re: Why piracy is common

yeah i recorded a great version of "fist of legend" from a VHS from blockbuster when i was in middle school. it had the real translation and not the "goody goody hollywood" translations of the DVDs (i bought the DVD when it was released. i had no way of buying that VHS at that time, either)

quote:

---

How do the piracy supporters here feel about buying an iMac off the back of a truck, rather than from the Apple store?

---

well the argument fails because a tangible good can be possessed, and removing possession removes the fruits of the ownership

that's what makes these discussions so different. you can rip a DVD/CD and return the original. control of the original exists, yet you have a perfect copy. and you can distribute that perfect copy millions of times easily

quote:

---

well the argument fails because a tangible good can be possessed, and removing possession removes the fruits of the ownership

that's what makes these discussions so different. you can rip a DVD/CD and return the original. control of the original exists, yet you have a perfect copy. and you can distribute that perfect copy millions of times easily

---

I see that angle. I guess my point was just to illustrate that producers/manufacturers have the right to control their sales/delivery channels. Coke and Pepsi do it. Apple does it. Paul Mitchell does it. It is their right.

i don't think anyone in this thread is claiming they should control the production-distribution choices

they're just saying the scheme set up by the studios and networks encourages piracy

quote:

---

they're just saying the scheme set up by the studios and networks encourages piracy

---

Would you say encourages or makes it seem like what they are doing it okay?

yeah the unquantifiable "i wouldn't have bought it anyway" slice is interesting. i do believe this exists. there is no way to establish how much of the piracy market this section constitutes, however

it is a legit point though: if you have no interest in ever buying x movie, and you download it, then i don't see the harm. now i get the whole "doesn't matter you're still getting the fruits of others' investment/labor for free," but there would be no money exchanged either way.

also this goes in line with the "i would pay for (insert technology/distribution)" crowd. however the question is how much would you pay? you can have most of those options right now...if you pay for it. if you get HBO, you get HBOGO. obviously many in this thread don't want to pay that much for HBOGO, so they don't. the point i'm trying to make is that just because the desired avenues become available doesn't mean people will pay for it

quote:

---

Would you say encourages or makes it seem like what they are doing it okay?

---

encourages

people want the product and they want it now. the timing seems to be the issue of this thread (although price issues do exist)

piracy gives them the product NOW. keeping that product from these consumers leads to them having to resort to piracy to get it

i'll give an example: breaking bad. the network waits until the new season is coming out to release the prior season. i'd pay money for the season right now, but i can't get it without resorting to illegal means.

I'm outta here, less I would be in here all day.

quote:

---

also this goes in line with the "i would pay for (insert technology/distribution)" crowd. however the question is how much would you pay? you can have most of those options right now...if you pay for it. if you get HBO, you get HBOGO. obviously many in this thread don't want to pay that much for HBOGO, so they don't. the point i'm trying to make is that just because the desired avenues become available doesn't mean people will pay for it

---

I disagree. Like Pilot, I was a heavy pirate until I was able to get Netflix/Hulu and Redbox. There are lots of people like that. The problem is:

Pirating is the most convenient method right now. If studios could make a more convenient method, then people would do pay for it. Guaranteed. That's what the comic strip is about.

People will pay. For convenience. Outside of Netflix, HBOGo may be a step, but it's not convenient. Yet.


Think about someone who doesn't get cable/dvr and they miss a show on network television. If that show is on CBS, what are they supposed to do right now? (The only company that doesn't regularly put their ccontent online in some form).

quote:

---

which party has this de facto monopoly?

---

I'd say it's the cable companies with the actual quasi government monopoly. HBO is getting targeted in this thread but they'd sell their stuff to NetFlix under the right conditions. The cable companies have tried to get laws and regulations changed so they could essentially double charge NetFlix users for their Internet connection but hide the charges so it would look like NetFlix was becoming more expensive when it was really their Internet connection going up in price to make up for people not buying overpriced TV content from them.

quote:

---

how? studios (both tv and movie) go under all the time. they take serious hits all the time or get flush with surprise hits

---

Again, I think the most culpable here are the cable companies and the influence they yield on the studios, but one thing that is curious is that it's been so hard for independent content to succeed in a time when distributing independent content has never been easier. Consumers are just habitual. If you could run an experiment where you released Modern Family for free on YouTube, wipe everyone's memory and release it again in it's Primetime Network slot, I bet it gets more viewers being tied to a network than just 1 click away on YouTube.

quote:

---

it may have been piracy, or it may have been download speeds catching up to demand and a service like itunes coming along to deliver secure downloads AND royalties. i'm sure it was a combination of both

---

No doubt it's not completely black and white, but Apple had to push hard to get the licensing that no one else had been able to secure. I'd be willing to be that if something like napster hadn't come along and made piracy easy that Apple wouldn't have gotten it's licensing, at least not as early as it did.

quote:

---

i think there is a lot of perception bias by people in these discussions.

---

There are definitely people that don't realize they are as nichey as they are, but at the same time these companies would keep things the exact same forever if they could. The real problem is a startup can't change things (again, defacto monopoly), we have to wait for companies like Amazon, Google, and probably eventually Walmart to see a big enough opportunity to take on the cable providers.