Beware illegal downloaders: Data is being collected on you to crack down on piracy in

[Hockey_Ninja]

Eh. I've only ever downloaded about two movies or so in my life time. /If i wanted to go out and buy the films and T.V. shows i would but i'm broke 80% of the time and until i get a job i'll have to use my mom's Netflix. Besides, in terms of films, not much interest me these days.

[corporatejay]

Originally Posted by saskflames69

With all the lousy movies they keep churning out these days, The Pirate Bay is a bored man's best friend.

$30 for a movie I may or may not like? Lick my balls, Hollywood.

You should walk into Holt Renfrew and steal a Burberry Wallet......$500 for a wallet? Lick my balls, Burberry.

[nik-]

Originally Posted by corporatejay

You should walk into Holt Renfrew and steal a Burberry Wallet......$500 for a wallet? Lick my balls, Burberry.

a valid comparison

[corporatejay]

Originally Posted by nik-

a valid comparison

Explain the difference. In both cases you don't want to pay the price for something you want because you don't think it's worth it.

[nik-]

Because your example is extreme and way above the average. $30 for a DVD is in line with the average cost of a Blu Ray release. You can't buy a $10 copy of Avengers or a $500 copy. The comparison isn't valid.

Hollywood gets hammered by pirating because its pricing model is ridiculous.

[Coys1882]

I'm curious how they handle downloading shows that aren't available in Canada. For instance every weekend I download Match of the Day and Match of the Day 2. I would gladly pay for the channel that broadcast this show - no one does. Am I breaking the law? What about if I'm a subscriber to HBO but download Boardwalk Empire? I've paid for it - I could have watched it live or PVRd it but downloaded it instead. Is that illegal?

[Daradon]

Originally Posted by Coys1882

I'm curious how they handle downloading shows that aren't available in Canada. For instance every weekend I download Match of the Day and Match of the Day 2. I would gladly pay for the channel that broadcast this show - no one does. Am I breaking the law? What about if I'm a subscriber to HBO but download Boardwalk Empire? I've paid for it - I could have watched it live or PVRd it but downloaded it instead. Is that illegal?

I think both are illegal because they didn't refine (add, whatever) the fair use clause. And those are some of the real problems with the legislation.

EDIT: But I'll let Delgar say for sure.

[handgroen]

intellectual property does not exist. songs, music, movies, and visual art are all in the public domain. although this undermines artists of every kind it is the unavoidable and ultimately beneficial right afforded to all of us, artist, consumer, or otherwise.

[Caged Great]

Originally Posted by corporatejay

You should walk into Holt Renfrew and steal a Burberry Wallet......$500 for a wallet? Lick my balls, Burberry.

Well, you see, there is a difference. With a tangible object, you can make a determination prior to purchase whether you want the object or not.

With movies and such, if you've not had any exposure to it, it's like having a product is behind the counter and you can't look at it to see whether or not you'd like to buy it or not. Some people don't want to waste money if they get a lemon (say like buying Prometheus), but there is no current way for them to fully make available all the inventory that they wish to sell.

If they remedied that, then the shoplifting as you put it would decrease as most people do not like doing things that are not above board.

I certainly would not have downloaded in the past if there was something legal and easily available.

[SebC]

Originally Posted by corporatejay

You should walk into Holt Renfrew and steal a Burberry Wallet......$500 for a wallet? Lick my balls, Burberry.

If you steal a wallet, somebody else lost a wallet. If you copy a file, somebody else increased their seed ratio.

[psyang]

Originally Posted by SebC

If you steal a wallet, somebody else lost a wallet. If you copy a file, somebody else increased their seed ratio.

This is the major differentiator. Suppose you had a super-high-tech 3d printer from the future, and only had to scan the wallet before it produced an exact duplicate for you. You pay for the materials only. Is that stealing?

[Itse]

Calling piracy stealing is closer to saying "making your own beer is stealing" than it is to truth.

This has nothing to do with whether or not it should be a crime, but if it is a crime, it's something else than stealing.

Other than that, the piracy war is like the War on Drugs all over. There is no way to stop people from copying illegally, except by not making it illegal. It's completely pointless to argue over morals, when it's clear that people in the millions are just going to do it anyway. All the piracy wars is doing is destroying any moral high ground the intellectual property holders might have otherwise had.

Even North Korea has piracy, and they send you and possibly your whole family to work camps to die for that "crime". There is literally no punishment harsh enough.

In the end this will once again just mean that a lot of people will have their lives ruined for essentially nothing. (For example in Finland a pretty typical teenager recently was ordered to pay 400.000€ in damages. That person will never have a reason to work (legally anyways), and will never pay it. A lot of good that sentence did.)

And some people will have made lots of money on the business of ruining other people's lives. And that's it. This will have no impact on copying for personal use, aka "internet piracy".

[gargamel]

Originally Posted by SebC

If you steal a wallet, somebody else lost a wallet. If you copy a file, somebody else increased their seed ratio.

Originally Posted by Caged Great

With a tangible object, you can make a determination prior to purchase whether you want the object or not.

With movies and such, if you've not had any exposure to it, it's like having a product is behind the counter and you can't look at it to see whether or not you'd like to buy it or not. Some people don't want to waste money if they get a lemon...

By that reasoning, it's acceptable to sneak into a Flames game without a ticket, find an empty seat to watch the game, then send the owners some cash if the team wins. After all, nobody else is losing a ticket and you wouldn't have been able to determine in advance if the team would put in a good effort.

I think the only reason why that would be seen differently is that our generation has become accustomed to stealing movies and music, whereas we've never gotten out of the habit of paying for sports tickets.

[Itse]

Originally Posted by gargamel

I think the only reason why that would be seen differently is that our generation has become accustomed to stealing movies and music, whereas we've never gotten out of the habit of paying for sports tickets.

Again, not stealing. If something is not missing from where it was before, nothing was stolen. It's the law.

Second, not even close to a valid comparison. A more apt comparison was if you went to see some sport you had never heard of, which might or not be hockey, and it might or might not be of NHL quality. If you wouldn't know if it was NHL hockey or amateur syncronized swimming, surely you would at least like a sample before paying?

Also, you're comparing a live experience with a digital one. Listening to an album is like watching it on TV, and we do the latter for free all the time. (Well, those who actually still watch TV.)

Also, Flames hockey is generally accepted as the best hockey in town and it's an old, established brand. It's like a new Iron Maiden album, you pretty much know what you're getting.

I could go on. Just a bad comparison.

[Caged Great]

Originally Posted by gargamel

By that reasoning, it's acceptable to sneak into a Flames game without a ticket, find an empty seat to watch the game, then send the owners some cash if the team wins. After all, nobody else is losing a ticket and you wouldn't have been able to determine in advance if the team would put in a good effort.

I think the only reason why that would be seen differently is that our generation has become accustomed to stealing movies and music, whereas we've never gotten out of the habit of paying for sports tickets.

The problem is that this issue has broken through the 100th monkey barrier. Millions and Millions of people will download regardless of what the consequences are. The genie is out of the bottle. There are two ways that you can approach the parameters of the new paradigm. One, you can try to punish the millions of ner do wells, which won't stop the issue at all and will serve nothing other than proving that you are colossal dicks. Or shape your business model to be increasingly fair and ubiquitous as possible. Piracy even then would still happen, but you would have more customers than you otherwise would, which would increase your bottom line at the end of the day.

It's actually evolved beyond a moral issue of theft and intellectual rights. It's about a group (RIAA) that are fighting the fact that people want content that fits easily into their lives instead of trying to provide that content in exactly the manner that was fitting in 1930.

[nfotiu]

Originally Posted by SebC

If you steal a wallet, somebody else lost a wallet. If you copy a file, somebody else increased their seed ratio.

I don't see it as that much of a difference, especially on a macro level. The material and labor in something like a designer wallet might only be 5 dollars. So if you took the wallet and left 5 bucks on the counter would it be the same? Anyway it ends up hurting the same people anyway, the paying customers mostly. Most stores price losses into their margins, the same as tv and movies are priced factoring in the freeloaders.

If all the people currently pirating were all of a sudden shut out, the potential market would increase, competition would increase, and pricing models would probably become more attractive.

It's one thing if someone goes to the theater occasionally, has a big fat cable bill, buys and rents some Blu rays, and supplements that with some illegal downloads. They are still sending Hollywood plenty of dough that ends up in the same place anyway.

The case that annoys me the most these days is premium cable shows. They are putting out some of the best tv ever these days, and there is a large community that strictly downloads it for free and thinks it's okay. These shows make money in one way only and that is by subscription fees. I have no issue paying these fees as they are completely a la carte add ons to my cable bill. But I feel like I went out to an expensive restaurant with a bunch of cheap #######s who enjoyed their food, but when the bill came they all walked out and stuck me with it.

If everyone thought like that, the prices would keep rising until no one paid anymore and the shows eventually stopped being made.

So yeah, I have no issues with cracking down on the leaches illegally downloading content they think they are entitled to, while the rest of us continue to pay for the entertainment you are enjoying.

[gargamel]

Originally Posted by Itse

Again, not stealing. If something is not missing from where it was before, nothing was stolen. It's the law.

Second, not even close to a valid comparison. A more apt comparison was if you went to see some sport you had never heard of, which might or not be hockey, and it might or might not be of NHL quality. If you wouldn't know if it was NHL hockey or amateur syncronized swimming, surely you would at least like a sample before paying?

Also, you're comparing a live experience with a digital one. Listening to an album is like watching it on TV, and we do the latter for free all the time. (Well, those who actually still watch TV.)

Also, Flames hockey is generally accepted as the best hockey in town and it's an old, established brand. It's like a new Iron Maiden album, you pretty much know what you're getting.

I could go on. Just a bad comparison.

I'm not sure that I buy your distinctions, but, if you think live entertainment and established brands are different, replace "Flames game" with "movie theater" in my previous example. Why is movie hopping (which is "theft of services," at least in some jurisdictions) less socially acceptable than illegally downloading movies? I really think it just comes down to what we've gotten accustomed to.

I do agree with you, though, that going after the end users is a pointless endeavor.

[Erick Estrada]

Originally Posted by nik-

hollywood gets hammered by pirating because its pricing model is ridiculous.

There is absolutely no excuse for stealing anything. Period! Pirating cannot be justified in any manner because it's theft. Whether or not you agree with hollywood's pricing has absolutely nothing to do with the fact you are illegally gaining access to their products without paying for it.

[Aleks]

Originally Posted by nfotiu

I don't see it as that much of a difference, especially on a macro level. The material and labor in something like a designer wallet might only be 5 dollars. So if you took the wallet and left 5 bucks on the counter would it be the same? Anyway it ends up hurting the same people anyway, the paying customers mostly. Most stores price losses into their margins, the same as tv and movies are priced factoring in the freeloaders.

If all the people currently pirating were all of a sudden shut out, the potential market would increase, competition would increase, and pricing models would probably become more attractive.

It's one thing if someone goes to the theater occasionally, has a big fat cable bill, buys and rents some Blu rays, and supplements that with some illegal downloads. They are still sending Hollywood plenty of dough that ends up in the same place anyway.

The case that annoys me the most these days is premium cable shows. They are putting out some of the best tv ever these days, and there is a large community that strictly downloads it for free and thinks it's okay. These shows make money in one way only and that is by subscription fees. I have no issue paying these fees as they are completely a la carte add ons to my cable bill. But I feel like I went out to an expensive restaurant with a bunch of cheap #######s who enjoyed their food, but when the bill came they all walked out and stuck me with it.

If everyone thought like that, the prices would keep rising until no one paid anymore and the shows eventually stopped being made.

So yeah, I have no issues with cracking down on the leaches illegally downloading content they think they are entitled to, while the rest of us continue to pay for the entertainment you are enjoying.

I'm sorry, but you are blind, or oblivious and delusional if you believe those corporations are going to price things more attractively if pirating were to stop.

[cDnStealth]

Originally Posted by nfotiu

If all the people currently pirating were all of a sudden shut out, the potential market would increase, competition would increase, and pricing models would probably become more attractive.

It's one thing if someone goes to the theater occasionally, has a big fat cable bill, buys and rents some Blu rays, and supplements that with some illegal downloads. They are still sending Hollywood plenty of dough that ends up in the same place anyway.

Wrong. If these companies were so adamant about ending piracy (which is impossible) you'd see competetive pricing models right now. You're also assuming (wrongly) that all the people who are illegally downloading media would pay money for what they're downloading if they were cut off.

The problem is that most people are downloading these shows / movies / music because they are expensive (relatively speaking) and something they probably wouldn't have bought anyway. So if you make it illegal to download a movie, rather than pay to watch it they'll simply skip over it. At least when someone downloads something there is the potential that they'll enjoy it and want to go out and buy it.

I'll take a real world example of how to combat piracy in the digital space. Steam. Steam is a digital distributor of video games. A new video game generally retails at around $50-$60. Steam (and a variety of other distributors now) routinely have sales that range from 25%-75% off games in their catalogues. You can pick up a new game 3 months after release for $25-$30. 6 months to a year, you can pay $5-$15 for that game. I wouldn't even consider pirating a video game because Steam's business model is so damn good. Not only that but I am way more likely to take a risk buying something I am only moderately interested in when the price is so low. I still pay $60 for certain games that I want right away and if the sales charts are anything to go by, so do many others.

I can get 40+ hours of entertainment from a video game for as low as $5. Now compare that to buying a movie. You can pay full price, $30+ for a bluray, for 2-3 hours of entertainment. Yes you can get a movie on sale but there never seems to be any method as to what goes on sale and when. For instance, if I walk into a Futureshop today looking to buy the Back to the Future collection on Bluray I would bet that it is still $50 and it was released in 2010. Why are they not trying to compete for my entertainment dollars?

Full disclosure, I love movies. I have hundreds of DVDs and Blurays and I probably see a movie in the theatre once a week. The only thing I really download are episodes of TV shows and I pay for cable anyway.