No, but there are other, less invasive solutions then SOPA/PIPA that could be used to help curve piracy. Off the top of my head, I've heard reports of the special 'acedemy viewing only' copies of movies making their way onto the pirate bay. Why not put serial numbers or barcodes into, say every 16th or 34th frame of those copies, so if one does surface a production company can narrow down whose copy was leaked, and investigate appropriatly. What if, by law, companies that manufactured cameras or phones so that when they started recording they had to make a loud and obvious noise, and maybe even repeat the noise every 10 or 15 minutes (this would also be good from a privacy standpoint against peeping toms and such). No, we can never totally prevent piracy, but we can do alot more then just throw our hands up and say "Well, suck it Hollywood."
God, do you remember how ANNOYING it was to get tape a song though? Unless you stood there by a radio just WAITING like Wylie Coyote waiting for the road runner to fall into his trap. Plus, if you wanted to make a copy that song onto another tape, you had to get a second tape player and retape the already taped song (unless you had some good recording equipment).
It’s a lot easier to pirate music these days when you just have to load up the pirate bay or bear share and just search for the song in question. I think that shear ease of internet piracy probably triggered the cultural change, along with other things like market saturation (it’s getting harder and harder to buy ALL the new songs you like, let alone any old ones).
Well to be fair it's always going to SOUND biased as long as the term for illegal downloaders is pirates. We should try and spread some new terminology around like "file sharers" or "copyright liberators" and see if they stick.
Government...government...you mean the body of people chosen to represent the public. Chosen BY the public? If you don't like what your elected officials are doing, either vote them out this november or put pressure on them with good lobbying and protests. But when you're out there, don't simply state that you don't care about the amorality of piracy, or they'll flip the arguement around and say 'then why should we care about the autonomy of the internet?'
PS, on a slightly more cynical note, if you really don't believe that those industries are on not on the list, google 'corperations are people' and cry silently at the results.
It's a silly argument because it puts the onus on the victim of piracy. It'd be like if you lived on an orchard and someone kept stealing your apples. When you called the police, rather than try to catch the thief, they said "Well, you have a whole orchard and he only steals a few, mostly the ones you wouldn't sell anyway. Have you considered opening up your orchard to the public and charging admission to let them take the apples? Perhaps even put ladders near every tree so they're more accessible during the day? That might make them less likely to steal."
No, I'm not describing a competition between me and someone who is giving away an identical product. I'm talking about someone giving away MY product, without my concent. There's a huge ethical issue. And a legal one. Especially if I put a lot of money into developing these products.
Abandon the moral and ethical debate around piracy? How is that better then the ACTAA/MIAA creeps who abandon the moral and ethical debate around privacy?
I just spent 10 minutes trying to find studies that support your statement. While they usually lists those types of factors as main reasons, the main reason seems to be cost.
Keep in mind, that it's entirely possible that you are one of those people who download for all the 'good reasons,' (I've stated time and time again that if it's a genuin lack of access then I have no problem with that. I don't even have an issue with downloading a song or tv show on a 'try before you buy' basis, as long as you either delete it after awhile or purchase a legit copy) it wouldn't surprise me if over 75% of the tech dirt community wouldn't download something they can easily buy through legal means. Based on what I've seen though, that is not the reasons most people download illegally.
I totally agree with you on the hard to find and obscure recordings, but I can't count the number of friends I have who download movies and tv shows that came out maybe a few months ago. There's no availability issue there, or in any other examples in the article (Adel's latest album, the Hurt locker, ect).
@ Jupiter, Also, out of curiosity, if you were to come accross the albums in the future, would you buy them? If the answereis no, then allow me to help you off your high horse.
The law should be make it available or lose the right to make copies.
That sounds like a great idea! Lets call some Britsh parliamentarians and tell them about your great idea! We can call it the statute of Anne.
The concept of copyrights expiring has been around for centuries. Admittedly the laws have been changed to a rediculous notion of the copyright being enforcible essentially "70 years after the publication."
If this was really about being able to get a hold of hard to reach albums or obscure movies, lobby the government to reduce the time for them to fall into the public domain. You'll have to deal with the artists who are living off the residuals from albums they made 20 years ago, but since under the current system people will just download their stuff anyway it shouldn't be too hard a sell.
That's still a pretty silly argument though when you think about it. "People are breaking the law and getting our products for free!" "Well, you should learn how to market your product better, or make your stolen products an advertisement for other products that are hopefully much harder to pirate.
But then like Mike said, if the fans are so desperate to see it that they're checking netflix everyday, eventually alot of them, are just gonna say 'screw it' and drop anchor at the pirate bay.
Are you saying that Batman could be made for a lot cheaper? Yes good writing is always important, but if the Batmobile was just a black musclecar and all the explosions in the car chase scene are 20 dollar firecrackers, it's just not going to work. Yes, you can make a bad $200 million movie. You can also make great ones too. You can even make bad $120k movies. and if you're answere to the Exec who says 'I can't make a $200 million movie anymore is 'Then don't make that movie.' Then you better be ready to live with alot fewer Batmans and alot more Gnomieo and Juliets and New Years Eves
My figures for Red State come from imdb, which shows a total of 1,065,000 dollars as of August 2011. Admittedly, it only shows domestic, but since he sold the rights to his movie overseas it might be awhile before the world wide numbers (plus, since you choose to declare those other movies flops based on their domestic numbers, I don't think you'll object too much). He got into the black by selling the rights to his movies overseas and through good merchandising, not through ticket sales or VoDs (that would quite a feat indeed to pull off before actually releasing the movie).
I'm not bashing Red State, and I like what Kevin Smith did with it, but it's very difficult to mass produce that model, since it rellies on having a very loyal fanbase. I'm not sure you could have taken, say, Rise of the Planet of the Apes on the road and packed hundreads of loyal Wyattites into theatres accross the country at 98 bucks a ticket. Probably could have worked for JJ Abrams and Super 8 though. You could definately get people out to hear Christopher Nolan talk about how awesome Batman is, but then you get into the question of if the directors and casts of these movies are willing to tour like Rockstars.
Actually, that sounds really cool...dibs on Anne Hathaway and Liam Neeson for the Toronto showing!
I don't think anyone says "I don't what kind of movie I want to make, but I want it to cost 200 million dollars." They decide if they want a comedy, action, drama documentary ect, and some of those types cost ALOT more then the others. Sure you can make a comedy for a fairly reasonable price, but if you want the latest Batman, good luck getting it made for anything less then 100 million (I believe the Dark Knight was in the 175 mill range).
Admittedly there are ways to cut the number down. Take Red State, Kevin Smith's recent Action/Thriller movie. Anyone who was listening to his podcasts or following his tweets know how on the cheap and indie he made it (mostly due to minimal advertising and very selective theatre run. Having a director/editor working for free probably helped to). It just 4 million, which is admittedly chump change compared to the magic 200 million.
The problem is it only grossed a little over 1 million, which probably won't sell many Hollywood executives on the idea of the Kev Smith style of action movies.
Your first point is fair enough, although weather or not one is better then the other is something we can agree to disagree on.
If you don't believe something is worth the asking price, then you don't buy it, and enough people agree with you then either the seller drops his price or he goes under.
If you borrow it from a friend, then s/he is lending it to you and is thus deprived of it for the time being. It's his movie, he can lend it or give it away as long as he doesn't profit of it. I guess if he were to burn himself a copy and lend the original to his friends then we get into a gray area, but I won't get into that.
As for waiting for it to come on tv, you are paying for it, with your eyeballs. If a movie is on tv, the station playing the movie sells ad space, and everyone wins.
All of these scenarios are totally reasonable, I don't think anyone has issues with them. Gwis made the statement that a problem needed to be 'defined' before we can begin to discuss it, and I put forward the statement that the problem has been defined, just not properly quantified. We know there are people who could have seen or bought the movie through legal means, and simply chose not to, and the artists/authors/movie makers lost SOME money on this.
And before anyone else replies saying how I just down't get it or I'm some crazy ideolog, notice how I stress the SOME. Is it as much as Hollywood is crying it is? No. Does it justify SOPA/PIPA? Fuck no. Will it probably be fixxed through inovating the way we see movies, ala netflix and quality 3d movies (no clash of the titans 2-and-a-half-D) rather then try to censor and lock down every site? Almost definately. But there still is a problem and it does have to be adressed, saying there isn't one can be just as bad as going overboard trying to correct it.
That's definately true for music, but I was thinking more along the lines of 'My friend showed me this episode of The Walking Dead online. I liked it so much I'm going to buy the season when it comes out, even though I can download them all now for free off of the net,' sorta deal.
That wasn't my statement at all. I wasn't asking IF anyone is willing to pay, but how many, and if they're willing to do it because they feel like they should or if because the purchased product is of higher quality or they don't trust the site providing them the bootleg version (piracy scares and the like).
On the post: NY Times: RIAA & MPAA Exaggerate Piracy Impact Stats... But We're Going To Assume They're True Anyway
Re: For all the trolls... I agree with you
On the post: NY Times: RIAA & MPAA Exaggerate Piracy Impact Stats... But We're Going To Assume They're True Anyway
Re: Re:
It’s a lot easier to pirate music these days when you just have to load up the pirate bay or bear share and just search for the song in question. I think that shear ease of internet piracy probably triggered the cultural change, along with other things like market saturation (it’s getting harder and harder to buy ALL the new songs you like, let alone any old ones).
On the post: NY Times: RIAA & MPAA Exaggerate Piracy Impact Stats... But We're Going To Assume They're True Anyway
Re:
On the post: NY Times: RIAA & MPAA Exaggerate Piracy Impact Stats... But We're Going To Assume They're True Anyway
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
PS, on a slightly more cynical note, if you really don't believe that those industries are on not on the list, google 'corperations are people' and cry silently at the results.
On the post: NY Times: RIAA & MPAA Exaggerate Piracy Impact Stats... But We're Going To Assume They're True Anyway
Re: Re: Re: Re:
On the post: NY Times: RIAA & MPAA Exaggerate Piracy Impact Stats... But We're Going To Assume They're True Anyway
Re: Re: Re: Re:
On the post: NY Times: RIAA & MPAA Exaggerate Piracy Impact Stats... But We're Going To Assume They're True Anyway
Re: Re: Re: Re:
On the post: NY Times: RIAA & MPAA Exaggerate Piracy Impact Stats... But We're Going To Assume They're True Anyway
Re: Re: Re: Re:
Keep in mind, that it's entirely possible that you are one of those people who download for all the 'good reasons,' (I've stated time and time again that if it's a genuin lack of access then I have no problem with that. I don't even have an issue with downloading a song or tv show on a 'try before you buy' basis, as long as you either delete it after awhile or purchase a legit copy) it wouldn't surprise me if over 75% of the tech dirt community wouldn't download something they can easily buy through legal means. Based on what I've seen though, that is not the reasons most people download illegally.
On the post: NY Times: RIAA & MPAA Exaggerate Piracy Impact Stats... But We're Going To Assume They're True Anyway
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
@ Jupiter, Also, out of curiosity, if you were to come accross the albums in the future, would you buy them? If the answereis no, then allow me to help you off your high horse.
The law should be make it available or lose the right to make copies.
That sounds like a great idea! Lets call some Britsh parliamentarians and tell them about your great idea! We can call it the statute of Anne.
The concept of copyrights expiring has been around for centuries. Admittedly the laws have been changed to a rediculous notion of the copyright being enforcible essentially "70 years after the publication."
If this was really about being able to get a hold of hard to reach albums or obscure movies, lobby the government to reduce the time for them to fall into the public domain. You'll have to deal with the artists who are living off the residuals from albums they made 20 years ago, but since under the current system people will just download their stuff anyway it shouldn't be too hard a sell.
On the post: NY Times: RIAA & MPAA Exaggerate Piracy Impact Stats... But We're Going To Assume They're True Anyway
Re: Re:
On the post: White House Says It Can't Comment On Possible Chris Dodd Investigation
Re: Re: Re: Word play
On the post: Warner Bros. Just Keeps Pushing People To Piracy; New Deal Also Delays Queuing
Re: Anticipation
On the post: Warner Bros. Just Keeps Pushing People To Piracy; New Deal Also Delays Queuing
Re:
On the post: Why Can't Europe Just Forget The Ridiculous Idea Of A 'Right To Be Forgotten'
Re:
On the post: Once Again, If You're Trying To Save The $200 Million Movie, Perhaps You're Asking The Wrong Questions
Re: Re: But what about Batman?
Are you saying that Batman could be made for a lot cheaper? Yes good writing is always important, but if the Batmobile was just a black musclecar and all the explosions in the car chase scene are 20 dollar firecrackers, it's just not going to work. Yes, you can make a bad $200 million movie. You can also make great ones too. You can even make bad $120k movies. and if you're answere to the Exec who says 'I can't make a $200 million movie anymore is 'Then don't make that movie.' Then you better be ready to live with alot fewer Batmans and alot more Gnomieo and Juliets and New Years Eves
My figures for Red State come from imdb, which shows a total of 1,065,000 dollars as of August 2011. Admittedly, it only shows domestic, but since he sold the rights to his movie overseas it might be awhile before the world wide numbers (plus, since you choose to declare those other movies flops based on their domestic numbers, I don't think you'll object too much). He got into the black by selling the rights to his movies overseas and through good merchandising, not through ticket sales or VoDs (that would quite a feat indeed to pull off before actually releasing the movie).
I'm not bashing Red State, and I like what Kevin Smith did with it, but it's very difficult to mass produce that model, since it rellies on having a very loyal fanbase. I'm not sure you could have taken, say, Rise of the Planet of the Apes on the road and packed hundreads of loyal Wyattites into theatres accross the country at 98 bucks a ticket. Probably could have worked for JJ Abrams and Super 8 though. You could definately get people out to hear Christopher Nolan talk about how awesome Batman is, but then you get into the question of if the directors and casts of these movies are willing to tour like Rockstars.
Actually, that sounds really cool...dibs on Anne Hathaway and Liam Neeson for the Toronto showing!
On the post: Tiny Gamemaker Takes The Right Approach To Giant Zynga Copying Its Game: It Thanks Them
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: graphics
On the post: Once Again, If You're Trying To Save The $200 Million Movie, Perhaps You're Asking The Wrong Questions
But what about Batman?
Admittedly there are ways to cut the number down. Take Red State, Kevin Smith's recent Action/Thriller movie. Anyone who was listening to his podcasts or following his tweets know how on the cheap and indie he made it (mostly due to minimal advertising and very selective theatre run. Having a director/editor working for free probably helped to). It just 4 million, which is admittedly chump change compared to the magic 200 million.
The problem is it only grossed a little over 1 million, which probably won't sell many Hollywood executives on the idea of the Kev Smith style of action movies.
On the post: Hollywood Unions: Now That You Lying Hacking Thieves Have Won, Can We Set A New Conciliatory Tone?
Re: Re: Seriously?
Your first point is fair enough, although weather or not one is better then the other is something we can agree to disagree on.
If you don't believe something is worth the asking price, then you don't buy it, and enough people agree with you then either the seller drops his price or he goes under.
If you borrow it from a friend, then s/he is lending it to you and is thus deprived of it for the time being. It's his movie, he can lend it or give it away as long as he doesn't profit of it. I guess if he were to burn himself a copy and lend the original to his friends then we get into a gray area, but I won't get into that.
As for waiting for it to come on tv, you are paying for it, with your eyeballs. If a movie is on tv, the station playing the movie sells ad space, and everyone wins.
All of these scenarios are totally reasonable, I don't think anyone has issues with them. Gwis made the statement that a problem needed to be 'defined' before we can begin to discuss it, and I put forward the statement that the problem has been defined, just not properly quantified. We know there are people who could have seen or bought the movie through legal means, and simply chose not to, and the artists/authors/movie makers lost SOME money on this.
And before anyone else replies saying how I just down't get it or I'm some crazy ideolog, notice how I stress the SOME. Is it as much as Hollywood is crying it is? No. Does it justify SOPA/PIPA? Fuck no. Will it probably be fixxed through inovating the way we see movies, ala netflix and quality 3d movies (no clash of the titans 2-and-a-half-D) rather then try to censor and lock down every site? Almost definately. But there still is a problem and it does have to be adressed, saying there isn't one can be just as bad as going overboard trying to correct it.
On the post: Paulo Coelho On SOPA: 'Pirates Of The World, Unite And Pirate Everything I've Ever Written!'
Re: Re: Just wondering...
On the post: Paulo Coelho On SOPA: 'Pirates Of The World, Unite And Pirate Everything I've Ever Written!'
Re: Re: Just wondering...
Next >>