Why People Pirate: The Story Of Avatar
from the three-years-later dept
When I began thinking about writing this post, I wanted to start with the opening line "Remember Avatar?" Then I stopped, shook my head, and figured that such an opening line would be ridiculous. After all, Avatar is the highest worldwide grossing movie of all time. Despite everyone on the planet apparently believing that the movie was based on something they had themselves done, the movie essentially ushered in the era of the 3D movie experience for our generation. I mean, come on, it's Avatar.But then I thought about it a little longer. When's the last time I heard anyone talk about this groundbreaking movie? Months ago? Years ago? Wait, when did this thing come out? 2009? Is that really correct? Is anyone really thinking about this movie anymore? So, because of all those questions, I give you this:
Remember Avatar? You should, for all the reasons mentioned above, but you may see the movie mentioned again now that Fox will finally release the 3D Collector's Edition Blu-Ray of the film. It's one hell of a release window for the 3D version of the movie. And some, like Gizmodo, are pointing to story of how it happened to explain why people turn to infringment for the entertainment they want.
On April 22, 2010, [Avatar] is released on DVD. It's now August 14, 2012. In what world does it make sense for the movie that basically defibrillated the entire notion of 3D movies to take three damn years to make a wide release on 3D Blu-ray? Ours, apparently.So, through a complicated series of exclusive contract hoops, Fox essentially set up a monetary obstacle course all the way back in late 2010. If you wanted Avatar in 3D, you had to buy a television at a price that far exceeded any added value from the movie. You know who likes obstacle courses built almost two years ago? Time-travelling hamsters, that's who. Last time I checked, there aren't a great deal of time-travelling hamsters paying for movies.
Here's how we got here: Panasonic got in bed with Avatar early on, promoting the film with 103 trucks with giant 3D TVs on them. That was kind of cool, actually. But then, it turned out you could only buy the 3D Blu-ray with a Panasonic 3D TV. Which turned out to cost, all things considered, about 300 damn dollars for a $30 Blu-ray, no matter how you spun it. Totally dumb, totally anti-consumer.
And neither were the people who wanted the 3D version of Avatar, apparently. Panasonic posted huge losses in the television space. Avatar went on to become the most pirated movie of all time. And the Gizmodo piece points the finger directly at Fox:
All of this matters. Especially right now. Demonoid just went down for the count. The RIAA and MPAA want the US to stomp on the Pirate Bay the same way. And we're just a few months removed from the Supreme Court declining to hear an appeal for a $675,000 fine levied against Joel Tenenbaum for, as a teen, downloading a few dozen songs. The subtext is clear. It's not even subtext—it's super-text. We are the assholes. It's our fault that movies are bad and the music industry can't figure out how to monetize itself. And the copyright gestapo is coming for us. That's the message, the threat, looming over every idiotic decision that pushes us closer to BitTorrent.And in the meantime, as all of this anti-consumer-ish-ness is being dolled up in a wig and a makeup and called "a business model", fans of Avatar will finally be able to get the movie in 3D in October. Yes, a movie designed to be watched with cardboard skittles goggles on your head wasn't available across the board for three damned years. That isn't a release window. It's a message to the movie's fans:
Fox doesn't give a damn about you.
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Fox
However, in this case, Fox doesn't care about the tremendous piles of money they left on the table for what, an exclusive deal that nobody in their right mind would have approved. That is the tragedy of the monopoly, someone else could have monetized better and Steven Spielberg could have walked away with far more money. But he chose a bad distributor and got locked into the deal. I hope he learned from his mistake and took the distribution rights somewhere else, along with assuring the contract he wrote with the next distributor included a back-out clause if the distributor didn't do their job.
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Re: Fox
Oops, James Cameron not Steven Spielberg. Wikipedia IS my friend.
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Re: Fox
Sigh. And I was having such an awesome birthday so far til I read this and remembered that Firefly was cancelled after 1 season but we're on who knows what season of American Idol and America's Got Talent and the rest of the Fox line-up which consist of similar nonsense.
In the words of Marvin the Paranoid Android, "I'm so depressed."
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Sorry about that.
In the words of Marvin the Paranoid Android, "I'm so depressed."
I'm cynical of anything Fox does any more. They made a big deal about "Terra Nova", only to cancel it after one season. I thought it was good...though they jumped the shark at the end. Every show on Fox I've ever been interested in watching they cancelled prematurely, with Futurama being the only one that lasted longer than a Season.
Fox, the network for those with ADHD.
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You don't focus much, but when you do, it's really clear.
(Steven Wright I think)
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I've never watched much TV, but I've pretty much totally stopped (sit through a SVU & Burn Notice with the wife that's it) at this point for exactly this reason. Any show I find even vaguely interesting gets cancelled within a season or two; what's the point of getting invested in a show only to have the rug pulled out from under you? If the networks have no buy-in for their shows why should I?
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Saw this quote the other day.
"Firefly - 13 hours of bliss and a lifetime of withdrawal".
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Ah, that must mean they give a damn about me then... well, at least the can canceling Firefly part. Thanks Fox.
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Jeesh Joss, you could at least create a pseudo-account when posting here. I do have to say the joke was funnier when you used it on "Done the Impossible".
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Re: Fox
Welcome to Hell's Hell!!!
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Not saying that my family and friends couldn't find out about it any other way than me, but I had to literally force them to sit down and watch an entire episode with me before they got hooked. All those dvd seasons and movie tickets and dvd sales had come from a pirated copy.
I'm not advocating stealing, I'm not saying it always works this way or couldn't have worked another way. Just saying what happened. A happily gave lots of money because I was a fan. I feel that they should simply focus on making stuff that I can be a fan of. I'll HAPPILY give you my money in return for that. But no, I don't need another TV...
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-You just want free stuff.
-If you actually worked in the industry, you would understand.
-Artist should be paid for their work.
I think that's all the shill arguments. Did I miss any? It's early and I need more caffeine.
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8.5
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But you did get the major ones. Impressive!
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Market for 3D
And then they are absolutely baffled why people download it for free.
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Re: Market for 3D
All to watch a movie that's pretty crappy.
Fox's marketing plan might be called "unobtainium"
I remember 2009 well: it was the year of Moon, Inglourious Bastards, A Serious Man, Up, District 9, and Anvil: The Story of Anvil. Why remember Avatar?
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Re: Re: Market for 3D
Great act...wait, well there was some.
Awesome sto...oh wait, isn't it just a retelling of Pocahantas?
Um...well...CGI, fuck yeah!
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I thought it was The Smurfs meets Dances With Wolves.
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I pointed to Dune (the story and the movies) when I saw it. Outsider who is despised by the populous arrives, is introduced to a love interest and all around awesome warrior, then gets wrapped up in a conflict his people started and becomes the victor in an all out battle royale against his own kind in order to fulfill a prophecy.
When I saw the ending credits had "Dune Entertainment", I started laughing hysterically.
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Excuse me, but where was the prophecy in Avatar? I don't recall hearing about one.
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Something about an outsider riding the biggest damn pterodactyl into battle, saving the people from the monster of the week. Haven't seen it in a while, but I am sure if you watch it again, you'll see it.
Sure, it was about something that happened in history, but the movie made no qualms about drawing parallels.
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More specifically, according to the IMDB Synopsis:
While flying on a hunting sortie, Jake and Neytiri are suddenly pursued and attacked by a creature known to the Na'vi as toruk, a giant and brightly-colored flying mountain banshee with murderous intentions toward everything that flies. Neytiri says its name means "last shadow" -- the toruk's shadow, once seen, is usually the "last shadow one ever gets to see," as its attack is almost always fatal. Back at Hometree, Neytiri shows Jake the skeleton of a precursor of the present toruk. She tells him the last person to ride a toruk was her grandfather's grandfather, who used the animal to unite the five Na'vi tribes in a time of great sorrow. Such a person would earn the title Toruk Mato, "Rider of the Last Shadow."
The Shai-Hulud of the Dune series.
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I haven't seen the Star Wars prequels either; I don't think they could improve on the brilliant Plinkett Star Wars Reviews.
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I am the IT department for an engineering/surveying firm and we were in the market for a huge (as in HUGE) television to put in my boss' office (for personal use as well as video conferencing and as a monitor for a conference desktop computer).
He's a Samsung fan and the only big tv they had at our preferred local retailer was a 65" Samsung 3D TV. It was going for about $3500 when I ordered it (cost be damned as he put it), when I went to the store to pick it up not only had they lowered the price nearly $1000 (in the hour two hours it took me to receive pick up confirmation) but they also threw in a ton of stuff (2 sets of 3D glasses, HDMI cable, HDMI to DVI cable, etc).
We found that rather unusual. And afterwards it was no longer available for purchase (when I checked online to see the "new" price).
In related news, my boss hated the 3D aspect of the TV and wanted something bigger, so about a week later we eventually got a newer Sharp AQUOS 80" TV (no 3D, thank goodness).
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As for that 65", sadly I didn't get to take it home. Lol. It ended up in one of our smaller off-site offices. Although, I'm slowly saving the company a ton of money by pushing for changes in ISPs and hosting companies and whatnot, definitely going to come up with a proposal for why the company should get me a 16 GB Nexus 7 (here's hoping the boss approves and lets me purchase it, today's my day after all). : )
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My thought, too. Except I was thinking office instead of den. That is pretty much how I got the monitors in my office.
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Not even close. When I was attending CES that year, it was clear that manufacturers were betting huge that 3DTV was going to be the next big thing.
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However, irritating the source of the money, the consumer, is not good business. You would think that a corporation that's been in the game as long as Fox would understand that and attempt to respect their consumers so as to get more money.
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huh what?
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Re: huh what?
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Re: huh what?
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Re: huh what?
Do you mean 'Dances with Smurfs'?
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Blu-Ray
As for the Blu-Ray version of Avatar, that was widely pirated because at the time of it's release, the Firmware in most BluRay players at that time lacked the capability to get around the Disc's DRM.
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Avatar
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Now, take Avatar... it was filmed this way and required no adjustment. They literally had to press it to disc and ship it out. Why did that take 3 years?
I also welcome the demise of 3D.
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This "conversion" should already have been done. The Jaws source material should already have been up to snuff for this even before the first BluRay player hit the market.
This makes me thing of the Star Trek TNG BluRays and what crap the DVDs were.
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Why people steal, rape and murder
* Do you ever try to check out at SamsClub? The line at the checkout is often fifteen minutes long. I just stick the stuff in my pants and walk out the door. SamsClub clearly hates its customers.
* Do you like it when your date decides you're not loveable? That's so hateful! So I take matters into my own hands.
* Do you like it when someone is disrespectful to you? I don't. So I just kill them. Problem solved.
Let's face it. If something is out there and I decide that I want it, I'm absolutely justified to do whatever I feel like to doing to get it. I'm special. I'm entitled. Go me!
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Doctor: Here's a vaccine to prevent getting the flu.
Patient: What a flu apologist!
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Re: Why people steal, rape and murder
This isn't about entitlement. This is about pointing out the ridiculousness of windowing a release (FOR THREE GODDAMN YEARS) of perhaps the biggest movie in recent history.
By this point, people have already gotten over Avatar and there's little if any audience for a 3D copy of the movie to take home.
Windowed releases/delays make no sense in this day and age. If the regular version has been available since 2010, it makes sense that the 3D version would also be available at the same time (to play on the "AVATAR MADE 3D A HIT" thing).
It's also telling how to an extreme you take things. Says a lot about you.
Personal examples:
That line at Sam's Club. Too long. I put the stuff down and leave. Make my purchases elsewhere (or online).
Date doesn't think I'm loveable. Shrug and try harder on the next date. (Or find out what's wrong, because I'm a pretty decent guy, and obviously she's mad about something.)
Someone disrespects me, I ignore them or disrespect them in turn.
These are the reasonable actions to take in those situations. A 3D movie is NOT being sold for some reason I'll never know, yet is available online through less than legal (in some areas) means, I can see why a person would get it. There's no "loss" because the product wasn't legally being offered in the first place. "Shut up and take my money!" "No thanks sir, we don't want it. But if you want to make me that offer in a few years I might take you up on it then." How does that make any sense?
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Re: Why people steal, rape and murder
What does the part about the date have to do with anything?
And since when did anyone here at Techdirt advocate murder?
And yes, I do feel entitled to it. Given that copyright law does not work in the digital era (in order for it to work, we as a society would have to accept a loss of a lot of freedoms, which is simply too high a price to pay), I feel I have the right to do what I will with the computer that I built myself from parts I purchased. To say I ought to obey copyright, to respect it, is too costly for me (and no, I don't just mean in terms of money, I mean in terms of my own natural human rights).
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Re: Re: Why people steal, rape and murder
Face it: you want to stop others from doing what they want to do with their computer. You're just an anarchist. You could easily just work with open source content and respect the wishes of other computer users, but you're just too selfish and self-centered. You want to believe that your needs trump everyone else's. That's sad.
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Except, you know, you call taking away people's rights 'copyright'.
Really, it should be called 'copywrong' for what it does.
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What I will oppose is any attempt by you or people like to stop me doing what I will with my computer either through DRM, locking it down or through legislation (as long as the activity I want to engage in isn't 100% provable harmful, such as writing malware or distributing child porn).
And look who's talking "You want to believe that your needs trump everyone else's". Can't you understand? You have a need for your work to be protected by copyright. In order for that to somehow work, your need somehow trumps the rights of EVERYONE else on the planet to copy and use their equipment as they see fit.
I respect the wishes of other computer users once they respect mine. Respect is a two way street. Once they have earned my respect, then I am willing to throw some money their way.
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He's a jerkoff
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This isn't to say that I go about pirating everything, mostly stuff that's no longer around, like old dos games and such. So this isn't some random pirate trying to justify not having to pay for stuff, The 50 some odd games I have on my Steam account testifies to my willingness to fork out money for the stuff I care about. Move copyright back to where it belongs, lessen the extreme and unbalanced power that exists right now, and focus more on the consumer (something a business is supposed to do anyway) and profits will undoubtedly go up.
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Amazon Prime 1 day shipping is $4 for just about anything. That includes stuff like large monitors.
No need to wait in line again.
Although I usually time my trips to warehouse clubs to avoid the line. So I'm good either way.
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Quit acting like a rabid dog, snarling at everything.
Go back to your MPAA/RIAA masters and get put down...
old bobber...
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If Sam's club treated it's customers like shit, Sam's club should and would go out of business. If Sam's club plan to stay in business was not to improve it's line, but to federally mandate long lines for everyone. People would laugh at them.
Maybe you are catching on as to why people laugh at the entertainment business.
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Thats called masturbation not like you imply rape.
Also if you dont pay your date it is not called piracy either. (a fact you may not know)
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Or listen to bob, do it like Fox and see how far it'll get you. Good luck!
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and nor do any of the other studios or the music industry, the games industry or even the publishing industry. rather than do anything sensible that will keep them selling their products, these industries will do whatever they can to cause as much resentment for themselves by calling their own customers 'pirates' or 'thieves', whilst never giving what is asked for. what they do to their own artists, writers and technicians by refusing to pay them, is ignored. i gave up gaming when i found i was buying half a game and was then forced to pay to download the rest before i could play anything. i was then prevented from selling it on which, as far as i am aware, is the only non-2nd hand market there is. what would we have lost if there had been the same attitude to things over the last 1,000 years? our knowledge would have been a smidgeon to what it is, as would our art collections had things not been allowed to be passed or sold on. we are supposed to be superior now to then. i oft times wonder, given the ridiculous way we behave
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So why should they care? I'm sure you could name quite a few reasons, but none of them really matter. They have no direct relationship with you. And, of course, this is why the Internet will bring the demise of any publisher that doesn't try to connect with you, the end customer.
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Stargate
So I gave up Fox and SyFy.(what does that even mean?)
So I started to imagine greater.(thank you SyFy for pointing me in the right direction)
What I imagined was a world where idiotic morons were not in charge of my entertainment choices and I cut the cable.
So now I use free OTA for the networks and some local channels and the internet.
Avatar in 3D. Now? Who'd gonna buy it? Stupidity beyond belief.
I don't know why these morons keep shooting themselves in the foot, but I'll happily provide them with bigger guns if they want.
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Or conversely someone in marketing convinced the Fox lord high mucky mucks that the Panasonic TV deal would be the best thing in the world to do.
After the fall out of this stupidity, and the promotion of the aforementioned marketing genius, Fox was able to release the film in 3D.
Corporate stupidity should not always be confused with malice.
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Awwwww
The problem is that they will make a lot of money from this and that is why they do it.Yes they may not make the millions of sales they could have many years ago when the movie was in everyone's mind and everyone was buying a new 3d tv but they will still make a lot of money after they advertise it and get the public, who do not realize the way they are being played, to fork out again for this version.
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Now here's my question: why aren't Fox, the MPAA, RIAA, or any of those other jerks out of business yet?
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Related:
http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2012/08/corporations-are-not-people.h tml
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honestly, for me...
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In other words, I agree that (at least for now) that 3D TV is just as gimmickry and to me it currently is nothing more than a status symbol for now.
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The only time I turn on smoothing is for fast paced sporting events :-)
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Shovel those bits...
You tell the computer what to do and walk away from it.
Actual time spent is about equal to what it would take to put the disk into the BD console player. It's nothing like the 18 minutes you said it took to get the movie started.
Every time I hear about BluRay players, I lose any interest in buying one. Still have a BD drive for the PC though.
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Re: Shovel those bits...
Then again, with Netflix I just pull up my queue and press play. That beats everything.
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At least with Dispicable Me, you could use the "Skip Chapter" function. Black Jack's retelling of Guliver's Travles comes with a 15 minute long Anti-Piracy PSA where you cannot skip though it, and you cannot use the menus button.
Oh while I'm at it (I know, wrong article),
Since Disney pulled their contract from NetFlix's streaming services, more good movies have arrived in compensation. The Terminator, Conan The Barbarian remake, and Monty Pyrhon's The meaning of Life just to name a few :-)
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Because there are not many time-travelling hamsters paying for movies that means there must be a lot of time-travelling hamster pirates, right?
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If it comes on on-demand, and I'm bored, I might watch it.
And we all well know that the movie companies don't care about us - they only care about our dollars, but hey, it's just business.
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becasue they are lazy filthy people who enjoy stealing things and not paying for them
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Cause NOONE takes their tired old equation of infringement and theft seriously.
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Well....
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The internet is a great tool for getting rare, hard-to-find albums. Whether it's because it's out of print (in which case, there's no lost sale and nobody is being deprived of income), or because silly you bought it on tape instead of CD years ago, or you simply can't find it elsewhere, or whatever the reason is.
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I understand there are many sites on net that cater to needs of people wanting to watch under-age children having sex.
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If you don't like the offering, don't buy it.
If you like the offering, but don't like the price, don't buy it.
If you like the offering and can stand the conditions, buy it.
None of it says "do pirate".
Welcome to justification, volume 69, from the book of Techdirt. Can I get a Hell Yeah!
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I don't buy it. Stop calling everyone who disagrees with the legacy gatekeepers pirates and pushing for laws like SOPA, you jerk.
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Or, to put it even more simply, in this case, the biggest movie of the last decade, the movie that put 3D on the map (again), for some licensing/product endorsement reason that was beyond stupid (only available if you buy a certain brand of television), is three years after it's release FINALLY legally being made available for wide purchase in it's insanely profitable at the theater 3D format. "WTF?!" does not even begin to cover just how ridiculous that is.
None of it might say "do pirate", but for a great many, it's saying "not being sold". In that case, if it's not being sold, and it can be acquired elsewhere, I fail to see why they shouldn't get it through other means. After all, it's "not being sold". Not being sold = no loss.
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Not legally, not without pirating it. Basically, you wrong a long post about not using it to justify piracy, and they used it to justify piracy.
Piracy isn't "not this, therefore pirate with impunity", it's "not this, not willing to wait, not willing to pay (add your excuse here) so I guess I can pirate and it's fine".
Stop justifying piracy, and the world gets better.
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"Stop justifying piracy, and the world gets better."
Stop with the dumb windowed releases, the moronic geo-windowed restrictions, the ridiculous pricing of digital offerings, the difficult in finding legal offerings, etc. etc. etc. and people will slowly stop pirating. And then the world will get better. (Because then in addition to piracy being lowered, you'll eventually see that you and your kind's attempts to "stop" piracy were all for naught and it was easily dealt with by giving the people what they want, as opposed to draconian laws that violate the rights of others.)
It's also interesting that you think if people stop justifying piracy the world will get better. Fucking hilarious. You don't say, hey let's stop fighting with one another over religious beliefs and the world will get better. You don't say let's give what we can to one another (as far as food stuffs and clothing and medications go) and the world will get better. Oh no, not you. You say, "stop justifying piracy, and the world gets better". Yeah, you aren't part of the problem at all? Your attitude and belief that because some see piracy happening and say "yeah, it's going to keep happening as long as you keep doing this" is justification. You couldn't be more wrong. It's simply being a realist and seeing that the problem doesn't lie with those doing the pirating, but with those like you not putting your products out there and then pissing and moaning that people can acquire it elsewhere. In a truly free market, you and your kind would have died/gone out of business decades ago. And you're barely able to survive even with government intervention.
Pathetic.
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Check.
If you like the offering, but don't like the price, don't buy it.
Check.
Industry still complains it's losing business due to piracy. Go figure.
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I went to see it in the theaters at least 4 times and I own the DVD and BRD as well.
Why download it? Simple I download over actually using my DVDs or BRDs so I can keep them in good condition for years to come. I use to do the same by recording the radio in the 90's.
I've spent a good deal on Avatar because it was some pretty fucking awesome eye candy. If it was put in theaters again in the future I'd go see it again for sure!
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watching avatar in Winnipeg
After reading strong recommendations to watch this movie only in real 3d, I checked local iMax here in Winnipeg. There was a movie on schedule within a month or so. Me and my kid skipped the Cinema City and decided to wait. However, later all iMax show times were canceled. I was ready to pay but had no chance anymore.
Free download in HD was my only choice.
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