4 ms·

By far the single most effective solution to dramatically slow down piracy is to make all content available globally for reasonable prices, for a digital "watch

By far the single most effective solution to dramatically slow down piracy is to make all content available globally for reasonable prices, for a digital "watch at home" copy", that has none of the costs of something like a cinema ticket, and benefits from large economies of scale (especially if the content is distributed P2P, and not many central servers are needed, other than keeping a seed on all content at all time). This education thing won't do much to turn people away from piracy. If threat of prison or bankruptcy-inducing fines didn't, then neither will this, especially when there's little to educate them about when the content people want isn't actually available in their countries and soon after coming out. Hollywood is its own biggest problem.

weavie 13y ago
This basically means "the entertainment industry lost".
digitalengineer 13y ago
You named the real problem allright: "for reasonable prices". They're going for maximum prices. I predict a great rise of VPN in Great Britain. And about VPN: Does anyone know why my iPhone can only have a manually 'on/off' VPN when company phones can have VPN-ON-all-the-time? VPN always-on would really improve my privacy.
- MrScruff 13y ago
  I'm fairly certain the industry understands the relationship between pricing and revenue. It's hardly a fair market when they're forced to compete with free though.
  - elohesra 13y ago
    > It's hardly a fair market when they're forced to compete with free though Surely, as a member of an entrepreneurial-focussed community, you can trivially see why this argument isn't valid? The content holders are only competing with free if they're offering the same service as the free service. The games industry has managed to cleverly counter 'competing with free' by making their paid services such as Steam value-added over simply providing the same content as the free content. The rights holders just have to find something that they can add that pirates cannot. As Steam gives community and ease of storage, and Spotify gives recommendations and playlists, so too must Hollywood find something that they can give. Netflix already goes a long way to being the Spotify of the film and television industry, but it's hampered by only being allowed to show out of date content, and having its content culled fairly often. If the film and television industry were to introduce a Netflix+ with all the newest films and television shows, then I expect that they could attract a much larger number of people at a much larger price. Of course, they could always just sit around whining that they "can't compete with free" and stick ever greater restrictions on the public until the public finally grow sick of them and force politicians to move decisively against the film and television industry.
    - MrScruff 13y ago
      In the music industry, there are plenty of digital download services that offer convenient and reliable distribution of DRM free audio files. Yet it's commonly accepted that their business is still severely impacted by copyright infringement, ie. competing with free. Services like Spotify make far smaller revenues than music sales, so can hardly be considered a success for anyone other than Spotify. I don't disagree that rights holders should make their services as user friendly as possible, but it's disingenuous to infer that will fix the underlying problem. I'm not sure what you mean by your final paragraph. Why would the public 'force politicians to move decisively against the film and television industry'? The film and television industry are the ones producing the content that the public want.
  - Fuxy 13y ago
    Ease of use and convenience outbids free 90% of the time. The other 10% can barely afford food every day so there's no point in getting upset over it. If you're wondering why they have internet then the answer is simple information is power and there's no other place on the planet where you can find so much free information.
- toyg 13y ago
  With Cloak (getcloak.com), they now have a "on-demand" feature that will switch on your VPN as soon as you connect to any wifi network. (TBH it's slightly annoying: some public networks have portals that will block VPN connections, so in those cases the phone gets stuck trying and failing to turn on the VPN)
prawn 13y ago
They're simply too pig-headed. If you're not in the US, you'll try and watch a snippet of a late night show and routinely get a lame message about the video not being available in your region. It hardly engenders a feeling of loyalty or interest in supporting the creator/marketer. In the past, people could at least buy Game of Thrones through iTunes per-episode or on some sort of season pass. As of this season, they've changed so the only option is a $50/mo pay-TV subscription. The one person I knew who was paying for GoT in Australia, now doesn't.

weavie 13y ago

This basically means "the entertainment industry lost".

digitalengineer 13y ago

You named the real problem allright: "for reasonable prices". They're going for maximum prices. I predict a great rise of VPN in Great Britain. And about VPN: Does anyone know why my iPhone can only have a manually 'on/off' VPN when company phones can have VPN-ON-all-the-time? VPN always-on would really improve my privacy.

MrScruff 13y ago
I'm fairly certain the industry understands the relationship between pricing and revenue. It's hardly a fair market when they're forced to compete with free though.
- elohesra 13y ago
  > It's hardly a fair market when they're forced to compete with free though Surely, as a member of an entrepreneurial-focussed community, you can trivially see why this argument isn't valid? The content holders are only competing with free if they're offering the same service as the free service. The games industry has managed to cleverly counter 'competing with free' by making their paid services such as Steam value-added over simply providing the same content as the free content. The rights holders just have to find something that they can add that pirates cannot. As Steam gives community and ease of storage, and Spotify gives recommendations and playlists, so too must Hollywood find something that they can give. Netflix already goes a long way to being the Spotify of the film and television industry, but it's hampered by only being allowed to show out of date content, and having its content culled fairly often. If the film and television industry were to introduce a Netflix+ with all the newest films and television shows, then I expect that they could attract a much larger number of people at a much larger price. Of course, they could always just sit around whining that they "can't compete with free" and stick ever greater restrictions on the public until the public finally grow sick of them and force politicians to move decisively against the film and television industry.
  - MrScruff 13y ago
    In the music industry, there are plenty of digital download services that offer convenient and reliable distribution of DRM free audio files. Yet it's commonly accepted that their business is still severely impacted by copyright infringement, ie. competing with free. Services like Spotify make far smaller revenues than music sales, so can hardly be considered a success for anyone other than Spotify. I don't disagree that rights holders should make their services as user friendly as possible, but it's disingenuous to infer that will fix the underlying problem. I'm not sure what you mean by your final paragraph. Why would the public 'force politicians to move decisively against the film and television industry'? The film and television industry are the ones producing the content that the public want.
- Fuxy 13y ago
  Ease of use and convenience outbids free 90% of the time. The other 10% can barely afford food every day so there's no point in getting upset over it. If you're wondering why they have internet then the answer is simple information is power and there's no other place on the planet where you can find so much free information.
toyg 13y ago
With Cloak (getcloak.com), they now have a "on-demand" feature that will switch on your VPN as soon as you connect to any wifi network. (TBH it's slightly annoying: some public networks have portals that will block VPN connections, so in those cases the phone gets stuck trying and failing to turn on the VPN)

prawn 13y ago

They're simply too pig-headed. If you're not in the US, you'll try and watch a snippet of a late night show and routinely get a lame message about the video not being available in your region. It hardly engenders a feeling of loyalty or interest in supporting the creator/marketer. In the past, people could at least buy Game of Thrones through iTunes per-episode or on some sort of season pass. As of this season, they've changed so the only option is a $50/mo pay-TV subscription. The one person I knew who was paying for GoT in Australia, now doesn't.