Piracy is Killing them!

[Fishu]

Originally posted by Mini D
The RIAA avoided digital distribution on the net for the very reasons Napster highlighted. Once you distribute it on the net, it is all but impossible to keep from being re-distributed. The old "it's just a backup" defense... a backup that hundreds of millions of people have access too.

Just like the VHS's were backups... or tapes..

The internet distribution will be the future and what is the RIAA going to do? Sit aside in the "stone age" as everyone else rushes ahead of them?

[NUKE]

Originally posted by Fishu
Just like the VHS's were backups... or tapes..

The internet distribution will be the future and what is the RIAA going to do? Sit aside in the "stone age" as everyone else rushes ahead of them?

Internet disributation?? You mean internet stealling. Would you pay to download movies on the internet?

Stone age? lol!

[Siaf__csf]

I cannot figure out why it is obsolete to go to a retail store and purchase the DVD, but I am curious.

It's obsolete because of the artificial limitations the industry tries to pose on the trade. Region code is limiting the sales of different articles on different countries. Naturally it was hacked the day it came out but now they drive legislation to make bypassing region codes illegal.

It all sums up to unbelievable greed where they prefer to limit the _legal_ purchasing of consumers in order to gain a few extra bucks.

[Fishu]

Originally posted by NUKE
Internet disributation?? You mean internet stealling. Would you pay to download movies on the internet?

Stone age? lol!

I've already paid for different things to download off the net and sometimes chosen to download the product rather than pick it up from a store.
With a full rate ADSL I don't have problem with big downloads.
It would take from an hour to four hours to download a movie, depending on the servers capability.
It would make it a rather interesting choice to download a movie and burn it on a DVD myself, instead of picking it up from a store.
Heck, I could even print the case covers.

Better yet, the bandwidth is all the time increasing and that makes downloading of movies even faster. Yet the industry is reluctant to sell through the internet downloads.
It's complete bull to claim the downloadable products would easier become pirated, because theres already piracy with the highly protected products at the stores. Highly protected products, which at most only helps the honest customer to get pissed off.


Yes, they'd be at the stone age, if the potential of the internet isn't used.


What comes to 'stealing', I still don't see how it is possible to 'steal' immaterial items, which can be cloned at no cost.
Also someone copying the immaterial item illegit doesn't do the same damage to it's owner than when stealing... say.. the CD from a store.
Then again if it wouldn't be possible, it'd be highly likely the person wouldn't either buy the CD.
Wheres the loss?
I'd say the loss would be somewhere 1/100th of the claimed loss of revenue (simply put: 1 out of 100 people with illegit copy would actually buy the product, if it wouldn't be at all possible to copy *anything* illegally).

[-tronski-]

Originally posted by Siaf__csf
It's obsolete because of the artificial limitations the industry tries to pose on the trade. Region code is limiting the sales of different articles on different countries. Naturally it was hacked the day it came out but now they drive legislation to make bypassing region codes illegal.

It all sums up to unbelievable greed where they prefer to limit the _legal_ purchasing of consumers in order to gain a few extra bucks.

In a 2003 appeal Sony won a court case (it appealed against a 2002 decision they lost)  against a individual selling mod chips for Sony Playstations.  The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission agreed and assisted with the defense argument that region coding of playstation games was part of a wider problem of region coding DVD's etc. Its stand was that overseas markets give Australian consumers access to a wider range of competitively priced film titles with special features not otherwise available here. Which also means they are forced to pay higher prices for films with fewer features and a lesser range of film titles. The ACCC said that consumers’ interests are best served by ensuring access to the widest possible range of goods at the most competitive prices and Sony had overridden this basic consumer right by creating and maintaining artificial barriers to trade that are not warranted by the law. Sony won the case appeal by arguing mods/region coding combo was to fight against piracy.


I personally don't D/L movies mostly because I prefer the quality of legit DVD's. But I do burn copies for close friends only because I don't like lending them out. I don't consider that theft.

 Tronsky

[Skuzzy]

Internet distribution?

Right.  No way in heck am I going to download a 40GB+ film when the HD-DVD format is available.  Heck, I do not have the patience to wait for Aces High to download, nor do I want my home Internet connection saturated for those long periods of time.
I can go to the store and buy the DVD faster than it could be downloaded.

I could care less about region codes Siaf.  Never been a problem for any movie I have purchased.

The thread still wreaks of 'rationalizing' the theft of copyrighted works.  Vote with your wallet and just walk away from it, if you feel so strongly about it.  But saying, "I will not pay for it", but "I will steal it", is just admitting you lack conviction of principles and are simply using an excuse to steal it.
As long as the demand is there, whether through theft or purchase, then why would or should anything change?  By stealing it, you are contributing to what you claim to hate.  You are driving demand up and thus not giving them (RIAA) any motivation to change anything.

[Siaf__csf]

I could care less about region codes Siaf. Never been a problem for any movie I have purchased.

That's easy to say when you live in the US. How about rest of the world.

Actually, even US hobbyists will be limited from buying dvd's direct from hong kong or Japan if they're fans of such films. I have quite a few dvd's from that area which will never be in distribution in US or europe.

[Skuzzy]

Please elaborate.  I do not live in the 'rest of the world'.  What is the problem?

[Siaf__csf]

Sorry I edited my post afterwards. Ayway the prob is that a huge chunk of the content will not be accessible to everyone or it will be accessible in much degraded form.

Some countries rape the products by dubbing them for example.

If I order my dvd's directly from US I get 10-15% cheaper price, better sound quality and better extras compared to PAL versions where picture eats a lot of needed storage.

[Skuzzy]

The RIAA controls the content of other countries DVD's?  That is news to me.  How did that happen?

EDIT:  Trade-offs.  PAL video quality should be better than the NTSC quality of the U.S. DVD.  A world standard has been needed for a long time, but I cannot see where the RIAA is to be faulted for that either.

[Edbert1]

There can be no excuse or justification for the theft of copyrighted materials or intellectual property. Just as there can be no excuse or justification in a billion dollar corporation prosecuting a private individual who is a comsumer of pirated materials.

Go after those distributing the pirated warez and you wont lose the sympathy vote that you lose when you prosecute grandma for having the latest Offspring CD.

Also, I am sure the pr0n industry loses more anual revenue to the P2P people than does Sony, Microsoft,  or Warner Brothers.

[Mini D]

Originally posted by Thrawn
Sooo, should I take a lack of response as you conceding my point Minid?

No, I didn't see it. It wasn't much of a point anyways.

CDs still cost the same here as they always have. $12-$18 for new CDs. The only real complaint people seem to have is that the price of CDs isn't dropping, though it hasn't gone up for about 20 years either.

[Mini D]

Originally posted by Edbert
Go after those distributing the pirated warez and you wont lose the sympathy vote that you lose when you prosecute grandma for having the latest Offspring CD.

They did go after people distributing the music. Don't confuse what the people here claim vs what actually happened. That poor poor 12 year old girl and her single mom had 2000 songs available for download from her PC. That big evil company wasn't looking to crack down on a 12 year old... a 12 year old just happened to be one of the bigger suppliers. It just goes to show that the average person, if given the chance, would rather steal/distribute than pay for music. Once again... justification for actions.

[Siaf__csf]

RIAA is not at fault with dvd's it's MPAA and other distributors who created the region code system.

It's main idea (I think) is to ensure income for movie theaters in countries where movies are displayed later than in the US. That means 6 month - 1 year of delay before content is accessible on dvd even if the movie premiered 2 years ago in US.

The PAL-NTSC thing is true to some extent. Most people would trade the minor improvement of PAL to DTS sound and extras any time. Just as I'm doing when I'm ordering an ntsc version and play them through my hacked dvd-player. Other nice 'features' include no progressive outputs for dvd players (they say it gives 'too good' visual quality to hometheathers) etc. that can be hacked away. Same applies to standard vga and component outputs.

If the industry had thier way we'd be watching our high priced local movies from hardware that's been artificially neutered in order to ensure an inferior picture quality compared to the movies.

Thanks to mods/hacks I can order a high-end player from far east that has all the bells and whistles + 40% cheaper price.

They're oppressing the consumers around the world. As said earlier I've now taken a personal stand and stoped buying anything related to RIAA or MPAA.

CDs still cost the same here as they always have. $12-$18 for new CDs. The only real complaint people seem to have is that the price of CDs isn't dropping, though it hasn't gone up for about 20 years either.

When CD was introduced the consumers were promised the prices would drop to LP levels. At that time LPs cost maybe around $6-$8 a record. In europe the cd prices vary from 18 to 30 dollars / record at the moment. Average is around $22-25 I think.

[Fishu]

Originally posted by Skuzzy
The RIAA controls the content of other countries DVD's?  That is news to me.  How did that happen?
 

I think most, if not every, western country has their own RIAA comparable organization and apparently many these organizations DO cooperate with the RIAA.