew 10.27b
Black markets form when there exists a market that is not being serviced through legal channels. By not competing with the pirates by addressing the desires of the populous, the content companies are actually encouraging piracy. Listen up content providers. We want use our content when, where, and how we want it all at a reasonable price. Yes, there are those that pirate because they don't want to pay but most of us are willing to pay but can't without going through major headaches. Make it simple. Netflix and Hulu are prime, albeit not perfect, examples. I think most people would be willing to pay more if the selection was bigger and we could save movies offline for later when we do not have a network connection. In other words, a TV/movie version of Spotify and Rdio.
Apparently "the public" controlled kill switch is more popular. The more these idiots screw the public, the less it supports them. I'm not necessary in favor of piracy, but the measures the likes of the *IAA keep developing only seem to punish me as an honest consumer. It keeps getting harder and harder to justify spending money on a movie when I have to deal with a bunch of crap people who pirated it don't. Nearly 10 minutes of un-skippable shit to watch a movie that I supposedly own is fucking ridiculous.
High quality DRM-free movie downloads at a resonable price. As in, $5 or so.
I guarantee you most people will switch to downloading legally.
No more "rentals" and other stupid crap like that. Most people only see a movie once, so the revenue lost by just giving them a copy is minimal.
Most people I know stopped pirating music once legal, DRM-free downloads came about. The movie industry should do the same thing, but they're too afraid.
As much as I hate these sponsored researches, it's correct saying that piracy will not stop. However, it's also correct to say that murder will not stop as well if you take away all firearms and all sharp implements. There are just some things that they have to live with, not that they live in poverty over piracy.
Now, question is - how much copyright infringers will you be able to convert? I bet it's enough to cover costs.
But look, I just used the magic word at the root of it all - costs!
It costs more to serve the major segment of copyright infringes and will erode other monetization channels. What they want is to shift the costs of defending their "right to profit" to general public. Because it's cheaper to buy off a politician, than creating and maintaining something like Netflix. Remember - a movie contains a crapload of copyrightable material that requires a separate license/agreement to reproduce a derivative over the new medium - the internet. That is why they have geographical limitations - these copyrighted materials might have been bought only for creating derivative works and distribution of the derivative works in US, because it's cheaper to buy nationwide license vs worldwide.
Industry doubles down on its insistence that its customers are thieves... thereby shooting itself in the foot. Rather than realizing piracy is an unavoidable consequence and cost of doing business, much as "lobbying", other forms of bribery and graft, insurance of various kinds, and flat-out protection-money, they've decided to treat their customers like the enemy. Maybe someone who actually understands economics, psychology, sociology and business should be running things there, rather than whatever idiots are doing it now.
I think we're actually seeing a rare business instance of what is known as "grim retribution", in which a for-profit entity paradoxically says "I don't care if it hurts me, just as long as it HURTS YOU TOO!"
Share-holders should sue.
It is about human equality (human copyright violation) that can be delivered and is not. That is all those citizens ask for. They feel it is dis-respect that certain programs are not available to them. They are just proving that equality is possible.
...for people to legally get content, and you'll become ludicrously rich. In the 90s, everyone was using Napster and Limewire and whatever else to download all of their music, because the other option was going out and buying CDs, which was not easy or convenient, and often not particularly affordable.
Now everyone downloads their music from the Internet legally, primarily via iTunes or Amazon. Why would I want to deal with the hassle of a file-sharing site, where I might download mislabeled files, files containing viruses, or even just files that were ripped with crappy settings so that the sound quality is poor, when instead I can pay a reasonable fee and instantly download a high-quality music file to the device of my choice? Easy, affordable, convenient. All of this nonsense about stopping piracy and using "kill switches" are just the dying cries of industry executives who don't realize the world has changed whether they like it or not.
It's also the sheer inconvenience of dealing with the payment methods involved (and the lack of anonymity that requires).
Even if the studios charged $0.01 per movie, I still wouldn't buy them because they'd use paypal or some other evil company who insist on charging outrageous fees and having all my details on file.
Pirating will always be easier and more anonymous.
...it appears the film studios have gone cold on the idea of helping develop legal avenues to access copyrighted content as a way to combat piracy. Instead, they've produced research to show people will continue pirating even if there are legitimate content sources available.
A lot of people don't really pirate right now, or don't pirate very much. Obviously if attaining legal content were utterly convenient and totally free, no one would bother pirating. So clearly there's some terms between the current availability/pricing and "utterly convenient and totally free" at which most of the current pirates wouldn't bother anymore. Let's say, for example, you had a Netflix-like service for $20/month that had every TV show and movie ever? I suspect most people would stop pirating then.
What these industries should be studying is the trade-offs between convenience, price, and piracy that optimize both profits and customer satisfaction. They seem to be complaining that they don't think that even the optimal rate won't be profitable enough, in which case: tough beans; your product isn't worth as much as you'd like it to be.
The results appear to support the studios' policy position that legislation is a preferable way of dealing with the issue.
Preferable for them, maybe, but that doesn't mean it's good. If I'm selling paper towels for $50 a roll and not making money because not enough people are buying them, I don't get to go whining to the government to prop up my business with legislation.
"It appears the film studios have gone cold on the idea of helping develop legal avenues to access copyrighted content as a way to combat piracy
Instead, they've produced research to show people will continue pirating even if there are legitimate content sources available."
WTF?
I have a new suggestion for the film industry: help develop a legal avenue to access copyrighted content as a way to make money. It seems that the industry is more interested in protecting the profits of its legacy customers instead of looking after its own. Why?
Here's the business model:
Film Studio: film -> internet -> film watcher
Film watcher: money -> internet -> film studio.
Stop obsessing about pirates and start obsessing about business.
If the film studios logically applied their illogical suppositions, they would also cease distributing films to physical cinemas because pirates are gonna keep a-pirating.
WTF?
Not in one step. First we halve the time to termination of copyright on all new and existing copyright material. If after a year that wasn't too traumatic, halve it again. And so on.
I'm pretty sure artists will keep producing. Movies will still be made. (there does not seem to be a high correlation between cost and financial success in the movie business. And anyhow, a large part of profits seems to come from theatre showings).
download:watch ads; protest: vote; wank: pretty people: ____:____?
Gently reply
The key here is that these executives want to feel important. Installation of a publicly mandated kill switch is a great ploy for power. The money is also key, plus think of the factor that those kill switches also may thwart competitive offerings.
Total world domination is all they care about.
Best bet is to not pirate or even watch their content but to produce your own and make it more popular to dilute their power. Do it quick before they strangle the last vestige of creativity away from the many so their few retains the media heroin pirated so much.
http://www.aisnota.com/slashdot/ Welcome to Logic and the Future
I have no love for the copyright terms being as long as they are, but ending copyright altogether, even slowly as you suggest, would not be a good solution... it would strongly favor the publishers who have more money, and who have a larger distribution channel.
At least with copyright, the small guy can actually stop a bigger corporation from potentially profiting from his work without compensation.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
According to J.Michael Straczynski (jms), just because the viewers demand content in a certain format or certain time (immediately rather than wait 1 week for the USA-to-BBC feed), does not mean they are entitled too it. He thinks we should stop infringing on his copyrights, as that means he (and others) don't get paid.
If, for example, Disney isn't selling DVDs of a given movie and has no plans to within the next decade, then Disney makes no more money off me if I don't pirate than if I do. What's the sound public policy behind keeping such a work out of the public's hands if it isn't being distributed or even prepared for distribution?
I'll agree once you tell me who's willing to front the money to have multimillion-dollar films produced to replace Hollywood's multimillion-dollar films.
If you dislike their actions, why are you using the derogatory terms they invented?
I'm under the impression that it's called verbal irony.
Most people only see a movie once
Of course, there are exceptions, such as single-digit-year-old children who habitually rewatch a favorite animated family film. For me, back in the day, it was The Care Bears Movie.
That is just it. You don't OWN it. You own a limited rights to broadcast with 1001 clauses.
That is why you SHOULD be in favour of not paying for your content.
Let's say, for example, you had a Netflix-like service for $20/month that had every TV show and movie ever?
For one thing, that will always be a hypothetical until Disney finally rereleases the movie in which "Zip a Dee Doo Dah" premiered on DVD. For another, I noticed that that's cheaper than cable TV; does your $20 per month package include live programming such as Morning Joe Brewed by Starbucks and Monday Night Football?
The new business model is:
1. Hold onto IP
2. Wait for someone to violate it
3. Sue grandmothers and small business startups
4. Profit!
Seriously though, the article doesn't suggest that legal avenues aren't worth creating, simply that they're inadequate in eliminating piracy and that legislation is needed. The research mentioned is that 86% of 'persistent downloaders' pirate 'because of cost' although the article is unclear if this means that cost is merely a factor or if it's the biggest factor; it's even less clear if this means 'at any price'. This research was commissioned by a pro-IP group, of course, and has yet to be publicly released or validated. Incidentally, the people surveyed were Australians, the same ones frequently charged 100-500% markup for 'digital downloads' (god I hate that term).
Corruption is convincing someone that the selfless ideal is the same as their selfish ideal.
I've stopped pirating MP3's when I got Spotify where I have a paid premium account. I stopped pirating US TV-series since I got VPN access to Hulu, which would be a Hulu Plus account if they would accept my foreign credit card. I've stopped pirating movies since I discovered Netflix can be tricked into accepting foreign credit cards. Also recently discovered Crackle for free older movies.
A lot of folks I know would stop pirating if the above services were made available in their country, without artificial delays from when content is released in the US.
Really the only thing we need to stop pirating completely is to have a service where you can watch the latest cinema released. An online cinema if you will.
Most real pirates don't download content for free. They spend money on their internet provider, often being forced to chose more expensive options for no cap. Many subscribe to so called storage lockers like rapidshare and others which have subscription based services usually starting around $10 a month. The reason? Legal options are terrible. This was driven home to me several nights ago. My wife wanted to see the last episode of a show that she had missed last week. I said that would be easy, fired up the network website, found the episode and started streaming it. The quality was terrible but watchable. However for some reason the commercial breaks were not synced right and about a minute after the commercials the show would freeze and then fast forward two minutes. Out of a twenty minute episode we maybe were able to watch fifteen minutes of it. And then were forced to watch another five minutes of adds. Frustrated, I looked for a pirated copy of the show online, downloaded a much better quality version and streamed it to my television. No commercials, no errors in the playback, higher quality, more convenient, and it took less then five minutes to download. It seems like every time I try the legal options the experience is terrible.
The entertainment industries are the government's mouthpiece all over the world. If control of the electronic trade routes is lost, well then, all bets are off...
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
I say screw the big government-loving liberals that control Hollywood. They've spent the last 50 years pushing an anti-property rights, pro-tax, government-worshiping (ever notice how most non-comedic TV dramas are about cops or lawyers?) agenda. Boo freaking hoo that they're IP rights are being violated. That creaking sound they're hearing is the roof about to cave in under the weight of all of the chickens roosting on it.
Mr. Rightsholder, look. I'm an upper middle class guy in my 30s, I've got disposable income to pay for entertainment. I don't want or need to pirate stuff. But I'll be damned if I'm going to drive my ass out to Best Buy every time I want to watch a movie. So here are your choices:
1) You can pay billions of dollars to buy senators and push through legislation to make it illegal for me to steal your content, which I'm not doing. Then you can spend billions more watching my internet connection to make sure I don't steal your content, which I won't be doing: I'll be playing video games, borrowing content from friends, or watching your competitors' video-on-demand.
2) You can give me a legal way to pay you for your content, and I'll give you a boatload of cash.
Option #1 means you pay. Option #2 means you get paid. How is this a difficult choice?
I'm almost 40 and I love iTunes Match. I have about 500 CD's I've bought over the years and it sucked having to manage them on my iTunes. But with iTunes Match they are either matched online or uploaded online. Now I have access to my whole collection. It just manages it for me with the ones I've played recently residing on my phone. Even nicer is if I had a low quality rip and it matches it will give me their best quality version. All of this for about $2/mo.
Why can't this be done with DVD's? I've bought some movies on VHS and DVD and now they want to charge me for BluRay? Screw that. Let me put my DVD's in the drive, let iTunes match it and give me HD copies available anywhere.
I love Jesus, except for his foreign policy.
This is just a sequel to the drug wars. It's all the same: there's no good reason for it to be illegal, except for all the money to be made. Entrenched power acts defensively to preserve and extend itself.
Actually, that's a bit mangled. What was actually popular was "A kill switch for the industry."
Back in the 90s, it became obvious that there was a market for digitally distributed music.
Those with clue said that the music industry could deal with it by using the tremendous savings to provide cheap easy to get portable music. And in the process get the micropayments system to have enough volume to function.
Instead, they opted to try to continue their old business model and pricing for digital music, but with the nuance that all of the distribution, inventory and production costs were massively less. Thus, they thought they'd reap massive profits.
As discussed many times here on slashdot and other places, since they were unwilling to release the music until they had DRM and controls so they could have this old business model pricing with new model costs, others fielded much of the digital distribution system before the industry did.
Not surprisingly, it was done to provide free content and fast distribution.
By delaying until they could have it on their terms, the music industry effectively trained their customers to expect free music.
Before that, a volume based pricing model without DRM would have been IMHO quite successful. But, instead they created and released a genie that won't go back in the bottle.
Now that so many people have been trained that they can get free music (and now video), (much of the time as easily and with just as good a quality as the pay content) I don't see much the music/motion picture industry can do about it.
They can try to enact draconian laws by lobbying, but the same lawmakers voting on the bills have kids that are downloading torrents (if the lawmakers themselves aren't).
I suppose they could resort to a model with government collected fees or a tax on everyone to pay for it. But that invites the very type of regulation they don't want. i.e. The government telling the iindustry what to do rather than the government telling the people the industry doesn't like that they can't use and provide free content.
They know government intervention in some form is their only hope, thus they hire high priced former legislators like Chris Dodds to lobby for them.
The industry-controlled kill switch is a popular idea all over the world.
Maybe there will be a "Do what I'm thinking button" some day after all.
Having to work for a living is the root of all evil.
Everyone has nine excuses why they don't pay a penny for the content that they steal and why they are entitled to it. The excuses range from CD prices in the 90's to broadcast delays to issues of convenience -- really any excuse that is even mildly plausible gets thrown at the wall.
Piracy exists because there are no tangible consequences for most individuals. That is the only reason. It has nothing to do with CD prices in the 90's
Personally, I will support any draconian legislation that puts a boot on your throats and I don't care who gets the money. Piracy has not only ruined the livelihoods of countless artists it has also lowered the overall quality of media as it is now absolutely necessary to appeal to the lowest common denominator in order to break even.
The call to adapt to new technology OR ELSE is utter bs. There is no other market where one can simply decide they don't like the terms of the sale and instead steal with impunity.
Legal avenues work.
Steam and Steam sales keep me from pirating games.
It's a fact.
They're using their grammar skills there.
They'll just continue to have right between the eyes. In a market economy they refuse to adapt to what the market wants. I see dinos awaiting for the meteorite to fall.
They get their legislation, but anything that is not legally obtainable (with the exception of movies in the theater and the like) cannot be pursued under it. So company D doesn't want to make a 70 year old movie available and someone puts it on the internet, Company D has two choices: Make it legally available, or just sit there pissed that their legislation won't do anything to help them.
When the entertainment industry simply fails to see how big of an opportunity is staring them in the face.
The customer has already demonstrated exactly what they want and how they want to get it. It will save the studios the troubel of having to manage all the production and distribution centers... heck they might even just rent some of Amazons gargantuan apparatus to set up the initial system... I used to subscribe to Netflix when they provided decent content at an appropriate price. But its almost as if they went out of their way to torpedo the online service didn't they?
I am a big movie buff myself... collected all my stubs for at least the past six years... apparently I have spent at least $1800 on going to the movies in that time... With record breaking receipts for movies like Hunger Games and the like... it is clear that people are willing and able to pay a reasonable price to watch good content.... BUT! The public does NOT want to have to carry around boxes of CD's or DVD's... The public does not want to have to pay an exorbitant rate of upwards of $20 for a blu ray... not when it is clearly evident that no one in the entertainment industry is in any danger of starving to death... particularly if they have the money to make crap like Battleship and GI Joe or pretty much any Adam Sandler Movie... (sorry bro... I know you probably mean well... but I have to say it... most of your movies suck... by any stretch of the imagination...) I mean... if studios/record labels were in any danger of going belly up and dying out... as they so proudly like to claim...How in the world did the vultures on Wall Street miss that I wonder? (Does this mean I should prepare to short the shares of any publicly traded studios/labels?)
A movie (or music) that has to make its money and save its "artists" (is that what studio and record label are execs calling themselves now?) from "billions of dollars worth of losses" by forcing customers to buy a product that they don't want (CD's and DVD's)... simply was not worth financing in the first place... All the losses are imagined anyways... calculated on the MRP of a product the public didn't want to buy... there are probably people who download movies simply because they don't know how to make good rips themselves...
Also... and this is true for essentially every other product in the world... You get to TRY IT BEFORE YOU BUY IT! Not so with movies now is it? Those trailers you throw at us.... we are not complete retards you know... we know how misleading they can be... once bitten twice shy... get the picture? (No pun intended)....
The gaming industry is stepping up to the plate with Steam... ... Itunes only serves the Apple mob... No disrespect intended... but I cant afford one of those... and by work would require me to use Windows anyway... In any case... it is time for the studios and record labels to sit down and decide whether it is really worth the fight... one which they have no hope of winning....
Oh... in case any studio exec reads this... I would have spent more money going to more movies if the tickets had been a bit cheaper... a few bad reviews might not have been enough to dissuade me from watching many movies in the past few years if the associated ticket price had been a bit lower... spending $10 is enough to give a man pause when someone tells him the movie is crap even if he thought it looked interesting in the preview... but for $5... he would say... Fuck it... its only $5... Also... don't charge more for 3D... you know there are people who are actually making money by selling glasses that are 'anti-3D'? Let you watch a 3D movie in 2D mode...
Seems Hollywood has really been increasing the suck. "You don't wanna pay for our content? Then we're gonna make terrible content." I can't find anything worth watching.
The Admin and the Engineer
I just don't watch the crap. I don't care one iota what movie is coming out or which Hollywood blowhards are "starring" in it. Sometimes I turn on the TV and if there's something on that seems tolerable, I'll watch it. Same for the movies. The MPAA / RIAA and their scorched-earth tactics have completely turned me off to the idea of TV's, Movies, "Records", DVD's-- the whole bit. I haven't bought a Record, CD or DVD in probably 20 years, unless maybe I did it as a gift for someone. I can't recall when the last time I bought a movie was either. In any format. Movie theaters have priced tickets so far into the stratosphere that its just not worth it to go spend the megabucks on tickets, more megabucks on crap food and drinks, just to sit in a theater full of noisy brats to watch the visual equivalent of post nasal drip on the big screen. Which is usually out-of-focus anyway and accompanied by over-amped speakers. What's the fucking use? MPAA / RIAA-- Fuck 'em. Who needs 'em.
FTA:
Highlighting the popular TV series Game of Thrones, he noted that viewers were no longer content to wait for the show to air in Australia about a week after it aired in the US. The show, frequently referred to by iiNet executives in regard to local content availability, screens on Foxtel about five days after airing in the US. It is also available to download from the iTunes Store for Australian users about the same time.
Yeah and so.. what is the market telling you to do then? Screen it at the same time. Figure it out. It's what you get paid the big bucks to do. Work it out, idiot. Never mind your fucking "kill switch", unless you're also willing to attach same device to your gonads.
Hmmm, we can have money or we can have angry.....ANGRY!!!!!! MOAR ANGRY!!!! -- the official board meeting minutes
"The industry-controlled kill switch is a popular idea all over the world." Maybe it is to the content industry. To the rest of the world (those with functioning brains) know that this is an insidious notion.
They don't want to learn, they do no want change with the times, they do not want to acknowledge what people want. They want things their way, And if they do not get their way, they want a KILL switch.
These are powerful people, used to being in power, used to getting their way. It may be a delusional fantasy, but Hollywood is in the Fantasy Business.
Film is powerful. It changes the world. That's why the movies are crap. They are not to entertain, they are to shape beliefs. To install the blind belief system of the ruling paradigm. To sell product.
Ever look at the credits in a movie? It takes hundreds of specialized people to pull a modern film off. Very telling are all the accountants. Because the need to spend a 100 million dollars to make anything people want to see. And another 50 million to advertise and promote.
Not that film is a new business. It is roughly 100 years old. The technology is complicated and mature. There is no Dorm Room to Billionaire path for Two dudes with a camera and a good script. Hollywood is much too sophisticated and closed off for that.
Until there is competing content from other sources than Hollywood, and until Film and TV no longer dominate the shaping of the Blind Belief Paradigm that inhabits the minds of the mainstream . . .
Now try to get , say, big bang theory latest season in germany. Good luck with that. Try again , in say, 2 or 3 years. Some serie are even NEVER available there, not even as direct to DVD sale.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
What are you talking about? DMCA pretty clearly did make conversion illegal, and that in turn, kept conversion products off the market. That's why most people don't bother and let the release groups deal with the hassle.
How do you convert Blu-Rays or HBO broadcasts to playable files? And however you're doing that, are you really sure it's legal? I bet you're using something which is illegal to sell or use in USA.
Off an online ad supported alternative and you'll get a lot of those pirates back.
The studios are too fixated on people paying. We got free music on the radio. We got free television and movies... We just had the ads.
Put some ads up and offer it free. At no point has the industry tested this idea. Hulu is the closest they've come to it and it's a starved wreck. It has a very small selection of mostly old content. Give me a break. Put it all up. the hosting costs are ZERO. I believe youtube has offered to host their complete library for nothing or so close to nothing as to not matter.
Just try it before you bitch about it. We're not going back to dvds and cds. The future is digital. Get over it.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
If after a year, nothing will change, copyright wouldn't end for like 3 or 4 more decades.
But if you ended copyright completely, high quality, big budget productions would cease. Sure a lot of small budget stuff would still be made. But why spend ANY money, when you can get it for free, legally.
How will the content creators make money? Advertising?
Well, in that case people will not pay them what they would have otherwise paid for a DRM-free, ad-free, high-quality offering that can be repeatedly downloaded once paid for. Instead they will just download for free, occasionally wondering why the content distributors are so stupid and apparently do not want their money.
And no, legal measures are not going to help. They can always only go so far, especially in democracies.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
i haven't heard of any hollywood or network tv layoffs. they still keep making movies and tv shows. when pirates actually starting hurting revenues, pirates will have less to pirate.
1. i go see movies i really want to see at the theater. $10
alternative: none. i will do this no matter what.
2. i download torrent when it comes out on dvd. $time + $risk
alternative: i rent the dvd when it comes out. $2
alternative: buy dvd $20
3. i rip dvd to avi file so i can watch it anytime, anywhere. $time + $time it takes to work around new anti-ripping tech
my suggestions/wishes that i think would stop most piracy and still provide a healthy stream of revenue:
1. raise theater price by $2
2 & 3:
* sell me a drm-free download for $3 (movie) or $1 (tv episode) in popular formats or that i can convert to any format i want. use bittorrent/private trackers (users must register, perhaps pay a small monthly fee of $5 or less) to distribute and ease cost of making available through the internet. anyone that would still 'pirate' from other bittorrents/trackers is not really a lost customer. if they won't spend $2 to download from 'official', largest, fastest bittorrent network, they were never going to shell out any money anyway. continue with your crackdowns/lawsuits on downloads from 'illegal' sources. put lots of advertising crap on website index of torrents to help support this new business model. perhaps even make your own 'special' bittorrent client that will display additional, rotating ad-junk while downloading (but let me minimize/mute it) and that is the only client allowed to connect to the private tracker. (yes, this will be circumvented to allow any client but the user must still register and pay because this 'private tracker' is going to require user authentication of some competent sort. plus, you can discourage 'unofficial' clients with periodic, automatic, required updates to the official client that changes some sort of authentication key used by the client. note i said 'discourage' not prevent. users of other 'unofficial' clients will be discouraged by the hassles of their 'unoffical' client not working until the authors of their 'unoffical' client figure out what changed and push their updated client out)
* jack up licensing/royalty/whatever fees that other home video distributors (netflix, redbox, etc.) have to kick-back to you and continue to make them wait 30 days for new releases
How to watch Game of Thrones.
Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
Over the years, the social contract between publishers and the society that has created the copyright monopoly has been abused to such extent, and has created such disproportionate amount of wealth for the few lawyers that run the business, that it is hard to see how they are going to accept a scheme that potentially cuts deep not only in their revenues, but in the justification of the existence of copyrights in their present form.
club dresses
In the mid 80s I had a true 24 bit graphics card and I made lots of images and I found that half of the 16 million colors appear brown or grey to most people in the context of any other colors. The result of this silly research was a program that could produce a wide range of color transitions and gradients. While the math shows the numbers should be in the range of 256*2^24^2^23 type numbers, it turns out that most are useless and there is a low number of useful color gradients.
Today I can find the gradients I created years ago on nearly every web site in the world as well as every annoying message at the start of a DVD.
So should I start sending take down notices and who do I start with? I was thinking the first shot across the bow should be one of the sites that was set up to have infringements reported as part of a 3 strikes law or maybe a political party's web site.
Can I do it? Not really. The cinemas here don't show it in the original, just the dubbed version. I can't buy the DVD or Blu-Ray yet, although I would gladly pay for it.
So I download a shitty version with bad picture and sound. What I want is to be able to buy it, download it and use it DRM free. I won't give it/show it to just anybody, just friends and family. If its cost 20Euros, I am ok with it, but don't tell me what player, OS or medium I have to use to watch it.
I hope we will soon see that crowdfunded movies and software will become more popular and the big studio system will gradually die out. Who would not want to pay 20 bucks for a Joss Whedon movie. Get a million people together and make it without all the studio overhead.
I don't have to provide a new system just because I point out that the current one is broken beyond repair, unethical, exploitative, and harmful to society.
In the real world, the current one is so entrenched politically that any practical solution would need to prepare to compete with the incumbent. Otherwise, the system that "is broken beyond repair, unethical, exploitative, and harmful to society", as you put it, is also the system that is least "broken beyond repair, unethical, exploitative, and harmful to society" among those that have been implemented.
why did shareware die ?
It didn't. There are "free" and "ad-free" editions of many mobile games and other applications: if you like the game, you buy the "ad-free" version. As others pointed out, there are Steam and Humble Bundles.
Or it did. If development tools cost money above and beyond what it costs to own a computer in the first place, hobbyist developers are going to try to recoup these costs. But by 2000 or so, GCC became a viable alternative to Microsoft Visual C++ for hobbyists even on Windows.
TFA says that piracy in Australia costs them $2.46 million per day. Where the hell are the pulling that number from? The content providers are spending anything and keep misquoting "potential sales lost" as an real cost. The article goes out of it's way to point out that these people will not pay for the content so if they couldn't pirate it the Content providers would not suddenly get $2.46 million more each day, they'd be more likely to get 0.
Reminds me of copyright math (tm) from this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZadCj8O1-0
Disney isn't selling DVDs of a given movie and has no plans to within the next decade
Disney "puts movies back into the Disney vault" to create demand for them while the "vault" is open.
I am aware of this practice. For the movies you're thinking of, the vault opens roughly every decade. For the movies I'm thinking of, Disney has made no plans for a rerelease.
And it's not just Disney. When will the English version of the animated series Spartakus and the Sun Beneath the Sea, which was shown on Nickelodeon in the 1980s, see a DVD release?
That's why so many indie artists are breaking their contracts with Sony at al. Criminalizing music piracy will have one benefit. The indie artists will no longer have to pay lawyers when Sony and friends defraud them of their rightful royalties. The problem being, how does one send a corporation to jail?
"Six weeks after Hollywood lost a landmark internet piracy case in Australia, it appears the film studios have gone cold on the idea of helping develop legal avenues to access copyrighted content as a way to combat piracy. Instead, they've produced research to show people will continue pirating even if there are legitimate content sources available.
...
That's not strictly trie, I downloaded AVATAR and was so impressed I then went to see it at a Cinema
AccountKiller
Africa for the Africans. Asia for the Asians. White countries - For everybody.
We are told there is this RACE problem, We are told this RACE problem will be solved when the third world pours into EVERY white country and ONLY into white countries.
The Netherlands and Belgium are just as crowded as Japan or Taiwan, but nobody says Japan or Taiwan will solve this RACE problem by bringing in millions of third worlders and quote assimilating unquote with them.
Everybody says the final solution to this RACE problem is for EVERY white country and ONLY white countries to “assimilate,” i.e., intermarry, with all those non-whites.
What if I said there was this RACE problem and this RACE problem would be solved only if hundreds of millions of non-blacks were brought into EVERY black country and ONLY into black countries?
How long would it take anyone to realise I’m not talking about a RACE problem. I am talking about the final solution to the BLACK problem?
And how long would it take any sane black man to notice this and what kind of psycho black man wouldn’t object to this?
But if I tell that obvious truth about the ongoing program of genocide against my race, the white race, Liberals and respectable conservatives agree that I am a naziwhowantstokillsixmillionjews.
They say they are anti-racist. What they are is anti-white.
Anti-racist is a code word for anti-white.
Would you like to have some bread?
* Deliverable per truck (but you first have to build a road)
* In stores in china (but you don't live in china)
* In stores in south africa (but you don't live in south africa)
* On the moon (but you don't live on the moon)
And you can get it in the following exciting "formats"
* In a can (but no can opener in your current zone)
* In a container (padlocked, no key)
* In a simple paper bag, bout doused in rat poison (so the rats can't eat it, but neither can you)
In fact, you can get bread in just about every possible way, but you're not allowed to actually eat it. ;-)
You're worried about being hungry? GET OVER IT! Patience is a valuable asset, after all.
Last time I checked, it actually already was a crime. One that can, in some cases, even carry a jail term.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
At least with copyright, the small guy can actually stop a bigger corporation from potentially profiting from his work without compensation.
Would you mind citing some examples of where this has happened please? Best I've been able to find is artists being suckered by record publishing contracts and hollywood accounting schemes.
Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.
That proves their point.. go figure.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
people will continue pirating even if there are legitimate content sources available
That's true.
However, the key point is the ratio. If they can achieve a one-to-one ratio of legitimate downloads to pirate downloads, then the content industry will have built an extremely lucrative cash cow on the Internet.
A one-to-one ratio is actually a realistic goal, but it can only be achieved by eliminating DRM, slashing prices, and organizing their catalog exclusively for the convenience of the customer (e.g. no region lock-outs, etc.).
The content industry is unwilling to do this. For that reason, the incumbent players must die, and must be replaced by new companies that are willing to give the customers what they want.
I find it very odd that the incumbent companies would rather die than adapt to their customers' desires. But that's their choice.
They don't use studios: just shooting on the street (so you often see random passers-by in the background - that also eliminates the need for extras).
Do they get model releases from the random passers-by? If not, a random passer-by could sue in some U.S. states if the film is commercially distributed or exhibited in those states with the random passer-by's face not blurred out.
I'm sure someone had posted this idea - but it deserves to be reiterated
but what the hell, rights holders? release content with embedded advertising on torrent websites, and call it a day. that is the only way you will ever "win" this battle - and honestly, that's the best possible option
Actually, it doesn't generally tend to happen that often because copyright infringement currently *IS* illegal, and if a larger company that tried to do something like that, they would find themselves in no end of trouble (depending on the scale of the infringement, somebody might even end up in jail).
Without copyright, there would be absolutely no disincentive for it to occur... do you seriously think it wouldn't?
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Oh, and obviously you don't send a corporation to jail, but their license to practice business could be revoked (this is generally what happens when a company is found to have broken the law and a mere fine would not be sufficient deterrent).
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
I watch movies at theaters, borrow DVDs from the Howard County Library and my wife rents from RedBox or Blockbuster at grocery stores from time to time. I use DVDs for Linux and updates or home movies more than anything else. If the studios try to lock things down any further we'll likely just skip the stuff they produce altogether.
The big three networks seem to have clued into delivery. If you have broadband the networks will let you watch most recent episodes of their most popular series along with a couple of commercials. There is Netflix, Hulu and a few others that are a lot less expensive than content from regular Hollywood sources. If you really want what they produce there are a bunch of ways to go legal without going broke. We are likely to go back to Netflix when our Verizon contract expires. Even with no 2 year contract it makes sense to drop the phones, the cable and just keep the internet. Verizon is likely to hate it but that seems to be where we are headed. $160 a month for all three is too rich for us for something most of us when we only watch a couple of shows a week at most. If I lived closer to Baltimore I'd consider OTA but we live in a lower level condo and their is literally no signal here to speak of without cable. It will save $100 a month for something not used very much.
bob@Osprey:~>
Look closely.
You have 1. Massive immigration, 2. To white countries only 3. Border laws suspended Coupled with: 4. Forced integration 5. Racial preference to non-whites 6. Coerced tolerance 7. Socially engineered assimilation/genetic blending
What is the end result of diversity? Genocide, white genocide.
Anti-racist is a codeword for anti-white.
Look closely.
You have 1. Massive immigration, 2. To white countries only 3. Border laws suspended Coupled with: 4. Forced integration 5. Racial preference to non-whites 6. Coerced tolerance 7. Socially engineered assimilation/genetic blending
What is the end result of diversity? Genocide, white genocide.
And screaming to the money.
I hope this time they fuck themselves totally.
I no longer watch TV or go to the movies.
I get all my entertainment from the web.
I use a 42 inch TV for my monitor and I am as happy as a pig eating shit.
Only a network bill.
"How will the content creators make money? Advertising?"
Depends on the art form.
1. Movies. Ticket prices at theatres. Advertising within the movie.
2. Journalists/cartoonists. Advertising. e.g. XKCD.
3. Painters. They should make enough from the originals.
etc.
I suspect the big publishers would be out of business.
Huh??
Without copyright, lots of copying would occur, but it would actually HELP the artist/creator. The big corporates would vanish.
Think about it. Somebody (maybe Rupert Murdoch) copies a story and puts it on his masthead alongside some advertising. If it was a good article I would look for the writer's website and go there direct. Then he gets the advertising!!
Some artists are already doing this. I read the free online web comics Girl Genius online, smbc, xkcd, Questionable Content. Those guys make a good living from advertising.
Same applies to downloadable music and EVERYTHING ELSE that is copyrightable.
All the people trying to preserve copyright are shills for the big corporates.
I am neither a big corporate, nor a shill for a big corporate. I am a small copyright holder who values the exclusivity that copyright is supposed to offer me. Yes, I realize that my stuff will get copied without permission by individuals who do it simply because there's no real way to police it in that scale, but at least if a larger company were to try it, I could stop it. Without copyright, I couldn't. If their distribution channel is larger than mine (which is quite likely, given that they have more money), I could get effectively cut right out of benefiting from my own work. I have no problem whatsoever with artists and creators who choose to make their stuff freely available, but that's THEIR choice... and that's how it is supposed to be. Why should other people be allowed to dictate what sort of model that I wish to use?
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
It would help my analysis if you had mentioned at least the type of copyright you hold. (painting, fashion, etc).
But the general answer is, the "big corporates" rely on copyright for their existence. Without copyright there are just a large number of small, competing manufacturers and/or distributors. You, as a creative artist could pick and choose who would manufacture your work.
You get exclusivity by putting your name and web address as an integral part on your creations. As a creative person you can only benefit from this publicity and visits to your website (unless you are a "one shot" creator.)
And good luck with protecting your (existing) copyright if one of the "big corporates" does steal your creation. There are quite a few highly publicized cases where corporates spent quite a lot of money defending their stealing of copyright.
"and that's how it's supposed to be". Well those copyright laws came about because the "big corporates" sponsored them by a process that economists call "regulatory capture" (see Wikipedia). It wasn't God who made that law.
That you would even mention this indicates that you are, evidently, taking copyright as an axiomatic given. Without copyright, your name on your creation means absolutely zip, since anybody can simply remove it.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Dear Mark-t,
I must say. your comment is obscure.
You quote me:: "You get exclusivity by putting your name and web address as an integral part on your creations"
and respond: "That you would even mention this indicates that you are, evidently, taking copyright as an axiomatic given. Without copyright, your name on your creation means absolutely zip, since anybody can simply remove it."
About me. I am a fabric artist. My website address is an integral part of my fabric designs. I do not bother with copyright. I suppose it would be possible to remove that part of my design (the www address). And sell it.
But consider; in the absence of copyright laws, why would someone bother to remove my address? What web address would they replace it with? And if they are in the business of mass production, I would imagine their best business policy would be to ask for my permission. That way they might do a deal to obtain access to my more recent creations. Because art is a matter of style. If my designs became fashionable then new designs would earn me (and my manufacturer) lots of money. If somebody copied the designs and sold them, I could contract out production to a third party, and sell direct from my website. They could not win, because they would always be behind me in production of new designs. And everything they sold that carried my design would point new customers to my web site. But then, you know all that.
Back to you. Despite my challenge that:
"It would help my analysis if you had mentioned at least the type of copyright you hold. (painting, fashion, etc)."
You chose not to provide your name or even your art form.
Your name appears to be a corruption of the word "market"
I believe you are a shill. Because only the big marketing companies have a need to push your narrative.
My suggestion for what it is worth is this: Get in your Porsche. Drive home and enjoy your Malibu beach house. And start thinking of a new racket. The copyright racket is dying fast.
First of all, my username is mark-t because my first name is Mark, and my last name begins with "T".
I've already said above that I'm not a shill. If you don't believe that. well, that's your own problem.
As for the type of copyrights I hold, they are on software. Some of it free, and under the GPL, some of it not. I value the terms over both types of creations equally. I use the GPL when I want my work (and in particular, my source code) to stay free. When I do not, I do not use it. Copyright protects my interests in both cases. I also write software for other people... who would, in particular, be highly reticent to pay me anything if it were not for copyright.
I have no Porsche. I am not incredibly wealthy. I have no Malibu beach house. I value copyright because of what it offers me - a measure of control over what I create, even if I release it into the general population. The publishers that I write software for feel the same way, and if they didn't have copyright, I'd be out of a job (as would every computer programmer who wrote code for other people).
I push the narrative that I do because I've studied the subject extensively... and I see how copyright, since its inception, has actually benefited society by giving creators an incentive to publish, by offering them legally recognized control over the copying of their work. I've noticed that many people that don't advocate copyright think that this control is illusionary, and because it's not inherent, it shouldn't be there at all. Well, actually, it *IS* inherent... a creator has completely natural control over the copying of any work that he creates if he or she does not distribute it at all, or at least restricts its distribution to a small subset of society that they feel confident they can still control the distribution of their work within. The entire *point* of copyright is that it supposed to be a trade... The creator gets to hold on a form of the control they would have had if they never released it at all, or otherwise publicly censored themselves (I do recognize that this extended control only exists by legislation... but it is still an extension of a type of control that otherwise would have naturally existed if they had not published), and in exchange, society gets to be benefited and enriched by the publication of the work. Serendipitously, the creator might also choose to profit from their work during the term alocated for their exclusive rights on it (for what it's worth, I totally agree that existing copyright terms are far too long. They should be scaled back to no more than 20 years, on *ANY* type of work... and arguably even less than that for some types of digital content).
Of course, you might just think I'm a mindless peon, who has been brainwashed by the big corporates, and is just the sort of person that they want to cater to. Again, you'd be off the mark. I'm just somebody who recognizes that copyright, throughout its history, has been good for society, and that without it, artists would be *forced* to self- publish. Regardless of how cheap you might perceive this to be thanks to the Internet, remember that a person's distribution capacity is still going to be limited by how much money they have... not to mention that almost everything ever created will just get lost in the endless ocean of advertisement-laden link farms, cheap porn, and cat videos, and I am compelled to pre-emptively mourn for the children that would be born in such an era.
Not respecting copyright diminishes the confidence that publishers will have in it to protect their interests, and the only other thing that anyone could use to accomplish that are restrictive measures that publishers place on their works, to limit the circumstances and terms under which they utilize it completely legitimately, unless they have a high level of technical expertise. Today, we call that Digital Rights Management... and anyone can already see the headache that is for many people. It would be infinitely worse if the publishers could not even utilize copyright on their works.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
IF there were a service that would let me stream on demand, what i wanted, when i wanted it, without all the intrusive commercials, i would pay for it.
I have sky+ now, with some 400 channels, and there's still nothing but the occasional program to see, and when i actually find something, it's advertised to death, with so much intrusive ads, you lose the will to live after half the program.
It's become advertising with some programming inbetween, and i hate it with a passion.
I pay some £60/mo for this crap, and the programming that i am actually interested in, is limited to news, movies and documentaries, as well as the occasional series, but not the 380 odd crap channels added in for good measure to bulk out the package, making it "look good".
Large numbers is no substiture for quality.
Add to this, all the movies / programming we don't get, or get 6 months or a year later, and hear your international pals talking about, but don't have a legal way to watch, or even given the opportunity to pay for, and you have a perfect brew for piracy.
As this kind of service is not available, i have to resort to "piracy", and in my case, the piracy is entirely the making of the content providers, as i am in fact, willing to pay for what i consume.
Until they decide to deliver in a reasonable manner, and a way i can agree with, they will find themselves at the losing end of the stick.
Thank you for your comprehensive response.
I have some awareness of coding. First computer job was writing in PLAN, which was an ICL (ICT?) 1900 series language (well not really a language, used an interpreter straight back to machine code). Then out of computing for a while, ($ was lousy). Then a CS major & learned Pascal and taught BASIC, and wrote a small bit of mainframe software (VAX) then did a few postgrad subjects. Then went to other interests. My website is hosted on the computer in the basement.
I did look for your website. Unless you are lynx, or make amps, I could not find it. (Amps probably have some software.)
As a software programmer you do not need copyright. Unless you have such a valuable product as windows. Just put in a time switch and a referral back to your website. On the compiled program it won't be seen by a thief. That is what Microsoft do.
And don't tell me that someone might unpick your software. The economics of that don't work. Because if they are that good, they cost lots, or they could unpick it and change it enough (maybe even improve it) and release it themselves. This also applies to software jobs you might do. You could guarantee them protection as good as copyright.
Seeing the fuss between Google & Oracle, I am not so sure that copyright is protection anyhow.
So thanks for the confidence. And as for being a shill. A shill would of course deny being a shill, and an honest man would not expect me to believe his unsupported word about anything.
I am puzzled by how you mod 2 all the time. Do you have a second account or is there a higher rank than "Karma Good". I suppose I could read the manual, but that is a last resort.
You would not find "my" website because I do not have my own company.
Oh, I definitely do. Even for free software I put under the GPL... it's the copyright on it that legally guarantees the source code will remain free. Without copyright, another organization could appropriate it, close it up, and release a derivative work without so much as an acknowledgement that they got it from me, costing me potential reputation, and if they happen to have a higher distribution channel than I do, then the closed source work could end up even more popular than my open source one... even if they did not little or nothing to extend it.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
I can see that you have not adjusted your thinking to the concept of the absence of copyright.
For instance you wrote: "it's the copyright on it that legally guarantees the source code will remain free."
Your software will be free if there is no copyright.
Then: "Without copyright, another organization could appropriate it, close it up, and release a derivative work without so much as an acknowledgement that they got it from me, costing me potential reputation,"
Just release the closed version yourself, with credits embedded.
And really, its not so hard or expensive to set up a domain. Mine cost me an old computer and the power to run it. UBUNTU is free, APACHE is free, FREEDNS is free. And a few bucks a year to Godaddy for DNS registry. As you can write code, doing all that should be as easy as pi. (oops, pie).
And as an independent programmer, how can you have any street cred without your own domain?
If I wanted to use the GPL in the first place, then that doesn't exactly accomplish my intention... that my source code remain accessible. Also, regardless, as I had suggested before, if they had a larger distribution pipe than I do, then their version could end up being more popular than mine, not because it was higher quality, but simply because it was marketed or distributed better than what I could afford or manage. A version *without* the source code... and without so much as an acknowledgement in their more popular version, people wouldn't even necessarily know where to go to get it (or even what it had been derived from, in fact, if they didn't even use the original product name).
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
No copyright = no GPL.
No copyright means that my own wishes for my own creations can't be respected... and without copyright nobody even owes me any credit. How is that fair?
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
"No copyright means that my own wishes for my own creations can't be respected... and without copyright nobody even owes me any credit"
not true^2
Figure it out. The answers have already been given above.
In what way is that fair?
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'