Movie piracy is getting to more and more insane levels. Just in the last few months I've noticed that anyone and everyone is pumping out copied DVD's or juarez by the spindle load. Of course this has been going on for yrs by crims, geeks. I am talking more about ppl who copy stuff and give it to their family and friends etc not crime rings.
But what surprises me nowerdays is that the 'piracy' demographic is now just about anyone who has a pc with broadband i.e kids, mums, dads, grannies etc.
It seems the first thing a pc newb learns nowerdays is how to copy s***.

The extent of it now simply amazes me.

I often wonder how cinemas and Video-Hire stores actually manage to keep their doors open anymore? Seeing that the amount of revenue lost to 'domestic piracy' is reaching astronmical heights!?

-Discuss

... sensibly

whoop wins.

but yeah i was surprised when i went into video ezy recently and their standard overnight prices were like 3 dollars or something. I remember years ago when we used to rent videos they were getting up to $8.

last edited by partyhat at 01:16:52 07/Sep/07

Its always amusing when a customer complains they can't "copy a dvd" with their new system...

Is it a movie DVD say one you hired from the video store or borrowed from a friend?

Uhhh yes?

Well you do realise that is actually illegal and can't be done that easily, obviously I can't go into how you can due to the legalities of the whole process.

Oh... ummmmm... *phone hangs up*

I find it amazing how much music people here at work have on their pc's. I don't really care, but it sucks when I have to reimage a pc.

One guy who left had about 50GB of divx movies on his hdd.

more rampant than vhs piracy, and audio tape piracy?

people have always recorded stuff, just because they now use computers doesn't make it rampant. Vhs video recorder sales were massive, not because everyone owned one player but because ppl owned two players so the could copy tapes. kiddies used to record music off the radio or Rage, now they download it. the desire to not pay for stupidly overpriced content isn't any stronger - and i'm not convinced the number of people doing it is any greater than say ten or fifteen years ago.

yep, I agree with nats, I remember going to many a mate's place and seeing the old 2 VHS recorders going at once, knowing full well what was happening..

same with tapes, we used to record tapes all the freaking time.

It might just seem more mainstream now??

hehe rage to get music, tis true, back in the day

now its a few clicks away :D (itunes I mean, like OMG legal filez maens!@)

everyone did it with VHS, nows its DVD. no surprises there.

so we all hooked up our vhs to the internet to pull down all the freely available vhs rips?

I agree with Jims sentiment. The availability and ways to store it are much better than the old days. How many cassette tapes would you think it would take to store 50 gigs worth of mp3's?

so we all hooked up our vhs to the internet to pull down all the freely available vhs rips?

no, silly

more rampant than vhs piracy, and audio tape piracy?

Yes, much more rampant - I don't know how you can really compare them

Yes, much more rampant - I don't know how you can really compare them

Its comparable as its the technology that is making it easier to copy

yeh it's cool... even my most computer-illiterate relative knows how to copy/download movies, tv shows & music. no need for me to have to run them through dvd-decrypter or the like anymmore.. everyone has phat content to watch or listen to.. digital age rocks. :D

Of course the studios and distributors take no blame in the fact that DVDs are cheaper to produce than VHS, yet as soon as DVDs started appearing they were selling for $10 more than the same VHS?
We're now talking $40 for new release movies and $14 for movie tickets.

Why is anyone surprised there's so much piracy?

In Canada, they just dropped the price of music CDs (Albums) by CAD10, and saw sales skyrocket.

DVD movies should be $24.95 for new releases tops, and that's for dual discs packed with extras. Not $39.95.

I'm not suprised there's so much piracy, but it has little to do with any wrongdoing on the part of studios and distributors. They charge the prices they do because a) it's not unlawful and b) consumers actions speak louder than words - they say that it's ok to charge that much for them when they buy them.

Yeah it is ridiculous I have only ever bought 1 DVD and I paid $40 for it. I've watched it like once or twice... (It was American Pie) I could have got it for $1 from Video Ezy on a tuesday, copied it for another dollar. Or simply hired it twice. Either way that's still two dollars. A lot of the DVDs I've copied, I haven't even watched... they're just there because I CAN copy them, and it's cheap to do so.

Movies should not cost $24.95, they should cost less than going to the cinema to watch them. No seriously. When you pay 30 bucks for a movie you still don't 'own' it or anything, it's not a physically valuable or useful thing, you simply have permission to watch it whenever you like, and that's not something to write home about.

Have you ever tried duplicating a textbook? It's often just as expensive to purchase the actual book.

Have you ever tried duplicating a textbook? It's often just as expensive to purchase the actual book.

Not unless you get a duplicate from China :P I used to get those when I was at uni. Could get copies of the books delivered to my house for $20-$30 when they sold for well over $100 at the uni bookshop

Has anyone here "purchased with real money" an mp3?

yeah I have

Dont think I have, have bought quite a few albums off itunes but then realised there is some strange digital rights management on it that made it a pain in the ass to play on anything else but itunes/ipod

Well either way more and more content creators are going to find ways to sell their content without going through dvd distributors, and the market will become a lot more competitive. Especially now with the technology developing to get tiny TV's into everything (in places where people aren't going to sit for 2 hours), there will be high demand for paid short content, that will put pressure on the studios to put out cheaper and shorter films.
Creating content is a very accessible thing now to most businesses and individuals. The only thing the studios hold over everyone else is they can pull together monumental epic features with a lot of cast and crew that just isn't possible for anyone else - but even that doesn't sell to everyone, and they can only really do one or two a year.
Also a lot of older content is becoming very cheap to redistribute (noticed cheap DVDs of old cartoons in servos everywhere?) as well, so hopefully overall this will force studios, distributors, and retailers to be more competitive.

Clearly the people who have made a lot of money in the film industry in the past are losing their share of the pie, piece by piece. Pirating is just a scapegoat for frustrated business men, like asians taking jobs.


last edited by Idol at 11:29:58 07/Sep/07

last edited by Idol at 11:30:56 07/Sep/07

If Warner Bros can afford to pay Nicole Kidman $17 million dollars to act in The Invasion then they can afford to have people leech their movie. Ok, that's not the best thing to say but it's discusting the amount of money people get payed to act in movies.

If Warner Bros can afford to pay Nicole Kidman $17 million dollars to act in The Invasion then they can afford to have people leech their movie.

I reckon that statement contradicts itself in principle, because it's sales that makes them able to afford to pay actors what they do. Naturally they're not gonna go broke if a small enough % of people leech the movies so if you said 'they can afford to have a small percentage' I'd have to agree - but is that really the point?

I mean, if you're gonna breach copyright, just do it and don't try and justify it I reckon

I purchased a song off iTunes to see what it's all about and it came with a weird extension I've never seen before (forgot what it was). I couldn't play it in Media Player, it only played in iTunes and I assume on iPods.. Is this normal??

last edited by Martz at 12:05:05 07/Sep/07

mp4 ?

aac ?

iTunes sells 2 types of files from memory.
DRM versions have Fairplay DRM, and are only playable in iTunes and on iPod ?

non DRM versions work on Zens, Zunes, Sonies, xbox360s, ps3's, a bunch of phones and "most" windows mp3 players of any ability.

Obviously if video stores are doing fine (which they are) it isn't as rampant as you think it is :P

Think we all underestimate how lazy people can be. Much easier to go to your local vid store and just grabbing something than it is to find it on the net, dl it, then burn it.

It is often cheaper to hire a DVD than to use your bandwidth allowance on a torrent

with music, people now may have 500gb of mp3s that they don't listen to, replacing the 1 cd they would've bought once a fortnight if they were 100% legit music fan

in the times of cds people made tapes of each others cds to the same loss to music studios of 1cd / fortnight that a 100% legit avg music fan would buy.

and before that albums came on tapes, nd before that 8-tracks were involved.

it's the same theoretical loss regardless of the time and technology.

maybe i just grew up in a different world to everyone but HeardY, where one person bought the latest CD and everyone borrowed it. where your neighbour dub'd your vhs's for u if u were povo with only one recorder, and the cool kid at school had the grainy Return of the Jedi cam weeks before australian cinema and you had to go to his place to watch it cause his dad wouldn't let this one out of the house.

$32 / month for 36gb
.7gb / 1.4gb per movie =
~62 cents / $1.24 per movie

Not really. Even if that wasn't on the half price optus deal it would still only be $1.24 or $2.28. On something like the tpg 150gb plan it'd be around the 32cents / 64 cents mark.

heh how can it be the same theoretical loss without the distribution method that now exists and is so common? are you seriously comparing your social circle and it's ability to distribute content, with the internet?

accessibility of technology has made piracy rampant. in previous era a moderate level of technological know-how was required to pirate media.

today there are so many one click methods that everybody is doing it and it has become normalised.

I only buy TV series I didn't bother watching when they were released weekly on channel BT. I got Rome season 1 for 40 bucks the other day which isn't bad at all and I've bought all the sopranos over the years. However with movies why the hell would I pay 30 bucks for something I will watch once or twice? The only people who buy DVDs are people that are afraid of those "piracy is a crime" ads and people who like to show off DVD collections.

I'll hire a movie before I buy/download due to gigs restraints and quality.

I bought Apocalypto for 15bucks because its a f***en awesome movie and I'll give my money for that.

My olds were asking me the other day how to copy DVD's and they hardly know how to turn the computer on. People don't care about the risk because it is minimal, like J-walking or something.

Music is just easy. I buy the occasional CD like the MOS annual thats about it.

yes i am seriously comparing social network copying with the internet. piracy is about loss of sales not the number of times you burn the same mp3 to a cd to pin on your wall.

make 100 copies of britney's new single on your harddrive by clicking on it, control-c, then control-v 100 times. how have you really increased the rate or impact of piracy?

it's only if for each of those control-v you would've gone to the shop and purchased a $4.99 cd single and now you don't that the rate of piracy has increased by your actions.

if i back up my mp3 collection to my other computer then my piracy contribution hasn't doubled, it's when using what i copy reduces my purchases from fortnightly to monthly, then my piracy rate has increased, and that is NOT what we are seeing, sales are steady or rising. while cinema sales are down dvd sales are booming. it's nit piracy that's hurting cinema or it would hurt dvd sales and rental too.

Personally I don't watch ripped movies. I can get rental cheap (special deals) as our local vid store and it's only 10 minutes away. And I'm not one that _must_ watch the latest shows or movies or whatever the latest shows on TV from Overseas. I prefer to do other things if possible and not watch the idiot box all day long. And if we really liked the movie we'd buy it on DVD etc. We like to own an actual DVD of the movies we liked, old habits I guess.

Music wise, I do "share" music with other people i.e I would listen to their ripped MP3s, and if I like it I'd go and buy the CD etc. Again I only listen to the things I have and I don't sit down to have a listening "session" of all the latest music and stuff. The music I played whilst at work are usally same stuff for background music anyway.

But I don't think it's more rampant than it ever was. It's just that very high (exact in some instances) quality copies can be made by anyone. Before that they'd still make copies but they're very poor quality.

YMMV

i agree with natslovR

yes i am seriously comparing social network copying with the internet. piracy is about loss of sales not the number of times you burn the same mp3 to a cd to pin on your wall.

actually piracy isn't about sales - but even still, for the purpose of the point you're trying to make, I'll answer by saying that my point has nothing to do with the number of copies you're now able to make with your cd burner but rather with the ease in which more people have the means to do it much more easily than before.

in other words, there's simply no comparison between:
- your suggestion that one or two people in ones social circles buy the dvd and copy it for everyone else
- any person with broadband and a pc being able to, on essentially nothing more than a whim, fetch some copyrighted material from the internet instead of going and buying it.

that's why I asked you the question I asked. how can you possibly compare the two?

The main thing driving movie and tv piracy is the simple fact that we can see the latest movies/tv series (most of the time in HD/DVD/R5 quality) before they even air over here.

They have finally caught onto this though and are cutting down on the delay time between airing in the US and Aus/other slower countries. Still until its within 24 hours people will still download.

So in a sense piracy has actually resulted in one good thing that a whole lot of whinging and begging never would have.


The thing that appeals to me the most is being able to watch WHAT you want WHEN it suits you. If TV stations had global release dates with episodes on demand I think that would please the majority, I know I would be very interested.

They have finally caught onto this though and are cutting down on the delay time between airing in the US and Aus/other slower countries. Still until its within 24 hours people will still download.

apparently season 2 of heroes is airing here on tv on the 26th of september. 1 day after you can get it off the net. i dont think its true though because channel 7 would be advertising the s*** out of it by now.

that's why I asked you the question I asked. how can you possibly compare the two?

if the ease at which piracy occurs is the driving factor to suggest that piracy is rampant, why are sales of music and movies either stable or significantly up?

taking something for free means no sale occurs. if it's rampant compared to ten years ago why aren't sales dropping? unless we are talking about piracy levels being insignificant, in which case yeah sure, a million times nothing is still nothing, i get it.

business' have moved with the times piracy is a blessing not a curse.

on the nats and heardy line, obviously I used to go and get tapes copied for me from friends, or remember a time when we used to go to our friends house who actually had the tape and watch it together, so probably public transport and oil suppliers are hurting more from piracy...

global temperature is on the rise (if you believe in that sorta thing) which indicates, through pastifarianism, that piracy is in recession. np.

if the ease at which piracy occurs is the driving factor to suggest that piracy is rampant, why are sales of music and movies either stable or significantly up?

so if that's your argument, shouldn't you have originally said that if anything, you think piracy is now less common?

grabbing sales figures as a means of supporting the argument doesn't really make sense to me because you'd have to ignore culture changes, population ratio, market and economic patterns as factors in sales.
none of the mechanisms that were available previously, are gone now - they've only changed media (vhs to dvd, tape to cd etc). tv and radio are still there to be recorded, cd's and dvd's are able to be copied, and shared between members of social circles.

yet now, in addition to the above, we have pc's in substantial numbers of homes, and substantial numbers of those with pc's have broadband and we know how easy it is to fetch something.

i'd love to see if someone's shown a causal link between pircay and cd and dvd sales.

Would be hard to show. I guess you could look at sales when any major distribution site was closed down. Napster would have been a good one. I am not arguing whether piracy causes less sales or it drives sales. But If you think piracy is not more prevalent today than it was 10 years ago during vhs and cassette tape times then you are on crack. 10 years ago I did not even know anyone with a dual vhs machine. Today I don't know anyone without a computer.

no i definitely think piracy has risen alot, extremely probably, I just don't know if the two are in any way connected and doubt there's much evidence to show any direct link. anyway i'll take of my "trained at home" economist pants now before someone shuts me down.

I think the ease at which you can get copywrited material also means people are more likely to get things they otherwise wouldn't.

For quite a few people they still buy the dvd's / cd's they're really interested in, but then download a whole lot of other stuff they might be only a little interested in, some stuff they use some stuff they don't. Hence a cd/dvd sales don't decline markedly, but piracy goes up.

Having said that now with flac, good video compression etc the argument for buying for media quality is less valid.

As an aside, had to change plans today as the optus 1/2 price deal is up - for anyone in the same situation, be aware optus are changing to plans that include uploads as of sunday, so you have until then to get on an existing plan or have to deal with 30gb for $109 a month ...

understand that you have stupid pirates and smart pirates.


stupid pirates are by far the most common, and load silly programs that both keep antivirus companies and local computer store service depts in biz from all the bloody viruses that worm their way thru these useless excuses for p2p networks into 'protected' users machines


smart pirates.. well I dunno what they do. ask the govt or something



last edited by koopz at 22:20:17 07/Sep/07

make 100 copies of britney's new single on your harddrive by clicking on it, control-c, then control-v 100 times. how have you really increased the rate or impact of piracy?

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought you were comparing digital piracy to analogue piracy

YARRRRRGGGGG!!!!!!!!!

2 points:

- Just to the peeps regarding comments about DVD vs VHS comparisons. I should have been more clear in my initial statement that I believe that it is a COMBINATION of the physical act of copying a DVD(like copying a VHS tape) and pulling a movie(warez) off the net. There was no P2P internet back in the late 80's early 90's. It is the combination of both that has made movie piracy MORE rampant than previous generations.


- I've had a few friends offer me 'spindle loads' (50+ DVD's) of movies/TVshows at a time. These are also ppl whom up until recently only ever used a computer to check a few emails and websurf. Back when there was only VHS if you wanted to give someone 50+ movies you would have need a large crate to put all of them in!

sLaps_Forehead, we get it dude...


a lot of your friends and associates have become efficient pirates.


we can't all say that of our mates. do you live in Logan by any chance?

yuppies that live in the inner city actually.

you get zero for profiling

yarr

- I've had a few friends offer me 'spindle loads' (50+ DVD's) of movies/TVshows at a time. These are also ppl whom up until recently only ever used a computer to check a few emails and websurf. Back when there was only VHS if you wanted to give someone 50+ movies you would have need a large crate to put all of them in!

So basically all these wondrous technological advancements have managed to achieve is that we no longer need a big crate to trade lots of movies.

lols

haha that was a great little intro to that IT Crowd episode.

natslovR is making the most sense here.

when you 'steal' a car, there is 1 less car they can sell.

when you 'steal' a movie or song over the internet, there isn't one less to sell.

do you really think, if i couldn't download the 1500 albums i have downloaded that I would go out and buy them? no. i would just listen to the radio or something.

fair enough there are a few albums i maybe would have paid for if i couldn't get them, but its nowhere near the amount i download.

this would be true for almost everyone i assume.

also consider this - how many people would have never discovered a new tv show, new band or movie without the downloading it first off the internet? then go on to buy the boxed dvd's or see the the band live etc..

there is some profit lost in piracy i'm sure but its nowhere near where the big companies will have you believe - but like i said they make it up in other ways.

based on your post, I don't think you actually understand what natslovr is saying


I don't think your point is valid anyway - you even admit that there's a few albums you might've paid for if you couldn't steal them which partially contradicts your entire argument in the first place, and besides that, your own behaviour isn't even indicative of everyone else's - assuming [almost] everyone else is the same, is a mistake.

i dont see how i contradicted myself - i think you missed the point. all im saying is, is that just because someone downloads something doesn't mean that the copyright holder necessarily loses money.

if i download 1500 albums that cost $20 each, the record companies aren't losing out on $30000 because i would never have bought all those albums. they are in fact winning because maybe i will discover new bands and see their shows.

pirates have always been around.. ever since blackbeard

I made that comment because you said:

"when you 'steal' a movie or song over the internet, there isn't one less to sell."

and then further on you said:

"fair enough there are a few albums i maybe would have paid for if i couldn't get them"

That's why I said you partially contradicted yourself.

And the reason I said I thought you missed what natslovr was saying is because he didn't seem to be making that point - he was making the point that piracy is no more rampant now than it was several years ago.

if i download 1500 albums that cost $20 each, the record companies aren't losing out on $30000 because i would never have bought all those albums.

but it's very likely that you wouldn't buy none of them, right?

besides, do you seriously think anyone is actually claiming (in your scenario) that the record company is losing $30000? it'd be like the noobest argument ever made in this topic.

finally, is whether or not you would purchase all 1500 albums, the point? like I said earlier, don't try and lamely justify your theft. if you're gonna do it, harden up and accept it instead of trying to justify it

it is a demand side issue. there is no supply side in intellectual property because it is unlimited. if a player's conduct is to dampen the market's demand then it is detrimental.

what is to be said for the fact that despite rampant piracy music and movies sales increase every year?