3 ms·

If I pay $80 or whatever for a DVD box set and I suspect it's counterfeit you'd better believe I'm going to complain about it. I paid for a real item.

by evan_ 13y ago

thaumasiotes 13y ago
"Real"? "Counterfeit" software isn't like counterfeit hardware. It's exactly the same thing, but with less legitimacy. Counterfeit medicine might poison you, or at best be biologically inactive. Counterfeit videos are no different from "real" videos except in the fee paid to the copyright holder. How does that affect you?
- gamegoblin 13y ago
  Having less legitimacy makes it a different thing to most people. The legality and legitimacy of an item, while social constructs, are important to many people and are worth value to many people.
  - thaumasiotes 13y ago
    I believe in most people's eyes, legitimacy makes a difference to them because they believe it's relevant to quality. For example, a Sears tool is superior to a no-brand knockoff because the quality of Sears' manufacture is higher. That general idea is the foundational concept behind trademark law. I'm trying to point out that the concept doesn't apply to software (and in this sense, digital video files are "software"). The majority of people care about the legitimacy of software only because they don't realize that it has no impact on quality, that software is completely unlike physical objects in that regard. Now, there are counterexamples in the world; a Chinese producer of sunflower (I think) seeds became massively successful by taking the innovative step of branding his product ("Idiot Seeds") instead of selling it as the commodity "sunflower seeds". But I don't think that's the main force driving fear of bootleg DVDs.
    - gamegoblin 13y ago
      I understand where you are coming from, now. I am unsure of the reason why the person you responded to wanted a "real" DVD, so we'll have to see if they respond to you. I am also not very well versed on DVD ripping techniques. If you are: Are they 100% lossless?
      - thaumasiotes 13y ago
        The most standard (I believe) is certainly lossless: dd if=/dev/cdrom of=name_of_disc.iso creates a bit-for-bit image of the disc. If you're trying to shrink the data, that's obviously useless, but it works fine for copying discs. Ripping to video files, instead of to a disc image, may or may not be lossless depending on the format you're targetting, but the norm (again, I believe) is to be lossy, since you can achieve really large amounts of compression. All that said, it's really not that difficult to judge video quality directly; what you can't perceive literally doesn't matter. In my ripped video of The Princess Bride (completely legit, in that I ripped it myself from a DVD I owned), I eventually noticed that color was occasionally washed out, but only because I was going frame-by-frame trying to get good images of the swords. I would never have known otherwise.
- ars_technician 13y ago
  > Counterfeit videos are no different from "real" videos except in the fee paid to the copyright holder. How does that affect you? It's about who you are supporting. People get upset when they find out they are supporting industries that are detrimental to the very franchise they are buying into. How happy do you think someone who wants locally grown produce would be if they found out some dude was just importing stuff and selling it as locally grown at a farmers' market? tl;dr It's about who the money is going to.
- michaelt 13y ago
  Because if I wanted a non-legitimate copy I would have simply torrented it for free?
- evan_ 13y ago
  Why wouldn't I want the people who made a product I like to be compensated? You might argue that the actual creators of the show or whatever get a small percentage of the cost of the box set, but that's more than nothing. It's funny that you brought up Futurama, which is a show near and dear to my heart. I loved that show when it was on Fox and I bought the box sets for every season after they came out. So did a lot of people. The DVDs sold so well (not to mention that the healthy ratings rebroadcasts were getting on Adult Swim) that they made several direct-to-DVD movies. Those sold so well they made several more seasons of the show. Futurama is far from the only show to be saved by brisk DVD sales. If counterfeit DVDs were tolerated, if nobody bought the first run of DVDs and the direct-to-DVD movies, the show probably would have died. (The fact that the latter seasons kinda sucked isn't important...) The point is, if a content creator makes something I like then I want them to be compensated. Buying counterfeit DVDs costs me money but the buying power of that money does not go towards supporting the stuff I like.

If I pay $80 or whatever for a DVD box set and I suspect it's counterfeit you'd better believe I'm going to complain about it. I paid for a real item.

by evan_ 13y ago

If I pay $80 or whatever for a DVD box set and I suspect it's counterfeit you'd better believe I'm going to complain about it. I paid for a real item.

thaumasiotes 13y ago

"Real"? "Counterfeit" software isn't like counterfeit hardware. It's exactly the same thing, but with less legitimacy. Counterfeit medicine might poison you, or at best be biologically inactive. Counterfeit videos are no different from "real" videos except in the fee paid to the copyright holder. How does that affect you?

gamegoblin 13y ago
Having less legitimacy makes it a different thing to most people. The legality and legitimacy of an item, while social constructs, are important to many people and are worth value to many people.
- thaumasiotes 13y ago
  I believe in most people's eyes, legitimacy makes a difference to them because they believe it's relevant to quality. For example, a Sears tool is superior to a no-brand knockoff because the quality of Sears' manufacture is higher. That general idea is the foundational concept behind trademark law. I'm trying to point out that the concept doesn't apply to software (and in this sense, digital video files are "software"). The majority of people care about the legitimacy of software only because they don't realize that it has no impact on quality, that software is completely unlike physical objects in that regard. Now, there are counterexamples in the world; a Chinese producer of sunflower (I think) seeds became massively successful by taking the innovative step of branding his product ("Idiot Seeds") instead of selling it as the commodity "sunflower seeds". But I don't think that's the main force driving fear of bootleg DVDs.
  - gamegoblin 13y ago
    I understand where you are coming from, now. I am unsure of the reason why the person you responded to wanted a "real" DVD, so we'll have to see if they respond to you. I am also not very well versed on DVD ripping techniques. If you are: Are they 100% lossless?
    - thaumasiotes 13y ago
      The most standard (I believe) is certainly lossless: dd if=/dev/cdrom of=name_of_disc.iso creates a bit-for-bit image of the disc. If you're trying to shrink the data, that's obviously useless, but it works fine for copying discs. Ripping to video files, instead of to a disc image, may or may not be lossless depending on the format you're targetting, but the norm (again, I believe) is to be lossy, since you can achieve really large amounts of compression. All that said, it's really not that difficult to judge video quality directly; what you can't perceive literally doesn't matter. In my ripped video of The Princess Bride (completely legit, in that I ripped it myself from a DVD I owned), I eventually noticed that color was occasionally washed out, but only because I was going frame-by-frame trying to get good images of the swords. I would never have known otherwise.
ars_technician 13y ago
> Counterfeit videos are no different from "real" videos except in the fee paid to the copyright holder. How does that affect you? It's about who you are supporting. People get upset when they find out they are supporting industries that are detrimental to the very franchise they are buying into. How happy do you think someone who wants locally grown produce would be if they found out some dude was just importing stuff and selling it as locally grown at a farmers' market? tl;dr It's about who the money is going to.
michaelt 13y ago
Because if I wanted a non-legitimate copy I would have simply torrented it for free?
evan_ 13y ago
Why wouldn't I want the people who made a product I like to be compensated? You might argue that the actual creators of the show or whatever get a small percentage of the cost of the box set, but that's more than nothing. It's funny that you brought up Futurama, which is a show near and dear to my heart. I loved that show when it was on Fox and I bought the box sets for every season after they came out. So did a lot of people. The DVDs sold so well (not to mention that the healthy ratings rebroadcasts were getting on Adult Swim) that they made several direct-to-DVD movies. Those sold so well they made several more seasons of the show. Futurama is far from the only show to be saved by brisk DVD sales. If counterfeit DVDs were tolerated, if nobody bought the first run of DVDs and the direct-to-DVD movies, the show probably would have died. (The fact that the latter seasons kinda sucked isn't important...) The point is, if a content creator makes something I like then I want them to be compensated. Buying counterfeit DVDs costs me money but the buying power of that money does not go towards supporting the stuff I like.