It's Amazing What Happens When A Government's Not In Hollywood's Pocket

from the who'd-have-thunk-it dept

Thu, Jul 20th 2006 12:25pm — Carlo Longino

Rampant physical piracy in China has forced some entertainment companies and musicians to -- gasp -- innovate and come up with new ideas to make money there. Last year, Warner came up with one idea to try and circumvent Chinese DVD pirates by releasing a movie on DVD there the same day it was released to theaters in the US. Now, it's trying another strategy: compressing release windows so that one of its new films is out on DVD just 12 days after it's released to theaters, a similar tactic to what's been tried in some other piracy-rich countries. What's slightly amusing is that these companies only feel the need to actually change their business models in countries where physical piracy is a huge problem. While counterfeiting and selling pirated DVDs and the like does go on here in the US, the entertainment industry prefers to spend its time whining about file-sharing and creating pointless schemes to restrict honest customers -- rather than changing how they operate to grow their businesses. Judging by the industry's different reactions to physical piracy and flie-sharing, you'd almost think that they were just blowing hot air when they blather on about how file-sharing is killing their business. If that's really the case, why does their response to it always end up either in the courtroom or in Congress, while in places where physical piracy is the problem, they actually try new business ideas, no matter how small?

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30 Comments

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wraaa, 20 Jul 2006 @ 12:44pm

WHOOT
FIRST POST WHOOOT
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- Lame, 20 Jul 2006 @ 1:21pm
  
  Re: WHOOT
  Incredible!
  
  What a profound reply to this article.....
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- Anonymous Coward, 20 Jul 2006 @ 2:30pm
  
  Re: WHOOT
  get a life. nobody cares. you smell.
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  - alm, 20 Jul 2006 @ 4:47pm
    
    Re: Re: WHOOT
    I have been reading many differant post on many articles for over a week now and i have discovered a constant.
    
    Anonymous Coward is a smart ass of the highest order.
    
    There is no call to talk to people like you do. You are the one who needs to get a life beside leaving crappy post all over this nice sites comments feature. Anyone agree ?
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jason sterly, 20 Jul 2006 @ 1:30pm

money makes people slow... reeeeeal, sloooooow. also stupid, but it's relative cause we just common folk!
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Ben, 20 Jul 2006 @ 1:30pm

Umm...
Because they dont have enough money to bribe every country.
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Anonymous Coward, 20 Jul 2006 @ 1:31pm

how do you propose they change their business model?
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- will, 20 Jul 2006 @ 1:52pm
  
  Re:
  >> how do you propose they change their business model?
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  - Anonymous Coward, 20 Jul 2006 @ 2:32pm
    
    Re: Re:
    I propose you re-read the article.
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Anonymous Coward, 20 Jul 2006 @ 1:31pm

congrats on the first post -- that must have been very challenging for you. What an accomplishment!
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- Randy, 20 Jul 2006 @ 1:39pm
  
  Re:
  Do I detect a drop of acid sarcasm here.....ROFLMAO!
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- TechQ, 20 Jul 2006 @ 3:20pm
  
  Re: Whoot
  plattzzzzzzzzzz
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- alm, 20 Jul 2006 @ 4:50pm
  
  Re: Anonymous Coward
  I have been reading many differant post on many articles for over a week now and i have discovered a constant.
  
  Anonymous Coward is a smart ass of the highest order.
  
  There is no call to talk to people like you do. You are the one who needs to get a life beside leaving crappy post all over this nice sites comments feature. Anyone agree ?
  
  (reply to this comment) (link
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Anon Coward, 20 Jul 2006 @ 1:57pm

Truly Amazing
Yes, it is sad that the "entertainment" industry does "know what to do" when faced with piracy overseas, yet here at "home" they DRM everything (yes you bought it, but you can't do anything else with it). I've even heard talk (probrobly on ".") about DVDs that will become "locked" to the first DVD player they're in! So, even if you have two DVD players at your home, you're only gonna be able to play it on one. The industry just needs to realize:
*Yes, it costs a "bundle" to make their product
*After it is digitized, there is a near-zero cost of reproduction (file-copying).
*Near-zero cost of distribution (internet downloads).
*Reduced cost of legal downloads incredibly increases purchases.
*Pirates have always had each other to compete with, and they have "more" operating "costs" per copy than the legitimate company. (They seem to be able to make some money; if not,then the problem would have gone away on its own)

"Hollywood", I'm so sad you don't have a budget to bribe, oops I mean - lobby the government of China into compitulating to your idea of how things should be. Wow, adapting to the marketplace, what a concept!
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- Anonymous Coward, 20 Jul 2006 @ 2:34pm
  
  Re: Truly Amazing
  Your use of quotations is highly intellectual.
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- Dr. Evile, 21 Jul 2006 @ 7:14am
  
  Re: Truly Amazing
  "Laser"
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Robert Nelson (profile), 20 Jul 2006 @ 1:59pm

Not so Amazing
A good start would be to cease trying to turn customers into criminals because the (gasp) download something. Lower the prices, speed up the release times, in a word innovate.
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- Anonymous Coward, 20 Jul 2006 @ 2:52pm
  
  Re: Not so Amazing
  Robert, so Mercedes turns honest citizens into thiefs by pricing their cars so high? They encourage grand theft auto?
  
  Gotta love your thinking. Its price is too high, so its ok to steal it?
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  - Joe, 20 Jul 2006 @ 4:12pm
    
    Re: Re: Not so Amazing
    Anonymous, the point that you and Hollywood are missing is that DRM will not stop the people that are actually doing the pirating. If media can be seen and heard, it can be pirated. All DRM succeeds in doing is making the product more of a pain for honest consumers to use. All the time and money spent on developing DRM just increases the price of the product while at the same time reducing its value to the customer.
    
    They can legislate all they want but the fact is, there will always be countries where laws regarding pirating are either not enforced or non existent.
    
    Also, your analogy with the Mercedes isn't really accurate. It would be more like someone buying a knockoff copy of a Mercedes for a fraction of the price because the price of a real Mercedes had gone up while the quality had gone down.
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David D., 20 Jul 2006 @ 2:19pm

Truly Amazing
Imagine that Hollywood having to change it's business tactics to meet true evolving consumer demand. I tell you what Hollywood, the business model for meeting demand and reducing Piracy for copyrighted works is in your face. Clue "Content Content Content, Compression Compression Compression (MP4), Delivery at low cost. But I will keep the rest to myself and start my own company... LOL
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Anonymous Coward, 20 Jul 2006 @ 2:48pm

Innovate by lowering the cost? What the hell are you people talking about? You know as well as I do that the issue is not about consumers being able to use the product they purchased any way they want, DRM is all about illegal file sharing. I know you want to get something for nothing, but the fact is, they can set their prices as they will. It is a fact that is is against the law, dishonest and yes, morally wrong to get movies from others that have bought it at no cost (or no money going to the content owner.)

Sure, some of their steps seem stupid (like the 1 DVD player only) but the fact is, they are not doing things like that because they want to restrict what their customers do with their purchased copy, they are doing it so one person can't buy it, and then sell it or give it away to a thousand people.

DRM will be around as long as there are morally bankrupt people around that have no problem using pirated products.
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- DerOoestericher, 20 Jul 2006 @ 3:39pm
  
  Re:
  Are you living under a rock?
  
  Sure, DRM is intended to reduce piracy, perhaps.
  
  It is also intended to help drive sales by forcing consumers to purchase the same item multiple times. DVD's that play in only one player, restrictions on copying music from a CD to my PC or to an MP3 player, etc.
  
  They term those as piracy and thus attempt to legitimize their rules.
  
  There's always got to be one industry apoligist to call everyone who gets fed up when their CD or DVD doesn't work correctly a thief. For purposes of this discussion, it would seem to be you.
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Dan, 20 Jul 2006 @ 4:46pm

DRM again
Another DRM article, eh?

Bottom line is companies want all of our money, and we don't want to spend any of it. That struggle is as eternal as time itself.

I think it would be a better use of time to understand that and look at other issues. But that's just my opinion.
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cheesypoof, 20 Jul 2006 @ 5:12pm

hey alm
"Anonymous Coward" is the default name if you don't enter one. It's not necessarily the same dude.

and differant [sic] is usually spelled with an 'e'
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Anonymous Coward, 20 Jul 2006 @ 5:25pm

Joe, I wonder, would there be attempts at DRM if there was no piracy? I think not. I remember the early days of software, and it had no copy protection. It wasn't added to get consumers to buy multiple copies, but because it was pirated.

In the case of Mercedes, piracy isn,t the same because it is like making a Mercedes exactly as it is, not a cheap knockoff. The only thing cheap about it is the price. I buy a DVD and copy it and distribute it, its the same as what you could buy in the store.

I would hope that we as a society wouldn't begin to believe that its the system that is making it ok for people to break the law, piracy is against the law. If you do it, you are a criminal. Its that simple.
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RDJD, 20 Jul 2006 @ 5:33pm

DRM is in it's infancy
I agree with Anonymous Coward that it is wrong to steal content for any reason. However I also agree... in a small way... with DerOoestericher who says that DRM also restricts legitimate file copying.... say for use in my car stereo. But what I think people like DerOoestericher fail to see is that DRM is in it's infancy. Really it's only been around a few years. It may very well evolve so that your car stereo and your boombox and your portable player all have DRM decoding built into them. Thus your DRM file that you personally own could play in any device that you personally own. The only thing holding us back from that right now is all the proprietary DRM formats out there. M$ has their own, Apple has their own, Movielink has it's own, etc etc. We need a standardized DRM that everybody uses... even ITune$. Although I'm not a huge M$ fan. I think they are atleast heading down that road with their Plays For Sure devices.
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YO YO MA, 20 Jul 2006 @ 5:48pm

RE: DRM in it's infancy
I personally prefer Apple's FairPlay because all you have to do is enable/disable a computer and you can play a song on up to 5 computers. I hate M$ weirdo approach of backing up the license files. But what ALL the DRM versions really need is a way to transfer ownership. Say I want to SELL my music collection at a garage sale. It would be nice to have some way to go to a central database at Itunes or Walmart or somewhere else and actually transfer ownership. I think Apple has the only system in place where this could some day be feasible. If I could de-Authorize not only a particular computer from a song, but also the song owner, and then transfer song ownership to someone else, then we'd really have something. Although I like Apples approach I don't agree with Apple's secretive/non-sharing methods. They refuse to share the decoding algorithms with anyone and thus they will have to personally manufacture any device that would work with their content. It also prevents other content providers from coding their songs to be played on say an IPOD. I guarantee someday this will come back to bite them in the arse. It will be PC versus Mac all over again. The reason the PC won is not because it's better, but because MS licensed their OS to run on any computer manufacturer's machine. In other words they shared like a good little boy.
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Anonymous Coward, 20 Jul 2006 @ 6:12pm

Hear hear. I also agree that DRM hurts the good customers experience. Law breakers make things more difficult for the law abiding citizens. That doesn't mean that companies cave in to criminal activity.

Companies are catching on though, soon when you buy content, you will be able to download free ringtones from the movie, the soundtrack, clips etc. You will have that for your PC and your mobile device. Some pretty cool stuff.
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Anonymous Coward, 20 Jul 2006 @ 8:50pm

Quite frankly the only reason drm is being pushed so hard right now is control. But im not talking about protections from pirates. Microsoft, apple, real, etc... They all make money from every user that uses their drm. If they become the standard they will make a killing. The other advantage is if microsofts system becomes the standard everyone will be forced to buy windows in order to enjoy music. This is about far more then piracy and you will eventually all realise that. Fair use is eventually going to be non existant.
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Chris, 15 Dec 2006 @ 7:12am

The Reason
Hi,

The reason that these companies are so ken on shutting down file sharing in the US and the Uk is because if a DVD is released in China on Monday and also released in Cinemas in the Us on the same day... it'll be roughly 2-3 hours until a high quality Divx copy appears on file sharing sites.
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