Illegal Film Downloading Up 33% In the UK 259
moderators_are_w*nke writes "The BBC have picked up a report from 'internet intelligence' company Envisional showing illegal film downloading is up 33% in the UK since 2006. The solution is apparently for content providers to 'compete with piracy and get their content out there themselves as easily and as quickly and as cheaply as possible.'"
Will never happen. (Score:2, Interesting)
"The solution is apparently for content providers to 'compete with piracy and get their content out there themselves as easily and as quickly and as cheaply as possible'"
Will never happens, they live in the past, not in the future. Such a thing just isn't possible for them to even imagine.
I'm still dreaming of a service similar to Steam, for movies.
Re:Will never happen. (Score:5, Insightful)
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ala Sony with PS3 Linux.
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While I agree with you that we should have more outfits like GOG.com, Steam is a lot better than some of the other DRM out there. It's incredibly easy to break, doesn't install false drivers, allows offline backup/restore and play of games, etc. And the good thing is that once you break it for one game, you've basically broken it for all the games. (The exception is the few games that also include other DRM.)
The only thing that I wish Steam would allow is transfer of games between accounts; gifting of a "us
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The exception is the few games that also include other DRM.
More and more seem to be ending up in this category recently, sadly.
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I was looking to get the major pack of Crysis in order to play Mechwarrior: Living Legends.
Then I saw the crapass DRM that floats around with Crysis, even via Steam.
Nope. Not going to infect my system.
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Re:Will never happen. (Score:5, Informative)
Steam may be DRM, but they're incredibly smart in that they've made getting and playing content easier than BitTorrent and cracking. Time and time again, people have pointed out that this is the only way to compete with copyright violation, and the success of Steam is proof in the pudding.
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Steam may be DRM, but they're incredibly smart in that they've made getting and playing content easier than BitTorrent and cracking. Time and time again, people have pointed out that this is the only way to compete with copyright violation, and the success of Steam is proof in the pudding.
If you ever run across the headline "Steam shutting its doors", make a point to read the comments then.
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This explains how: https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=7710-tdlc-0426 [steampowered.com]
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Yes, but that wipes out all local files of all the games you have and you need to redownload everything, which would be extremely annoying with a large library or a slow/capped connection.
A better method which I use is to move the folder and symlink to it.
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wait, nevermind, I misread the instructions. Disregard.
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I'm still dreaming of a service similar to Steam, for movies.
Lovefilm and iTunes offer services what you are after.
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Well, porn companies are doing this, you can buy DRM-free HD and DVD movie downloads...erm, so I'm told.
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Here's a tip that doesn't involve any torrents. Take any fetish you have, and put it into Google along with the term 'tube'. If you ever exhaust that supply, well, you might want to seek professional help.
Honestly I wonder how the porn industry makes any money anymore. It must all be off of people over the age of 35 who don't know how the internet works.
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The same way everyone else on the Internet makes money. You've noticed how many ads are on porn sites, right?
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Now I can only speak for myself, but I think that porn a) isn't necessarily linear for most who grew up online and b) doesn't require the same degree of quality as it's usually a 30ish minute exercise anyway.
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You're also disregarding the market of secondary products, a lot a big name stars make money from selling physical items such as autographed things.
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I have a fetish about duck and I search for duck tube and it found nothing of interest. I still have to commission my duck raping porn....
Here's a start: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qwjEeI2SmiU [youtube.com]
(Black and white video of a duck's penis; it was a meme a while ago. Not at all shocking, could start an interesting office conversation.)
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Will never happens, they live in the past, not in the future. Such a thing just isn't possible for them to even imagine.
Media companies always live in the past. There is always a business model that transforms the industry until it becomes outdated yet held on to even as it drags the industry down in to near collapse. Then someone finally adapts to reality by implementing a new business model and the survivors all jump ship. Reality often involves disruptive technology. You can see this in the history of Hollywood (studio system, television) and music (radio).
Of course - that history also shows a grudgingly slow adapt
they don't live in the past (Score:2)
they know exactly how obsolete their business model is. however that isn't going to prevent them from milking it for everything it is worth. until they themselves concluded nothing more could be gain from it, they will persist. the politicians in their pockets will assist, irrespective of what the populace might think, or how loud the complains might be.
Common Sense! (Score:4, Insightful)
It's about frikken time someone admitted that! I've been saying for years that I don't pirate stuff because it's free - I pirate stuff because it's the only way I can get the product that I want, without DRM and without archaic physical media, and that will actually work on my Linux HTPC.
My Impatience (Score:5, Insightful)
I torrent but I am not a pirate.
How is this possible?
I recently felt like watching DS9 so I started torrenting a season of it. After watching an episode I proceeded to buy four box sets online.
I went back to watching my torrented versions. How convenient they are!
When they arrived, I deleted all the episodes I watched and started watching the DVDs from the boxset on TV.
Not only do I have Babylon 5 and SG, I have almost completed my DS9 series. They were all collected in the same fashion. Streaming or torrents first and then proper purchases.
Why the fuck would I buy something before knowing what it is like first?
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Torrenting almost always involves distributing pieces to a lot of other bit-torrent users. Each constitutes a copyright infringement, because you don't have distribution rights (aka copyright).
Even if you buy or own the thing you are bit-torrenting, it's still very much illegal if you don't own the copyright to that thing.
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...which is all a side effect of the fact that the copyright owner wants to trample all over your personal property rights associated with the legitimate copy you bought from them.
Re:My Impatience (Score:4)
Personal property right to share your bought copy with a few thousand torrenters? I didn't know there was such a right.
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Sharing with the swarm is a natural and obvious consequence of preventing the individual from using their personal property in an easy and convenient manner.
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Don't argue with him. Have you checked the username? TheThiefMaster This fella knows what he's talking about. ;)
Now, seriously, he's right. You got it all the way around: preventing distribution from other sources is the motivation; them trampling on your right to private copy is the side effect.
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And your download rate gets almost completely destroyed as a result. Other peers/leachers try to find the peers/seeds they can get the highest download rate from, so will disconnect from you if you don't send them anything. Leaving you with any seeds there might be, which are usually overloaded.
Still, I said almost always.
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When I watch a movie or a TV episode I might watch it again in a few years if it was extremely good and memorable, but I would consider it a complete waste of my time to even consider watching most things more than once. Ever.
I am pretty sure that most people that aren't glued to a TV set watching endless reruns of Judge Judy to feel that way. I do know there are some people that can pretty much watch the same 40-minute TV episode of something three times in a row (or more) without finding it repetitous,
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I think it's more that if you watch one episode from a television show, you know that you know if you like it or not. When you have bought the real thing, you don't watch the one you downloaded.
The price you pay for the boxset of a television series is for the convenience and without the adverts. You don't even have to watch them more than once for it it to be worthwhile. If you wanted to watch X hours of entertainment, that's the going rate and it's cheaper than the theater. I buy the boxset after it comes
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You may not be a pirate, but you're a copyright infringer, so there is financial incentive for people to measure your type of behavior and to find you. No, not to stop you, but to get you to pay for a large settlement. If they can get you to buy the DVDs and also pay a few extra thousand for your "crime" that is a win/win for everyone.
(Well, almost everyone.)
Going out on a very short limb (Score:2)
Every facet of the future is gonna suck.
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Buy your movies now before they put them back in the vault...
+...or not.
Right now, physical media offers a wider selection and lower prices. Electronic rentals still need to catch up in this area.
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Let me guess, it's all linux?
Ah not linux. However, that's a very poor argument. You just claimed to torrent but your are not a pirate and your explanation of that is an example of how your pirated an episode of a TV series.
And no, it doesn't make a difference that you then bought it afterwards. The copyright holder h
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If this were true. Nothing would get sold.
Magazines
Radio
Television
Lending
Re:My Impatience (Score:5, Interesting)
Saying you've bought the product does not, under current law, make it all OK.
It does, however, invalidate every self-serving, self-righteous, and moralistic argument in support of said law.
Which, when you think about it, says a great deal about the law itself.
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It does, however, invalidate every self-serving, self-righteous, and moralistic argument in support of said law.
It does? Well, I guess that would depend on who you ask (since not everyone has the same morals).
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Yes it does.
YOU PAID FOR IT.
ANY ethical argument then becomes completely null and void.
Sadly, due to how the industry tries to abuse it's paying customers it is actually much easier to participate in a torrent swarm than to create your own similar media files from the physical disks you already own. This is a practical issue caused by the industry's own paranoia and disrespect for the paying customer.
As someone who uses the more legitimate approach, I really can't fault anyone else for not wanting to bother
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This kinda reminds me of the Harry Potter books. The Gryffindor sword was made by goblins, and it's stored in Hogwart's castle. Goblins, however, think it belongs to them, since it was made by them, and sold to Gryffindor (and only him), it should be returned to them after his death, and not passed on to anyone else.
Kinda like entertainment industry wants things to be, I guess.
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Kinda like entertainment industry wants things to be, I guess.
Even that would be better if it was CONSISTENT.
Those asshats want it to be that way for anyone who buys their pap, but they want the rights to said pap to be passed down for generations...
Obfuscated disk structure (Score:2)
Sadly, due to how the industry tries to abuse it's paying customers it is actually much easier to participate in a torrent swarm than to create your own similar media files from the physical disks you already own. This is a practical issue caused by the industry's own paranoia and disrespect for the paying customer.
This is a bit of a peeve for me. When I buy a DVD or CD, it's generally ripped to our media server in fairly short order, and the disk is placed safely in a drawer. [Note for any lawyer-wannabe: format shifting your media is perfectly legal where I live.]
Unfortunately, some companies go to considerable lengths to obfuscate the structure of their DVD. The Teaching Company is one of the worst, and we've bought almost a hundred of their DVDs. Tricks range from a need to rely on the BUP instead of the IFO, t
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As someone who uses the more legitimate approach, I really can't fault anyone else for not wanting to bother with it.
Not to mention that, if they had their way, we wouldn't even be able to do that.
I'm still waiting to get my 14 hours of free time to rip my B5 DVDs...
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YOU ARE A PIRATE. If you don't want to be, buy the season from iTunes.
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If I could not have streamed or downloaded something in advance, I would never have bought it.
This might be why music and movie sales are up these days.
Re:My Impatience (Score:4, Insightful)
I notice that the sources are from the RIAA.
They're known for falsifying published figures inside and outside of trials.
It holds very little weight. They have a vested interest to make it seem worse than it is. Provenance. If you search RIAA and misleading, you get lots of results.
Give me a university backed study, not backed by the RIAA and I might feel sympathy. In other news, the 20xxs are the year of the independent artist using the internet to distribute and market music and movies. Good news!
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It helps if you know that the show does not air in the UK and is a spinoff a series that I do like. Does that answer your question?
If it was on TV, how would it have been any different if it was recorded automatically by VHS? Someone just shared their VHS of that publicly broadcasted show (except not in the UK). Which I then watched then paid for.
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And what makes sure that the form of distribution you ask for (basically, the plain files without any sort of protection) are not massively pirated?
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Since DRM hasn't stopped anything in this regard then what does it matter really?
All DRM has done has made it impossible for the average Joe to fill his iTunes video collection with stuff he bought in the bargain bin at Walmart.
If I buy music on physical media, it is not a bother for me to pull it into iTunes or MCE or MythTV.
If I buy video that way, it is a considerable bother to do the same.
'internet intelligence'? (Score:2)
legal film uploading down 66% outside the UK (Score:2)
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I went to an error-bar, once. ...but I left with the wrong woman.
Re:legal film uploading down 66% outside the UK (Score:4, Funny)
...but I left with the wrong woman.
That wasn't a woman.
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Waaay to expensive (Score:3)
I completely agree that the cost of movies is getting stupid. I watched Transformers 3 last night (it's pretty crap, but the sequence in the city is amazing) and two tickets cost me 18GBP.
For the 2D version.
Fortunately I have Orange Wednesdays so I get two tickets for the price of one, 9GBP and then we split the cost, so 4.50GBP, which is a bit more reasonable and what it should have cost to start with (I'm in London BTW).
I think you should be able to stream the latest releases even while they're in the cinema. For some movies I'd stream them but others I'd go to the cinema to see them on as large a screen as possible.
Transformers (Score:4, Interesting)
I had a similar experience but with the 3D version. It was 10 GBP plus 1GBP for the glasses! Rip off.
There are sequences in that film that are really good fun. Unfortunately there is a lot of bad acting and ridiculous pro-American propaganda.
The scene that left me gawping was when the voiceover said the Autobots agreed to help the US 'save humans from themselves'. The scene showed a nuclear power plant subtitled 'Illegal Nuclear Site' with Libya flags. Very offensive.
The irony is that the film is all about freedom and yet freedoms in America are being taken away everyday (Slashdot YROs etc) Plus America supresses the freedoms of other nations too, UK, Libya, Iraq, Vietnam, Guatemala and so on.
Other than that, the action is good fun but thoughtless. I found the prisoner scene with the Eeinstein robot particularly disturbing.
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Unfortunately there is a lot of bad acting and ridiculous pro-American propaganda.
In a Hollywood action film? I'm shocked! Shocked!!
Next thing you know there will be musical numbers with lots of dancing in Bollywood Films, will nothing stop this madness?
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Wait... How are we suppressing the Libyans freedom at the moment? You have at least some argument for the others but last I checked we were providing at least a little support for the freedom of the Libyan people.
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This is offtopic but do I believe that we're in this war to support the rebels? It can't possibly be for something we want [wikipedia.org]. It [wikipedia.org] has [google.co.uk] happened [blogspot.com] once [wikipedia.org], it will happen again [bbc.co.uk].
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The Arab League gave us an ingraved invitation and by golly we took them up on it.
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It is also incorrect as far as Libya is concerned. The US does not have an oil interest in Lybia, their oil goes almost exclusively to Europe. Qaddafi has been a thorn in our side for decades, our selfish reason for intervening in Libya is removing him, and that just happens to promote the freedom of the Libyan people as well.
Libya has signed the Nuclear Non-proliferation treaty and it is therefore plausible that a nuclear site used to develop nuclear weapons in Libya could be considered "illegal", it is ha
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That begs two questions. Illegal to whom? The US? Who has the right to remove anyone outside our borders? Isn't that the opposite to freedom?
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Why is this honestly offensive to anyone that isn't a whiny film critique?
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Read more.
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If there's no profit from movie tickets there are no theaters, and thus no new movies.
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Don't give them permission to continue to drive up prices. That is don't go. I've stopped going myself, but I have more important things to spend money on.
Set the money not spent on tickets aside for a number of months/years necessary to acquire a decent home theater setup. Get the movies free at the library or start a movie club with other like minded individuals. If enough people do it, eventually the theaters will push back on the movie makers to reduce ticket prices. But as long as the makers/producers
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Or, respectfully, it would cost half that much if you can sit for two hours without having to eat and drink.
Consider the source. (Score:5, Informative)
Shocker? (Score:2)
Re:Shocker? (Score:5, Informative)
Lets just say that a baker has 13 loaves of bread, and I steal one.
The baker now has only a conventional dozen, and will be angry because of that, as he is now only able to sell 12, not the original 13. Loss in potential profits of about 8%.
Imagine the bread is digital, and I copy one of those loaves.
The baker still has 13 loaves, and can still sell them. Repeatedly. His anger is now because his marketplace has diminished by one. Loss in potential profits of 0.000000001%
It is still wrong, from the baker's perspective, but it's less damaging.
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Solution for TV shows: (Score:5, Interesting)
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Most people really can't be bothered.
Most people don't even bother with PVRs.
The industry is really paranoid over nothing. People are lazy and cheap. They are probably more lazy than they are cheap.
Anything that involves some sort of rube goldberg what-if scenario is badly divorced from reality.
And it's all coming down the same cable (Score:5, Insightful)
Dear Virgin Media. You (try to) charge me approximately £4-£5 for a 24 hour window of opportunity to stream a bunch of bits to the cable box over there. Or I can use the exact same cable to stream much the same bunch of bits to the network card and hard drive over here, and then I can decode them as many times as I like, indefinitely, at an extra cost of £0.
I'm not saying that I'd actually do either of these things, but you really aren't making it easy for me to pick the former.
Universal Pictures / Lovefilm dispute (Score:3, Insightful)
Please give us a legal download service. (Score:4, Insightful)
I live in Germany and I admire many BBC productions. The problem is, after many years of the industry 'fighting piracy', they are still missing the obvious.
Yes, I consider myself a "TV show pirate". Why am I pirating? Let's say I want to watch the newest Doctor Who. There are a few ways to watch it:
- legally: Visit UK: Expensive.
- legally: Buy a huge satellite dish and watch/record it. Expensive and complicated, not possible anywhere.
- legally: Wait month for DVD.
- legally: Wait 5 years for any TV station to pick the show up again and show it in Germany with bad synchronization.
- somewhat legally: watch it on BBCs iplayer via Proxy: Complicated to set up, often slow
- probably illegally: download it from Filehoster/Newsgroup: easiest and cheapest, also fast.
So why am I pirating: I'm always picking the fastest, most comfortable and maybe the cheapest way. But I would pay for it, as I would pay for a filehoster or newsgroup provider.
BBC and others: If you want me to stop piracy, please make a platform that
- is available everywhere where I have internet access
- that provides TV shows or movies to an affordable price, with original audio
- that provides TV shows in decent quality (720p), unencrypted
- that provides TV shows immediately after being screened.
I will be your customer.
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BBC stuff is horrible when it comes to pricing. They are absolute dead last on my shopping list when it comes to content. There's just too much other cheaper stuff out there to get my attention. Now I have started watching some of their stuff on Netflix because it's there and it's cheap enough. If not for their prima donna pricing, I would have a lot more of their stuff (bought and paid for even).
people will go for $15-$20 PPV at home for movies (Score:2)
people will go for $15-$20 PPV at home for movies at home same day as theater.
but $30 is to high.
Envisional... (Score:5, Insightful)
http://www.envisional.com/ [envisional.com]
Envisional’s business is built around unique, patented search technologies and a superb team of experienced analysts. We use this powerful combination to help corporations protect themselves and their customers from fraud, fakes, piracy and online brand abuse.
Better solution? (Score:2)
Maybe the solution is to just not care about it? Are the movie producers really gaining anything by chasing filesharers and buying parliamentarians? And aren't they still making loads of money, even with today's massive filesharing?
Columbia Record Club (Score:2)
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Isn't that pretty much exactly what broke prohibition? People just refused to obey the law because it wasn't just. (And they wanted liquor.)
I keep waiting for the government to start seeing sense. I mean, it was only 200-some years ago that we threw off a tyrannical government that wasn't interested in representing us.
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"The solution is apparently for content providers to 'compete with piracy and get their content out there themselves as easily and as quickly and as cheaply as possible'" I agree. Let me rent it online right after it's theater run, instead of waiting 3 to 5 months to wait for the DVD release! We all know the torrents are available immediately in some cases....some of us don't mind paying if we are given the chance!
Baby steps here, there is no way that the movie companies would ever take that big of a leap of faith. I'd be happy if they would make movies available for streaming on Netflix at the same time they are available on disk.
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Absolutely. Kill off all theater sales and movie theaters because they are old, dirty and outmoded. Why not just release the movie on DVD at the same time as in the theater?
You do understand the only thing keeping a lot of theaters going is the fact that if you want to see the movie this year you have to go to the theater? If you are willing to wait until next year, fine, it will be out on DVD.
Just like a losing strategy in Afganistan is telling the Taliban all they have to do is wait a little longer to
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I can wait.
The only reason I ever go to a cinema is the expectation that the movie will deliver a different experience in a real movie house.
Otherwise I just wait for the DVD. If I forget about that movie by the time it gets to DVD/Netflix, I might lose track of it until it pops up on my PVR.
Very few movies rate much attention. Most don't benefit from the "cinema experience".
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Or maybe not. When you look at the music business, and consider that there are DRM-free ways to get music through iTunes and Amazon, or unlimited streaming services like Rhapsody, but then consider that per-capita, inflation-adjusted music sales have fallen by 60-70% in the past 10 years, it suggests to me that legal services are not preferred to illegal ones. (People talk about iTunes likes it's some mass
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10 years ago the industry tried to kill off the single and pushed whole album sales down everyone's throats.
Today, the fastest growing distribution method is the single and singles are cheap.
You also no longer have artificial demand created by format changes.
There are plenty of explanations for the numbers that don't require using piracy as a crutch.
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There is some music that I have bought in multiple formats as those formats came along. CDs were introduced in the 80s and continued to become more predominant through out the 90s. Any sales statistics starting from the tail end of the 90s or 2000 include some of this artificial churn created by the transition between formats. There are a lot of recordings that I had on tape but never bothered with on CD and a lot of things I bought again.
Once those legacy purchases were done, the rest was a relative trickl
Re:No, no, no! (Score:5, Informative)
Yup, there's been a marked decline in the amount of money Hollywood is making over the last decade and a half. They're really hurting now. Oh wait, no there hasn't: http://www.the-numbers.com/market/ [the-numbers.com].
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And the huge irony? I now spend more a month (every month, without fail) on usenet than I have ever or likely would ever spend on buying physical media. Before usenet, I just went without or listened to the radio (fwiw!) watched the TV.
I dont get what they studios are scared of? Its a constant revenue stream, the holy grail of business models, yet they seem blind to this concept. Baffling.
You know, if you sell stuff that people want, then you might find that people will be inclined to buy from you... but no