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http://www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/2012/02/03/you-will-never-kill-piracy-and-piracy-will-never-kill-you/

Its too long to copy directly.

Basically piracy is impossible to stop short of a western version of the great firewall of China which would have so many internet freedom ramifications that it would be unworkable. Content providers need to stop pointlessly throwing money away in a losing battle and plan for the future and provide a service that is more convenient for the consumer than piracy. Steam has managed it with gaming, just imagine how successful a film version of Steam could be?

While I don't agree with everything I think that the core message is correct.

It would be very cool indeed. When Netflix decided to double its cost, or restrict you to streaming or movies, I went looking and found that amazon.com of all places has a really awesome streaming service. Prime gives you access to a wide range of free programming, and the programs may be permanently purchased in regular, or HD qualities. It even allows you to subscribe to shows that are currently on, and purchase series at a discount or buy episodes a la carte. Movies can be rented for 24 hour periods. Other than awesome sales, it does most everything steam does already.

The only thing the pirates have them beat in is release time, because as near as I can tell digital distribution is usually one of the last features the studios allow- even so, it is a great service.

I think the next wave of piracy protection we're going to see is staggered release of content, where extras are treated as expansion packs. When you need to pirate 4 or 5 times to get everything, it quickly becomes more irritating than buying the digital rights and finding new surprises each time you go back to see your favorite films.

Perhaps the studios could make things more palatable than the pirated stuff. Pirated stuff you click and play. Legally owned DVDs you often have to sit through the anti-piracy adverts (your reward for buying legally oddly enough) and then some other adverts that you may or may not be able to skip through.

Cut the crap out and give customers what they want.

 Howard A Treesong wrote:
Perhaps the studios could make things more palatable than the pirated stuff. Pirated stuff you click and play. Legally owned DVDs you often have to sit through the anti-piracy adverts (your reward for buying legally oddly enough) and then some other adverts that you may or may not be able to skip through.

I hate that. I can't remember which movie it was, but one DVD I own has three different unskippable anti-piracy videos. It's like if every time you bought something at the local store the checkout chick pulled you aside to browbeat you about how much shoplifting sucks.

"We think there is a fundamental misconception about piracy," Newell said. "Piracy is almost always a service problem and not a pricing problem. For example, if a pirate offers a product anywhere in the world, 24/7, purchasable from the convenience of your personal computer, and the legal provider says the product is region-locked, will come to your country three months after the U.S. release and can only be purchased at a brick and mortar store, then the pirate's service is more valuable.

"Most DRM solutions diminish the value of the product by either directly restricting a customer's use or by creating uncertainty."

"Our goal is to create greater service value than pirates, and this has been successful enough for us that piracy is basically a non-issue for our company. For example, prior to entering the Russian market, we were told that Russia was a waste of time because everyone would pirate our products. Russia is now about to become our largest market in Europe. "

Okay I get it I get it. it's cool to hate Gabe cause he hasn't released Half-Life 3 yet but for the love of god listen to the man!

Two relevant comics, just because I am to lazy tonight to actually type stuff:









And (maybe sorta NSFW):

 d-usa wrote:

Spoiler:

And that is so true. Though that's HBO's problem directly because they don't release the season on DVD till the next season starts (lul wat? Then I'll be too busy watching season 2 to see season 3!) and it is so annoying to have to wait.

Some day the distributors are going to wise up and make something available for sale the day it airs, but oh no that would break the traditional broadcast model that made them so much money in the past!

I'd love HBO doing a Online Pass independent of the cable/sat services.

 Howard A Treesong wrote:
Perhaps the studios could make things more palatable than the pirated stuff. Pirated stuff you click and play. Legally owned DVDs you often have to sit through the anti-piracy adverts (your reward for buying legally oddly enough) and then some other adverts that you may or may not be able to skip through.

Cut the crap out and give customers what they want.

On the mark and exalted, sir!


Automatically Appended Next Post:
d-usa gets an exalt also!

I think this thread has pretty much nailed it, especially the whole 'stupid anti-piracy ads' thing, every time I have to sit through one of those adverts, I want to go out and illegally download something just out of spite for making me watch that annoying advert

also, unskippable trailers (looking at you Disney, if I buy a DVD, I'm guaranteed 15 mins of trailers for films I don't give a crap about before I can get to the menu to start the actual movie, with a rip of the DVD, some kind buccaneer has removed all those pointless ads for me.

Another issue is that a lot of copyright laws and protection not only make it difficult to find something, but can make it impossible to buy.

These days, I buy almost all the music I listen to, if possible. But there are a few rules that I follow. If I can find a digital version of the music I want that isn't on iTunes (because seriously, feth iTunes), I'll definitely buy it. Supporting the artist is a good thing. But the problem is, thanks to differences in copyright laws across national borders, a lot of the time, it's actually impossible for me to buy music online.

A lot of the time, it's not just a matter of getting it for free, it's that not only can I get it for free, I can get it with a lot less headaches while I'm at it. Most of the time, when I find some new music that I'm interested in, I end up having to spend a pretty sizable amount of time (my tastes tend to be somewhat obscure, which makes up most of this difficulty) actually finding a proper place to by the album from. There have been cases where I've spent almost an hour just searching for a place to buy music in a format that I want it in (digital, not itunes), and then most of the time, it's region locked so I can't buy it at all. And keep in mind, a lot of times, this is just buying from US sources, literally a 2 hour drive away.
It's like they're asking me to pirate.

I listen to one of my old radio stations in Germany through an iPhone app. Perfectly legis and legal. Quite often I find some songs that I really like that are getting airtime in Germany.

When I try to buy them they are often not sold in the US. So how am I supposed to get them?

I still remember the time I purchased a Gorillaz (I think that's who it was anyways) CD and could not listen to it because my PC is my stereo and the CD had a drm thing on it that would freeze your computer if you tried to play it. The solution? Rip the music off the CD.

 d-usa wrote:


When I try to buy them they are often not sold in the US. So how am I supposed to get them?

You import it.

Oh wait that's like paying 2x as much and then waiting a week for delivery. Damn. Guess I'll just go rip it off youtube and live with bad sound quality (true story). Interesting though is that iTunes seems to be responding to this as they've been upping their offerings of foreign (as in non-US) music. They've got an entire section for J-Pop now.

 LordofHats wrote:

 d-usa wrote:

Spoiler:

And that is so true. Though that's HBO's problem directly because they don't release the season on DVD till the next season starts (lul wat? Then I'll be too busy watching season 2 to see season 3!) and it is so annoying to have to wait.

Some day the distributors are going to wise up and make something available for sale the day it airs, but oh no that would break the traditional broadcast model that made them so much money in the past!

The thing that annoyed me with GoT was the simple fact as a Virgin Media customer, due to Sky effectively having them by the balls with certain channels; there is simply no legal way to watch GoT if you're a Virgin customer in the UK. And they wonder why so many people resort to Torrents?

 LordofHats wrote:

 d-usa wrote:


When I try to buy them they are often not sold in the US. So how am I supposed to get them?

You import it.

Oh wait that's like paying 2x as much and then waiting a week for delivery. Damn. Guess I'll just go rip it off youtube and live with bad sound quality (true story). Interesting though is that iTunes seems to be responding to this as they've been upping their offerings of foreign (as in non-US) music. They've got an entire section for J-Pop now.

The only problem being that iTunes is garbage.

If a music-selling platform were developed that weren't so intrusive and annoying to use, that got around international copyright laws, it would be fantastic.

Amazon does okay for my Music purchase needs, I refuse to do business with AAPL.... except to buy their stock, because while I might hate a product I do so enjoy making money.

 KalashnikovMarine wrote:
Amazon does okay for my Music purchase needs

Not in Canada. You can't buy Amazon downloads from Canada, and there is no similar service in the entire country.

 Fafnir wrote:

 KalashnikovMarine wrote:
Amazon does okay for my Music purchase needs

Not in Canada. You can't buy Amazon downloads from Canada, and there is no similar service in the entire country.

Wow, that sucks.

My one complaint about Amazon is you can't get a lot of MP3 downloads from places other then the US

My biggest peeve about streaming netflix in Canada is that we have content laws that state a certain amount of content must be Candian made...and since Canada produces next to nothing tv shows/movies Candian netflix has about 1/100th of stuff then the american netflix.

The current crop of producers/distributers will likely never wise up because they were brought up in an environment with a captive consumer market.


Only the artists themselves will be able to affect the kind of change everyone hopes for, and it is happening... although slowly.

vedreag wrote:
My biggest peeve about streaming netflix in Canada is that we have content laws that state a certain amount of content must be Candian made...and since Canada produces next to nothing tv shows/movies Candian netflix has about 1/100th of stuff then the american netflix.

There are many worse things than Red Green reruns.

Did anyone else click on this thread hoping it would have more clips of contractors fething up guys roundabout HOA?

I was expecting cutlesses, rum, and scruvy dogs. Frazzled disappoint.