Major ISPs to institute a 6-strike copyright deterrent plan

Thank You!!!! This x100000000000000000000

 

I always get a kick out of people trying to measure digital media as the economic equivalent of physical media. It isn't.

I will only buy a DVD if I think I will watch it multiple times or it's cheap enough to not matter. So I've paid an average of $5 for any DVD I own. Even then, I regret purchasing most of them.

So the max value for me of a DVD is $5. Now consider that most of these were probably used DVDs at that price point. None of any used product purchase price goes back to the studios.

So let's take the worst case scenario - I bought it new for $10. That might represent 10% of my collection, so the average studio income from one of my DVDs is $1. Of course, you have to take the store's profit out of that, so let's call that 50%. Now we are at 50 cents.

$10 x 10% x 50% = 50 cents, right.

So you might want to make the case that something I downloaded removed 50 cents of profit from the studio. But you'd still be wrong. You are assuming that if I didn't have the option of purchasing it, I would have bought it. Wrong again.

I've got other stuff to do. I could watch sports, watch live tv, or watch recorded tv. So let's give it an extremely high number of saying 1 out of 10 things I download I would purchase given a reasonable option to do so. I hope I'm not straining your math skills when I tell you it takes the value down to 5 cents.

So no, I don't feel particularly guilty nor do I feel like I'm taking food out of someone's mouth when I download something.

If you want, I can make the very valid case that if I download a series and it's particularly good, I am more likely to watch content from that provider in the future - offsetting by far the 5 cent economic loss posted earlier.

Even better, if I download a previous episode or season of a tv series, I am now more likely to watch that show live or on hulu as I was able to catch up. TV networks recognize this, which is why you are likely to be able to watch recent previous shows on their websites.

To sum up, studios are chasing extremely small amounts of money. If they want to do a better job of monetization, they should offer cheap digital content on iTunes. They could probably even get away with some commercial embedding if they push their luck or make it seamless enough.

Frankly, I resent the bullying and scare tactics where a huge faceless entity (RIAA) tries to take what amounts to pennies for them from defenseless citizens. Our courts and judges need to stand up for the commonfolk and stop this abusive extension of copyright law. The government joining forces with the media corporations is just showing us who they actually work for.

 

You wouldn't download a car would you?

 

I don't pirate anything Hollywood craps out. That won't keep my ISP from snooping on me, however, thanks to a political system which is custom made for corporate greed. Now, I'm treated like a criminal, though I've done no wrong. It's the same with video games, and how the DRM schemes make gamers miserable. The people getting boned are the ones playing by the rules.

 

eh, i dont really care, no one wants to seed Big Booty Bash 2 anyway...

 

What I wonder is how the current courts and congress would act on previous copyright issues.

I wasnt even alive for this but the music companies sued and argued that recording music off of the radio should be illegal. Or later they argued that recording on VHS/Betamax was illegal as well. In both cases the courts ruled that individuals had a right to record.

But seeing how government coddles companies today (and with our current supreme court), I wouldnt be so sure how they'd rule.

 

Either lower the price for downloaded games or say hello to more and more rounds of piracy.

The cost to the manufacturer for digital media is WAYYYY less than the costs incurred for physical media. Their own fault. Businesses love the free market; well hello this is the invisible hand speaking. Lower your prices reasonably.

They hate government regulation... unless it benefits them.

 

I'm one of those who buys the movie or TV show on Blu Ray after a 'free trial' period. I'll watch up to 30 minutes of a 2-hour movie to decide if it's worth finishing. I quickly delete it if it's a mediocre movie.

Since the last 10 years, almost every movie that I've decided to finish watching has been worth buying on DVD or Blu Ray to watch multiple times in my home theater with friends and family i.e. Lost in Translation, No Country for Old Men, etc.

 

I'm always amazed at the lengths people will go to defend piracy. I don't work in any type of field that loses money to piracy, but, I just wish people that download tons of stuff would admit they are greedy bastards. There's no excuse other than you're a cheap *******. Don't try to justify it, don't try to rationalize it, don't try to pretend it's legal. Just admit you're stealing and move on.

 

I'm still good with my approach of

- Movies, mostly "off limits" - Music, it depends - Pron, as FREE as I can POSSIBLY get it.

Movies, mainstream theater released, & lots of premiere TV station shows. Mostly I just leave them alone. I've always paid for single view movies, internet hasnt made me too entitled to stop doing that. Its much more riskier messing with those. I fall under that category of "Probably download cuz I'da NEVER PAID for it in the first place, some crappy movie I watched on cable 17 years ago".

Music, I'll "record" Youtube into mp3 like its a "tape". Or will hit up Spotify and services like that when I can. And will throw a little occassional "support the arts" patronage

If they would allow 100% EASY ANONYMOUS payment systems instead of needing your damn REAL social security #s and address, I'd do a lot more micro-payments from an allotted pool of expendable income.

But since almost everything online has to have your personal info in it, I don't want to be tracked by my ISP AND by some 3rd party companies. Sorry, I'm just that stubborn and self serving about it.

 

i am not a defender of piracy but there are some obvious positives. I have seen them first hand having worked overseas in an environment where piracy is the norm.

- speed of reiteration and evolution. everything's copied and pirated -> stuff evolves much faster. forces products and services to constantly evolve and find new models (in a sense, i would say piracy and open source is the fastest road to creating a society less dependent on capitalism). this is pretty much why apps are evolving so fast now.

- equal opportunity. poor/disadvantaged people could pick up something like photoshop and get freelance work. windows/office used to be like USD 500+. Not everyone can afford that. for the majority of cases, people who deserve money are getting pinched out of it, but at times, piracy gives the populace a chance to get back at oligopolies who are in a good position to hike prices on consumers (sometimes I think this would be a good change to cable tv/phone services - illegal satellite dishes are in a sense, piraters).

- equality of signal and value. go back to the days when nothing is pirated. when you hear a song, it's usually what the record label wants to push and the consumer generates revenue for them somehow, usually just in the form of an ad. Now imagine if all songs are perfectly and equally accessible. you pay that same tax, but willingly for the process of unrestricted search. songs that become the most popular do so in a more pure democratic way, rather than a how record labels want to shape their market

anyways, just playing some devil's advocate

 

Free p0rn is a god given right guaranteed by our Constitution.

 

It seems the gaming studios are adjusting to piracy, in what I consider a good way. More and more gamers are looking for online play instead of single player action. This is significant for a couple reasons. You can't play pirated games online. (for the most part).
Second, when studios put more effort into creating the longevity of my purchased game play, im more likely to buy the product. Who wants to spend $60 for a crappy 8 hour single player campaign mode and lame online play?

Steam has furthered the gaming community by storing all my games in the cloud. No longer do I need to worry about losing or damaging my discs or losing my keys.

 

Like another poster said, its like trying to put the mustard back in the bottle. Not enough people will be guilted and shamed into buying things. The LOLcat's already out the bag.

The only thing that can be done to stop it completely is some extreme draconian legislations. Which might can make it worse on everyone's OVERALL freedoms, in the name of "ethical" purchasing.

In the early dotcom era, lots of companies were making annoying popups and browser hijacks and all sorts of questional "push" marketing. And it wasnt just a couple rogue business. BIG companies like AOL INTENTIONALLY screwed people doing things like not honoring payment cancellations, cashing in without qualms about it.

Not to mention all the stealing of personal info lots of companies were doing at the time. And all the FAIR payments to p*rn companies who ended up being REALLY sleezy (no surprise there). THAT was the time for businesses to be ETHICAL themselves. But people remembered that kind of crap. And when they all got punched back in the nuts the p2p way, they all cried to Daddy Fed to protect them.

Of course it shouldnt mean you take out your AOL frustrations on non-related places like indie music and book publishers. But to act like its ALL been the consumers who've been less than noble is just not truthful. Its too bad there's too much mistrust on both sides, but its how it is. Yes companies are tired of regulations, taxes and having to play by rules when consumers DON'T, and they SHOULD BE pissed about that. But digital media is just CHEAPER media, nothing can be done about that.

 

Yes. This.
I'd like to think its forcing their hand and ensuring that they actually go out of their way to make a worthwhile product.

Then again there are companies like EA who just go Draconian on us and harm the player base as a whole.

 

Do you feel guilty when you look up a Thomas Keller, John Besh recipe and use it?
Is that not their property that they worked for and made them who they are?
If you didn't buy ad hoc then you can't use the recipe, am I right?

Or is that just consider not IP?
Just wondering where some folks will draw the line...

 

So..... does this mean one can't watch, without obtaining a strike, Rockets games from the Firstrow website??????

 

It's the only type ever passed.

 

Not sure if srs or stupid.

It's not in the Constitution. I just did a search to verify.

It's in the Bible. The Book of LULZ 10:32: "And God said, let thy p*rn flow like the waters of Schlitterbahn."

 

If you steal p*rn, might as well steal movies and music.

The only difference is the level of organized resistance.

The level of local innovation and creativity is pretty low bar in places where piracy and IP theft are high. Where's the incentive of making anything good if someone is gonna rip off your ideas and take credit for it? On the flipside, complain all you want about Western pop music but if your neighbors are getting that for free, you'd have to up your own game to hope for some mindshare.

I mean, our IP laws are pretty twisted, but they do offer some guarantees to right holders. In that process, our mass produced culture flows down to places where countries don't have strong protections.

So you can't use those countries you've been in as a dominant model.