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116 Comments
- chembro84, on 10/12/2007, -1/+80I really feel that they literally "allow" these sites to put out digital content at such a price so that when it's time to "persuade" congress into pushing tougher anti-"piracy" laws they can say "Hey we tried their way, it doesn't work, they still STOLE from us"
- streetstealth, on 10/12/2007, -6/+44Here's the endgame that the MPAA will never do, but absolutely should:
1. Set up a catalog site that's actually a hybrid store / private torrent tracker.
2. Seed the catalog at high quality, DRM free (since, I mean, the stuff's out there anyway).
3. As the user now, find something you like; you pay $7.99, you get a unique peer ID which lets you join the torrent for that file.
4. The file's yours, the MPAA got paid. Whoaaaaa. - trunkster, on 10/12/2007, -5/+43Piracy is always easier.
- superkendall, on 10/12/2007, -2/+40Why do you think the suppot rep had Jack Sparrow for an icon? It was a subtle hint as to the easiest way to resolve the problem...
- jessecollins, on 10/12/2007, -5/+36and cheaper
- Saintlink, on 10/12/2007, -1/+30That theory looks to be quite valid after offering such insulting "deals" as this. Once again, stories like these just goes to show they have no incentive to innovate or move into the 21st century. Content industries, your golden years have passed. Get over it.
- sedition, on 10/12/2007, -4/+32That's exactly the problem. Unless someone can make it easier to buy than to pirate it. No one is gonna pay for it. Ever.
Of course the value for movies these days is so low I think they should be paying people to take them away. - trogdor282, on 10/12/2007, -0/+26streetstealth, the flaw in your plan is that the M.A.F.I.A.A. doesn't want to end piracy. It wants to keep it barely alive and make a huge stink about how it's responsible for slumping sales, so that they can continue to unload Dukes o' Hazzard VI : Daisy Does Dallas on our sorry asses.
- Terc, on 10/12/2007, -1/+23Oh.. I get it. You pay $15 for the DVD, then about $5 for them to remove all the extras. Another $5 for them to be allowed to break the encryption and store it on their servers. Then another $4.99 for hosting, bandwidth and drm for the life of the company. See? It's easy to justify how much it costs... It's totally worth it. 1 partial DVD for the price of 2 please. Oh, and make sure I have to deal with drm every time I want to play it OK?
< sarcasm / > - blamethesun, on 10/12/2007, -0/+21Okay, seriously, how can you justify a $29.99 pricetag? I fail to understand.
- CowboyBebop, on 10/12/2007, -1/+21I think you might be right chembro64. However, the iTunes model CLEARLY works. If you charge less than the physical format and allow it to be transferred to other formats, such as a DVD, then it will work. But I think that the studios do want it to fail as you suggested. How could they want it to succeed with such pricing schemes? Who, in their right mind (other than curious persons such as the author of this article), would be willing to pay MORE for a digital format that they can only view on their computer than just to buy the DVD?
- northerncomfort, on 10/12/2007, -7/+27Good article, but it's not as if I was really considering trying it out.
- strictnein, on 10/12/2007, -0/+19Because it's on your computer! MAGIC!
- PaxRomana, on 10/12/2007, -1/+19Ah the process of innovation in the movie industry: 1. Come up with a good idea. 2. Totally ***** it up. 3. Give up. 4. Let the porn industry figure out how to do it.
- bradp, on 10/12/2007, -1/+15WTF? IE5 only, no Firefox?
What a joke! - kurtu5, on 10/12/2007, -0/+13Yeah sedition is right on the money. It all boils down to opportunity cost. The best way to encourage legal behavior is to increase the opportinuty cost of the illegal activity such that is is higher then the legal activity.
Make it easier and cheaper to download songs and noone will steal them anymore. Hey this applies to illegal activities of all sorts; immigration for one. Make it easier to be legal than illegal. Duh factor 10. - dasil003, on 10/12/2007, -0/+12What the MPAA and RIAA don't get is that people don't need movies or music. It's the most discretionary kind of spending imaginable. If they keep suing people and creating ridiculously overprices services with obnoxious DRM people are just gonna stop giving a ***** about their overproduced and overmarketed crap. Most likely they'll just drive the market to local musicians and independent film makers.
For the history of recorded media, things have just worked: vinyl, 8-track, cassettes, CDs, VHS, DVDs. Now all of a sudden they're breaking everything in order to prevent copying. Well I'm done giving a *****. They don't have a monopoly on entertainment like they did 70 years ago. Let 'em rot. - tankko, on 10/12/2007, -1/+12>>That's exactly the problem. Unless someone can make it easier to buy than to pirate it. No one is gonna pay for it. Ever.
Yes, and that is exactly what Apple did with iTunes (for music). It is so easy to use, click, click, I'm done, that I use it over P2P. - thomasthecat, on 10/12/2007, -0/+10The comments above make a good point. Look at iTunes; when someone made an easy-to-use service that offered the product at a reasonable price, people bought into it, and now over a billion songs have been legally downloaded.
And I bet a good portion of those legal downloads were from people who knew how to pirate, but the convenience, accuracy, and quality of iTunes provided a legal alternative that was worth the price.
(EDIT: Was writing this while tankko posted above. Case in point. :) )
The rediculous rigamarole this guy had to go through reminds me of the stories about the RIAA trying to kill legal music downloading with services that were bad on purpose. You'd think the MPAA would learn from their failed example that trying to discourage content downloading is a Horrible Idea. - aplardi, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1030 bucks? 15 Dollar DVD's and DVD Decryptor HERE I COME!
- boran, on 10/12/2007, -1/+10Ironically a torrent would have been quite a bit faster too (given enough seeds/peers, but with a current movie that's mostly the case)
- noGoodNamesLeft, on 10/12/2007, -1/+10You're right of course. People in Africa don't have computers.... I guess those Nigerian scammers write their messages on small pieces of paper then send them using the protocol described in RFC 1149.
- uptown, on 10/12/2007, -2/+11"Keeping in theme with BROKEBACK, I don’t ask what the problem was and he doesn’t tell."
Great line... - Yuffie, on 10/12/2007, -4/+12$30 isn't the bad part, this is the bad part:
"Sorry, but in order to enjoy the Movielink service you must use Internet Explorer 5.0 or higher"
No Firefox = No Service - Yuffie, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8To be fair, they have a $10 or less section with great movies such as:
The Adventures of Rat Pfink and Boo Boo - 1968
Alecair's Spectacular Party - 1965
Have anyone ever heard of these movies??? - TheRealPod, on 10/12/2007, -2/+10At least with iTunes, I know I can burn a CD and not be tied to that software. What happens in 5 years when Movielink is gone? Then you're Divx (the DVD competator) all over again.
- tizz66, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8I wonder if he has purchased the rights to use the image of Jack Sparrow in a commercial environment.
I'm going to report him to MPAA I think. - dclowd9901, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7Piracy is definitely at the right price for whatever trouble you go through to get stuff. Though, I have to say, I rarely download movies.
- MOJIRA, on 05/17/2008, -1/+8for 30 bucks you should also have the rights to use the footage in the movies, the music, dialogue, and have access to the raw footage.
throw in a ball scratching device and sure, im all in! - brianrlawson, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7Piracy is not easier for 90% of the public...not everyone knows what a torrent is, how to un-rar 150 files, then load up a bin/cue in VLC to enjoy the show. This is all about clicking 1 big, shiny "Download & Play" button...the iTunes functionality that grandma can handle.
- xerox, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6ive got spare bandwidth, a dvd burner, and a stack of dvd's, ill stick to downloading iso's.
- DASH, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6"Me, I’ll stick to buying my movies on DVD and leave my computer to what it was meant for: porn, porn, porn."
Here is another great one. - prab, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6Also, is that why ITMS is so popular? It gained popularity because most people like that it is easy to use. The quality is always good, the speed is fast, and there is only one format to worry about.
- LucasOman, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6But that's ok. There are more people downloading movies than can be prosecuted. The MPAA will not win this fight. It may take a while, but they will lose eventually. And, really, their hardheadedness and idiocy will expedite their demise.
- evilTak, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7'I’m told I need to download an application titled “Movielink Manager,”'
Looks like Mac, GNU/Linux, and BSD users are out, too. Oh well, everyone knows they're hippie communist pirates anyway. Like, yarr, comrade! - CovardeAnonimo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6they already did.
didn't you see the anoucement ? vivid lauched a system where you can buy the movie (same price of a DVD), download it, BURN TO A VIDEO DVD that can be watched on your living room player. here: http://www.wired.com/news/columns/0,70547-0.html
there's a caveat. the dowloaded files are DRM protected, and you need a proprietary app to burn it to a blank DVD, and it only allows you to burn once.
of course, after you have the movie on the shiny plastic disc, nothing stops you from using a program like K3B to make new copies, or then re-rip the movie and encode it with DiVX. is the same loophole you find on iTunes. - kernelhappy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Either they are trying to gouge the early adopters or they are trying to make a case study showing how it doesn't work. The only problem is IMO the music industry tried that before and it failed them. I can't remember who or even when it was (probably circa 1999) the first legally downloadable music was made available for the low price of $3.99 and $4.99 per song, IIRC one of the first tracks for sale was a Janet Jackson song. Naturally there were few takers (if any).
Fast foward a little bit and portable music players start becoming popular and bandwidth starts becoming abundant to the home (and from the server, (yes it actually cost money back in the old days)). Now throw in some negotiating magic and you get iTunes, with a reasonable price and the availability of hardware capable making use of the files and suddenly it works.
There are so many factors converging to blow this silly $29 price out of the water that it's hysterical that anyone can think the current incarnation is workable. Xbox 360, PS3, HTPC's, network attached media players (of which XBMC is the best imo), the digital conversion on the home is finally here, having a file that can't be played on a DVD player is becoming less of an issue, and with Verizon laying fiber all over the place the pipe to the home is becoming even fatter. It's only a matter of time until we have iTheater or something.
Speaking of Verizon, I can totally imagine them with their own standalone product once they get the kinks and legalities worked out of their on demand video services. I could totally see Verizon offering two flavors of video on demand, $3.99 to view the movie for 24 hours and $7.99 for a unlimited license to view the movie whenever and as often as you like (provided you still have that verizon pipe to your house that is).
It's not a matter of if, it's a matter of when, the video market is demanding these products just the same way it demanded them for audio, they can make whatever attempts they want but the fact remains as each generation becomes more tech savy and tech hungry we will continue to drive the market, now if only we can get enough enlightened people to stand up for our rights when it comes to reasonable licensing terms. - zachgc, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Similar to Sedition's point, it's obvious people will pay for digital copies if you can give it to them at consistent quality, that's easy to find, that's transferable to other media, and that's also at a fair price. I would half way try this service if a) it was cheaper (say $10-15 per movie) and b) it's download software also allowed me to transfer it to a few select formats (or at least made a DVD copy that will actually work in my player).
I think that if I was involved with actually making one of these movies, I'd be kinda pissed that the only way you could watch my work this way was on a damn computer screen. - JangoFett, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5I thought to give this a shot, and went to download a movie. I jumped through the sign-up hoops and provided a credit card number, but stopped when I saw that I saw that I had to download their Movielink Player.
After a bit of research in the FAQ, I decided I didn't want another mysterious program that runs constantly in the background on my machine and canceled my order. - afex, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4so this company, which sells media over the net.....has a tech support guy with an icon of....a...pirate?
isn't that a little like going to an AA meeting at a bar? - JasonPrini, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Seems they're at it again.
Making sure this will fail so they can get back to their litigious-based business model.
4 hours to download an overly-restricted movie... I can walk to the store, buy a DVD, walk back home, rip a backup AND an iPod version all in less than 2 hours; and for less money. - Antimatter3009, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5That's a joke, son.
- Sirocco, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5That'll go the way of the UMD.
- benjihad, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4I went to the grocery store, and while i was putting grocieries away i thought "i'd like to hear 'alright' by 'supergrass' right now". since i don't have a supergrass album (for obvious reasons) i had two options.
1) to fire up my filesharing program, wait for it to connect, type in my search query, weed through all the garbage, download a file at 5kb/s that may or may not be the track i'm looking for. all while the ice cream melts all over the counter, then I have to open iTunes anyhow to move the file to my iPod
or 2) to type in the song title and artist name in iTunes and double-click, drag it over to my ipod and hook the iPod to my stereo.
piracy is not always easier. - Swift2, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Something about this, and the very idea that DMCA2 and the most draconian copyright restrictions have gotten so far while Net Neutrality flops means that, to me, the US has slipped badly. Pretty soon, we'll be going down in history like the Austro-Hungarian Empire. We knew what citizenship in a republic was like, but we sold it to the corporate shills.
- thisnameisfake, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4Everyone looks at porn.
- JohnboiWaltune, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3@rewritable
""Piracy is always easier."
Thats why sites like torrent spy are full of "Durrrrrr why wont windows media player open silent hill.torrent ???!!!111!!""
That's because every day there are 1000's of noobs who just heard about BitTorrent. Some of them can figure it out for themselves, but some need to be educated. Its like any other piece of software. I'm sure they dont ask that question more than once. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4Download XviDs only n00bs download ISOs
Buy a DVD player that plays DivX or XviD they are under $60 - Urusai, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3"Which is good cause if I had luck, I’d probably have the MPAA and FBI knocking on my door."
Too late, bud, even trying to copy it is teh illegal piracism, and you are funding terrorists! Judging from the last line, you're killing kittens, too. - danpsmith, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Ironically, the content delivery industry is so far gone it doesn't even realize the advances that things like Bittorrent could provide in this regard. If you had a nationwide cheap downloadable source for movies using Bittorrent, not only would it cost you less in terms of bandwidth, but the access would be faster and everyone would be happy. They never think in these terms, however, and would rather simply view technology as evil before attempting to work it into a strategy of their own.
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