"Shrink wrapped software is dead. No one does it anymore."
Yeah, JUST Microsoft. And Adobe. And Intuit. And Macromedia. And Autodesk. And McAfee. And Symantec. And Red Hat. And Act. And SPSS. And Corel. And Jasc and Extensis and Trend Micro and ScanSoft and Roxio and Veritas. Not to mention id and Electronic Arts and Edios and LucasArts and Activision and Vivendi and Blizzard and Sierra.
And a few other "minor" players who do other things, but also sell off-the-shelf software like Apple and Sun and IBM and Oracle and Computer Associates.
Yeah, there's only, what, about half a TRILLION dollars worth of yearly software sales tied to companies that don't do it anymore.
You just described television. Just as big a production, release this week's episode, feedback, produce, next week's, and so on along the arc.
A movie, OTOH, and to use your analogy, is a commercial shrinkwrapped product. Of one piece. Like a book, it has a start, middle, and "the end". There may be sequels, but they too, are self-contained.
What holds true for one model and process may not neccessarily hold true for the other.
One of your comments interests me, "I want a relationship, not a constant stream of one night stands." But have you considered that it's also why many movies depend on known actors and actresses? People build relationships with them. They like them, get to know them, become old friends, and want to see them from time to time. And that's why getting those people is still going to cost more money than I think you were planning on spending.
With that in mind, a $7,000 movie in all likelyhood isn't going to be much of a movie. You can probably get down to $5-10M range these days, but that's cutting it close. I mean, look at the LOTR series. It took eight YEARS to make those suckers. Some things just are not cheap.
Finally, I disagree regarding DRM. Even at $5-10M, that's a major investment for someone to make in the pure hope that somebody, somewhere, sometime, might decide to pay them back -- after they've already received the value given. Anderson (long tail) has a point there, in that you probably need just enough to prevent casual copying.
Maybe Apple will do it right. They certainly came close with tunes and FairPlay.
So you're a cheap bastard. So what? I'm not willing to pay $50,000 for a car either. But some do.
But I don't, in turn, go out and steal the car just because I think the price is too high. (YES, YES, I know, it's not "stealing" and it's a copy of a car. Go back down to your parent's basement.)
Where was I? Oh, yeah. The real point here is that, A) as you suggest, we need some economic alternatives to creation, production and distribution that work for all involved (artists/consumers). And B) we need to use them, and stop stealing the other stuff. All theft does is justify the **AA's position that tougher laws are needed.
BTW, for an alternative that's cheaper, does what I suggest, and not RIAA, check out MagnaTune.
"Both of these assumptions are based in the manufacturing reality, where spools of film had to be manufactured, transported, and then shown in specially built cinemas. Both of these assumptions are now completely bogus."
So now I shoot digital and not film, and transmit instead of ship... so what?
I still need sets, crews, lights, directors, actors, actresses, makeup, effects people, grips, and writers. I still need to move all these people to a location, house, and feed them. I still need to rent the locations, file for permits, and hire security.
What, digital productions? Yeah, a complete crew of ILM software engineers and artists and computer systems and software is cheap, no doubt about it.
And I still need music, sound, editors, and post-production. As far as that goes I still need PRE-production, scripts, storyboards, and animatics.
Yes, costs are coming down. But the ones you mention are probably the least of the production costs. And for every, say, Good Will Hunting that's made on the cheap cheap and succeeds, there's a hundred others who are made on the cheap... and look like it... and worse, act like it.
An analogy would be the reduction in equipment and recording costs in music, with the end result of more garage bands getting into the act. But you know what? The majority of those garage bands are still just that.
You may be right about one thing though. If enough of the costs come down (yours and mine) studios may take more risks on good material...
Okay, seriously. What you're suggesting still implies that people have to pay for content (e.g. "Go out and buy the DVDs.")
Which means that complete and unrestricted sharing is still out. (Anderson even agrees in the Tail article.) So we still need something "loose" like FairPlay (Apple's iTunes DRM) for movies so that content can be produced and paid for. Especially as we move to completely electronic distribution.
Second, not everything can be a Serenity. Some movies will still suck, no matter what. But hey, people talk, no one buys tickets, and the movie sinks. (Personally, this is why I think sales are down. More independent internet reviews, blogs, and communities mean that the word gets out faster.)
Third, not everything can be a Serenity. Or a Million Dollar Baby. Or even a Batman Returns. In fact, without a large pool of profitable and semi-profitable movies being made, there probably would NOT be a Serenity movie. The harder it is to recoup your investment, the more risk-adverse you tend to become.
Which in turn only makes the problem worse. You need enough profit to cover the flops and bad bets, and to make it worth risking your dollars in the first place. And really, do you think that the producers, directors, actors, and everyone else involved all WANT to make a bad film?
So I, as a theoretical movie producer, am supposed to spend a hundred million dollars making a new movie so that... people can search for it?
You need to help me here....
Oh, wait. Google makes money by embedding ads on all their pages. I see. So I'm supposed to put 30 minutes of ads in my two hour movie? I thought that was called television?
"...a shoplifter is a customer at a store. If you are going to astro turf, at least come up with a new line. That line was old..."
I thought most people who downloaded stuff would never buy it (become customers) anyway? The stuff sucks, but they download it and won't buy it, so they're not customers, but if they like it they might buy it, so they might be customers, but it sucks, so they won't, and there needs to be a new business model, in which there are no customers because people want sucky products for free.
"I just want to watch a movie without leaving my house, or bothering with a DVD, comfortably, on my computer."
WTF? You can't leave the house, so no Blockbuster or grocery store rentals. Also can't bother with a DVD, which takes out Netflix. And apparently can't watch a movie on anything but a computer, which means Comcast, Dish, and PPV is out. Huh. Pretty clever how you eliminated all the options there.
Then again, how about MovieLink and CinemaNow? Downloadable movies, with a fee, watchable on your computer.
Or is there some OTHER excuse ^H^H^H^H^H^H reason as to why we have to personally accommodate your lazy butt???
Well, that's certainly a valid reason for spending a hour or so downloading them off a torrent and then a couple of hours watching one. I mean, time poor internet professionals really need to waste MORE of their time, right?
And just out of curiosity, what new business model (paid content) works when people think that they're entitled to it for free?
Doesn't the article itself talk about a shortage of skilled workers in India? And higher wages?
Which would imply that there are a lot more people working, and at a higher wage, than before. And now more skilled (non-sweatshop) jobs are going to people in other countries?
Not to be paranoid, but this assumes, of course, that both sides have equal access to the evidence...
Police brutality? No, sorry. That camera was down for maintenance.
I also suspect a police chief, mayor, governor, congressman, senator, or even a strongly connected businessman (just to name a few) can see pretty much whatever feed they wish. But can we as citizens watch the feeds that show use their comings and goings?
Yeah, but that whole dying thing from your first major infection, sickness, or injury tends to put just a small blemish on things. Average maximum age was, what, 30? And let's not talk about childbirth death rates...
We also howl and scream about the price of drugs, and about how long it takes to move something through the system.
Of course, even when they DO get something approved, let a single problem appear after the fact and suddenly it's a multi-million dollar lawsuit and "why didn't they make sure it was safe!"
Netflix is strongly rumoured to be looking into it, as is Sony, and Apple is dipping its toe into the water with downloadable music videos. I think Apple is waiting for the right time to announce their portable video player, and also to finalize their deals with the movie distributors.
As to download speed, mp4 files may be a bit large, but bandwidth is steadily increasing, codecs improving, and even a download that takes three or four hours is faster than the day or two it takes to get a physical DVD from Netflix.
And back to Apple, movies sized for a portable player could be quite a bit smaller than that needed for full HD video...
Ummm... if your objection to registration is that someone knows what you've purchased, then I don't see the issue. Amazon certainly knows every book you've purchase. Netflix every video. iTunes every song.
But you could, for example, simply enter your name and credit card number into a player. Let it store multiple numbers. Then any song you or your wife (?) purchased and downloaded using any of your cards can be played in any of your devices that know those numbers.
Want to sell a device/computer? iTunes already has a "deauthorize" option. Or no need for a central authority. Just click "erase".
Want to take a movie next door? Take your pod with your downloaded movie with you and plug it in (I mean, you had to take it over there somehow.) The pod "knows" it's legal, and streams it into their TV.
BTW, most of these options are in regard to purely electronic downloadable/streamable files (like tunes). A DVD isn't quite the same, as posessing the physical object implies you have the rights to it.
Best Buy isn't providing security "to you". They're providing security and surveillance against people who'd go into their store and walk out with whatever they could carry otherwise.
And the cost of such security is priced into every item you buy there, just as much as the payroll, lease payment, and electric bill. Without it, your costs would be even higher to pay for "shrinkage", or the store would simply go out of business.
So you're not a shoplifter either. But some are, and unfortunately Best Buy has no way of knowing who is, and who is not...
They could probably care LESS if some geek in his mother's basement can watch it on a box only a couple of percent of the population owns, and after jumping through fifteen techno-hoops to do so. When MacroVision was introduced it pretty much halted the practice of copying a VHS tape for everyone and his brother. Yeah, some people may have ordered the box in the back of Popular Mechanic, but 99.99% did not. Case closed.
All they have to do is ensure that most people can't easily make unauthorized copies, while not pissing off the "legitimate" consumer.
Slashdot Mirror
So yes, you have a legal alternative.
Yeah, JUST Microsoft. And Adobe. And Intuit. And Macromedia. And Autodesk. And McAfee. And Symantec. And Red Hat. And Act. And SPSS. And Corel. And Jasc and Extensis and Trend Micro and ScanSoft and Roxio and Veritas. Not to mention id and Electronic Arts and Edios and LucasArts and Activision and Vivendi and Blizzard and Sierra.
And a few other "minor" players who do other things, but also sell off-the-shelf software like Apple and Sun and IBM and Oracle and Computer Associates.
Yeah, there's only, what, about half a TRILLION dollars worth of yearly software sales tied to companies that don't do it anymore.
A movie, OTOH, and to use your analogy, is a commercial shrinkwrapped product. Of one piece. Like a book, it has a start, middle, and "the end". There may be sequels, but they too, are self-contained.
What holds true for one model and process may not neccessarily hold true for the other.
With that in mind, a $7,000 movie in all likelyhood isn't going to be much of a movie. You can probably get down to $5-10M range these days, but that's cutting it close. I mean, look at the LOTR series. It took eight YEARS to make those suckers. Some things just are not cheap.
Finally, I disagree regarding DRM. Even at $5-10M, that's a major investment for someone to make in the pure hope that somebody, somewhere, sometime, might decide to pay them back -- after they've already received the value given. Anderson (long tail) has a point there, in that you probably need just enough to prevent casual copying.
Maybe Apple will do it right. They certainly came close with tunes and FairPlay.
But I don't, in turn, go out and steal the car just because I think the price is too high. (YES, YES, I know, it's not "stealing" and it's a copy of a car. Go back down to your parent's basement.)
Where was I? Oh, yeah. The real point here is that, A) as you suggest, we need some economic alternatives to creation, production and distribution that work for all involved (artists/consumers). And B) we need to use them, and stop stealing the other stuff. All theft does is justify the **AA's position that tougher laws are needed.
BTW, for an alternative that's cheaper, does what I suggest, and not RIAA, check out MagnaTune.
So now I shoot digital and not film, and transmit instead of ship... so what?
I still need sets, crews, lights, directors, actors, actresses, makeup, effects people, grips, and writers. I still need to move all these people to a location, house, and feed them. I still need to rent the locations, file for permits, and hire security.
What, digital productions? Yeah, a complete crew of ILM software engineers and artists and computer systems and software is cheap, no doubt about it.
And I still need music, sound, editors, and post-production. As far as that goes I still need PRE-production, scripts, storyboards, and animatics.
Yes, costs are coming down. But the ones you mention are probably the least of the production costs. And for every, say, Good Will Hunting that's made on the cheap cheap and succeeds, there's a hundred others who are made on the cheap... and look like it... and worse, act like it.
An analogy would be the reduction in equipment and recording costs in music, with the end result of more garage bands getting into the act. But you know what? The majority of those garage bands are still just that.
You may be right about one thing though. If enough of the costs come down (yours and mine) studios may take more risks on good material...
Which means that complete and unrestricted sharing is still out. (Anderson even agrees in the Tail article.) So we still need something "loose" like FairPlay (Apple's iTunes DRM) for movies so that content can be produced and paid for. Especially as we move to completely electronic distribution.
Second, not everything can be a Serenity. Some movies will still suck, no matter what. But hey, people talk, no one buys tickets, and the movie sinks. (Personally, this is why I think sales are down. More independent internet reviews, blogs, and communities mean that the word gets out faster.)
Third, not everything can be a Serenity. Or a Million Dollar Baby. Or even a Batman Returns. In fact, without a large pool of profitable and semi-profitable movies being made, there probably would NOT be a Serenity movie. The harder it is to recoup your investment, the more risk-adverse you tend to become.
Which in turn only makes the problem worse. You need enough profit to cover the flops and bad bets, and to make it worth risking your dollars in the first place. And really, do you think that the producers, directors, actors, and everyone else involved all WANT to make a bad film?
You need to help me here....
Oh, wait. Google makes money by embedding ads on all their pages. I see. So I'm supposed to put 30 minutes of ads in my two hour movie? I thought that was called television?
Still confused.
I thought most people who downloaded stuff would never buy it (become customers) anyway? The stuff sucks, but they download it and won't buy it, so they're not customers, but if they like it they might buy it, so they might be customers, but it sucks, so they won't, and there needs to be a new business model, in which there are no customers because people want sucky products for free.
I am SOOOOO confused.
WTF? You can't leave the house, so no Blockbuster or grocery store rentals. Also can't bother with a DVD, which takes out Netflix. And apparently can't watch a movie on anything but a computer, which means Comcast, Dish, and PPV is out. Huh. Pretty clever how you eliminated all the options there.
Then again, how about MovieLink and CinemaNow? Downloadable movies, with a fee, watchable on your computer.
Or is there some OTHER excuse ^H^H^H^H^H^H reason as to why we have to personally accommodate your lazy butt???
Since the computer that logged those events has no intellect, no. It's simply a record, and records can be subpoenaed.
Of course, the better question is why so many people are trying to find the smallest loophole to squeeze through.
I mean, the shoplifting scenario works perfectly here. Somebody thought they could boost a cd/dvd from the store without getting nailed by security.
They were wrong.
Well, that's certainly a valid reason for spending a hour or so downloading them off a torrent and then a couple of hours watching one. I mean, time poor internet professionals really need to waste MORE of their time, right?
And just out of curiosity, what new business model (paid content) works when people think that they're entitled to it for free?
Which would imply that there are a lot more people working, and at a higher wage, than before. And now more skilled (non-sweatshop) jobs are going to people in other countries?
Which part of the fairy tale is untrue again?
Forget the kill signal, what do you think riot guns are for? Let's start the skeet shoot!
Only if you can also come up with a spinning phase-conjugate mirror AND manage to switch the targeting computer's rom.
We had to adapt to win the Korean War, and the War In Vietnam, and... ah.... wait.
Oh yeah, a flock of remotely piloted seagulls screeching around trying to get the shot is going to be SO much better...
Police brutality? No, sorry. That camera was down for maintenance.
I also suspect a police chief, mayor, governor, congressman, senator, or even a strongly connected businessman (just to name a few) can see pretty much whatever feed they wish. But can we as citizens watch the feeds that show use their comings and goings?
Yeah, but that whole dying thing from your first major infection, sickness, or injury tends to put just a small blemish on things. Average maximum age was, what, 30? And let's not talk about childbirth death rates...
Of course, even when they DO get something approved, let a single problem appear after the fact and suddenly it's a multi-million dollar lawsuit and "why didn't they make sure it was safe!"
Netflix is strongly rumoured to be looking into it, as is Sony, and Apple is dipping its toe into the water with downloadable music videos. I think Apple is waiting for the right time to announce their portable video player, and also to finalize their deals with the movie distributors.
As to download speed, mp4 files may be a bit large, but bandwidth is steadily increasing, codecs improving, and even a download that takes three or four hours is faster than the day or two it takes to get a physical DVD from Netflix.
And back to Apple, movies sized for a portable player could be quite a bit smaller than that needed for full HD video...
Bottom line. Bad. Bad. Bad.
But you could, for example, simply enter your name and credit card number into a player. Let it store multiple numbers. Then any song you or your wife (?) purchased and downloaded using any of your cards can be played in any of your devices that know those numbers.
Want to sell a device/computer? iTunes already has a "deauthorize" option. Or no need for a central authority. Just click "erase".
Want to take a movie next door? Take your pod with your downloaded movie with you and plug it in (I mean, you had to take it over there somehow.) The pod "knows" it's legal, and streams it into their TV.
BTW, most of these options are in regard to purely electronic downloadable/streamable files (like tunes). A DVD isn't quite the same, as posessing the physical object implies you have the rights to it.
And the cost of such security is priced into every item you buy there, just as much as the payroll, lease payment, and electric bill. Without it, your costs would be even higher to pay for "shrinkage", or the store would simply go out of business.
So you're not a shoplifter either. But some are, and unfortunately Best Buy has no way of knowing who is, and who is not...
All they have to do is ensure that most people can't easily make unauthorized copies, while not pissing off the "legitimate" consumer.