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Kickstarted Veronica Mars Promised Digital Download; Pirate Bay Delivers
ConfusedVorlon writes with word that Warner Bros backed out on their promise of digital downloads for backers of the Veronica Mars film "Backers were promised 'You will receive a digital version of the movie within a few days of the movie's theatrical debut.' Warner Bros are providing a non-downloadable ultra-violet coupon (although Veronica Mars is available for download through other stores). The download is already available on the Pirate Bay. The download is even available on commercial stores. The users have already passed over their $35+. But rather than meet the demand for a DRM-free download, Warner Bros would prefer to return the original pledge to backers who complain.
What does this tell us about how movie studios view the world? There can't be a better indication of willingness to pay than 'they have already paid' — are these the pirates WB fears?"
What does this tell us about how movie studios view the world? There can't be a better indication of willingness to pay than 'they have already paid' — are these the pirates WB fears?"
It's capitalism. If philosophy is, "To each according to what they can get," then of course people are going to do whatever they can do in order to get as much as possible, sophomoric principles of the fundamentalist dullards with their "perfectly informed, rationally selfish, wealth-creating individuals" theories be damned.
You want a functioning society? You have to mix individual drive with social principles. Nothing is ever maintained except when it maintains balance.
Heh, it's not even "customers" they're denying a download to - if you follow the nomenclature of Kickstarter, then it's *investors*! Evidence, if you needed it, that you're not really an investor when you get involved in Kickstarter, you're just paying a premium to pre-order something, and praying you won't get screwed over.
-"I still believe in revolution; I just don't capitalize it anymore." - srini!
the same folks who cheat their producers and stars day in and day out for over a hundred years?
my friends, I don't always sell a block of Bitcoin stock, but when I do, it's from a moving car...
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
The Kickstarter used the phrase 'Digital Version' in some places and 'Digital Download' in others. I see no mention of DRM-free, so all they have to do is hand out Amazon credit to those who complain about the streaming solution. But no, they'd rather pay out a bunch of money than give people something that matches what they paid for. I'm thinking everyone who has a piece of this (the production company, any stars that get a piece of the action) ought to probably demand an accounting to make sure Hollywood didn't charge them for the returned cash...
A thousand pounds of wood moving at 300 feet per minute. Don't get in the way.
What does this tell us about how movie studios view the world?
That they're greedy bastards who will screw over absolutely everyone if they can make a quick buck. But then, we already knew that.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
People don't want that bullshit UltraViolet cloud-based streaming service the studios seem to think will succeed if they keep pushing it and don't provide any other options - people want DRM-free files in a standard/popular format that can be played on any device in whatever video player they desire, without said files being held hostage by the studio.
It seems that Hollywood is incapable of selling things in a format that people want. I know why of course - they want control. Honestly I'd prefer getting my movies legit if I knew I could get something at least equivalent to what I can get on The Pirate Bay (so at least 720p, in a DRM-free format, in a format/container that at least can be played on most video players instead of some proprietary one that is Windows only for example).
Maybe I'm asking too much... no, wait, like hell I'm not. If cracker groups can release high-quality 1080p MKVs of movies with subtitles, chapter markers and audio-commentaries, so can the paid folks at the studios. But they don't, because for whatever reason they'd rather keep the status quo (which doesn't make much sense in our connected world anymore) than risk a bit less control for more income. Clearly I'm too ideological for this world.
The most shocking part is that people even bother with the legit methods at all anymore.
Probably the few intelligent thing I've ever heard Bill Oriely say was in regards to piracy. It went something like "The music and movie industries have spent the last 30 years teaching our children the worst behavior imaginable. They've glorified violence, prostitution, and general hooliganry... and now they're surprised their customers aren't above pirating a song?"
Artists hate the industry, the industries partners hate the industry, the industries customers hate the industry. Christians hate it, Liberals hate it, everyone on earth hates it. How long, exactly, do they expect to stay in business being held in such low regard as to be slightly better than Cigarette and Oil companies?
and Warner Brothers have used them as an interest free and risk free loan.
I agree - I've downloaded the movie twice from Flixster. Anyone who thinks that a DRM-free download would be provided is dreaming. WB is offering to pay for downloads from other services such as Amazon and iTunes. The OP reads to me like a lame excuse to justify piracy.
Yes, some number of KS backers are having trouble. I know at least one who hasn't received her code. But it reads to me as if WB is trying to do the right thing, on top of this unprecedented same-day digital release.
Example; if someone said a watermelon is blue on the inside, but turns red when you cut it open, how could you prove them wrong? How could they prove they're right?
You couldn't and they can't. There is no method available to confirm or disprove what was said about the watermelon.
WHY does it turn red when you cut it open? Because it's exposed to oxygen in the air? Then cut one open in a vacuum. Or in an oxygen-free atmosphere. or maybe it turns red because of an interaction with the steel of the knife. So use a plastic knife. And so on. These are all testable.
Same with evolution. Point out a fossil that doesn't fit, and win a prize. except you can't, so you don't.
Sure, if all you do is watch movies from beginning to end in your living room it works great. There are many things that do NOT work very well:
Offline viewing such as on transit, airplanes, road trips, camping (children get very bored sometimes), etc
Rewind. I should not have to wait 10 seconds for it to re-buffer in order to rewind 3 seconds because I missed an important piece of dialog that was important to the plot. I can't believe the player doesn't just cache the last minute of the video to make this seameless, this would use what, 10-20MB of extra ram?
Forcing high-definition. Sometimes netflix just decides to play in low definiton no matter how fucking long you let it buffer. In fact, letting a movie buffer (download) ahead of time so I can watch it in glorious high-def after dinner would be a VERY nice feature.
Marathon watching. At least once I've been half-way through a TV series when netflix decided to remove it from the line-up. Thanks alot for that one! This isn't even counting the rediculous number of movies trilogies where netflix only has movies 2 and 3 (seriously, WTF).
Internation watching. Live in the US and visit Canada? Get ready to not be able to watch your shows until you get home because Canada is not worthy of 90% of netflix movies.
This was a studio film all along- the Kickstarter purposely misrepresented the situation. The Kickstarter made promises those running the Kickstarter could NEVER deliver.
WB got suckers to use their money, with ZERO profit sharing, to finance a studio picture- a new low even for Hollywood. To make matters worse, despite the minor value of this movie to WB, WB wasn't even prepared to hide this fact by giving the suckers that paid 35 dollars a break, and letting them download a proper digital copy to own. If that had been too much of an 'issue', WB could easily have created a few thousand DVD's to send out instead, so the $35 dollar team could have made their own digital 'rips'.
It gets WORSE. The 'geniuses' at WB seriously under-estimated demand for the film in the cinema, and released the film (in the USA) to 30%-50% of the optimal number of screens. The excellent per screen average of the way too small release is proof of this.
So, the film gets made, gets good reviews and people want to see it. But the suits at Warner Brothers snatch defeat from the jaws of victory by focusing on all the mean, petty hurt they can pile of the original 35 dollar suckers. And NO, giving these people their money back counts for nothing. WB behaviour over this whole affair has been despicable, and shame on the people who made the film for NOT honestly admitting from the start that it was a traditional studio production.
You're an idiot. It was made clear on the the very first day that Warner Brothers was involved. Right there on the front page of the Kickstater, on day one. Warner agreed to pay for distribution and promotion if Rob Thomas could help fund the production budget and show fan interest in the film, and that is exactly what happened. Did WB screw up by forcing it through Flixster (guess who owns Flixster, btw), Yes, but they never lied about any aspect of the Kickstarter project.
As for the number of screens, that's all they could get. Given the prospects for the film they are lucky that AMC agreed to screen what is a limited release film across their national footprint, and on the same day it would go live the on UV, iTunes, Amazon, and PPV.
I browse on +1 so AC's need not respond, I won't see it.
> Same with evolution. Point out a fossil that doesn't fit, and win a prize. except you can't, so you don't.
I always say to people that don't believe in Evolution that if they can collect the data, then make it reproducible and can write a good paper explaining it all, then they can win a Noble Prize and completely and utterly change a major branch of science. Their name will go down in history one of greatest minds ever in the entire length of mankind.
For some reason, none of these people ever take me up on my offer.
Linux O Muerte!
The Veronica Mars kickstarter promised "You will receive a digital version of the movie within a few days of the movieâ(TM)s theatrical debut..."
A digital version. Last time I checked, while most people may dislike UltraViolet, it is a digital version.
Now, I understand the servers got hammered and there were issues with the process and Warner Brothers offered a refund so people could buy the movie from a competing digital store but they fulfilled their promise or made efforts to rectify the situation when their servers failed under the load.
Also, they made no promise of DRM free. Doing a search of the Veronica Mars Kickstarter page, I find exactly zero mentions of DRM so why you would think they owe you a DRM free movie is beyond me.
You're clearly itching to pick a fight and begging to justify torrenting the movie rather than paying for it but, sorry, you haven't cited so much as one valid complaint. They offered a digital version of the movie and they delivered a digital version of the movie. Users that encountered issues were offered a refund so they could obtain the movie elsewhere since their servers weren't up to the task rather than WB just pocketing the money and saying "well, try again another time".
I see absolutely nothing nefarious here.
Much geek rage about nothing.
"Downloaded" or "Streamed"? Having a downloaded copy of a movie and being able to stream a movie from their servers is not the same thing. If they told me I would be able to "download the movie" or they would provide a "digital copy" I would expect a copy of the entire film on my local machine that I could access at any time even offline.
If they said they would provide access to their streaming service for the film I would have different expectations.
It sounds like they are not allowing a copy for download. This is something that I find very annoying about digital media services. Amazon allows me to download a copy to 2 devices at a time, but only movies that I own. The movies from their Prime service cannot be downloaded. This is a bit of a PITA with the ability to play children's TV shows being one of the major benefits of the Prime service. Not so useful when you take your Kindle into a restaurant that doesn't have free WiFi available.
Example; if someone said a watermelon is blue on the inside, but turns red when you cut it open, how could you prove them wrong? How could they prove they're right?
You couldn't and they can't. There is no method available to confirm or disprove what was said about the watermelon.
WHY does it turn red when you cut it open? Because it's exposed to oxygen in the air? Then cut one open in a vacuum. Or in an oxygen-free atmosphere. or maybe it turns red because of an interaction with the steel of the knife. So use a plastic knife. And so on. These are all testable.
Same with evolution. Point out a fossil that doesn't fit, and win a prize. except you can't, so you don't.
You can spend a lifetime making up WHYs and figuring out ways to prove or disprove them. That does not even come close to answering the fundamental question about the color of the watermelon.
The only solution to this problem is to have faith and live your life according to what the inside color of the watermelon means to you. You can even believe that there is no watermelon - that's a type of faith as well.
Now can we go back to being insulted that big companies found a way to minize risk in their commercial ventures by using a bait & switch approach so fans are the ones taking the risk?
lucm, indeed.
It didn't say "a DRM crippled digital copy", it just said "a digital copy". If there were going to be severe restrictions on what devices the file could be played on and under what circumstances they needed to state that up front.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC