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For your convenience: http://amzn.com/B00LT1JHLW http://amzn.com/B00LT1JHLW - $175 for Blu-Ray, $135 for DVD To be released November 11.

by Zikes 12y ago

toomuchtodo 12y ago
I just searched the Pirate Bay, and found all ~20GB of the original series available, for free (single magnet link). If you forget you're competing with free in the marketplace, you've already lost.
- Zikes 12y ago
  I just paid $90 to pre-order the new Cowboy Bebop blu-ray box set, despite already having the series on DVD and it being easily found on TPB. Some of us like owning the actual product.
  - pbhjpbhj 12y ago
    Why? Specifically why buy the same thing over again, you already paid to be able to watch it. You appear to have too much money.
    - Zikes 12y ago
      Because I want to legally watch one of my favorite series in the highest quality format available.
- ctdonath 12y ago
  When your hourly pay gets high enough and/or you get interested enough in other things, it's cheaper & easier to just shell out $175 for the complete BD package. Fiddling with torrents (with corrupted/bogus links & content, delays, technical obscurities, assuredly illegal activity, etc) is not free, it's spending time & resources & risks which could be used for earning more than $175.
  - baddox 12y ago
    It's pretty difficult for me to imagine getting paid enough that purchasing the Blu-ray would be easier. I would basically have to have an assistant who can place the order, receive the discs, and rip them into a (DRM-free) digital format so that I can watch them on a computer or mobile device, which is how I prefer to consume all of my content (except for the cinema).
  - derefr 12y ago
    I think the more immediate point here is that if you want to watch it right now, the $175 won't get you anything at all; it's not for sale yet. BitTorrent might be less convenient than just buying something, but it's much more convenient than being legally unable to buy something because it hasn't been released yet, and might never be in your market.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
  - teh_klev 12y ago
    If the studios allowed me to copy their content to my media server so I can stream on any device in my house then I might agree 100%. It doesn't need to be HD or even 720p, I'd settle for your bog standard ~220MB/episode x264. But their efforts to frustrate my efforts doing that means I still hit up the torrents to get my DRM free digital copy - despite paying for the media.
    - Consultant32452 12y ago
      I'd settle for a fast enough internet connection and Netflix. I SHOULD have Gigabit to my house for cheap but.. reasons.
  - ctdonath 12y ago
    Dissenters: yes, there are exceptions. I might absolutely insist on particular formats, spending more to hire an assistant to transfer discs to DRM-free despite the package including iTunes/Windows-Media/UltraViolet downloads providing clean transfers in convenient formats. I might have a sudden compulsion to watch 120 episodes of a half-century-old TV show right now (overnight delivery for $4 intolerable!), crappy amateur transfers from pre-VHS videotape being entirely tolerable on my HDTV. But nigh unto all customers aren't so pedantic and technical. Most don't even know what "torrents" are. Most have a library of DVD/BD discs & multiple players and few qualms about expanding it. Most of those wanting digital versions are capable of following simple directions to download the included high-quality digital transfers, and find little value in DRM-free versions when the provided formats work just fine on what most people have. And most viewers won't be squeamish about shelling out a buck-fifty per episode. Yeah, I used to share such pedantic geeky views. Then I discovered I had other things to do and get wound up about, having been burned too often by technical difficulties and crappy rips. For a few taps and a few hours' pay, I'll get the complete collection - in convenient & pristine form - in time for a mind-searing weekend of '60s campy superheros. ETA: ok, it releases 11/11. We're talking '60s Batman, I can wait a couple weeks. For those vanishingly small number of people who can't, well, there's always torrents of crummy transfers from ancient videotape recorders.
- rhino369 12y ago
  You can't compete with free piracy for digital products, period. Legitimate retail isn't in competition with the pirate bay.
  - baddox 12y ago
    Of course you can compete with free piracy for digital products. If you couldn't, then I wouldn't purchase any piratable digital products, but I absolutely do. iTunes, for example, is in many cases much quicker, more convenient, and more reliable than pirating music. Likewise with Kindle e-books.
    - rodgerd 12y ago
      So wait, is piracy hurting artists or not? I always have trouble remembering which argument is being invoked to justify "taking stuff for free" this week.
      - baddox 12y ago
        None of that sounds like the point I was making, but since you asked, I would guess that piracy hurts some artists and helps others.
  - dublinben 12y ago
    Of course you can, look at the wild success of Steam and iTunes. They've created billion dollar businesses out of being more convenient than the free alternatives. These services, and every other retail platform is absolutely in competition with grey and black market competitors. Why do you think the RIAA/MPAA/etc. try so hard to shut them down?
    - rhino369 12y ago
      Steam and itunes are wildly successful because they are easier and cheaper than bestbuy and samgoodie. People who want to pirate can download MP3's and PC games with ease. Some of the most pirated games are on steam. Headphones (sickbeard for music) makes pirating music even easier than iTunes. >Why do you think the RIAA/MPAA/etc. try so hard to shut them down? Because piracy costs them sales. It's still not competition when you take the product without paying for it.
- rayiner 12y ago
  If you're not respecting other peoples' property rights, it's not a "marketplace" it's the state of nature.
- anigbrowl 12y ago
  A free pirate copy isn't really in the marketplace, notwithstanding the manifest flaws in our system of administering legal copyright. If we admit this as normal commerce, how is it functionally different from uncompensated eminent domain? where is the incentive to produce if one cannot exert any control over the distribution and sale of creative works? Sure, everyone who worked on Batman got paid years ago. But if I want to produce a film tomorrow, I'm facing essentially the same problem - I can't compete with free, and that makes it harder to recoup an investment. If I don't have an existing franchise to leverage so as to raise capital advance, then distribution rights are the only tool I have.
  - Touche 12y ago
    > where is the incentive to produce if one cannot exert any control over the distribution and sale of creative works? Believe it or not, people were creating art before copyright existed.
    - anigbrowl 12y ago
      True, but mostly under a system of patronage. Much art is time-consuming to create and requires special materials and/or skills, which involve a significant economic investment. That's especially true for film and TV.
      - dragonwriter 12y ago
        > True, but mostly under a system of patronage. Much art is time-consuming to create and requires special materials and/or skills, which involve a significant economic investment. Which is also true with copyright. For the kind of art you discuss, insofar as their is an economic inducement to create complex art from copyright, it is an indirect inducement (since the actual artists still can't afford the up-front costs) that induces patronage.
    - tzs 12y ago
      Things have changed in how we produce and utilize art a little in the 300+ years since then. Back then, it took as much time and effort and money, and almost as much skill and talent, to copy art as it did to create new art. Ordinary could not afford copies of art. The wealthy and powerful patrons that could afford to have art made wanted original works, not copies of existing works--they were buying art to show off the wealth and success of themselves or of the region they ruled, and copying someone else's art would do a poor job of that. Also, art tended to be the work of a single artist (with possibly a handful of assistants). They generally did not have anything on the scale of a modern movie or television show or video game.
- anon4 12y ago
  While I believe that torrenting is your right, no matter what the law says, some of us do want to shower people responsible for things we like with actual money. If you find the price too steep, then by all means - get it from the pirate bay, from kickass torrents, from isohunt, etc. and show it to all your friends.
  - Zikes 12y ago
    Nobody has a right to other people's works just because they're easily digitized.

For your convenience: http://amzn.com/B00LT1JHLW http://amzn.com/B00LT1JHLW - $175 for Blu-Ray, $135 for DVD To be released November 11.

by Zikes 12y ago

For your convenience: http://amzn.com/B00LT1JHLW http://amzn.com/B00LT1JHLW - $175 for Blu-Ray, $135 for DVD To be released November 11.

toomuchtodo 12y ago

I just searched the Pirate Bay, and found all ~20GB of the original series available, for free (single magnet link). If you forget you're competing with free in the marketplace, you've already lost.

Zikes 12y ago
I just paid $90 to pre-order the new Cowboy Bebop blu-ray box set, despite already having the series on DVD and it being easily found on TPB. Some of us like owning the actual product.
- pbhjpbhj 12y ago
  Why? Specifically why buy the same thing over again, you already paid to be able to watch it. You appear to have too much money.
  - Zikes 12y ago
    Because I want to legally watch one of my favorite series in the highest quality format available.
ctdonath 12y ago
When your hourly pay gets high enough and/or you get interested enough in other things, it's cheaper & easier to just shell out $175 for the complete BD package. Fiddling with torrents (with corrupted/bogus links & content, delays, technical obscurities, assuredly illegal activity, etc) is not free, it's spending time & resources & risks which could be used for earning more than $175.
- baddox 12y ago
  It's pretty difficult for me to imagine getting paid enough that purchasing the Blu-ray would be easier. I would basically have to have an assistant who can place the order, receive the discs, and rip them into a (DRM-free) digital format so that I can watch them on a computer or mobile device, which is how I prefer to consume all of my content (except for the cinema).
- derefr 12y ago
  I think the more immediate point here is that if you want to watch it right now, the $175 won't get you anything at all; it's not for sale yet. BitTorrent might be less convenient than just buying something, but it's much more convenient than being legally unable to buy something because it hasn't been released yet, and might never be in your market.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- teh_klev 12y ago
  If the studios allowed me to copy their content to my media server so I can stream on any device in my house then I might agree 100%. It doesn't need to be HD or even 720p, I'd settle for your bog standard ~220MB/episode x264. But their efforts to frustrate my efforts doing that means I still hit up the torrents to get my DRM free digital copy - despite paying for the media.
  - Consultant32452 12y ago
    I'd settle for a fast enough internet connection and Netflix. I SHOULD have Gigabit to my house for cheap but.. reasons.
- ctdonath 12y ago
  Dissenters: yes, there are exceptions. I might absolutely insist on particular formats, spending more to hire an assistant to transfer discs to DRM-free despite the package including iTunes/Windows-Media/UltraViolet downloads providing clean transfers in convenient formats. I might have a sudden compulsion to watch 120 episodes of a half-century-old TV show right now (overnight delivery for $4 intolerable!), crappy amateur transfers from pre-VHS videotape being entirely tolerable on my HDTV. But nigh unto all customers aren't so pedantic and technical. Most don't even know what "torrents" are. Most have a library of DVD/BD discs & multiple players and few qualms about expanding it. Most of those wanting digital versions are capable of following simple directions to download the included high-quality digital transfers, and find little value in DRM-free versions when the provided formats work just fine on what most people have. And most viewers won't be squeamish about shelling out a buck-fifty per episode. Yeah, I used to share such pedantic geeky views. Then I discovered I had other things to do and get wound up about, having been burned too often by technical difficulties and crappy rips. For a few taps and a few hours' pay, I'll get the complete collection - in convenient & pristine form - in time for a mind-searing weekend of '60s campy superheros. ETA: ok, it releases 11/11. We're talking '60s Batman, I can wait a couple weeks. For those vanishingly small number of people who can't, well, there's always torrents of crummy transfers from ancient videotape recorders.
rhino369 12y ago
You can't compete with free piracy for digital products, period. Legitimate retail isn't in competition with the pirate bay.
- baddox 12y ago
  Of course you can compete with free piracy for digital products. If you couldn't, then I wouldn't purchase any piratable digital products, but I absolutely do. iTunes, for example, is in many cases much quicker, more convenient, and more reliable than pirating music. Likewise with Kindle e-books.
  - rodgerd 12y ago
    So wait, is piracy hurting artists or not? I always have trouble remembering which argument is being invoked to justify "taking stuff for free" this week.
    - baddox 12y ago
      None of that sounds like the point I was making, but since you asked, I would guess that piracy hurts some artists and helps others.
- dublinben 12y ago
  Of course you can, look at the wild success of Steam and iTunes. They've created billion dollar businesses out of being more convenient than the free alternatives. These services, and every other retail platform is absolutely in competition with grey and black market competitors. Why do you think the RIAA/MPAA/etc. try so hard to shut them down?
  - rhino369 12y ago
    Steam and itunes are wildly successful because they are easier and cheaper than bestbuy and samgoodie. People who want to pirate can download MP3's and PC games with ease. Some of the most pirated games are on steam. Headphones (sickbeard for music) makes pirating music even easier than iTunes. >Why do you think the RIAA/MPAA/etc. try so hard to shut them down? Because piracy costs them sales. It's still not competition when you take the product without paying for it.
rayiner 12y ago
If you're not respecting other peoples' property rights, it's not a "marketplace" it's the state of nature.
anigbrowl 12y ago
A free pirate copy isn't really in the marketplace, notwithstanding the manifest flaws in our system of administering legal copyright. If we admit this as normal commerce, how is it functionally different from uncompensated eminent domain? where is the incentive to produce if one cannot exert any control over the distribution and sale of creative works? Sure, everyone who worked on Batman got paid years ago. But if I want to produce a film tomorrow, I'm facing essentially the same problem - I can't compete with free, and that makes it harder to recoup an investment. If I don't have an existing franchise to leverage so as to raise capital advance, then distribution rights are the only tool I have.
- Touche 12y ago
  > where is the incentive to produce if one cannot exert any control over the distribution and sale of creative works? Believe it or not, people were creating art before copyright existed.
  - anigbrowl 12y ago
    True, but mostly under a system of patronage. Much art is time-consuming to create and requires special materials and/or skills, which involve a significant economic investment. That's especially true for film and TV.
    - dragonwriter 12y ago
      > True, but mostly under a system of patronage. Much art is time-consuming to create and requires special materials and/or skills, which involve a significant economic investment. Which is also true with copyright. For the kind of art you discuss, insofar as their is an economic inducement to create complex art from copyright, it is an indirect inducement (since the actual artists still can't afford the up-front costs) that induces patronage.
  - tzs 12y ago
    Things have changed in how we produce and utilize art a little in the 300+ years since then. Back then, it took as much time and effort and money, and almost as much skill and talent, to copy art as it did to create new art. Ordinary could not afford copies of art. The wealthy and powerful patrons that could afford to have art made wanted original works, not copies of existing works--they were buying art to show off the wealth and success of themselves or of the region they ruled, and copying someone else's art would do a poor job of that. Also, art tended to be the work of a single artist (with possibly a handful of assistants). They generally did not have anything on the scale of a modern movie or television show or video game.
anon4 12y ago
While I believe that torrenting is your right, no matter what the law says, some of us do want to shower people responsible for things we like with actual money. If you find the price too steep, then by all means - get it from the pirate bay, from kickass torrents, from isohunt, etc. and show it to all your friends.
- Zikes 12y ago
  Nobody has a right to other people's works just because they're easily digitized.