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Don't kill the messenger, but here is a real scenario. My "friend" used to use megaupload, filesonic, and other services to watch all his tv content every nigh

by necro 15y ago

Don't kill the messenger, but here is a real scenario. My "friend" used to use megaupload, filesonic, and other services to watch all his tv content every night, and even paying for a megaupload account (never putting any money back to the creators of content). It was really convenient and the price was right. Now without it, even in the last few days, the pain point has shifted enough that he started buying the seasons of shows he is interested in on itunes. (giving a cut to the creators) There was a point even a year ago that he could get the latest film on piratebay so easily that there was no point going to the theatre. Now it seems a little harder to find the releases, or at least more inconvenient, so my friend has gone to the movies a lot more. Now I personally get the whole internet freedom side of things, but at the same time I have seen my friend screw the content creators out of their cut because some middle man made it a lot more convenient to get the content. I get the idea that some people have used these services for personal content, but if the business model of a service is _primarily_ around the sharing of copyrighted content then something should be done. And especially if the service pays the uploader based on how popular the stolen content they upload is. At least in my friends case, he spent $100 on itunes in the last day, _only_ because megaupload was not there, and there was enough pain to look for another source. If there are millions of people out there like my friend, that is a lot more revenue for the creators/studios. And no, I'm not a troll from the film industry. This is just a real observation.

pyre 15y ago
> And especially if the service pays the uploader > based on how popular the stolen content they > upload is. This should be reworded. As I understand it, they weren't limiting payment to only users with stolen content. It's just that the stolen content was probably the most popular.
jpeterson 15y ago
Okay, this is one example. I personally don't know any such person. The question is not: "can you come up with an example of the MPAA/RIAA/FBI collusive measures working?" It's: "will it really make any difference overall?"
- necro 15y ago
  So I may be a 30 something professional who's resources vs cost point is that I don't need to look for crappy versions of files. My time is much more valuable, but I believe that everyone is not like me. My contention is that if you took a sample of the younger population, or perhaps less affluent population you would find that their pain threshold is at a different time/cost level.
  - marekmroz 15y ago
    To which one can say SABnzbd + Sick Beard. Not only do you get exactly what you want in desired quality, you have to spend little to no time looking for it, at least as far as TV shows and movies go.
  - mihaela 15y ago
    That's right. People who could not afford such content, get it with just a few clicks, for free. And the extra time needed is worth it.
moe 15y ago
This is just a real observation. Your observation is correct, but I'd interpret it differently: The answer should not be to ban MegaUpload. The answer must be to provide legal services that are at least as convenient as MegaUpload. There's a huge market of people who pirate content not because they're unwilling to pay for it, but simply because it's either impossible or extremely inconvenient to get legally.
- necro 15y ago
  The point I'm trying to make is....shifting the pain point. In this example itunes has been shifted past a particular persons pain (time/cost) point to be a convenient legal solution. Good point on the non availability in certain regions. At least my experience with itunes is that they are improving the service to lower that pain point in those areas too. You could not get certain content in canada a while ago, so the alternative was to find it on other sources, but as itunes adds more content in more other regions, this pain is reduced and it becomes the convenient service more and more.
  - HalibetLector 15y ago
    I give that arrangement until your friend realizes he can only shift his content onto 5 devices, at which point his content is lost forever. Or when his hard drive crashes and he realizes he can't re-download tv episodes. Personally, I value my money too much to spent $100 to "rent" tv shows. My pain point is being able to own the things I buy. Until then, it's bittorrent until the bluray comes out, then buying that.
    - necro 15y ago
      But this is just a threshold issue. What does the difference in cost have to be for you to rent vs buy. Let's say it's $60 to buy a season of a show on hard media that you can watch as many times you want and yes, you own something that will collect dust for a life time. Perhaps you can resell it, but that just means your initial cost was lower and you in a sense rented it for the difference in price for that time period. Now if the cost to rent is say $20 for a season would that be worth hassle free experience of the content? How about $10, $5? At some threshold the value vs cost starts to make sense.
nitrogen 15y ago
I'm curious how this affects the overall economy, not just the studios. What would your friend have spent that money on otherwise (obviously a Mega account was a lot cheaper)? Who is now $100 poorer because iTunes+studios are $100 richer?
- necro 15y ago
  Hmm, well if the amount spent was the same it comes down who does more with the money. Where does the money go: megaupload owners - fast cars, hookers and blow studios - fast cars, hookers and blow actors - fast cars, hookers and blow apple - wages for workers in china. I guess the lesser evil is the studios...at least they are employing local hookers!
  - theoj 15y ago
    You're giving Apple an easy pass... a significant cut goes to the executives.
    - gwright 15y ago
      How are you defining 'a significant cut'? Via morningstar.com, in 2010 Apple had 65,225,000,000 in revenue. Total operating expenses for 2010 were $7,299,000,000, just 11.2% of revenue. Executive compensation was $148,424,291. That is 2/10ths of 1% of revenue. That is just for the the top five execs and Jobs only took $1 in compensation. Still I don't think it is accurate to say that a 'significant' cut of revenue goes to 'the executives'.
  - joering1 15y ago
    the lesser IMHO would be consumer who spent that money on anything else than entertainment, so if it wasnt beer or drugs, then it was better spent money
noonespecial 15y ago
This isn't a morality tale. This is the story of someone who was willing to pay in either case simply giving his money to the entity that made accessing the content easiest. When Megaupload disappeared that entity became iTunes. The moral of the story is, if there is one, that the legal services are getting close, but they haven't quite made it yet. There is room for improvement, but reason for hope.
OoTheNigerian 15y ago
Similarly, if the internet were banned your friend will buy DVD's. The lesson learned here is simple. Your friend will pay for the most convenient way to get his movies. The answer for movie studios is to use their resources to create the most convenient way not kill those more convenient than theirs.
- nodata 15y ago
  Yeah... and if DVDs were banned, he'd buy a VHS tape would he? And if those were banned maybe he'd listen to a eight-track.
SoftwareMaven 15y ago
And given MU was shut down with existing laws, there is absolutely no need for something like SOPA to shift this pain balance, yet I'm sure we'll here about them again. Much easier to legislate that pain than innovate around it.
speleding 15y ago
For many people outside of the US there is no legal alternative. iTunes/Netflix/Hulu/Zune are all very limited in the countries they serve. You can buy music (and apps) almost everywhere but for some reason buying video is limited to only a few countries in Europe.
unicornporn 15y ago
Tell him about getting a usenet account and http://nzb.su http://nzb.su and he'll soon be on the track again.
danssig 15y ago
>but if the business model of a service is _primarily_ around the sharing of copyrighted content then something should be done. Something should have been done: Hollywood should have bought Megaupload. It was a working model, they just needed to own it.

by necro 15y ago

pyre 15y ago

> And especially if the service pays the uploader > based on how popular the stolen content they > upload is. This should be reworded. As I understand it, they weren't limiting payment to only users with stolen content. It's just that the stolen content was probably the most popular.

jpeterson 15y ago

Okay, this is one example. I personally don't know any such person. The question is not: "can you come up with an example of the MPAA/RIAA/FBI collusive measures working?" It's: "will it really make any difference overall?"

necro 15y ago
So I may be a 30 something professional who's resources vs cost point is that I don't need to look for crappy versions of files. My time is much more valuable, but I believe that everyone is not like me. My contention is that if you took a sample of the younger population, or perhaps less affluent population you would find that their pain threshold is at a different time/cost level.
- marekmroz 15y ago
  To which one can say SABnzbd + Sick Beard. Not only do you get exactly what you want in desired quality, you have to spend little to no time looking for it, at least as far as TV shows and movies go.
- mihaela 15y ago
  That's right. People who could not afford such content, get it with just a few clicks, for free. And the extra time needed is worth it.

moe 15y ago

This is just a real observation. Your observation is correct, but I'd interpret it differently: The answer should not be to ban MegaUpload. The answer must be to provide legal services that are at least as convenient as MegaUpload. There's a huge market of people who pirate content not because they're unwilling to pay for it, but simply because it's either impossible or extremely inconvenient to get legally.

necro 15y ago
The point I'm trying to make is....shifting the pain point. In this example itunes has been shifted past a particular persons pain (time/cost) point to be a convenient legal solution. Good point on the non availability in certain regions. At least my experience with itunes is that they are improving the service to lower that pain point in those areas too. You could not get certain content in canada a while ago, so the alternative was to find it on other sources, but as itunes adds more content in more other regions, this pain is reduced and it becomes the convenient service more and more.
- HalibetLector 15y ago
  I give that arrangement until your friend realizes he can only shift his content onto 5 devices, at which point his content is lost forever. Or when his hard drive crashes and he realizes he can't re-download tv episodes. Personally, I value my money too much to spent $100 to "rent" tv shows. My pain point is being able to own the things I buy. Until then, it's bittorrent until the bluray comes out, then buying that.
  - necro 15y ago
    But this is just a threshold issue. What does the difference in cost have to be for you to rent vs buy. Let's say it's $60 to buy a season of a show on hard media that you can watch as many times you want and yes, you own something that will collect dust for a life time. Perhaps you can resell it, but that just means your initial cost was lower and you in a sense rented it for the difference in price for that time period. Now if the cost to rent is say $20 for a season would that be worth hassle free experience of the content? How about $10, $5? At some threshold the value vs cost starts to make sense.

nitrogen 15y ago

I'm curious how this affects the overall economy, not just the studios. What would your friend have spent that money on otherwise (obviously a Mega account was a lot cheaper)? Who is now $100 poorer because iTunes+studios are $100 richer?

necro 15y ago
Hmm, well if the amount spent was the same it comes down who does more with the money. Where does the money go: megaupload owners - fast cars, hookers and blow studios - fast cars, hookers and blow actors - fast cars, hookers and blow apple - wages for workers in china. I guess the lesser evil is the studios...at least they are employing local hookers!
- theoj 15y ago
  You're giving Apple an easy pass... a significant cut goes to the executives.
  - gwright 15y ago
    How are you defining 'a significant cut'? Via morningstar.com, in 2010 Apple had 65,225,000,000 in revenue. Total operating expenses for 2010 were $7,299,000,000, just 11.2% of revenue. Executive compensation was $148,424,291. That is 2/10ths of 1% of revenue. That is just for the the top five execs and Jobs only took $1 in compensation. Still I don't think it is accurate to say that a 'significant' cut of revenue goes to 'the executives'.
- joering1 15y ago
  the lesser IMHO would be consumer who spent that money on anything else than entertainment, so if it wasnt beer or drugs, then it was better spent money

noonespecial 15y ago

This isn't a morality tale. This is the story of someone who was willing to pay in either case simply giving his money to the entity that made accessing the content easiest. When Megaupload disappeared that entity became iTunes. The moral of the story is, if there is one, that the legal services are getting close, but they haven't quite made it yet. There is room for improvement, but reason for hope.

OoTheNigerian 15y ago

Similarly, if the internet were banned your friend will buy DVD's. The lesson learned here is simple. Your friend will pay for the most convenient way to get his movies. The answer for movie studios is to use their resources to create the most convenient way not kill those more convenient than theirs.

nodata 15y ago
Yeah... and if DVDs were banned, he'd buy a VHS tape would he? And if those were banned maybe he'd listen to a eight-track.

SoftwareMaven 15y ago

And given MU was shut down with existing laws, there is absolutely no need for something like SOPA to shift this pain balance, yet I'm sure we'll here about them again. Much easier to legislate that pain than innovate around it.

speleding 15y ago

For many people outside of the US there is no legal alternative. iTunes/Netflix/Hulu/Zune are all very limited in the countries they serve. You can buy music (and apps) almost everywhere but for some reason buying video is limited to only a few countries in Europe.

unicornporn 15y ago

Tell him about getting a usenet account and http://nzb.su http://nzb.su and he'll soon be on the track again.

danssig 15y ago

>but if the business model of a service is _primarily_ around the sharing of copyrighted content then something should be done. Something should have been done: Hollywood should have bought Megaupload. It was a working model, they just needed to own it.