The simple way to eliminate piracy is to get everyone to pre-buy copies of a film before it even gets made. If not enough tickets are sold, then the film is not made and everyone gets their money back.
All the investors get a DVD and the right to download the film. They can share the film if they want because they invested in its creation.
This will also elimate financial flops because it all works on pre-sales. No pre-sales no films.
Currently production companies raise money for films by pre-selling to the distributors. So why not take this one step further and pre-sell to the consumer.
All you need is a product pitch and a delivery date. It could cost $10 per share. People already buy product online so why not extend this to reversing the entire film making/funding/selling process.
This could extend to TV as well.
People who think they would then just sit back and wait for others to invest would find that no films get made. So if they want stuff they will have to invest in it.
These investors do not receive profit, but rather user rights or copy rights. The production company can still sell TV / Cable and other Rights to profiteer off their work and fund the product pitch for the next project.
I was born in South Africa and I am also an Australian Citizen by decent. I currently live in Australia and I hate having to show 100 points of ID all the time for everything.
No-one has to tell me the evils of Apartheid or Nazis, but if they want to find you they will find a way. A standardised form of identification makes transactions easier - like cash is the standardised form of legal tender. As the poster stated, in South Africa you would get very little done if you did not carry your ID book around.
In Australia I use my SA Drivers license as photo ID - It has my photo and fingerprint on it. It is better than my passport (and I have 2 of those).
People have no problem with carrying passports, but they have a problem with ID cards. No-one worries about carrying a drivers license, a gun license, a voters card, a credit card. These are all forms of identification.
in Australia some simple transactions take so much longer because people have to log 2 or 3 different forms of ID (you even have to show some form of ID to use your credit card over a certain value in some places). One standardised ID book like South Africa means that there is no stuffing around - just getting the job done.
If some future government wants to round me up to subject me to some unpleasantness based on some arbitrary identifier, then I think they will find a way whether there are ID cards or not.
Pol Pot's regime rounded up and executed people with glasses as they were assumed to be intelligent.
What is key here is that the Simpsons is 14-15 seasons old. Stuff you found funny 14-15 years ago may not be that same as now. The Sipmsons may not have lost touch with it's audience, it's original audience has moved on and a new audience has taken it's place.
In this fast paced media driven world for something funny to last 15 years is an achievement well beyond most wonders of the modern age (The PSP will probably die off in a year).
There are shows that have run for several decades (East Enders etc) which to some may be absolutely crap in its umptienth decade, but it still has an audience, it still makes money and it will continue to play until people stop watching or the money stops rolling in.
If you feel that the newer series are bad then all you do is buy the earlier ones on DVD and don't bother with the rest.
Remember no-one forces you to watch TV.
Star Wars is heavily reliant on mythological tradition and narrative style. The well known story of Oedipus - the guy who marries his mother and kills his father is the basis for some of what happens in Star Wars.
Luke Skywalker starts out having a thing for Leia (his sister in this case) and seeks to destroy Darth Vader, his father.
Darth Sidious would no doubt be derived from the word INSIDIOUS which means to work harmfully in a stealthy manner.
There is a rich tradition of characters being named according to their plot significance in narrative history.
The word vader would be pronounced "FAH-DHER" in most languages of a germanic lineage including Middle-English. FATHER is basically the result of a few hundred years of regional dialect changes.
In Afrikaans, Darth Vader would have said "Ek is jou vader (I am your father)".
So the big *surprise* in Empire is only to those who speak modern English
Human beings are lazy and greedy.
Buying a DVD is far less hassle for your average person than downloading and burning. You pick it up, pay and play. So you have the lazy part down pat. This is where buying will always beat out downloading.
So now why do people download it, because they are greedy. They want more for less. So reduce the prices down to the cost of a half price movie ticket (say AUD$6). So now you can get anything for $6 (Just think of all the people who come back from Indonesia with hundreds of DVD's they bought for $6 each or whatever). So we know they will buy them at that price - and lots of them.
The industry cries havoc and lets slip the dogs of war and raises prices because piracy is eating away at their revenue, but a guy in Indonesia is making money at $6 a pop (or he would not be selling them). In actual fact by raising prices the demand for the product drops and people seek alternate means of procurement.
The industry will say that the films cost millions to make, but then so does research, development, staffing, advertising, etc on most products that cost $6.
If toothpast cost $30 a pop I would just use my brush as is. These companies spend millions on development, advertising and distribution and they can sell their products and make a good profit at $6 or even less.
Not every film costs $300 million to make, most will probably average out to about $20 million. That's cheap compared to manufacturers of a wide range of international products that cost significantly less than DVDs.
People will still copy them, but it would seem so silly to your average person to go through all that effort to get something that only cost $6. However at $30 it is worth it and that is obvious.
The argument would then swing to the fact that people won't go to the cinemas. Cinemas used to be dirt cheap and the opiate of the masses, now they're defined as being for an affluent market.
If movies cost AUD$3 I would probably go 10 times more often (and so would everyone I know). Most families can't afford to take Mom Dad and two kids because it costs almost as much as a Playstation game($60 tickets + $40 on goodies) if it was $22 all up you'd have queues out the doors and the cinema experience would be revitalised. $3 per ticket ($12) and $10 for 4 cokes and popcorns.
These are not unrealistic prices $10 for 4 poured cokes and 4 popcorns and $3 per ticket if you increased your customer flow by 10 fold (which is also not unrealistic based on the fact that families don't go to the cinemas as much now because it is to expensive).
Advertising revenue would be much higher because there are now 10 times more people in the seats, which makes it far more attractive.
Seeing as cinema is basically a giant advertisement for DVD sales (a try before you buy) people would see more and buy more, increasing DVD sales (Sweet Home Alabama made a modest $20 to $30 million in box office earnings, but dragged in 10 times that on DVD).
More films would be produced to meet demand, increasing the stability in smaller industries like Australia.
So by lowering prices the industry will actually do more good than harm and piracy will disappear through lazyness.
So you get a new ipod 6 Gb mini. If you were to fill it with music from iTunes then you would be spending USD$1500 to fill it with legitimate music (through itunes) so a mere USD$25.80 (1.72%), in tax seems quite reasonable (sales tax is even more), especially if you were thinking of filling it without paying the USD$1,500! If you were actually buying the CD's and then converting them to MP3 you may have spent about the same amount of money.
If you were filling a 20Gb Ipod with 5000 songs then you'd be spending USD$5,000 and taxed USD$86 (1.72%) or a 40Gb with 10,000 for USD$10,000 and taxed USD$172 (1.72%).
How many people do you know with a 40Gb Ipod who have spend anywhere near USD$10,000 on filling the thing? In fact how many people would have spent USD$1,000? or USD$500?
If music cost 1.72 cents per song then you could get the 40Gb Ipod filled for USD$172. So if they are at least making 2c per song for a full ipod then they are happy and you have only spent USD$172.
I have no problem spending 1.72 cents per song, but if they made me pay the full USD$10,471 (Ipod+Tax+Songs) to buy an Ipod then I would be pissed!
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The simple way to eliminate piracy is to get everyone to pre-buy copies of a film before it even gets made. If not enough tickets are sold, then the film is not made and everyone gets their money back.
All the investors get a DVD and the right to download the film. They can share the film if they want because they invested in its creation.
This will also elimate financial flops because it all works on pre-sales. No pre-sales no films.
Currently production companies raise money for films by pre-selling to the distributors. So why not take this one step further and pre-sell to the consumer.
All you need is a product pitch and a delivery date. It could cost $10 per share. People already buy product online so why not extend this to reversing the entire film making/funding/selling process.
This could extend to TV as well.
People who think they would then just sit back and wait for others to invest would find that no films get made. So if they want stuff they will have to invest in it.
These investors do not receive profit, but rather user rights or copy rights. The production company can still sell TV / Cable and other Rights to profiteer off their work and fund the product pitch for the next project.
I was born in South Africa and I am also an Australian Citizen by decent. I currently live in Australia and I hate having to show 100 points of ID all the time for everything. No-one has to tell me the evils of Apartheid or Nazis, but if they want to find you they will find a way. A standardised form of identification makes transactions easier - like cash is the standardised form of legal tender. As the poster stated, in South Africa you would get very little done if you did not carry your ID book around. In Australia I use my SA Drivers license as photo ID - It has my photo and fingerprint on it. It is better than my passport (and I have 2 of those). People have no problem with carrying passports, but they have a problem with ID cards. No-one worries about carrying a drivers license, a gun license, a voters card, a credit card. These are all forms of identification. in Australia some simple transactions take so much longer because people have to log 2 or 3 different forms of ID (you even have to show some form of ID to use your credit card over a certain value in some places). One standardised ID book like South Africa means that there is no stuffing around - just getting the job done. If some future government wants to round me up to subject me to some unpleasantness based on some arbitrary identifier, then I think they will find a way whether there are ID cards or not. Pol Pot's regime rounded up and executed people with glasses as they were assumed to be intelligent.
What is key here is that the Simpsons is 14-15 seasons old. Stuff you found funny 14-15 years ago may not be that same as now. The Sipmsons may not have lost touch with it's audience, it's original audience has moved on and a new audience has taken it's place. In this fast paced media driven world for something funny to last 15 years is an achievement well beyond most wonders of the modern age (The PSP will probably die off in a year). There are shows that have run for several decades (East Enders etc) which to some may be absolutely crap in its umptienth decade, but it still has an audience, it still makes money and it will continue to play until people stop watching or the money stops rolling in. If you feel that the newer series are bad then all you do is buy the earlier ones on DVD and don't bother with the rest. Remember no-one forces you to watch TV.
Star Wars is heavily reliant on mythological tradition and narrative style. The well known story of Oedipus - the guy who marries his mother and kills his father is the basis for some of what happens in Star Wars. Luke Skywalker starts out having a thing for Leia (his sister in this case) and seeks to destroy Darth Vader, his father. Darth Sidious would no doubt be derived from the word INSIDIOUS which means to work harmfully in a stealthy manner. There is a rich tradition of characters being named according to their plot significance in narrative history.
The word vader would be pronounced "FAH-DHER" in most languages of a germanic lineage including Middle-English. FATHER is basically the result of a few hundred years of regional dialect changes. In Afrikaans, Darth Vader would have said "Ek is jou vader (I am your father)". So the big *surprise* in Empire is only to those who speak modern English
Human beings are lazy and greedy. Buying a DVD is far less hassle for your average person than downloading and burning. You pick it up, pay and play. So you have the lazy part down pat. This is where buying will always beat out downloading. So now why do people download it, because they are greedy. They want more for less. So reduce the prices down to the cost of a half price movie ticket (say AUD$6). So now you can get anything for $6 (Just think of all the people who come back from Indonesia with hundreds of DVD's they bought for $6 each or whatever). So we know they will buy them at that price - and lots of them. The industry cries havoc and lets slip the dogs of war and raises prices because piracy is eating away at their revenue, but a guy in Indonesia is making money at $6 a pop (or he would not be selling them). In actual fact by raising prices the demand for the product drops and people seek alternate means of procurement. The industry will say that the films cost millions to make, but then so does research, development, staffing, advertising, etc on most products that cost $6. If toothpast cost $30 a pop I would just use my brush as is. These companies spend millions on development, advertising and distribution and they can sell their products and make a good profit at $6 or even less. Not every film costs $300 million to make, most will probably average out to about $20 million. That's cheap compared to manufacturers of a wide range of international products that cost significantly less than DVDs. People will still copy them, but it would seem so silly to your average person to go through all that effort to get something that only cost $6. However at $30 it is worth it and that is obvious. The argument would then swing to the fact that people won't go to the cinemas. Cinemas used to be dirt cheap and the opiate of the masses, now they're defined as being for an affluent market. If movies cost AUD$3 I would probably go 10 times more often (and so would everyone I know). Most families can't afford to take Mom Dad and two kids because it costs almost as much as a Playstation game($60 tickets + $40 on goodies) if it was $22 all up you'd have queues out the doors and the cinema experience would be revitalised. $3 per ticket ($12) and $10 for 4 cokes and popcorns. These are not unrealistic prices $10 for 4 poured cokes and 4 popcorns and $3 per ticket if you increased your customer flow by 10 fold (which is also not unrealistic based on the fact that families don't go to the cinemas as much now because it is to expensive). Advertising revenue would be much higher because there are now 10 times more people in the seats, which makes it far more attractive. Seeing as cinema is basically a giant advertisement for DVD sales (a try before you buy) people would see more and buy more, increasing DVD sales (Sweet Home Alabama made a modest $20 to $30 million in box office earnings, but dragged in 10 times that on DVD). More films would be produced to meet demand, increasing the stability in smaller industries like Australia. So by lowering prices the industry will actually do more good than harm and piracy will disappear through lazyness.
Photorealism is for people who can't see the danger in .....D........@........
So you get a new ipod 6 Gb mini. If you were to fill it with music from iTunes then you would be spending USD$1500 to fill it with legitimate music (through itunes) so a mere USD$25.80 (1.72%), in tax seems quite reasonable (sales tax is even more), especially if you were thinking of filling it without paying the USD$1,500! If you were actually buying the CD's and then converting them to MP3 you may have spent about the same amount of money. If you were filling a 20Gb Ipod with 5000 songs then you'd be spending USD$5,000 and taxed USD$86 (1.72%) or a 40Gb with 10,000 for USD$10,000 and taxed USD$172 (1.72%). How many people do you know with a 40Gb Ipod who have spend anywhere near USD$10,000 on filling the thing? In fact how many people would have spent USD$1,000? or USD$500? If music cost 1.72 cents per song then you could get the 40Gb Ipod filled for USD$172. So if they are at least making 2c per song for a full ipod then they are happy and you have only spent USD$172. I have no problem spending 1.72 cents per song, but if they made me pay the full USD$10,471 (Ipod+Tax+Songs) to buy an Ipod then I would be pissed!