What do you think is the solution to piracy

Forums › ICT Policies and Regulation › What do you think is the solution to piracy

qwerty7

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#112619 14-Dec-2012 18:10

Creators need to be rewarded for the content they create but currently some companies are acting in an annoying and stupid way. It feels like the idiots behind these companies and laws don't 'understand the internet', they are probably somewhat computer illiterate

I think by the time a movie is released to tv it should be available for free download. Why not? you can record it and keep it and watch it again.

Restricting content by country is completely stupid, do these poeple not understand we are a global interconnected world now?

I just looked at the prices on movies on itunes $30 flippin dollars.. and they wonder why people pirate? I also dont understand the strict 'rental' option. What good is a movie file to me after I have seen it? How often do you watch a movie more than once? I think it should be $5 - $7 to download movies and 49 cents for a song with no drm protection or any of that junk

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#732707 14-Dec-2012 18:34

I'm quite happy to pay a small fee for legal content, as long as I am free to do with it as I please within the bounds of the law.

If you look at how much money say a TV producer makes off you when you watch the latest episode of your favourite show on TV, I suspect you will find it's tiny. And there will be a bunch of people clipping the ticket along the way.

I suspect if I could buy the latest episode of Game of Thrones directly from HBO for 50c, they would be making more money out of me than they would if I watched it on broadcast TV. With iTunes wanting in the region of $3 for a single TV episode, I am not surprised that piracy is so rife.

Make it cheap, easily available and without technical restriction and piracy will plummet. There will ALWAYS be an element of piracy in the industry, but I think they could easily turn it into a fraction of what it was. (NOTHING content producers have tried to date has come remotely close solving the piracy issue - in fact many would argue their actions have made it significantly worse).

Their distribution costs have plummeted too. No more do they need to produce CDs, DVDs etc and all the logistics associated with this. Digital downloads have a near zero marginal cost and the retail price should reflect this.

Paying $7 for a movie, $3 for a TV show or even 99c for a song are HUGE margin increases for the producers over other distribution methods, and consumers are aware of how much of a rip off they are.

If I can go down to the local video store and rent 2x new release films on DVD for the same price as hiring one off iTunes, clearly someone is making far too much money. The costs of getting that DVD to me via the rental store are orders of magnitude higher than me downloading a file to watch.

I think the true value of digital content is something is the order of 10c-20c for a song, 30-50c for a HD TV episode, and $1-2 for a movie. Under $10 if you want to own it.

Let the market decide the price, that's how supply and demand works.

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macuser

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#732712 14-Dec-2012 18:48

I always find it a little funny that a $8 beer is cheap, but a $8 movie rental is causing piracy...

mattwnz

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#732717 14-Dec-2012 19:02

macuser: I always find it a little funny that a $8 beer is cheap, but a $8 movie rental is causing piracy...

Who said $8 ber was cheap? Although that maybe what you pay if you go to a bar, but that cost also covers overheads and wages etc. If you buy at home, the overheads are fixed, so you are just paying the retail price from the supermarket, which is a fraction of that.

SaltyNZ

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#732720 14-Dec-2012 19:06

Make region blocking illegal, explicitly set the penalty for unauthorised copying of protected content not offered for sale/rental in a jurisdiction to $0.00. In other words, you can't cry you're losing a zillion dollars on piracy of Mega Explosions with Boobs XXVII when you won't sell it to anyone.

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Behodar

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#732721 14-Dec-2012 19:08

While I'd like to see lower prices, I think that the biggest problem is the regional lockouts. I get most of my TV programmes from iTunes US because they're available within 24 hours of release. I don't want to have to wait until the local networks get around to playing them. I expect that if these were available to buy in NZ then more people would pay for them instead of pirating them; I have to jump through hoops to pay for content.

SaltyNZ

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#732722 14-Dec-2012 19:08

Behodar: While I'd like to see lower prices, I think that the biggest problem is the regional lockouts. I get most of my TV programmes from iTunes US because they're available within 24 hours of release. I don't want to have to wait until the local networks get around to playing them. I expect that if these were available to buy in NZ then more people would pay for them instead of pirating them; I have to jump through hoops to pay for content.

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Behodar

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#732723 14-Dec-2012 19:10

Indeed :)

System

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#732724 14-Dec-2012 19:11

I think its fairly simple, if the price that the user is prepared to pay out weighs the hassle that the have to go to to pirate the item then you will have a purchase otherwise they will go and download it from somewhere else.

I also believe the philosophy that a pirated item is a lost sale is false, most people that pirate the item were probably unlikely to go out and purchase it anyway, the reason why they pirated it is because they weren't prepared to pay the price for it.

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Behodar

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#732725 14-Dec-2012 19:11

Oh and while we're at it, make physical copies more attractive too. I don't want to pay $40 for a Blu-ray to be greeted first by an unskippable screen accusing me of piracy then 2-3 ads for other films.

Edit: And here we go again with regional restrictions! I got The Dark Knight Rises today, which has an "Ultraviolet" redemption code. According to the back of the case, "Ultraviolet not available in the Republic of Ireland, the Channel Islands and Isle of Man". Well, I'm not in any of those places so I went to the site and was greeted with "Sorry, this offer is only available in United Kingdom". It's not a good sign when the packaging doesn't have the right information!

I'm going to contact their support to see what happens :P

blair003

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#732729 14-Dec-2012 19:22

System: I think its fairly simple, if the price that the user is prepared to pay out weighs the hassle that the have to go to to pirate the item then you will have a purchase otherwise they will go and download it from somewhere else.

This is basically what it comes down to. Most of us don't necessarily want not pirate, but given the options for getting content how we want it it's not surprising that many do.

My mum got a new tablet, asked me how to 'go to itunes to buy music'. Had to explain that itunes was apple only and this was not an apple device. AFAIK you can't buy music from Google Play in NZ so I wasn't sure what the way to buy music on an android device was.

Ended up installing I think it was pandora? Will see how that goes.

But are there any other industries that try so hard to make it hard for customers to purchase? If there are such industries, are those industries in which the same (or often same but better) product is available for free elsewhere by breaking a law that is socially acceptable to break?

macuser

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#732740 14-Dec-2012 19:47

mattwnz:
macuser: I always find it a little funny that a $8 beer is cheap, but a $8 movie rental is causing piracy...

Who said $8 ber was cheap? Although that maybe what you pay if you go to a bar, but that cost also covers overheads and wages etc. If you buy at home, the overheads are fixed, so you are just paying the retail price from the supermarket, which is a fraction of that.

I was making a simple comparison to what consumers find to be reasonable value compared to what they find to be unreasonable. I think piracy has set unrealistic expectations about content pricing due to the fact that piracy makes it free.

I think what many consumers don't realise is that you don't actually have a direct relationship with the movie maker, traditionally the movie is made with huge financial risk then hopefully sold to movie theaters and television in a specific market, and then if the movie/television proves itself to be successful (by many people watching it) it will be sold to international theaters and TV stations. So the reason that it sometimes takes longer for some movies to make their way to NZ is that the content needs to be a proven money maker before NZ suppliers will take the financial risk of bringing the content to NZ without knowing that they will make money back off it.

Also Television and Movies still make enough money to not have to change their business model, it's far easier to sell their television/movie to a distributor for a large amount of money than deal directly with consumers.

I have been spending a lot of money on sale Steam games lately, I would like a TV/Movie model like that...

freitasm

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#732743 14-Dec-2012 19:53

I think by the time a movie is released to tv it should be available for free download. Why not? you can record it and keep it and watch it again.

I don't expect it to be free. I expect it to be available. Why would you expect it to be free?

NzBeagle

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#732744 14-Dec-2012 20:03

I am happy to pay for subscription music, actually three services presently while I decide which one/S suit my needs. Previously amassed a significant collection of music via other means, but the model suits that I'm happy to pay. Similar options need to be explored for tv shows, even acquiring via iTunes (US) has its fine print. I've resigned to purchasing movies, happy to pay for the quality of blu ray.

Totally agree on the mention of region locks, what are they actually achieving, I'm open to people explaining the reason. And the unskippable pirate warnings, which pirates remove from their copies anyhow.

HowickDota

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#732747 14-Dec-2012 20:15

Availability and affordability

reven

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#732749 14-Dec-2012 20:19

for new tv seasons, i use hulu for most shows, i dont mind paying a small monthly fee.

for old tv seasons i use netflix, once again subscription based

for new release movies, i tend to either wait until their own netflix, or perhaps rent on vudu (vudu is about $7 nzd for a SD movie rental). but only if i really want to watch the movie ill watch it on vudu, too expensive IMO for frequent use (esp since I'm subscribing to a lot of other services).

$5 nzd for a 1080p movie streamed for 48 hours is a good figure for new release movies IMO, and about $3 for older ones.

i dont tend to buy movies online due to DRM, if I wanted to buy a movie I would want it downloaded to my NAS and playable on any device. for that I'd pay $20 a movie.

tl;dr; subscriptions

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