5 ms·

Totally agreed. The internet is merely a medium, you aren't going to stop piracy by "banning" it. What really pisses me off is that I have to wait 2-3 months f

Totally agreed. The internet is merely a medium, you aren't going to stop piracy by "banning" it. What really pisses me off is that I have to wait 2-3 months for a film to go from cinema to dvd. I don't pirate because I'm fiscally short, I pirate because I just saw an amazing movie and I want to watch it again. I don't want to go back to a theatre, I want to watch it at home, but I can't. The irony is, I can go to a nearby hotel and rent pre-pay-per-view movies that are still showing in the secondary phase of the cinema market (cheapie theatres). Why can't I rent pre-pay-per-view at home? I pay 8 bucks for a fucking PPV as it is, why can't I pay the $11 I would at the hotel or at a theatre. I don't get why when I want to pay them more money they make it impossible for me to do so.

jonnathanson 15y ago
Film studios and TV networks are eventually going to come to the realization that piracy is a marketing vehicle for them. Of course, they'll still need to find a way to make money off of their content, and that's an understandably tricky situation. But recent studies have shown that movie pirates are also movie studios' biggest paying customers. The big challenge for studios right now is that there used to be two lifecycles for any given film: the exhibition lifecycle (i.e., the theatrical release window), and the ownership lifecycle (i.e., DVD or Blu-ray purchase). These days, both are being compressed, and ownership is increasingly unnecessary. Piracy may or may not be a legitimate threat to ownership, but that's sort of beside the point, because ownership -- as a fundamental concept -- won't matter in the cloud-driven, on-demand world of the very near future. But piracy can still exist as an interesting exhibition tactic. It just needs to be harnessed in the right way, and/or a compelling and equally convenient alternative needs to be created. This is a very tough spot for studios, but legislative attempts at sticking their heads in the sand are not going to solve any problems for them -- and may, in fact, exacerbate their problems by putting innovation attempts on hold.
- electromagnetic 15y ago
  > Of course, they'll still need to find a way to make money off of their content, and that's an understandably tricky situation. Not particularly. TV networks regularly make money off of their content online. I can go to virtually any networks website and stream an episode of whatever and get adverts in the regular breaks. Why not simply do the same with a movie? People don't care about giving up 18 minutes of their lives for 42 minutes of a show. Why do the movie networks have such a hard time grasping that people will gladly give up 30 minutes of their lives to advertisers for a 90 minute film. I genuinely think they don't do this simply so they can say "well people are stealing because they just don't want to pay".
  - bluedanieru 15y ago
    I would not sit through 18 minutes of commercials for a 42 minute show, neither 30 minutes for a 90 minutes film. I don't mind watching commercials (for television particularly), but your numbers are really, really high.
    - westicle 15y ago
      It might surprise you to know that is the standard length of advertising in a one-hour block of commercial television. So I imagine you do sit through 18 minutes of commercials for a 42 minute show.
      - bluedanieru 15y ago
        It doesn't surprise me at all. But I don't watch broadcast television.
  - trafficlight 15y ago
    I don't watch broadcast or cable TV anymore because I don't want to watch 18 minutes of ads every hour.
  - Avenger42 15y ago
    The issue I see with that is that we've grown accustomed to breaks in our TV shows, whereas we would likely see any break in our movie experience as jarring and negative. Something more like YouTube's banner ads along the bottom might work.
    - electromagnetic 15y ago
      Banner ads piss me off more than a commercial break. I'm used to advert breaks in movies around the holidays when every network runs old movies so I'm sure it wouldn't be a huge leap. Perhaps cut the breaks to every 30 minutes or so. An advert break every 10 minutes in Titanic would likely induce suicide.
- noonespecial 15y ago
  Of course, they'll still need to find a way to make money off of their content, and that's an understandably tricky situation. No it isn't. I don't pirate anything that I can find on Netflix. Bittorrent is like simply like a Netflix cache-miss.
GHFigs 15y ago
I don't get why when I want to pay them more money they make it impossible for me to do so. I take it, then, that after you've pirated, you buy the DVD when it becomes available?
- DanBC 15y ago
  I do. I have something like 500 DVDs which I've bought. I pirate some DVDs because for me that's less illegal than buying a DVD from a different region and making my DVD a region free player. (Pirating a DVD means the content owner can sue me for a loss of a sale; the cost of the DVD plus legal costs. Cracking region-locking on my DVD player is a criminal offence.)

jonnathanson 15y ago

Film studios and TV networks are eventually going to come to the realization that piracy is a marketing vehicle for them. Of course, they'll still need to find a way to make money off of their content, and that's an understandably tricky situation. But recent studies have shown that movie pirates are also movie studios' biggest paying customers. The big challenge for studios right now is that there used to be two lifecycles for any given film: the exhibition lifecycle (i.e., the theatrical release window), and the ownership lifecycle (i.e., DVD or Blu-ray purchase). These days, both are being compressed, and ownership is increasingly unnecessary. Piracy may or may not be a legitimate threat to ownership, but that's sort of beside the point, because ownership -- as a fundamental concept -- won't matter in the cloud-driven, on-demand world of the very near future. But piracy can still exist as an interesting exhibition tactic. It just needs to be harnessed in the right way, and/or a compelling and equally convenient alternative needs to be created. This is a very tough spot for studios, but legislative attempts at sticking their heads in the sand are not going to solve any problems for them -- and may, in fact, exacerbate their problems by putting innovation attempts on hold.

electromagnetic 15y ago
> Of course, they'll still need to find a way to make money off of their content, and that's an understandably tricky situation. Not particularly. TV networks regularly make money off of their content online. I can go to virtually any networks website and stream an episode of whatever and get adverts in the regular breaks. Why not simply do the same with a movie? People don't care about giving up 18 minutes of their lives for 42 minutes of a show. Why do the movie networks have such a hard time grasping that people will gladly give up 30 minutes of their lives to advertisers for a 90 minute film. I genuinely think they don't do this simply so they can say "well people are stealing because they just don't want to pay".
- bluedanieru 15y ago
  I would not sit through 18 minutes of commercials for a 42 minute show, neither 30 minutes for a 90 minutes film. I don't mind watching commercials (for television particularly), but your numbers are really, really high.
  - westicle 15y ago
    It might surprise you to know that is the standard length of advertising in a one-hour block of commercial television. So I imagine you do sit through 18 minutes of commercials for a 42 minute show.
    - bluedanieru 15y ago
      It doesn't surprise me at all. But I don't watch broadcast television.
- trafficlight 15y ago
  I don't watch broadcast or cable TV anymore because I don't want to watch 18 minutes of ads every hour.
- Avenger42 15y ago
  The issue I see with that is that we've grown accustomed to breaks in our TV shows, whereas we would likely see any break in our movie experience as jarring and negative. Something more like YouTube's banner ads along the bottom might work.
  - electromagnetic 15y ago
    Banner ads piss me off more than a commercial break. I'm used to advert breaks in movies around the holidays when every network runs old movies so I'm sure it wouldn't be a huge leap. Perhaps cut the breaks to every 30 minutes or so. An advert break every 10 minutes in Titanic would likely induce suicide.
noonespecial 15y ago
Of course, they'll still need to find a way to make money off of their content, and that's an understandably tricky situation. No it isn't. I don't pirate anything that I can find on Netflix. Bittorrent is like simply like a Netflix cache-miss.

GHFigs 15y ago

I don't get why when I want to pay them more money they make it impossible for me to do so. I take it, then, that after you've pirated, you buy the DVD when it becomes available?

DanBC 15y ago
I do. I have something like 500 DVDs which I've bought. I pirate some DVDs because for me that's less illegal than buying a DVD from a different region and making my DVD a region free player. (Pirating a DVD means the content owner can sue me for a loss of a sale; the cost of the DVD plus legal costs. Cracking region-locking on my DVD player is a criminal offence.)