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Comments on news posted 2014-01-07 11:22:51: The entertainment industry and ISP joint "Copyright Alert System" (aka "six strikes) has had little to no impact on piracy statistics, judging from a preliminary look at popular BitTorrent website traffic levels. ..

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ITALIAN926
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Re: Ug...

Yes, because everything in life should be free.
ITALIAN926

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Re: Draconian Caps Next

It is theft, and if you worked in the entertainment industry, you would agree. Now go infringe on something you would have paid for otherwise.

El Quintron
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said by ITALIAN926:

It is theft, and if you worked in the entertainment industry, you would agree.

I have worked in the entertainment industry in both independent and corporate productions, which is why I have a more nuanced view of the subject matter. Do you have anything useful to say other than "I'm butthurt because the pirates stole my cookies?"
El Quintron

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Re: Ug...

Meh, I think most of us who've worked on the ground floor of the entertainment industry (eg: aspiring film-makers, PAs, grips, ADs etc.) know that piracy can be both good and bad.

Where most of this stuff gets hashed out though is in a boardroom packed with shareholders and executives who think that if they cut piracy by X then shares and dividends are going to go up by Y, which is very rarely the case.

Can piracy help promote an independent production through word of mouth? Hell yes. Does it risk being more pirated than bought? Also a possibility, one that as an indie I wouldn't like to contemplate.

TechyDad
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Piracy definitely has a cost on the item being pirated. Part of the problem, though, is that those folks in the board room trying to come up with ways to reduce piracy attempt scare tactics like claiming that they've lost $X where X is a ridiculously large number.

If it stopped there, it'd be laughable but harmless, but they use that figure to convince politicians that new draconian laws need to be passed protecting their industry (though most likely the big players more than the indie players) against those pirates.

When the new draconian laws don't result in a ridiculously-large increase in profits, they blame piracy again and try getting more laws passed. It has become a bogeyman for the industry to sow fear of and a scapegoat to blame all of their problems on.

Is it wrong to pirate works? Yes. However, it's a fact of life and the industry needs to learn how to win customers back, not how to tighten their iron fist even more in the vain hope that this will make piracy will stop when all similar actions haven't helped.
TechyDad

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I don't think anybody has said everything in life should be free. I'd even agree that piracy is wrong. The fact remains that piracy exists, though. There will always be a subset of people who pirate works. Even if you offered movies in DRM-free formats for a nickle each, they'd pirate while claiming they'll only buy it they were a penny. This is a minority of people who pirate, though, and should be simply ignored. They'll never be customers and nothing you do will ever win them over.

The rest of the people can be won over if you offer your product at a fair price with as few restrictions as possible. For example, if you keep your popular TV show on a premium cable channel and not give any alternative method of watching it, many people will pirate it. Put it on Amazon Video on Demand or Netflix, though, and people will pay money to be able to watch it instead of pirating it. This is how you compete against piracy: By increasing the "how" and "where" you can watch, not only by decreasing the "how much" you pay to watch.
dra6o0n
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said by ITALIAN926:

Yes, because everything in life should be free.

Because everything in the life IS free, it's just that some people can protect what's theirs and some cannot.

Your life is free for anyone to take it, your house is free for any kids who feels like egging it, your livelihood is free to be utterly smashed and destroyed by any sort of natural disasters.
dra6o0n

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Piracy doesn't take money out of the actors, artists, and other roles in the entertainment business's pay. They'll always be paid because thats the contract they signed.
It's the fat cats that don't many any 'additional' revenues due to piracy, the people at the higher levels of hierarchy who uses other people in order to make money.

tshirt
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said by El Quintron:

Except that in this case no physical good is taken,

It is still their product, and if unused/not paid for when used the owner is still out funds due for it's use.
As I said it is legit not to use the product and the business can adjust their business size to meet PAYING customer demand.
I didn't use the word theft, because I don't want the whole semantics battle, but the effect is similar.
dra6o0n
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You do know that people can refuse to pay their credit cards, then stop relying on them and the bank, and all they get is a bad credit rating. Then they wait out 5 years by not using any credit cards and voila, getting a credit card again.

So with that in comparison to piracy, people can refuse to buy something and turn to something else. It's a choice. And they'll do it to spite you if they wanted to.

ITALIAN926
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Sure you have.

El Quintron
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Re: Ug...

said by TechyDad:

Is it wrong to pirate works? Yes. However, it's a fact of life and the industry needs to learn how to win customers back, not how to tighten their iron fist even more in the vain hope that this will make piracy will stop when all similar actions haven't helped.

I think piracy is a market response to a distorted market. The Oatmeal comic re: Game of Thrones is a perfect example of it. Netflix, Amazon VoD are great examples of effective ways to answer that dilemma.

Now it's worth mentioning that HBO is a special case and won't ever be on any type of VoD any time soon, reason being that they've admitted that most of their money comes from being bundled with other channels and not subs directly. It also explains why they're fairly lenient toward piracy as well.

The tide will change slowly, when the Biz realizes that pirates are in most cases their biggest customers as well they'll start moving in the right direction.
El Quintron

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said by tshirt:

As I said it is legit not to use the product and the business can adjust their business size to meet PAYING customer demand.

Most piracy is due to market distortion, and lack of availability. The real question you want to ask yourself is what percentage of pirates would pay, and under what circumstances.

I'll give you a real world example:

My friend was working and travelling and wanted to purchase Breaking Bad legitimately due to staying a friends houses, and not wanting to use other people's connections for piracy.

In Canada his only option was iTunes and he was using an Ubuntu laptop, after two missed episodes due to trying to get it to work with WINE he cancelled his season pass, renewed his Usenet sub and that was that.
El Quintron

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Five years, what about you?

ITALIAN926
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Re: Ug...

quote:
The tide will change slowly, when the Biz realizes that pirates are in most cases their biggest customers as well they'll start moving in the right direction.
I almost fell off my chair just now. So if every single person on the planet used Torrents, there would be MORE money flowing into the industry. Interesting !

El Quintron
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Most people who pirate have huge legal libraries,

If you have a 10k+ mp3s chances are you also have a crates of Vinyl, CDs and probably tapes as well (although I wouldn't admit to that publicly these days.) It's not like you're going to know what to pirate if you haven't invested huge amounts of time and money into music and movies already.
BiggA
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Exactly. The movie studios are doing it to themselves with outdated models of not releasing to rental and BD when it comes out in the theater, HBO is doing it by bundling to cable, etc, etc. VPN FTW.

tshirt
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Re: Draconian Caps Next

said by El Quintron:

Most piracy is due to market distortion, and lack of availability.

Or a feeling of entitlement/self-importance.
said by El Quintron:

In Canada his only option was iTunes and he was using an Ubuntu laptop,

So it wasn't "UNAVAILABLE" it was his crappy hardware/poor choice of O/S?

Again I question his RIGHT to the show unpaid for.
said by El Quintron:

The real question you want to ask yourself is what percentage of pirates would pay, and under what circumstances.

consider that pirates are a very small percentage of the world audience and that even if 50% paid for it later(I'm guessing closer to 3%) it's not a drop in the bucket compared to legit user income which is what they are working so hard to protect.

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said by tshirt:

So it wasn't "UNAVAILABLE" it was his crappy hardware/poor choice of O/S?

Again I question his RIGHT to the show unpaid for.

Speaking of entitlement... your comment typifies industry thinking and why piracy continues to be a viable option for many.

iTunes IMO is a poor choice of distribution method, and if you want to make an apples to oranges comparison, iTunes is a poorer distribution system than Ubuntu is an OS.

Now that I have that off my chest, providing the episodes via some type of streaming service would be OS-neutral and done the job just as adequately, and well created a paying customer in the process, but oh well.

EQ
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said by BiggA:

HBO is doing it by bundling to cable, etc, etc. VPN FTW.

Unfortunately for those of us who would like to get HBO fare on via digital distribution and those of us who would like to sub to HBO a-la-carte it won't happen according to HBO, specifically because the lion's share of HBO's income, comes from other channels paying it to be bundled along, and not from people subbing to HBO.

EQ

NormanS
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said by ITALIAN926:

So if every single person on the planet used Torrents, there would be MORE money flowing into the industry.

I don't see it going that far. Torrenting isn't the only way to pirate IP. Visit DSLR's own "Filesharing Software" forum to see that. And it is not simple "plug'n'play" to pirate shows.

I did my share of pirating anime when few American companies were obtaining rights to distribute anime shows in the U.S. But the ease of piracy changed, as well as the availability of translated anime; now most is quickly picked up and distributed through legitimate pay channels (in contrast with six years ago), while there is a learning curve to continued piracy that I don't have time to fuss with. I have not pirated a single show, or song in three years; and not out of fear of being caught.

When the price is right, the ease of paying beats the complexity of pirating.

qe_g_dfg_f
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said by openbox9:

Isn't the ability to make your own choices good?

Absolutely. I am on-board 100%. And that's exactly why I don't watch and listen to all that bullshit called mainstream "entertainment" and mainstream "news". By choice, by my own choice. It's very good that so far crap-makers have no right to force you to pay for and watch their bullshit "works".

El Quintron
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Re: Ug...

said by NormanS:

When the price is right, the ease of paying beats the complexity of pirating.

Which is what most fans, who happen to be pirates in a lot of cases have been saying all along.

Steam realized this a long time ago, and most former game pirates would rather give their money to Steam than bother with pirating a game.

Same with music and TV series that don't launch in North America, do I want to scour the bowels of file sharing networks of dubious reputation? Hell no, just give me an easy way to get it, legally and get on with it.

Simon707
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»www.amazon.com/Year-Zero ··· 45534514

TechyDad
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I've read that book and loved it. Fantastic tale that somehow takes the otherwise dry subject of copyright infringement and makes it hilarious (partly by adding aliens into the mix).
BiggA
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HUH? What other channels bundling? It comes from cable subscribers who also subscribe to HBO. But by not offering a subscription without cable or a la carte offerings, they are causing piracy. They have, however, responded to it well, even saying they take the high piracy level of Game of Thrones as a compliment, unlike the crybaby movie industry. I don't have a problem if they choose to wall off their content, but when they do they should expect and tolerate piracy without having a hissy fit. If they decide they are making more money with their current deals in spite of piracy, then that's a business choice. They shouldn't be going around suing people or making "strike" systems or buying off Congress to make ridiculous laws like the DMCA.

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said by BiggA:

But by not offering a subscription without cable or a la carte offerings, they are causing piracy. They have, however, responded to it well, even saying they take the high piracy level of Game of Thrones as a compliment, unlike the crybaby movie industry.

They're fine with their levels of piracy, because most of their cash comes from the likes of Cinemax paying them to be sold alongside. It works for HBO, by keeping them flush with cash for the time being but the plan may not work out so hot when PayTV in general starts to tank.
BiggA
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Pay TV in general isn't sinking. It has a lot of problems, namely absurdly high carriage fees, but it's not sinking. Something has to happen though, as the prices are out of control.

El Quintron
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said by BiggA:

Pay TV in general isn't sinking.

Not yet.
millerja01a
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Re: Draconian Caps Next

Take off your Braveheart facepaint and actually read what I said.

The market is slowly turning to piracy because the existing prices are too high. Pirating is a form of protest. As a lot of data shows, when content is available at a price the market likes, the market will pay for it.

The fact that cord cutting is increasing is a clear sign the market DOESN'T like the current pricing or choices and is responding with it's proverbial wallet.

This is a very slow collapse of the current pricing model.
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