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DVD Release Delays Boost Piracy and Hurt Sales, Study Shows (torrentfreak.com)
One of the reasons that drive people to piracy is the delay in the release of a title's DVD or Blu-Ray in their local market. According to a new academic paper from Carnegie Mellon University, movie fans are finding it increasingly difficult to wait for the official DVD or Blu-Ray to come out. From a TorrentFreak report: Due to artificial delays which vary across different parts of the world, pirates can often get their hands on a high-quality rip of a movie before the DVD is officially released in their country. Researchers have looked into this piracy "window of opportunity," and found that release delays are actually hurting DVD and Blu-Ray sales. "Our results suggest that an additional 10-day delay between the availability of digital piracy and the legitimate DVD release date in a particular country is correlated with a 2-3% reduction in DVD sales in that country," the researchers write.
It may seem common sense, but that's not a reason to not get empirical data illustrating the assumption.
What the heck is a "DVD"? Is that Russian or something?
I wonder how they get a rip before the DVD comes out? I'm going to guess that the theaters now get digital copies and those get rippped. I wonder why they can't control that effectively. E.g. watermark every theater's version differently.
The DVD from another region is used for the rip. It's a study about the delays between regions, not between theater and home release.
We also *really* don't want to be lectured to about piracy when we're watching a legally purchased DVD
Don't forget that abomination that is region coding. Why the fuck can't I watch a DVD at home that I bought while on vacation in another country?
(and yes I do know about the *nudge* *nudge* *wink* *wink* region unlocking of the DVD player manufacturers)
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
I can sum up what drives their behavior in one word: Inertia.
Of course, studio owners want to get as much money as possible. However, inertia limits them as they see "the way we've always done things" as the only way to do things. New ways of doing things are scary to them because they might fail while the tried and true methods are guaranteed* to produce results.
* Of course, they're not actually guaranteed to produce results, but in the studio owner's minds they are more rock solid than crazy ideas like same day, worldwide distribution or widely available digital distribution no matter how many studies come out proving the studio owners wrong.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
Neither is an absolute. Piracy CAN hurt and it CAN help sales.
Burry, shaky screeners are actually more likely to help sales because people want "the real thing" instead. If, and only if, the movie is actually worth seeing. Because that's what the blurry screener does: Give people an idea whether the movie is any good. And given today's movie trailers are usually the whole 2 minutes of what's actually decent in the 180+ minutes of movie, people don't rely on trailers anymore. But if that blurry mess looks like it could be worth seeing "for real", they will grab the money and go watch it.
Of course if what you get as a copy is as good as what you could hope for if you bought the DVD (and usually, considering the bullshit like unskipable ads, trailers and other crap, the value of the bought copy is usually lower than that of a rip to the user), this will absolutely HURT your sales. Because the user already has everything he could hope to get from buying your DVD. Actually, chances are he got more than he would get from your DVD.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
While it is absolutely true that African people were (and still are today) slaves of other African people, it does not excuse the purchase of those people by Whites. That said, going back through my family history I've found no evidence that anyone in my family ever owned slaves, yet I still get shit from time to time for what "my ancestors" did to "their ancestors". How about a big fuck you to anyone who subscribes to that logic? Regardless of race.
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
I hardly consider ITunes an option. You have to have itunes on a computer and then remove the DRM to play on your tv... there might be something I am missing but this is not really consumer friendly.
love is just extroverted narcissism