Dumbest statement of the year so far

[Sbofen]

RipGuard, however, is designed to eliminate an even easier source of piracy: the digital bitstream itself. According to Gervin, just over a billion dollars has been lost by people who "rip and return"—consumers who rent a movie, copy it to their own digital library, and return the movie the next day.


Taken from:

http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1765039,00.asp?kc=ewnws021505dtx1k0000599




(sorry, just had to get that off my chest)

[Sirber]

RipGuard is just wind...

[Doobie]

RipGuard will foil 97% of the rippers (by market share)? That means there are a couple of rippers that will read these new disks, and it should be easy enough to modify any ripper to read this disks. So, what's the point of any DVD publisher to pay for this?

[Neo Neko]

The point is making money of their fear that they will be potentially robbed blind. :p If it were not for the irrational fear they would see just how silly this all is.

[fewtch]

I wonder how they could get this billion-dollar figure? This must be "fuzzy logic" taken to its ultimate conclusion...

[RedBeard]

I also have a problem with the Loss figures, by the own statement they are referring to persons that Rent (pay $) copy and return how does that equal a loss? the copy being rented has been paid for, the rental company gets its money, where does the billion dollar loss come from?

[Shinigami-Sama]

Originally posted by Neo Neko
The point is making money of their fear that they will be potentially robbed blind. :p If it were not for the irrational fear they would see just how silly this all is.
I'll tend to agree

[adam]

Originally posted by RedBeard
I also have a problem with the Loss figures, by the own statement they are referring to persons that Rent (pay $) copy and return how does that equal a loss? the copy being rented has been paid for, the rental company gets its money, where does the billion dollar loss come from?

I thinks its pretty obvious that they are referring to people who forgoe buying the DVD because they can rent and illegally copy it for less. It would have been more accurate to say lost profts (retail price minus rental price) rather than loss, but there are production costs to consider as well so there could potentially be an actual "loss," if you assume the person otherwise would have purchased the DVD legally which is sometimes true and sometimes not. Of course that's the flaw in all of these loss estimates, that they assume every infringement results in one less sale.

[Doobie]

I won't be surprized when I hear reports of some stand-alone DVD players choking on RipGuard. You know, like that new DVD player you just bought that can play MPEG4 data disks. So, as with so much other copy protection, the person being harmed isn't the "pirate" but the person who bought the crippled product.

I suspect RipGuard works by creating DVDs out-of-spec, but in a way that doesn't hurt dumb DVD players that basically ignore errors. But, hurts software which doesn't like unexpected things, like a 1.00GB VOB foils rippers that depend on the Windows UDF parser (I don't think this example is used by RipGuard).

[fewtch]

I personally don't believe someone who rents/rips/returns would be inclined to buy the DVD at all. Given the low price of DVD's (often below that of the CD format), guaranteed compatibility with everything, nice keep case, inserts, extras, plus ultimate cost of DVD recordables and the drive itself over time -- I suspect people who do this are either kids who couldn't afford to buy, or people who like the feeling of foiling the system and (false) sense of getting something for nothing, but again wouldn't buy the DVD.

Just MHO... I have friends with DVD recorders, but I don't know anyone who's big into this "rent/rip/return" thing. Could be it's a problem with services like Netflix however.

[adam]

Originally posted by fewtch
Could be it's a problem with services like Netflix however.
I think that's what they are really scared of. Netflix has already spoken out about people who get 5 DVDs in the mail and then send them back later that day, and do this as many times a month as they can. Its pretty obvious what they are doing but its not really Netflix's problem.

I have two friends who are movie buffs and used to buy several DVDs each month at least. I informed them that our local library has some 7000 DVDs and gets all the newest releases. Since making this discovery they started copying the DVDs they check out and have literally not bought a single DVD since. I think that the ability to get something substantially cheaper or in some cases next to nothing certainly affects peoples buying habits. Its impossible to put a number on it, which is why I can't read that $billion estimate without picturing Dr. Evil with his pinky to his lips, but I can understand why the motion picture industry would consider it a problem. Programs like Netflix have made this rent and rip thing much more mainstream.

Check out the Photochop skills:

http://users3.ev1.net/~CavemanLawyer/dr.jpg

[fewtch]

You must live in an really 'upscale' area... none of the libraries around here rent many DVD's (I think they get stolen around the first day they're put on the shelves).

Edit -- I just checked the website of my local county library system, and picked a DVD randomly (Sky Captain and the world of tomorrow). 10 copies in the system, all checked out. "785 holds on First Copy Returned." :eek:

[adam]

I'm in San Antonio, Texas and the libraries are fantastic. Like I said, huge DVD selection, always widescreen, and they've got enough copies of each film that the hold time isn't too long. Actually, if you just check their website often you can easily place the hold when they first get it and you'll be the first one to get the DVD everytime. They deliver it right to the library across the street from me. I am honestly shocked that there are still BlockBusters in this town.

[Koepi]

In germany you mainly get books in the libraries, only very few educational videos/dvds.

I wonder why that's different in the USA? ;)

Cheers
Koepi

[fewtch]

Originally posted by Koepi
In germany you mainly get books in the libraries, only very few educational videos/dvds.

I wonder why that's different in the USA? ;)
Because Hollywood is here? :p

...

(oh yeah... I guess some people in the USA like sitting in front of the TV more than reading....)

:stupid: :D

[unmei]

I guess it's probably more a difference in mindset or target customer. I haven't been in too many different libraries, but what i've seen so far here in switzerland exist coarsely two types of libraries. One are the "city libraries" where you also find entertainment DVDs and comics and such, and then there are the University and "technical" libraries where you won't find these things.

[celtic_druid]

Could be wrong here, but I would imagine that the literacy rate in Germany is higher than in the US.

[KaiserS]

Originally posted by celtic_druid
Could be wrong here, but I would imagine that the literacy rate in Germany is higher than in the US.

It is but not by that much. According to CIA Factbook 97% (1999 estimate) for USA and 99% (1997 estimate) for Germany.

[RadicalEd]

Originally posted by KaiserS
According to CIA Factbook 97% (1999 estimate) for USA

If they were going by what I consider literate, that'd be more like 2.5% D:

[Paulcat]

It's just the business mindset that comes up with that figure...

If you make a movie that costs $100 million, and you expect a return of $500 million but only make $400 million, they moan about a $100 million dollar loss instead of a $300 million profit. It's the same in any field...

[theReal]

The industry worries about people who rent 5 DVDs a day, copy them and send them back the same day - what does the industry think, that these people were going to buy 5 DVDs a day if they couldn't copy them? The industry doesn't consider that these guys are usually not even going to watch all of the copied movies, they just like to have a big library to boast with (or to get their own satisfaction out of just having it).

There might be some guys amongst these heavy copiers who actually want to watch all of their copied movies, they only copy them so they can watch them whenever they like without paying extra/twice for rental.
If these guys couldn't copy, they'd also never buy most of the movies, they'd just rent one per day and watch it the same evening, then bring it back (like in the good old VHS days).

RipGuard, however, is designed to eliminate [...] the digital bitstream itself. Very funny. Means that in the future DVDs will be empty? (no bitstream = no data, right?) :rolleyes: :D

[Shinigami-Sama]

Originally posted by theReal

Very funny. Means that in the future DVDs will be empty? (no bitstream = no data, right?) :rolleyes: :D
thats what I was wonderign about too

[Doobie]

Originally posted by theReal
[B]The industry worries about people who rent 5 DVDs a day, copy them and send them back the same day - what does the industry think, that these people were going to buy 5 DVDs a day if they couldn't copy them? The industry doesn't consider that these guys are usually not even going to watch all of the copied movies, they just like to have a big library to boast with (or to get their own satisfaction out of just having it).

For people who rent 5 DVDs per day, even if they watch them, they wouldn't have bought them under any circumstance. Increased rentals means increased revenues (video stores need to stock more copies).

[adam]

Originally posted by theReal
RipGuard, however, is designed to eliminate [...] the digital bitstream itself.
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Very funny. Means that in the future DVDs will be empty? (no bitstream = no data, right?)

Its just a poorly written sentence by that EWeek journalist. The point is just that Macrovision is now focusing on protecting against digital->digital copying as opposed to analogue->digital copying.

[fewtch]

Originally posted by adam
I'm in San Antonio, Texas and the libraries are fantastic. Like I said, huge DVD selection, always widescreen, and they've got enough copies of each film that the hold time isn't too long. Actually, if you just check their website often you can easily place the hold when they first get it and you'll be the first one to get the DVD everytime. They deliver it right to the library across the street from me. I am honestly shocked that there are still BlockBusters in this town.
Hey, BTW I wanted to thank you... this thread got me looking more closely at the local county library system here (which allows reserving videos online from various libraries and picking them up at a central location like in San Antonio), and since then I've found more DVD's than previously suspected -- quite a few good ones in fact, including many that are hard to find at places like Blockbuster. A lot of enjoyable viewing recently thanks to this thread! Gracias, amigo.

(p.s. apologies for the off-topic post...).