How to end DVD copying

[artcomm]

This a comment about this article:

http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1103-828476.html

Simply sell DVD's at a reasonable price, like 5.99.

Milliones of copies will be sold. Instead of backing up in SVCD format, I would buy a 2nd. copy of those that are so special.

But they want to make too many people participate in a pie that doesn't have (can't be) that big. That's what makes the public go for illegal copies.

Today they probably print, let's say 100,000 copies of DVD's. They want to sell them at 15 dollars each. That's 1.5 million dollars total. A lot of them will be sold at much lower quantities. They end up making what 150,000 profit? If they're lucky.

Make 5,000,000 copies, and sell them at 5.99. You will sell 100% of the copies and make 1 dollar per copy. That's 5,000,000 in profit, a lot more than going the way of "sell a little make a lot..." That's greediness. Because of being greedy, the Inudstry is PROMOTING piracy and illegal copies.

The same thing happened to the CD industry.

Sooner than later the creators of music and movies will be able to do the whole thing by themselves. Then the prices will go down. A lot of people will have to find jobs, that's true. But the jobs given to them now are NON -PRODUCTIVE, artificial, not VALUE ADDING jobs. Society needs better than that.

Correct my numbers if you know better...

[Bugs Bunny]

>Simply sell DVD's at a reasonable price, like 5.99.

Bull. Piracy will always exist until the products are priced lower than what it costs to pirate. Since it costs about nothing to pirate (OK, say 25 cent/pence/pfennig/centi-euros for media cost), then stuff will have to be free before piracy stops. And not even then--considering time lags in product distribution to different regions of the world. China will always be a big pirater of Western IP products (even if they are free), since pirated goods will appear much faster than official goods.

>Milliones of copies will be sold. Instead of backing up in SVCD format, I would buy a 2nd. copy of those that are so special.

Really. <yawn> You should stop with this "I am God and I speak for the rest of the world" trip and wake up. Your numbers are simply pulled out of your ass. What you do is not representative of consumer behavior, other than your confusion of what is fact and what is opinion.

Yes, per the macro enconomic theory, there is a price point to maximize profit. However, you have no clue as to what that point is, and your "$5.99 is better" has no basis in fact. (I see you've fallen prey to the usual marketing gimmick of x.99 pricing--typical lobotomized suckers.)

>...That's greediness. Because of being greedy, the Inudstry is PROMOTING piracy and illegal copies.

Ah, it's the same old routine. "Piracy is somebody else's fault. They're the one being greedy, not me. I'm forced to pirate." yada yada yada. Dude, have some balls and account for your actions. If you pirate, look into the mirror and say to yourself, "I am a pirate because I want to. It's my choice, and I take full responsibility for my action." Go on, I dare you. You pussy.

>...Then the prices will go down. A lot of people will have to find jobs, that's true. But the jobs given to them now are NON -PRODUCTIVE, artificial, not VALUE ADDING jobs. Society needs better than that.

Oh, gak, please, anything but more moralizing about "better society"!

(As if a two-cent pirate like you would know anything about it..)

>Correct my numbers if you know better...

Why should I? You want to see me pull numbers out of my ass, too? Are we comparing asses then, ya?

[qthesnake]

hello.

Bugs! Man! don't be so hard! artcomm's ideas came from a good-intentioned feelings! no body write so long just to upset someone; why all the lowkicks?

yes, he is quite wrong in his theory, and he forgets that making 5,000,000 DVD's cost more then 100,000... but the global thought of actually lowering cost, even a little, is correct... i know the assholes in the indestry won't do it, but thats no reason to put him down...

just an idea... please think how powerful words are before writing such a reply...

artcomm: your a-better-world theory is a dream for us all, but i don't see it comeing in the near future.. keep the positive thinking and do what you can to make a differance!

have a great day guys!

Q.

[Ookami]

In short:

@artcomm

:rolleyes:

and

http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=14378

@Bugs

:D

and

don't waste your breath ;) .

@Ookami

Stop acting like someone who knows something.

Hehehe...

Cheers,

Ookie.

[kxy]

Every time I read Bugs Bunny's post, I couldn't stop laughing. This guy is awsome, he is not clowning it either, most of the time he got some good points.

I am looking forward to your next post. Keep it up!!!:D

[diji1]

Every time I read Bugs Bunny's post, I couldn't stop laughing. This guy is awsome

ditto me :D

[ChristianHJW]

I bought 3 DVDs in China, each 1 € 30 ( 9 Yuan ). Again, these are DVDs, no VCD/S-VCD's ! Single layer of course, all contain about 4 Gigs of data.

Titles :

- Vanilla Sky
- Lord of the Rings
- Harry Potter

All three of them are pirate copies, filmed from screen. I couldnt believe it when i checked them, because i didnt bye them on the streets but in a very normal, serious looking shop. The Chinese just dont care about copyrights it seems .... :D

Now here the sad part :

- Lord of the Rings was a complete fake. The movie was some stupid hercules saga with this long hair actor i know from German TV series
- Vanilla Sky was Chinese audio instead of english as given on the box, plus the chinese subtitles are filmed with the movie so i cant make them disappear
- picture quality is poor on all 3 of them

In the end, 4 € lost ..... but this i giving good indication what the production prices of a DVD including cover etc. could be like !!

[Doom9]

who knows.. maybe one DVD screeners will make it to China and the pirates will learn about ifo-edit.

[qthesnake]

theater filmed movies are the nightmare of every DivX downloader... it is so simple to duplicate DVD's (not that i support it :-)) into DVD's or DivX, yet some people just don't care about quality... i rather wait till the DVD is out and watch it in decent V/A then download a theater filmed rip that sound like my outhouse (kidding! i do have running water here!) and looks like my father's road side videos!

Doom9: how about translating this site to chinese and Japanesse? that way the piret indestry over there would at least have a better A/V quality.... ;-)

Q.

[sarahjh69]

It costs about 1$ or less to make the DVD for a full size run
(20,000+ and that includes the packaging)
If you search the net you will find Eastern European factories
the will do you a small run of 500 for $1500, you just send them
the master DVD (and they don't care what it is)
so who is ripping who off??????

[LotionBoy]

To reply to the idea of dropping DVD prices. First, read the thread that Ookami linked to, because my posts in there give some actual numbers on sales, prices, and profits margins. Realize that movie companies are gouging you for every penny they can. Then realize that movie companies have NO reason to lower DVD prices. DVD is the fastest growing consumer electronic. Ever. Who spends the most on DVDs? Not college kids who are probably responsible for a majority of piracy (a combination of free fast internet, with limited spending money and techinical know how being the reasons for that statement. Not saying that other people are not involved, but that the end products are probably most highly distributed among college kids). It is adults who have jobs and disposable income, who are not as interested in piracy because of the hassles involved with either ripping a DVD or downloading a Divx rip. In 5 years or so, when people of my generation are out of college and broadband becomes much more wide spread, and P2P networks make sharing files easy, then piracy will eat into DVD sales and prices may drop. But for now, movies companies have no reason to drop prices because people are willing to pay 30 dollars for a DVD.

LotionBoy

[Emp3r0r]

Heh, Bugs, you must have ahold of the good stuff, wish I could afford the nugs around here, if they legalized marajuana I'd have more money to spend on overpriced DVD's. heh, just kidding! :D

[Bugs Bunny]

Oh hey so solly thar Ookie fer shit'n on the playground. It was just getting on my nerves, all this "piracy is somebody else's fault" yuk-yuks, that I sorta went off on the poor bloke.. oh hell he probably deserved it. Funny he was talking about a better society, because I was thinking of the same thing. One of the reasons our society is in such a steaming pile of goo that it is now is because there is no personal accountability any more. It's just easier to blame it on somebody else.

"Hey it's not MY FAULT that I went on a shooting rampage in my high school and kill all those people! It's all that violence that's been drummed into me by society! Yeah, you know, all those Doom games! It's society's fault! And it's my parents' fault for not keeping watch over me! And it's my teachers' fault for my social alienation! BUT IT'S NEVER MY FAULT!! NEVER!!!"

I don't have a stand for or against piracy. I don't care if people pirate or not. What irks me, though, is stupid arguments, which comprise just about 100% of all the piracy arguments I've heard, from both sides. People quite simply don't know how to argue (in the debate sense of the word, not the yell-until-my-face-turns-blue sense), so they rationalize. They pass off opinions as facts. They don't know how to establish credibility, so they foist morality and ethics and fairness as their high ground, even when they don't have a noob's clue as to what those means.


Oh hey I'm still picking the nits outa my ass so I'm gonna field all ya "industry is evil" comments BUT NOT TO WORRY I'm gonna be NOICE.. I got my fluffy teddy bahr wid me and Im squeezin him and Im huggin him and Im poppin his eye sockets out...

Re: DVD is overpriced -- If I were the nitpicking kind, I'd ask "overpriced relative to what?" To VHS tapes? But DVDs are better quality, so it's not apples-to-apples comparison. To audio CDs? But DVDs are more than just music. Again, not comparable. So how are DVDs overpriced?

But let's cut to the chase and drop all the bullshit. Pricing, as anybody who ever bought anything would know, is a measure of supply and demand. If demand is high, price is high. If demand drops, then price drops. For an oligopoly (what the movie & music industries qualify as), then it would be different if the goods were essential items--staples like gas or food or utilities--but DVDs fall into the entertainment segment. Entertainment is discretionary spending, and there are reasonable substitutes, such as going out to dinner, sporting events, concerts, reading books, etc, in lieu of watching DVDs. So even for oligopolies, consumer demand is still elastic relative to price in this case, as consumers have alternatives.

All of the blokes citing "overpriced DVDs" have the fanciful notion that somehow price should be relative to cost. Even more amusing, they think that price should be relative to cost of producing the media (never mind all those other costs of distribution, marketing, film production, salaries, royalties, etc. ). Well, that may be true on Mars or in a communist system, but not under the capitalist system. The main determinant of price is always demand, not cost of production. This is especially true for non-tangible (IP) goods and services. So why do people think otherwise, in spite of all they know about the system? Because they're rationalizing. People always want stuff to be cheaper--hell, do you ever know of any consumer who say "gosh, this product is too cheap, I wish I can pay more for it"?

Re: "If DVDs were cheaper, then there'll be less piracy" -- This may be true, but it doesn't necessarily matter. If the main determinant of pricing is demand, then the decrease in piracy rate is only a factor if it materially impacts demand. Let's do an example. Say I'm selling widgets:

Cost = $1/widget, Price = $2/w, Demand = 1000 widgets, piracy = 30%.

So at $2 price, I'm making ((2-1) * 1000) - 30% = $700.

Let's say that if I lower my price to $1.50, demand will rise to 1200, and piracy will drop from 30% to 20%. Then I'll make,

((1.5-1) * 1200) - 20% = $480.

So, per the example above, a decrease in piracy doesn't necessarily mean an increase in profit, but can actually result in a decrease.

The thesis statement, moreover, assumes that piracy rate is elastic relative to price, which is not true, in my experience. Piracy is very inelastic to price of the pirated good, unless the price is dropped to nearly zero. In my observation, the rate of piracy is a function of the good's popularity, and not of the good's price. For empirical evidence, get onto any place where you can observe the warez flow. There you will see software of all sorts being pirated, from the $5 shareware utility to the $3,000 program. The software most in demand (and requested most often) are those most popular, which would be things like Windows OS or popular utilities, which aren't necessarily high in price.

The rationale for this is simple: To the pirate, price is irrelevant, since he's getting it for free anyway. Low or high price, it doesn't matter.


A last thought on this:

What you're seeing is simply a game of escalation. It has always been this way, and will always be. You have two sides of mutually dichotomous interests: one side wants to get as much profit as possible, the other wants to pay as least as possible (free, preferably, as we saw in the Napster case). This applies to all producers and consumers, not just the "evil" kind. There is no evil, no good, no fairness, no morality. It's a contest with two sides always trying to one-up the other. I've been through the DBase days with the LaserLok floppies and Central Point CopyIIPC, through the days of USR Courier HST modems ($400! and that was under the sysop deal!), and it's still the same scene--only the players and the copy protection changes. I never blame the industry, because in their shoes I'd probably do the exact same thing. They do what they have to do, and I do what I have to do. You can almost say that it's their job to come up with new protection schemes, and our job to work around them.

In the future, I anticipate that AV devices will be stuck with some SMDI crap, and we'll be tagged with some sort of hardware ID to access net products/services, just like what MS is doing now with XP. XP is cracked because it can function as a standalone. But with future Win revs that continually connect to the net, things will get more interesting. May be then Linux will get its billing as an essential alternative.

[Ookami]

@Bugs

I agree 100% with you! And I've acted several times in Doom9's forum in the same kinda agreesive way, because of such stupid arguments. After all, Doom9 is against piracy, and there are probably better board to post pro-piracy postings (especially, here you have a mod who has listened too much Rage against the machine and those left wing lyrics. Hehehe... ).

I agree especially with the quotes like "I had a bad childhood so it doesn't matter that I've killed a few people. I was hurt badly (I'M SENSIBLE!)..." or "Those greedy bastards (I'M NOT GREEDY!)! I must pirate, because the prices are too high..." or "I made it ma (NICE MOVIE!)! Top of the world"...

A last serious note, if people should finally start saying "I'm to blame for all of my actions", the world would probably not be prettier but at least more sincere.

Cheers,

Mijo.

[Kedirekin]

Excellent post Bugs Bunny. After the first few lines of rant, it's one of the most well thought out and rational assessments I've seen here.

I especially agree with the 'last thoughts'. Personally I want excalation (but not necessarily piracy); I wish everyone would stop buying DVDs at the current prices. I wonder how low the prices would drop if the entire planet refused to buy. I, of course, haven't stopped buying, because I alone won't make a difference, and I need my 'fix'.

I also wonder what will be the long term results of charging as much as the market will bear. Can an industry suffer from massive customer alienation? Will the entertainment industry undertake a marketing campaign to convince us that DVDs and CDs are a bargain at twice the price? (well, those of us who don't already think so, that is ;) ).

[artcomm]

Please, try not to be hostile and aggressive. That is: try not to sound THAT neurotic.

I own a collection of more than 110 ORIGINAL DVD 's. Of those, using the doom9 promoted, documented and helped upon utilities, I have made 27 copies, all of them of lower quality than the original DVD 's, even though the difference in quality can only be noticed by me of all those who get together to watch it at my house, using my INFOCUS projector, run by the 5-channel sound system.

The copies are so that my kids don't destroy the original DVD 's. First, it was to get rid of the macrovision stuff and make VHS copies, but I thought: “them kids have a right to better quality, there must be a better way to make better copies...” That's when I got involved in this SVCD process. For the real good titles, I still went and got them a second DVD copy for their playroom. I am a QUALITY freak, and I wouldn't EVER in my entire life buy one of those “pirate copies” described from screen projections. I don't want to even think about what those aberrations can look like.

By the way, most of what I learned to produce SVCD 's for was in order to put in that format several years of VHS and Video HI-8 stuff of family, work, etc.

I am a software writer myself, I have a piece circulating all over the world, and I know that only about 12% of the users have actually paid the 350 dollars that I used to ask for it. It costs me NOTHING for them to continue making copies of it, NOTHING. But it took me 8 months to develop and debug it. However, after I lowered its price from 350 to 100, the sales went up from 47 paid downloads monthly to more than 410, that's 41,000 in sales as opposed to around 16,000. It costs me exactly the same to sell 410 as it costs me to sell 47: NOTHING. But lowering the prices, DID INCREASE my income. I haven't measured piracy. Maybe it's still the same. I don't know. But my income DID increase. Maybe it's even HIGHER, because the counter reports about 7 times more downloads.

Listen to this, and don't TWIST my words and don't PREJUDGE what is in my mind by 4 misunderstood words: I AM NOT PRO PIRACY IN ANY WAY. However, anybody starting below 100 IQ can understand the fact that as the means of production become part of what the general public can afford, more and more products will be attractive to be EXPLOITED without paying for the “market capitalistic value”, a concept that I do understand as clearly as you, at least.

So give me a break, philosopher of the capitalistic system: I know exactly what you mean. And other than your NOT interpreting correctly my first intervention, I agree on your dissertation 100%, including the way people RATIONALIZE and do “wishful thinking” reasoning to prove lies. This was and is not my idea or my purpose.

There you have one posting where we are informed that they can make 1500 copies of an original DVD for 3 dollars per copy, and 20,000 for 1 dollar per copy.

“It costs about 1$ or less to make the DVD for a full size run
(20,000+ and that includes the packaging)
If you search the net you will find Eastern European factories
the will do you a small run of 500 for $1500, you just send them
the master DVD (and they don't care what it is)
so who is ripping who off??????”

If I were able to buy the DVD movies at 6 dollars each, my collection would not be 112, but perhaps 500 or 600, if there are that many titles... Yes, I would have spent 3,500 dollars or more instead of about 1700 that I have put in it. Who cares if piracy doesn't decrease? The important thing is that more of the profit yielding ones will be sold.

And by the way, your reasoning really is “taken off the top of your head”, more so than mine... especially when you say

“Let's say that if I lower my price to $1.50, demand will rise to 1200, and piracy will drop from 30% to 20%.”

That's exactly using your own figures to try to prove your own point, and, of course, making them as comfortable as your point may need...

The means to produce a DVD are high technology means, and the DVD themselves are digital information, the easiest type of product to reproduce, copy, make millions of at the lowest prices. Linux is the first example of the future to see by all of us: a powerful product with an intrinsic design to make it available to every individual who may be interested in it.

Get this, if you see the light, super debater: as the means of production become so sophisticated that less and less the intervention of labor is required, more and more products will be simply freely available. And that's not because of “morality” or “high ethics” or the triumph of the Brahma Kumari or the second visit of Jesus Christ, but simply because more and more useable stuff will be “sold” like the Linux operating system... and a lot of music, in case you hadn't noticed (mp3's that the authors simply WANT YOU TO HAVE without paying a dime for it).

I want to end this here. Time will prove who is right. Continue with your life, please.

[saVe]

i'm maybe a bit late to jump in...
but i want to say that i really don't like the way you're doing a so called "discussion". it's not for me to judge if artcomm is right in what he is saying, but the way you treat him is annoying! first it's what bugs bunny does: insulting is not a way of discussing, and the forum rules even prohibit this. then most of you guys even support bugs by telling him how funny he is! i personally think that making fun of someone who hasn't done anything mean is just the lowest stage of humor.
in some way i thought this forum was a place people could say their opinions without getting laughed at :(

[Trahald]

thank you bugs.. all these years i blamed bullies for kicking my ass every day for wearing plaid pants to school and blaming my parents for buying them for me i was kidding myself. I could have chosen to wear.. i guess my underwear to school or perhaps gotten a newspaper job and bought some more ... well probably just more plaid pants with newspaper boy money. whew.. now i can go on with my life. im gonna go call my therapist and tell him he doesnt have a clue. oh wait.. its probably my fault hes been telling me the wrong thing. so nm.. ill just keep going and pay him his overpriced fee.. errrrrr... no.. supply and demand, supply and demand... okay. his entirely reasonable fee that one in my former position (as i am cured now, er, that is i am aware that i was never ill) was willing to pay.


do you take check or money order?

[Taric25]

Bugs Bunny,

Usually I'd support your agruments, but once you insult or bring morality into the issue, I'm out.

w00kiee,

I 100% agree with you. I had same stupid problems when I was in school. I guess all those times that those blue Irish-Polish, Catholic, blue collar worker's children made fun of me because I was a Muslim and did not believe Jesus Christ was the son of God was COMPLETLY 100% NOT MY FAULT!!! (no offence to anyone of any denomonation reading this) I also had a coulselor who was a total idiot and had no idea what the hell he was talking about. But, enough about my childhood.

Everyone else,

Piracy will always exist. If there is a will, there is a way. The main point that I believe few see is that it is THEFT. Pirates must not feel so bad about stealing by downloading from the internet or ripping, but would feel really bad if they had to take it from the store.

If I own a DVD and copy it for own personal use, this is perfectly legal and I don't care what the DMCA says, they are violating Fair Use, world trade laws, and the Constitution of the United States of America.

However, if I am a Chinese pirate and I make 50,000 copies of Terminator 2 and sell them, it is just as bad as stealing 50,000 originals of the movie.

As for Napster and artists wanting you to download their songs, this is the very fine line between theft and personal use.

Originally posted by artcomm
Time will prove who is right.

Prudence, indeed, will prove to a candid world where morality lies in our government.

[Ookami]

Just to throw a few additional things into this interesting discussion:

As I haven't tested my IQ (altough I did one quick and dirty EQ test, ;) ) yet, I apologize to all those who have a higher IQ than me (those that have a lower IQ than me, are not smart enough to understand my broken english).

- Artcomm, please reread your original posting. If your first posting isn't pro-piracy then I don't know what a pro-piracy post should look like?! Artcomm, you are "being greedy," and you are "PROMOTING piracy and illegal copies"! Yes as you want more than _enter any numer that is > than 0$ here_ for your software, SHAME ON YOU! And after I read your praise on Linux,why didn't you make free GPL program instead of a 350$, one? BTW, I would really love it that you are right, that stupid capitalistic economists would get it (all the nice things you've wrote in your first posting). Then, we could all buy more DVD's, but I highly doubt that such a thing will ever happen.

- We should be VERY careful about the production costs! What do we want on a DVD? Only the movie, at a bitrate of ~4000? Do we want special features, subtitles, pictures, commentaries? If you are comparing the DVD production of "Me making DVD's on my 5000 % PC" and "Me making DVD's with a team of experts from various fields" then you are comparing apples and, you know.

-And, please, there is way more than production cost only (like Bugs and others already mentioned).

- w00kiee: ROTFL ...

- Some postings are somewhat reminding me of some musician albums... They begin with a song that talks about how "bad" the society is, we should change the world, blah, blah, blah. After that we have this nice "f*ck the school", "kill da police" songs :D .

> in some way i thought this forum was a place people could say their opinions without getting laughed at

This is a heated discussion. I don't see that Artcomm, is making a efford to be more sensible than Bugs Bunny, so I will not jump in. As long as we keep it on this level, I'm (as the mod) satisfied.

So, this is my last "non-mod" posting here. I do not think that any of us will change his/her opinion, so I don't see the point.

Cheers,

Mijo.

[Ookami]

@Taric25

And you're point is?

I was an "stinkiger Auslaender" in Germany, I was an "Nazi" in Croatia. I'm a "f*cking Dalmatian" in Zagreb... If someone wants to insult, hurt, or whatever, he'll always find ammunition. The catch is, not to let "them" hurt you...

But, it IS your fault if you start feeling sorry for yourself.
YOU ARE responsible for YOUR (and indirectly of "their") actions...

Can we get back to the original discussion, please? If someone want's to make a discussion of "it's their fault" or "i'm responsible for my actions", please open a new thread. THANKS!

Cheers,

Mijo "who, after all, did another posting with non-mod stuff in it" Rebic

[Bugs Bunny]

@Ookie

> Mijo.

Hey it is still OK to call ya Ookie right? I kinda like the sound of that.. Ookie.. it reminds me of the orangutan in the Squint Clint flicks.. OOK OOK hahah.. he was one cool ape..


@Kedirekin

>Personally I want excalation (but not necessarily piracy); I wish everyone would stop buying DVDs at the current prices. I wonder how low the prices would drop if the entire planet refused to buy. I, of course, haven't stopped buying, because I alone won't make a difference, and I need my 'fix'.

That's just it, you see. We as consumers always wish prices to be lower, but we have to get our 'fix'. How much we want to pay is different from how much we are willing to pay. The first is irrelevant, for it's human nature to want to pay the least and get the most. It's only the 2nd that's a factor.

A second thing that you see people do is that they over-generalize. They put themselves in focus, then they take that to be representative for everyone else in the world. Take, for instance, the term "overpriced." Overpriced means something that is priced beyond what a person is willing to pay. But the pricepoint a person is willing to pay varies quite a bit depending on his income. If you are poor, then a $20-30 DVD would be overpriced. If you have a decent job, then it is not. The evidence (for the US anyway) is that the current prices are "reasonable" for the majority of people, based on the stable demand. But the "DVDs are overpriced" advocates use it in the universal sense, where they actually mean "DVDs are overpriced for me." They then try to bridge the logic gap by a variety of false reasonings, as per the meanderings of the artcomm fellow.

Thirdly, piracy isn't a function of economics. High or low prices doesn't much affect it. I've pointed out one evidence in my above posting, and here I'll relate some more. These aren't meant to be in as an argument, for I don't have empirical evidence to support them. Anyway, I don't have the inclination to argue about it, even if I could.

People pirate simply because they can. If we equate piracy as theft, then we have to admit that for this kind of theft (IP theft), the repercussion is almost zero. Reconcile this with theft of almost any other kind. If you steal a car, or shoplift for an inconsequential item, the chance of getting caught is much higher, and the punishment more severe. IP piracy is without a doubt the safest kind of theft there is. Moreover, there is a cultural imprint that enables people to have a very cavalier attitude about piracy. Both Bill Gates and Steve Jobs were major pirates in their time (in addition to phreaking). And I can tell you from firsthand experience that people who work in the Microsoft campus here in Redmond have a very loose attitude toward copying software. The MS campus has a library that you can check out any software want. All you need to do is request it. You can also download any of the MS software without fees, as long as you know on what server it is on. Copying software/movies/music is endemic in our culture. We as a society don't think of IP in the same way that we do of other properties; we don't think of piracy as a crime. That is just the way it is.

People act in terms of risk-benefit. If risk is low, then the action is likely to be taken as long as there's benefit. Think of it as a balance. As an example, let's say that you can walk into a bank and take all the money you want w/o anybody knowing and with no chance of getting caught. A few may not do it because of their conscience, but I'll tell you that a large majority of people would commit to robbery, if there were no consequences. No risk + benefit = action. Even when the benefit is small, such as the copying of a software/movie that costs a trivial sum, people would still do it because risk = 0. A very obvious example is Napster. Everybody knows that the songs they get are copyrighted, and the price of an audio CD is well within the means of most everybody.

You see how the economic argument fails. When risk = 0, then it doesn't matter how small the benefit is, people will still pirate. If you lower the price (thereby lowering the benefit), it will still fail because it can't compete with zero risk. The answer then is that you have to raise the risks, and that's what the software/movie people are doing by going after the pirate groups. Still, changing the opinion of an entire society is a monumental task, and they've got a long road to hoe. To view it in a microcosm, simply assess the ineffectiveness of the anti-piracy measures taken. Yes, a major group was busted, but I still see the warez flow unimpeded. It barely slowed.

>I also wonder what will be the long term results of charging as much as the market will bear. Can an industry suffer from massive customer alienation? Will the entertainment industry undertake a marketing campaign to convince us that DVDs and CDs are a bargain at twice the price?

I'm not sure what you mean by long term results. That is how the system works, and it is a strength, not a flaw. Instead of thinking in the aggregate, make it simpler by bringing it down to the component level, the individual level. Ask: Would I always try to get the highest-paid job for my skills? Would I take a smaller wage so the company will produce lower-priced products? The answers, for most people, are: always, and never. And if this were to hold true for the individual person, then how can we expect companies to do anything other than try to maximize profits? For what are companies but a collection of individuals?

[Bugs Bunny]

>Please, try not to be hostile and aggressive. That is: try not to sound THAT neurotic.

Hah, funny! "Please don't be hostile and call me names, but do allow me to call you names." Hypocritical twit.

Alright, I'll tell you what. Seeing that you are at least attempting to exercise what few brain cells you have rather than miming some idiotic argument, then I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and will be civil and patient with you, at least for the duration of this reply. I've no doubt that it will do little good, but as you're trying, then I'm trying. No name-calling hereafter, eh?

>I own a collection of more than 110 ORIGINAL DVD 's...The copies are so that my kids don't destroy the original DVD 's...

This is nice to tell me about your background/motivation/etc, but it's irrelevant to the argument at hand, specifically to your claim ("How to stop DVD copying"). If you are attempting to establish credibility, then the irrelevance fails the attempt. OK, so you own 110 DVDs. Big deal. That doesn't make you more an expert or authority on the matter than anybody else.

>I am a software writer myself, I have a piece circulating all over the world, and I know that only about 12% of the users have actually paid the 350 dollars that I used to ask for it. It costs me NOTHING for them to continue making copies of it, NOTHING. But it took me 8 months to develop and debug it. However, after I lowered its price from 350 to 100, the sales went up from 47 paid downloads monthly to more than 410, that's 41,000 in sales as opposed to around 16,000. It costs me exactly the same to sell 410 as it costs me to sell 47: NOTHING. But lowering the prices, DID INCREASE my income. I haven't measured piracy.

All that this proves is that your initial pricepoint was not optimal to maximize revenue. As you said yourself, you have no idea how this affects piracy, so it is irrelevant to your claim (how to stop DVD copying, ergo, piracy). How do you know that the current DVD pricing isn't already optimal for maximized revenue?

>Listen to this, and don't TWIST my words and don't PREJUDGE what is in my mind by 4 misunderstood words: I AM NOT PRO PIRACY IN ANY WAY.

It doesn't matter if you are pro piracy or not. Heck, for that matter, I'm probably more pro piracy than you. What matters is your argument. You make a claim, but you've yet to show any evidence to support your claim. That is the gist of an argument: claim - support. We're not here to quibble about your moral character or how many DVDs you have or how your software business is doing.

>...as the means of production become part of what the general public can afford, more and more products will be attractive to be EXPLOITED without paying for the “market capitalistic value”, a concept that I do understand as clearly as you, at least.

The general public can afford the price of DVDs as it is now (for the US market, at least), based on demand. The means of production is one qualifier in the price equation, true, but again, demand is the main qualifier. Your pre-occupation with the "means of production" as a determinant of price undercuts your claim of understanding the system.

>There you have one posting where we are informed that they can make 1500 copies of an original DVD for 3 dollars per copy, and 20,000 for 1 dollar per copy...“It costs about 1$ or less to make the DVD for a full size run (20,000+ and that includes the packaging)...

Agree. Cost of physical media production is low, and overall cost gets lower with higher volume. Three points:

1) As already answered in my previous post, media cost is only the smallest cost in the entire cost structure. One can say that it is almost irrelevant in cost determination. There are many other costs which are much more substantial. Since we're talking about movies, then costs run into the millions to hundreds of millions just for the movie production. Then there are attendant marketing, distribution, royalty (yes, per unit) costs. You conveniently ignored all of these costs in your claim of "$5.99 is a reasonable price." It's call selective reasoning: you see what you wanted to see, and what you want to see is cheap DVDs. Unfortunately, the world doesn't always comply to your wishes.

2) Again, as already answered in my previous post. Cost is not the main qualifier of price, demand is. You claim to understand the system, yet you persist with this "cost of production" thing as if it has any relevance, which it barely does.

3) While demand is elastic to price, the correllation isn't necessarily linear, i.e. if price is reduced by half, it doesn't necessarily follow that demand will double. Your claim of wildly increasing demand following a price decrease is specious, to say the least.

>so who is ripping who off??????

"Ripping off" connotes coercion or duplicity in the transaction. There is no coercion; DVDs are entertainment, and you are not forced to buy DVDs to live. There is no duplicity; the price is right there for you to see. You either buy it or you don't. Those who call it a "rip off" really means that they want to pay a lower price, but can't. It is a misapplication of the term.

>If I were able to buy the DVD movies at 6 dollars each, my collection would not be 112, but perhaps 500 or 600, if there are that many titles... Yes, I would have spent 3,500 dollars or more instead of about 1700 that I have put in it. Who cares if piracy doesn't decrease? The important thing is that more of the profit yielding ones will be sold.

You are projecting your personal inclination to be representative of the whole consumer behavior. It's called over-generalizing. What you do is valid for you only, not for anybody else. It is not a valid support for your claim. (If you are counting, up to this point your claim still has zero support.)

>And by the way, your reasoning really is “taken off the top of your head”, more so than mine... especially when you say

>“Let's say that if I lower my price to $1.50, demand will rise to 1200, and piracy will drop from 30% to 20%.”

>That's exactly using your own figures to try to prove your own point, and, of course, making them as comfortable as your point may need...

My figures is for a hypothetical case (widgets) and used as an illustration, not as proof. There is a difference between inclusive reasoning and exclusive reasoning. I use the figures to show that my stated case CAN be true, not ALWAYS true. Meaning: It doesn't have to be true for all cases, but as long as it CAN be true, then the point is valid. And the point made was: "Lowering the price of software will not NECESSARILY improving profit, even if piracy is lowered, but CAN actually lower profit." Understand now?

>The means to produce a DVD are high technology means, and the DVD themselves are digital information, the easiest type of product to reproduce, copy, make millions of at the lowest prices.

So why are you charging first $350 for your software, and now $100? If it costs so little to distribute--pennies--then why aren't you charging $1 per copy? Charity begins at home, eh?

>Linux is the first example of the future to see by all of us: a powerful product with an intrinsic design to make it available to every individual who may be interested in it.

I am a Linux user, and am well acquainted with both the ideal of free software (which, btw, is different from movies and irrelevant to your claim). I'm also well aware of its difficulties in reconciling the ideal with the reality of making a living, as all of the Linux companies are struggling now in the market. There will be a compromise, and hopefully it will be a satisfactory middleground.

>as the means of production become so sophisticated that less and less the intervention of labor is required, more and more products will be simply freely available.

As I've said, look to yourself before looking to others. Before you ask anybody to make sacrifices, ask if you will make such sacrifices yourself. Why aren't you giving away your software? Why is it so "overpriced"? Aren't you "ripping off" your customers? You see how easy it is to make these idiotic claims, yes?

And yes, I've been keeping count as well. Support for the "how to stop DVD copying" claim = 0. All I've heard is your notion of how the world "should" work. Now do you understand why I call your argument as stupid?

[smokeslikeapoet]

Hollywood will never drop the price of movies that low for several reasons.

#1 Low prices will destroy the video rental, pay-per-view, pay channel, and movie-of-the-week markets.

#2 It takes much longer and much more computing power to share movies when compared with music.

#3 As long as "hackers" are demonized they have the American Government on their side.

#4 Americans will continue to spend 20-30 dollars for a DVD, or $5 at Blockbuster for a new release.

#5 They know that movie piracy is not a threat to their profit margins, but it makes a great scapegoat for enept management skills.

Why do I encode movies? Not to backup my DVD's, not to share them with others. Because DivX on CD-ROM is much more portable than DVD. I can play it at home, at work, at a friend's house, and at school. I can only watch a DVD at home. I'll continue to add to my DVD collection and spend $20-30 a month at Blockbuster. They have't lost a dime on my account.

[djbasics]

I think BB should write a book or maybe star in a film!!! then release it on DVD!!! LMAO!!!

Nice site DOOMm keep up the good work!

[artcomm]

All I really wanted to comment is that 20 dollars for the price of a DVD movie is way over the cost of production of the article. I am sorry, but I would not be that stupid as not to understand that the prices of items in general have probably not much to do (SOME of the time) with the cost of the items. It used to be a lot more difficult, and the result was of lower quality, to produce movie VHS tapes. It is a lot easier to produce DVD's and the final quality of the objective of the product is several orders of magnitude better.

In my humble opinion, if the DVD titles were offered in higher quantities at lower prices, there would definitely be more people buying them. At least the pirate who was looking for a cheap way to have the movie at his/her disposal, will use his/her time in something else, since the price of the original title will be so "functional" that there will be no sense in wasting time and energy making home copies.

I would NEVER endorse or condone the pirate who makes 50,000 or 5,000 copies of a title and then sells it to make a profit for him/her. That's out of the question. And this piracy would not be acceptable even if the DVD titles were being sold at 100 dollars each. Piracy is piracy, no matter what inspires it or makes it "attractive" as a way of living. In other words, there is no justification for piracy. None at all. There might be dozens of EXPLANATIONS as to why piracy is attractive in products like computer programs, music CD's and DVD's. However, no explanation is to be considered a JUSTIFICATION of the action.

I have read and reread my first message and I can't find ONE single word saying that piracy is "good". I implied that piracy is easily explainable: the object to be possesed in an illegal way is attractive and relatively easy to REPRODUCE. Does this imply that I am JUSTIFYING the deed? Sorry, but I don't think so.

As to why I don't GPL my program: I live off the income of what my programs generate. I have a family to support and I pay 100% of my taxes. I don't consider to have "lost" the sales of those who are using my software without having paid for it. I only count what I have been paid by those who registered their copies. They are the customers who get my attention and my support. Unfortunately, I don't sell millions of copies, but I sell enough to enjoy life and keep a person-to-person relationship with my customers. I am happy and they are happy: it's a win-win relationship.

Let's keep the tone INTELLIGENT, shall we? Thank you.

[theReal]

The whole discussion is pointless because most DVDs (I'm not talking of Audio CD'S) are copied because IT'S FUN!

When I want to watch a movie, I rent it for 0.99 or something, when I want to own it, I buy it (rarely...)

The only reason I copy DVDs with DivX is that it is fun to do it and I'm proud of myself when the copy looks good. Then I put it on the shelf and never watch it again...

[Ookami]

Sorry, I keep breaking my word. But I can't let those things stand this way :) . First I wanted to PM... But, nah...

Sorry, I don't agree. IMO, your first posting is pro-piracy. Do you think only a posting with "hurra, piracy is good" is a pro-piracy posting? It can be that my limited understanding of the english language is to blame for my misunderstanding of your post. But, then thats only my opinion. Let's agree that we disagree in this point.

Your program and the GPL. Aha! There you have it! Do you think that the people involved in the movie industry live from air and love? How many people are involved in the production of a average movie? How many people are involved in the redistribution, translations... The list is endless. Now, how many people are involved in making your program? I'm sorry that you don't sell millions of copies, but do you think every DVD is sold in millions of copies? And the price of 30 $ against your price of 100$...

And the best argument in this thread so far: You don't need DVD's for living! They are luxury!

You should simply see that the vocal majority doesn't agree with your theories. Maybe you are right, maybe don't. It doesn't matter, does it?

IMO, it's more important to boykott bad DVD's (cut, with master error, translation errors, R2 releases that have lesser features than the R1...) than "lowering" (we can't do it only if we don't buy DVD's and that's not likely to happen) the prices of all DVD's. But that's only my opinion.

And I don't see why your tone is more intelligent than the tone of the others here...

I really hope this is my last posting here as I'm starting to get on my nerves.

Cheers,

Mijo "who breaks his word all the time" Rebic.

@Bugs Bunny

You can call me whatever you want, only don't call me Katarina Valente ;) . Now, what famous TV character said that? Seriously, I find Ookie pretty funny. I even use it on other boards :) . And, Mijo is my real name... So you can use whatever you like.


Originally posted by artcomm
I have read and reread my first message and I can't find ONE single word saying that piracy is "good". I implied that piracy is easily explainable: the object to be possesed in an illegal way is attractive and relatively easy to REPRODUCE. Does this imply that I am JUSTIFYING the deed? Sorry, but I don't think so.

As to why I don't GPL my program: I live off the income of what my programs generate. I have a family to support and I pay 100% of my taxes. I don't consider to have "lost" the sales of those who are using my software without having paid for it. I only count what I have been paid by those who registered their copies. They are the customers who get my attention and my support. Unfortunately, I don't sell millions of copies, but I sell enough to enjoy life and keep a person-to-person relationship with my customers. I am happy and they are happy: it's a win-win relationship.

Let's keep the tone INTELLIGENT, shall we? Thank you.

[saVe]

@thereal:

that's exactly what i think. would we be spending so much time on this board to learn how to copy dvd's? that's what doom's guides are for...
personally i'm just interested in how the whole scene (is there a video encoding scene?) is developping, for example xvid. it's not a finished codec that still has some bugs (pink! ;)) but it's just fun playing around with it. it is kind of a competition, and there's this voice in my head:
"it's not perfect yet, encode it once more!"

[toolmantim]

<I apologise for the off-topic nature of this post from the beginning>

BugsBunny presents many well thought out, and well spoken ideas, examples, and more importantly, counter-examples.

Unfortunately both of you are analysing each-others messages line-by-line. It reminds me of when I used to mark essays from students.

The root message was not an essay and, obviously, not well thought out.

If you were in the field of research you would understand what I am saying. If people pose ideas to an audience, no matter how wrong they may be, there is always a place for a polite and well thought out response, showing their obvious mistake.

Credibility does not soley come with wisdom BugsBunny.

If you do not present your facts in a objective manner, then you have little credibility in a debate or argument. A conversation yes, but argument no.

Ever watched a (non-comic or political) debate? Ever see them calling each other "twits". Ever see them calling each other any names?

Bugs you made this personal at the beginning... do not claim that you are only counter-replying his first post, or presenting an objective argument.

[Bugs Bunny]

>Unfortunately both of you are analysing each-others messages line-by-line. It reminds me of when I used to mark essays from students.

Yes, it's true enough. But it's inevitable given the messaging format of these online forums (which, btw, includes Usenet). It's analogous to a written mail vs. e-mail. Emphasis is on speed, not on structure or coherence. Which is why I never consider any of these online "arguments" as serious. It's all shoot-from-the-hip.

>If you were in the field of research you would understand what I am saying. If people pose ideas to an audience, no matter how wrong they may be, there is always a place for a polite and well thought out response, showing their obvious mistake.

I understand you well enough, and I'm no academic. What you should understand, however, is that all of these online "arguments" are instigated mostly on emotion, not on thoughtful content. I didn't reply for a debate; I replied because I was annoyed that the person was displacing blame--i.e. blaming the industry for greediness & promoting piracy due to "overpricing". I make no pretense of a thoughtful reply, because the initial was thoughtless--although I'm always careful to support my arguments, as I did.

>Credibility does not soley come with wisdom BugsBunny.

I'm not sure what this means. I don't claim to be wise or even intelligent. I just don't like stupid arguments, and sometimes--as for this thread--I will tell the poster as such. Perhaps some of the acidity is latent, carried over from past stupid piracy threads.

>Ever watched a (non-comic or political) debate? Ever see them calling each other "twits". Ever see them calling each other any names?

I think you are making the mistake of equating these exchanges as anything other than rants. When politicians go at it, it falls into the persuasion realm. Their target is to convince the audience, not to vent their spleen. While I could have done the same (persuasion), it's more work than I care to allot for these kinds of arguments, especially when the person displayed no inkling of thought to begin with. If you feel differently, then feel free devote your time to "intelligent persuasion." It's easy to be a critic, but not so easy when you have to do the work yourself, no?

>Bugs you made this personal at the beginning... do not claim that you are only counter-replying his first post, or presenting an objective argument.

If you mean by the labels I tagged, then it's how I see they should be tagged. If it's stupid, I'll call it stupid. It is only your (the receiver's) sensitivity that makes it "personal." Speech is a 2-way process. How it is received is as important to the meaning as how it is conveyed. I've been posting online msgs for a long time, and the first rule I learned is to have a thick skin. If you don't have that, then you'll have problems.

BTW, be sure you understand what an argument is, for I've made no argument. I simply debunk an argument with no support. You have not seen me make a case for "DVD pricing should be just the way it is now."

[Bugs Bunny]

>The whole discussion is pointless because most DVDs (I'm not talking of Audio CD'S) are copied because IT'S FUN!

You encapsulated it pretty well, but I'd disagree on excluding CDs (and computer software). People don't think of copying these as anything other than personal enjoyment. That's just how it is, and I'm not passing judgment on whether it is "good" or "bad", as both entails moral standards that none of us can agree on anyway.

Just as there are all kinds of people, then there are all kinds of pirates. The people I'm acquainted with that are into warez can be labeled as "hobbyist pirates." They do it for the challenge of "working around the establishment," the fun of trying new software w/o having to pay for it, and for the sense of community that sharing warez will engender. I'll confess that I used to be cosysop of a number of warez BBS'es, and it's mostly a bunch of geeks who are into geek things. We had some GT's (get-togethers) where we had pizzas and LAN games, and it was all very enjoyable. One of the boards got pretty huge, where we had 6 lines coming in, with most of the users calling from Europe (and I doubt they were paying for the calls). We got to be a HQ and all of that geek-politic nonsense. There's a fine line between a hobbyist pirate and a "commercial pirate", and we were probably close to that line, but in fairness, we never make any money from it. Finally, the BBS folded and went the way of most warez boards--it got to be too much work, and people either got burned-out or just bored with it. It was all very memorable, though.

So that's where I make the distinction, hobbyist pirates vs commercial pirates, and I don't think my view is out of the mainstream--it's just that it's not something people would public admit to. And yes, if any of you blokes care to put up a case for anti-piracy, I can play a pretty good fiddle for the pro-piracy side as well. And I won't plead poverty or "overpricing" anything idiotic as that.

[theReal]

I really enjoy a good copy more than an original, only because some work of mine was involved - I even enjoy copying books in the library ;)

[dragoman]

This tread is still going.....sheesh.

dragoman

[qthesnake]

Originally posted by dragoman
This tread is still going.....sheesh.

dragoman

:-)

at least they stoped calling each other names!

Q.

[sarahjh69]

Dear Bugs Bunny
thankyou for your kind remarks on my post, unfortunately your
reasoning is completely and utterly wrong. There are very few
production costs in making a DVD. All these costs are covered
by releasing the film in cinemas. Money derived by selling DVDs
is almost all profit, many older films have already increased their first profits by selling to TV companies and making VHS. I don't believe anyone would be interested in copying those films that are so bad they are only released on DVD!

Dear everyone else
Many of you assume that copying someone elses ideas is a crime.
I like to think of myself as a good christian who knows what a crime is. Killing an unborn baby is a crime, adultry is a crime, War is a crime. (at this moment the worst criminal seems to be the USA who feels is is justified in starving and murdering millions of innocent
unarmed Afgans (and I have left the Talibans out of this). So where in the bible do I find mention of copyright laws.....nowhere.
Whould God object to me copying a film or piece of music?
Would our civilisation be where it is if a big corporation were to
have owned and enforced copyright to the bible?
As far as I can see copyright is a tool for large corporations to oppress and subdue the masses and deny the will of God.

[Ookami]

sarahjh69, thank you for your posting.

Could you please stay on topic (like in the first part of your last posting) and not to move this discussion into a discussion about religion and things that have nothing to do with this topic?!

If you want to discuss religion, politics and similar, please open a new thread. Thank you very much.

I want to thank everyone who posted in this thread, that this discussion is heated and with emotions but without too much insulting. Thanks.

Cheers...

[canadian_fbi]

I like to think of myself as a good christian who knows what a crime is. Killing an unborn baby is a crime, adultry is a crime, War is a crime. (at this moment the worst criminal seems to be the USA who feels is is justified in starving and murdering millions of innocent
unarmed Afgans (and I have left the Talibans out of this). So where in the bible do I find mention of copyright laws.....nowhere.
Whould God object to me copying a film or piece of music?
Would our civilisation be where it is if a big corporation were to
have owned and enforced copyright to the bible?
As far as I can see copyright is a tool for large corporations to oppress and subdue the masses and deny the will of God.

exactly where does it say in the bible "thou shalt not incinerate thy arab brother with B-52 strikes," or "thou shalt not induce stem cells to artificially reproduce?" oh wait, it doesn't, that was simply you interpreting these events as against the commandment "thou shalt not kill." much as one could interpret dvd piracy as against the commandment "thou shalt not steal." just because god didn't tell anyone "thou shalt not subvert the css encryption system" doesn't mean it's gotta be ok as far as god is concerned.

whether or not one's intellectual property is property that should be protected against theft as one's car or house or dvd player might be is debatable and i think that's what we're debating here (though who knows anymore). i just wanted to point out this obvious contradiction here that arose from you trying to justify dvd piracy and condemn the war in afghanistan based on your interpretation of the bible. it's YOUR opinion, not some higher truth. you don't KNOW what a crime is, you have an opinion, just like the rest of us.

[artcomm]

It's getting more and more difficult to establish a point of communication here. If my language in my first post implied, suggested, seemed to support IN ANY way piracy, then it is my obligation to state very clearly the fact that in my mind I do not endorse, condone, promote or tolerate piracy when the act or deed means ripping somebody else of his/her business, and making money on somebody else's intellectual property.

I feel that I have to say this at least once more and for the nth time: even though I didn't say “Hurrah! Piracy is good!”, or even if I didn't say “Pirates should be jailed!”, no matter what I didn't say or said at that first intervention, I NEVER MEANT what apparently my inefficiency to communicate made some of you believe: that I am pro piracy. I AM NOT. Also, I can sense that sometime in the past, there was a heavy discussion on the subject of piracy, and there must have been some naïve interventions projecting their wishes and trying to make the projections sound as intelligent arguments.

Please, don't waste your time and words trying to make me understand how much money goes into the production of movies. We all know that. It's obvious, if you have seen one movie. However, I don't think the DVD made it to the market because Hollywood was in need of one more way to make money on their movies. We are getting all those movies daily in all kinds of feeds via satellite, cable, etc. And they're making money, one way or another every single time one of those movies is shown. The DVD is just one more way, -the heck of a good idea- to continue making money in exchange of a good level of pleasure that's given to those who watch, by renting the disks or buying them.

I hope Hollywood will continue making tons of profit from the movies. As a matter of fact, I feel bad when I read that so and so movie didn't make profits. I think most movies are not that great profit makers, are they?

The initial value of any movie is its novelty. We all want to see what it's about. Then we pay the highest fee at the box office. That's the massive moment of any movie. Some movies don't make it at that massive moment, but become incredibly attractive DVD or VHS or PPV products. And some don't make it in any format or at any moment. That's the way all businesses are. The statistic shows that only 20 in 100 businesses will be open 2 years after they are started. What that means is that 80% of the capital (which is nothing less or more than human energy stored in bearer notes) never becomes the energy for a successful endeavor.

After the box office price, we pay lower fees: the VHS or DVD, the rental, the PPV and then, almost nothing, when they become reruns shown in the middle of the night in broadcast TV stations. So, the DVD is a secondary mode of exploitation, and I will continue sustaining that if movies in this format were made available to the general public closer to the cost, millions more would buy them. Any person with a good background in economy will find formulas to back this argument.

AND as a consequence, less people would invest energy in the process of copying them, and less pirates would find it attractive to make their own horrible copies: they would simply make zero profit.

What is so complicated about this simple economic equation based on the theory of elasticity of supply and demand? It is my opinion (I might be wrong) that the economic elasticity of the movie in DVD format is such that bringing the price to 5 times its direct cost of production (instead of 20 or 30), will result in massive amounts of people buying them.

Yes, the rental business would be finished... The rental outlets would be selling titles, books, cameras, TV sets, DVD players, computers. The concept of movie rentals was inexistent in the '70s and the economy was just as functional as it is today. Please, use your imagination, try to extend beyond what you can see at the tip of your nose.

Thank you for being tolerant and open minded.

[Bugs Bunny]

>As far as I can see copyright is a tool for large corporations to oppress and subdue the masses and deny the will of God.

SHIVER ME TIMBERRR!! A kindred spirit!! <waving my invisible cutlass in the air> hahahah I always wanted to say that! ..especially if ya resonate the BERRR at the back of yer throat and let it really roll off the tongue! It is so cool that I'm replying just so I can say that! I think everybody should try it at home! Unfortunately, it may be difficult to duplicate the function of a truly authentic peg leg, but you can have a good approximation by putting your shoes on backward! And the eye patch is easy, just squint one eye! But don't do it with both eyes unless you're a touch typist!

>There are very few
production costs in making a DVD. All these costs are covered
by releasing the film in cinemas. Money derived by selling DVDs
is almost all profit

Hey funny but there must be an echo in here somewhere cause I could've sworn I heard artcom bloke saying almost exactly the same thing!

Huh! And just what is wrong with making "almost all profit"?! You make it sounds like it's a dirty word or something! Don't you try to get the "most profit" for your labor when you look for a job? So why the double standard?

Oh wait I think I'm getting this.. it's OK for NORMAL blokes to make as much profit as they can get, but not for BIG CORPORATIONS to make profit, cause they're so much better at it? So if I (a normal bloke) am really good at raking in the dough, then it's not OK? Or are you saying that BIG CORPS can't make any money cause they're big? How about SMALL corps then?

You do realize that the ALMOST ALL big corporations are public entities, i.e. owned by public shareholders? You know, the normal blokes? Have you ever invest in a stock or bond? Do you ever tell the company you invest that "I don't want you to make too much money, just take my share to lower the product price"? Or do you rant and rave and threaten to sue if they don't meet their financial projections? Funny!

Yes, at this point in time, I feel a rather primal urge for some choice words to splat onto the screen, but I'll try to desist for the sake of the bluenoses here, who've already gotten their panties bunched up in a knot already. So I'll just make do with a HAH! and appropriate razzberry sounds.. bbbrrrrrrzzzzzttt! There, take that you, you <bleep>!!

Hah the built-in censor function is working just okey-dokey! :)

[Bugs Bunny]

>It's getting more and more difficult to establish a point of communication here.

Communication requires both talking and listening.

The main problem with communication is that people only want to talk, not listen. You are simply regurgitating what you've posted before, where all of those prior points have been replied to.

You don't listen, you only want to talk.

>If my language in my first post implied, suggested, seemed to support IN ANY way piracy, then it is my obligation to state very clearly the fact that in my mind I do not endorse...

Echo.. echo.. echo..

>Please, don't waste your time and words trying to make me understand how much money goes into the production of movies. We all know that.

Believe me, I won't. It doesn't matter how many times it's said, if you don't care to hear it, and you don't. You just want $5.99 DVDs.

Uh oh, here comes the "but"...

>However, I don't think the DVD made it to the market because Hollywood was in need of one more way to make money on their movies.

Yours is only a watered down version of sarah's "too much profit is not OK" beeswax. "They've made up all their profits already from film showing, so DVDs should be cheap cause it's just 'excess' profits."

It's amusing, but not surprising, to see all of the socialist sentiments--i.e. prices should be "fair", companies shouldn't make "too much" profit, big companies are evil, etc etc. If you want to see a great example of socialism in action, read up on the collapse of the USSR and the Eastern Bloc. As the saying goes, the grass is always greener on the other side.

People take the good things of capitalism for granted, they only bitch about the bad things. They think it's a natural gift, some sort of god-given right. Just look around at all of your modern convenience, from your computer to the TV to your car/cell phone/whatever. Those come from the free-market ideal of being able to reap the most benefit from one's labor. It's a powerful incentive for people to create new things. It's a cornerstone of capitalism. Once you try to limit the rewards people can get, then you squelch that drive to get ahead. In effect, you get socialism.

This is oversimplified, of course. Each ideology has its good and bad points, and our society is both a mix of capitalism and socialism (e.g. welfare system, public transit, etc). But for you who only care about $5.99 DVDs, I don't think I can ever make it simple enough for you to change your strange notion. My suggestion, and I mean this in the sincerest way, with no sarcasm, is for you to peruse on the subject of economics, either from a good text in the library, or a course at a community college. Other than that, there isn't much else I can say (aside from more caustic ribbing, which I admit is perversely pleasurable! :)

>I hope Hollywood will continue making tons of profit from the movies. As a matter of fact, I feel bad when I read that so and so movie didn't make profits.

It's socialist thinking: every business should fare equally (and by implication, make profits equally). A capitalist would say: it's a survival of the fittest. If a movie didn't break even, then TOO BAD! Shape up or ship out!

>So, the DVD is a secondary mode of exploitation, and I will continue sustaining that if movies in this format were made available to the general public closer to the cost, millions more would buy them. Any person with a good background in economy will find formulas to back this argument.

Exploitation.. ah, terminology so dear to the socialist's heart. hahah..

As for a "person with a good background in economics", you could well be that very person! Yes, if only you take up my suggestion and learn more about it! Put out the effort. A mind is a terrible thing to waste..

>AND as a consequence, less people would invest energy in the process of copying them, and less pirates would find it attractive to make their own horrible copies: they would simply make zero profit.

Ah, yes, if only.. :) Oh, wait, lemme go check to see if my warez download is done yet! <switching to my other warez puter> OK, back again!

>What is so complicated about this simple economic equation based on the theory of elasticity of supply and demand?

OHMEGOSH! He used the word DEMAND! Oh be still my heart!

>...the economic elasticity of the movie in DVD format is such that bringing the price to 5 times its direct cost of production (instead of 20 or 30), will result in massive amounts of people buying them.

By that token, if you lower your $100 software down to $5.99, you will have 10,000,000,000,000,000,000 users! So why don't you do it?

>Thank you for being tolerant and open minded.

Oh shucks yer welcome.. :)

[canadian_fbi]

<< It's socialist thinking: every business should fare equally (and by implication, make profits equally). A capitalist would say: it's a survival of the fittest. If a movie didn't break even, then TOO BAD! Shape up or ship out! >>

oh, i think one can think this way without necessarily wishing upon a star for socialism. i know i very much wanted final fantasy to make more profits (even though perhaps it didn't fully live up to expectations) just because i very much admired and was in awe of how they made that movie, and i wanted them to make more. and of course, losing $75 million or whatever isn't exactly the big incentive to make a sequel.

back to the topic though, i know from my perspective as a poor college student that if dvds were cheaper, i would buy more of them. however, i also know that this wouldn't increase the studios' profits at all, and thus would only benefit me, not them. for example, i just bought the criterion collection version of do the right thing (backorder, actually...) for $32. because i spent so much money on it, i'm hesitant to buy another dvd right now. of course if it was $16, i wouldn't hesitate to buy another dvd for about the same price. this doubles the number of dvds i buy, but actually reduces profits because i spend the same amount of money when buying more raw material.

this brings me to one of my main "justifications", or whatever you want to call it, for piracy, that i've used both now with divx and in years past with mp3. basically, i love music and movies and want to own both in the best quality i can. however, i'm not a millionnaire and can only spend so much money on this stuff. so i'm going to spend what i can on purchases, and perhaps make a copy of a few more after that. in this way it's not unethical from the perspective of depriving the corporations and makers of intellectual property of profit, because i simply don't have the money to give them anyway. it is somewhat unethical though from the standpoint of me getting more entertainment than perhaps i rightly deserve for the amount of money i'm spending. however, this looks to me like something of a victimless crime.

[Bugs Bunny]

Re: FFantasy the Flick -- Did you like the movie on its own merits, or do you like it cause you're a fan of the console games?

I thought the movie was pretty sad (not the boo-hoo kind, the yuk ptooey kind). Heck, even the Muppet Movie had more personable characters--but then, of course, it had Kermy and Miss Piggy on its side. The FFF hype raved about how you can see hairs on the 3D models (hooo-weee, look at dem nose furs!), but hairy manequins ain't that much more attractive than hairless ones. It's good for may be a tech demo, but not a movie I'd pay money for. Er, did I pay money to see it, I'm trying to remember.. oh, well, it's the thought that counts anyway.. <ahem>

>...this brings me to one of my main "justifications", or whatever you want to call it, for piracy, that i've used both now with divx and in years past with mp3. basically, i love music and movies and want to own both in the best quality i can. however, i'm not a millionnaire and can only spend so much money on this stuff. so i'm going to spend what i can on purchases, and perhaps make a copy of a few more after that. in this way it's not unethical from the perspective of depriving the corporations and makers of intellectual property of profit, because i simply don't have the money to give them anyway. it is somewhat unethical though from the standpoint of me getting more entertainment than perhaps i rightly deserve for the amount of money i'm spending. however, this looks to me like something of a victimless crime.

There's a wide spectrum of degrees of piracy, and yours is closer to the "good" (for the industry) end than many. The worst, of course, is the commercial pirate that cranks out thousands of counterfeit DVDs or VCDs to sell. It's not a black-and-white thing, that you either pirate or you don't. Most everyone is a pirate at some point in time.

The danger is trying to justify your action, because it inevitably distorts your world view. Of course it's not a victimless "crime". Sure, pirates wouldn't buy all the software/movie they pirate, but if piracy wasn't an option, they would buy more than what they had. In your case, may be what you said is true, but not for the 99% of pirates out there. (I'm saying this from firsthand knowledge, so I'm not trying to be holier-than-thou or anything like that.)

People are naturally egocentric; they try to reason everything around themselves. The reasoning goes: I'm an OK bloke, so what I'm doing must be OK. Since piracy is a "bad" thing, then it must be somebody else's fault that I'm pirating, or may be pirating isn't as "bad" as they make it out to be. To wit: Sarah blokette has her bible-thumping as her justification; artcom bloke has his $5.99 DVD and socialist leanings to support his world-view ("mode of exploitation".. hahah that was great). And you have your victimless crime angle. While yours is more "reasonable" rationalization than most, it's still rationalizing. The world is a confusing enough place without lying to oneself and making it even more confusing.

Given that, I suppose that my "piracy is a geek thing, it's what geeks do" is a rationalization, too. BUT IZ TRU I TELL U! I GOT MAH GEEK MERIT BADGE, SEE?

You probably noted that I've put the words "bad" and "crime" in quotation marks, and that's because people have varying feelings on how much the words apply. Piracy is a "crime" because the law says it is--so is jaywalking. The right to be compensated for one's labor is never a question, but IP isn't like tangible properties, and treating its compensation as a tangible property isn't practical, either. Piracy and its flip side--the right to be compensated--is a worthy topic to discuss and to ponder. Unfortunately, as with most life issues, it's not black-white, right-wrong, but a range of varying gray, if you will--and it's hard to agree on things that aren't clear-cut. It's especially hard when you have yahoos like we've seen waving their bibles or their $5.99 DVDs and screaming their lungs out (persuasion by percussion..hahah). Heck, it's the same thing as talking about abortion.

A footnote on the difference of IP: Most people wouldn't think twice about the legality of borrowing a book (an IP product) from the library, or borrowing videos from a friend. The SHARING of IP products isn't a crime in itself. It is only a "crime" now because technology has made it easily reproducible, thereby making sharing prevalent enough to affect industry profits. Following this to its logical end, then we can conclude that some sharing is OK, but "too much" sharing is "bad."

I've said it before and it bears repeating: It's a continual fight, a fight between the IP (software & AV) industries and the consumer. There are egregious behaviors on both sides. On the consumer side, you've got your pirates. On the industry side, you've got your DMCA legislation and your copy protections and your region codes. If you've kept up on the news, the industry is trending toward per-use rules. You see, in a fight, there is no talking about fairness, or reaching a mutual consensus. Both sides scratch and scrap for every bit of advantage they can, and that's where we are. Who knows, may be in the future we'll reach a happy medium, but now isn't then.

So don't justify. Just understand what you do for what it is, and as long as you can face your conscience, then that's all that matters. Hmm, may be I should get myself a bible, too...

Anyway, all of this is a sprawling topic that I can never hope to do justice in a single online posting, so feel free to disagree. I don't present it as an argument, only as a point of discussion.