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Rights Holders See Little Point Creating Legal Content Sources

Posted by timothy on from the regulatory-capture-has-only-just-begun dept.

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.

13 of 417 comments (clear)

  1. Content Paradox by gellenburg · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.

    1. Re:Content Paradox by C_amiga_fan · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

      According to me, JMS is a stodgy old man who may be internet-literate (using it since the early 90s), but doesn't understand the old "scheduled TV viewing" model is dying and being replaced. If ye put the show on Hulu I'll watch it... even if I have to wait a week (the FOX & Syfy model). But if ye refuse to put the show on Hulu, then yes I'll go find an illegal copy. I am not going to bend-over backwards waiting for a rerun 4 months from now.

      And as long as ye keep insisting "DVDs are not returnable for refund or store credit", then I'll keep downloading them too. I have a right to make sure I don't waste my money on feldercarb.

      --
      FREE magazine : http://clarkesworldmagazine.com/prior/
    2. Re:Content Paradox by girlintraining · · Score: 5, Interesting

      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.

      But that's just it: They will never release a product that has broad consumer appeal. If they had DRM that used signatures instead of encrypting it, only allowing playback on certain devices, with an internet connection that's always on, etc., they'd have a lot better sell rate. But the truth is, the product is overpriced and heavily restricted to the point of being useless. If I could make a 1 time payment and get a license to watch A Movie(tm), and to play it anywhere, anytime, on any equipment, in any format -- for personal use... I'd do it if the price was reasonable. But that's the hideous evil about their marketing: They'll never give you that kind of a license. That's what you were buying in the 80s, and since we've gone digital, it's easy to create the extended edition, directors cut, ultimate, super, 1.5 version, diddledodedo edition -- and then we're going to release it on vhs, itunes, dvd, bluray, youtube, netflix, and in 23 different regions, at different times and price points... and you're going to have to PAY PAY PAY if you want to use any of them. Who cares if you already bought it and it's sitting on the shelf -- fuck you, you have to buy a slightly different version just to use it on your new streaming internet player, plus pay your ISP to stream it, plus pay the stream provider, along with the cost of the equipment, oh -- and every time you pay, we're right there, mouths wide, waiting to take a bite out of everyone else's sandwich.

      I'm a pirate and proud of it. Because I'm not just doing it because I can, but because there's no other choice. The business model is corrupt, it doesn't serve the public interest, nor does it serve the artists interests, nor does it really even serve the industry as a whole; It serves about 150 people who are middle men for a dying industry. The only reason bluray has any traction at all is because our internet connections are shit and we can't download it or stream it on demand. There's no reason for optical drives anymore; even mechanical hard drives are going the way of the dodo bird. But these guys are pushing their distribution model onto the world and passing laws and crap thinking it's going to save them. It's just re-arranging deck chairs on the Titanic. Bitches, ship's going down -- and the pirates already hopped in a life boat, cast off, lit a big fatty.. and now they're waiting for the artists and wondering what'll happen to those poor bastard consumers in 'economy'.

      RIAA and the MPAA are middle men. Middle men don't add value: They don't produce the product, and they don't use it. They're worthless. Fuck them. Get the consumers to the life boats (teach them how to torrent and bypass torrent blocking), and let the artists and the middle men figure out whether they want to drown together in each other's cold, unfeeling arms, or get on the goddamn boats and end this crap.

      --
      #fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
  2. Of course, thieves will try to keep the stolen by siddesu · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  3. It's the money, stupid by Baron_Yam · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  4. Black Markets 101 by Githaron · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  5. If it's unavailable for the foreseeable future by tepples · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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?

    1. Re:If it's unavailable for the foreseeable future by CanEHdian · · Score: 5, Insightful

      According to J.Michael Straczynski (jms), just because the viewers demand content in a certain format or certain time does not mean they are entitled too it.

      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?

      Two fine examples of the "Soup Nazi" attitude of the Copyright Industry. While the fictional character has a physical product that's in limited supply to sell, the Copyright Industry sells nothing more than an arrangements of bits, a.k.a. Extremely Large Numbers. Once this number has been published, it effectively becomes unlimited in supply and at near-zero cost.

      The only thing that would stop someone to partake from the horn of plenty would be a moral code. Adhering to this code would be a lot easier if one were able to obtain a copy conveniently, cheaply, and at a fair (in the eyes of the consumer) price.

      Displaying an attitude of "you can have a bone, when we decide to throw you one, and you better show some gratitude!" is not going to help encourage people to adhere to that moral standard.

      --
      When the copyright term is "forever minus a day", live every day like it's the last.
    2. Re:If it's unavailable for the foreseeable future by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Shareware utilities got outcompeted by free software. 7-zip beats winrar any day. Winrar is still around, though.

      Shareware games are now "indie games", and are on Steam, and in the Humble Indie Bundle that was just released. Or maybe they're flash games on the Internet, plastered with ads.

  6. Clueless by funkylovemonkey · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

  7. Re:Sounds right by JWW · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I disagree.

    If its on Netflix, why would I even bother to download the torrent?

    of course my corollary for that is....

    If the content industry ever kills Netflix I am going to steal everything and pay for nothing.

  8. Re:Sounds right by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    And it only works if you have a US IP address, thanks RIAA!

  9. Re:Sounds right by Fjandr · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This.

    When I started using Netflix my usage of torrents to get shows I missed or otherwise had a hard time seeing via legitimate means dropped to basically zero.

    If Netflix survives, the studios will continue to get money of which they would otherwise not see a dime.

    My order of preference is:
    1) Watching via legal, on-demand ala carte means.
    2) Watching via illegal means.
    3) Not watching at all.
    4) Watching via current mass media distribution networks.