oh – not that exciting really 🙁

…to answer your question, no, not really done anything with the RPi yet. I’m very behind the times with consumer technology at aracer towers – don’t have a single device with either an HDMI or DVI input, so struggling with poor quality display via phono (and a DVI/VGA adapter which doesn’t seem to work with my kit, despite other RPi users having got it to work).

Repeat fees are part of my GF’s income that allow her to continue making films so if her work was being torrented to the extent that a channel saw no commercial reason to screen them anymore then that income would vanish. (she would send someone round with sticks incidentally)

I always thought it worked the other way around – if your material is being heavily pirated it’s because it is already a commercial success. If 100,000 people are torrenting it then millions have legitimately bought it.

If 100,000 people are torrenting it and there is no way of commercially purchasing the material, then that’s just bad business practice. If 100,000 people are willing to make the effort of pirating the material there will be millions of people willing to pay for it.

I don’t condone piracy, but times are tough and people are looking to save money where they can; if downloading the latest action flick costs nothing on TPB then many people will do that rather than pay £15 for a DVD. I don’t think many people care if Tom Cruise can’t buy another $50 million yacht.

If “the industry” were to offer high quality digital copies of movies etc that people could actually own, for a reasonable price, then piracy would diminish considerably.

I always thought it worked the other way around – if your material is being heavily pirated it’s because it is already a commercial success. If 100,000 people are torrenting it then millions have legitimately bought it.

If you want to think so. A feature film I worked (of which I’m due several thousand pounds in deferred fees from if it makes a profit) gets its release later this month. Its been on thousands of torrent sites for several months now so the free-torrents: paid purchases ratio isn’t very favourable at the moment.

In fact, now I think about it I’ve got deferred deals on 4 feature films, including one thats have seen a substantial haul of prizes and plaudits. When I say “now I think about it” I mean until this conversation I’d forgotten as I’ve never seen or expect to see any of that money. They were modest budgets films so given they’ve had international distribution it wouldn’t take a butt load of sales to return a profit, but they haven’t. There is some sharp practice from the distributors there, but the fact remains the films have been seen and enjoyed by far more people than have paid to do so.

At blockbuster level then its quite possible that paid tickets/downloads outweigh piracy. Bu like with music, its the smaller scale, more interesting stuff that is harmed by piracy. People who would make a wage rather than a fortune from their work.

your own examples still dont cover the case of my OP where there is no legitimate method to re-watch what Ive already seen.

If you want to think so. A feature film I worked (of which I’m due several thousand pounds in deferred fees from if it makes a profit) gets its release later this month. Its been on thousands of torrent sites for several months now so the free-torrents: paid purchases ratio isn’t very favourable at the moment.

Maybe it’s not very good, or it wasn’t very well marketed? How did the film get onto these torrent sites – someone working on the production presumably?

I’m guessing you CBA watching the video I linked to – but maybe rather than whining people ought to be coming up with better ways to make thing available on legitimate paid services, so it becomes easier than piracy. If the film was ready, why not make it available – oh because you wanted to keep control over the release schedule and adhere to a traditional model of cinema release-DVD-TV. Outmoded – people want to be able to see stuff right now, easily and cheaply. If you can’t provide that don’t be surprised when someone else does.

BTW I know quite a few DJ/Producers who now get gigs all over the world thanks to YouTube and torrents meaning they have a following in places where almost no-one ever buys CDs. They are far from big time.

At blockbuster level then its quite possible that paid tickets/downloads outweigh piracy. Bu like with music, its the smaller scale, more interesting stuff that is harmed by piracy. People who would make a wage rather than a fortune from their work.

Where is your evidence for that statement? There just isn’t that big a market for small, independent films (with small marketing budgets), regardless of what prizes they win. Are you using the frankly ridiculous argument that every download is a lost sale?

maybe rather than whining people ought to be coming up with better ways to make thing available on legitimate paid services, so it becomes easier than piracy.

Agreed. But thats not in my hands – its not generally the role of the art department to devise and negotiate distribution models. 🙂

The difficulty in my view is the industry was far too slow to react to new distribution channels. In the vaccuum torrents emerged, but the problem is now even though there are ample legitimate legal and affordable avenues online theres a generation of consumers who view content as something thats their right to take for free. Having loaded up their harddrives with free content its not likely those people would now view legal downloads, no matter how convenient, as something they’d pay money for.

your own examples still dont cover the case of my OP where there is no legitimate method to re-watch what Ive already seen.

That is for a reason – what reason I’m not sure. But they’ve a reason and a right not to put it out right now, they presumably have other plans. If you want to download it, and can, go ahead

Don’t see anything wrong with it in the limited circumstances you outline

Pirate bay via hidemyass is the best way I find

The difficulty in my view is the industry was far too slow to react to new distribution channels. In the vaccuum torrents emerged, but the problem is now even though there are ample legitimate legal and affordable avenues online theres a generation of consumers who view content as something thats their right to take for free. Having loaded up their harddrives with free content its not likely those people would now view legal downloads, no matter how convenient, as something they’d pay money for.

I think you may have a point to some extent, but the legal services still aren’t there yet. Take the example of the last series of Game of Thrones – I wanted to watch the episodes as they came out, but I don’t have or want a Sky subscription. I was quite happy to pay per episode, but it wasn’t available on iTunes, Amazon etc. Apparently there is a HBO service that lets you do this – not available in the UK.

Yes you can say I should have got a Sky subscription (£40 a month to watch one series?) but there I was, effectively wallet in hand, completely unable to buy the product legally and conveniently. So I got it off pirate bay instead.

Also, I first got into the series by watching pirated epsiodes – now I have bought the first series on DVD. Not quite so black and white as ‘TORRENTS ARE EVIL’ is it.

I wanted to watch the episodes as they came out, but I don’t have or want a Sky subscription

Sky paid big bucks to have that exclusivity -precisely to sell sky subscriptions. But – its Sky , feckem pirate to your hearts content! Nothing on earth would make me want to pay for any of their services 🙂

That said… plenty of friends of mine are on the Game of Thrones payroll (its filmed in northern ireland so theres a lot of UK crew). But I’ll distance myself from them until the taint of sky money has worn off a little 🙂

Not quite so black and white as ‘TORRENTS ARE EVIL’ is it.

Not suggesting its black and white. I’ve downloaded torrents of films I’ve made simply so I can have screengrabs for my folio! But I don’t think the majority of torrent users think about it at all, in the case of the film getting released this month – its a long awaited sequel for a film that got a bit of cult/niche following, I expect most of the downloads are the film’s fanbase that are just too impatient to have waited, but I doubt they’ve realised that money for films they like doesn’t just appear from nowhere or that they’re undermining the productions of more films that they’d want to watch.

Sky paid big bucks to have that exclusivity -precisely to sell sky subscriptions.

Yup, and that’s exactly the kind of restrictive practice that encourages people to pirate.

If no channel wants to repeat it, then surely it has no further value to the rights holder anyway? If it did they would have either a) repeated it or b) released a DVD

This is a great example of customers and content creators wants and needs and the technology available being well ahead of big businesses method.

The industry is broken.

We have a consumer who wants to consume some media at a fair price and we have a creator who wants to make a fair price for that media. The technology exists to make this very easily possible.

But

Big business has gotten in the way with its outdated practices. Presumably the reason the series isn’t available is that although there is some demand that demand isn’t high enough to meet the cost hurdles of either TV broadcast or DVD release. The scene has been complicated further by the music industry getting involved. The model is dependant on large numbers of people wanting to consume the same thing at the same time, that was fine when that was the only method of distribution but now its madness and no wonder people download for free.

Agreed. But thats not in my hands – its not generally the role of the art department to devise and negotiate distribution models

What is frustraiting is that the content creators seem intent on maintaining the status quo, despite the fact that it prevents the demand for their work being met and therefore prevents them earning from it.

We have a consumer who wants to consume some media at a fair price and we have a creator who wants to make a fair price for that media. The technology exists to make this very easily possible.

But on the op’s case the creator seemingly doesn’t want to sell it, for a fair price or otherwise. So the moral issue for stoner is whether he should respect those wishes.

what fletch means is that although the technology exists, the BBC or the producers are too staid to make the media available through a less “All or Nothing” distribution model. i.e. paid-for digi downloads. It may well not be the Beeb’s fault – may well be the PPS/PPL lot demanding too big a slice, or a fixed payment for licence use that doesnt take into account actual demand etc.

grum – Member

Sky paid big bucks to have that exclusivity -precisely to sell sky subscriptions.

Yup, and that’s exactly the kind of restrictive practice that encourages people to pirate.

Or put another way, was it these kind of big money, exclusive deals, that ensured a second series was commissioned in the first place?

Matt

But on the op’s case the creator seemingly doesn’t want to sell it, for a fair price or otherwise. So the moral issue for stoner is whether he should respect those wishes.

How do you know?

All you know is that they don’t think they can make money from putting it on TV or distributing a load of DVDs. But doing either of these things costs a lot of money. Arbitarrily lets say they need 100,000 consumers to make either viable.

The series sounds dull so lets say they only have 10,000 consumers and each of these consumers was willing to pay £1 to watch it.

In the old world the costs of broadcast/disrtibution can’t be met. The series stays in its box and nobody makes any money.

But why can the 10,000 consumers each give their £1 directly to the creator in return for a copy to watch? The creator has £10,000 extra pounds and the consumers can watch what they want, when they want. And with the internet the costs of distribution are negligible.

Or put another way, was it these kind of big money, exclusive deals, that ensured a second series was commissioned in the first place?

Possibly, but is it really the only way? Remember that they have also probably lost significant revenue by not making the episodes available to buy legally, which could potentially have jeopardised the second series.

Personally I think it’s a bit of a poor way to treat potential customers to expect them to spend £40 a month on a subscription they don’t want in order to watch a programme they would really like to buy, but I guess that’s up to them.

Most of my sympathies towards the owner of the material are lost after watching 10 minutes of unskippable trailers and piracy warnings at the start of legitimately bought DVD/Bluray.

I tend to agree, I will not buy Sky and was (having seen it, quite rightly)desperate to watch the second series of Game of Thrones, but the exclusive model must be pretty low risk for the program makers?

Matt

Grum – NSFW and I expect you’ve seen it ..

The Oatmeal

Pretty much sums it up.

I do dearly love that portly. Pirate discs have it removed or skipable, genuine ones I’ve got to watch all that rubbish. I even bought one recently with ADVERTS in it, not for films, for shampoo and the like.

I don’t see why the BBC don’t have a service where you can pay for digital copies of broadcast TV that they own the rights to. They have it digitised already going back some way so what they need is automation so we can say “I’d like to own all of Howards Way” and then it just posts you a DVD with the files on a disc so not even any need for authoring an interface. Most DVD players these days will play AVI/MP4/XVID/Whatever from disc directly.

Unskippable adverts / notices really annoy me, the multi-language warning screens on European discs especially. It’s *my* disc, that I’ve paid good money for, I should have some say in how I watch it. Coming next, books you can only read on Tuesdays.

Back in the halcyon days of DVD, I had a player modded to be region free. One of the side effects of the mod chip was it also wantonly ignored the ‘operation not available’ locks and damn well operated anyway. Absolutely superb until the player died a couple of years ago.

Can anybody actually explain to me what the unskippable piracy warnings at the start of a DVD are supposed to achieve? AFAICS they simply provide a competitive advantage to the pirated (or torrent) versions which don’t have them. Has anybody EVER decided not to pirate a DVD because of the warning at the start? Does it make it in any way harder to copy the protected content? Really what is the point – what do the makers of DVDs think it achieves? Or is it just force of habit?

Again the oatmeal his it spot on.

http://theoatmeal.com/comics/music_industry

I don’t see why the BBC don’t have a service where you can pay for digital copies of broadcast TV that they own the rights to. They have it digitised already going back some way so what they need is automation so we can say “I’d like to own all of Howards Way” and then it just posts you a DVD with the files on a disc so not even any need for authoring an interface. Most DVD players these days will play AVI/MP4/XVID/Whatever from disc directly.

It’s tied up with broadcast rights for a lot of the backing music.
The BBC had rights to broadcast it as part of the shows. But that’s not the same as including it as part of a paid for distribution. They would have to renegotiate rights to sell the “music”, or as is often the case with shows from the 2000s – digitaly alter the recording to use different backing music they do have the right to sell. 15 stories high is a good example, I think. It’s DVD release had different music to the broadcast.
I guess the effort required to either renegotiate rights or alter the musical score keeps a lot of slightly older shows from being economically viable for release to buy.

Can anybody actually explain to me what the unskippable piracy warnings at the start of a DVD are supposed to achieve?

Yep, they make Piracy much more tempting, you just get the film, no adverts, no trailers, no daft unskippable bit and you can play it on any medium (phone, iPad, laptop etc).

your own examples still dont cover the case of my OP where there is no legitimate method to re-watch what Ive already seen.

Just download it! As long as you don’t seed 100s of new films, no one will come after you.

It’s tied up with broadcast rights for a lot of the backing music.
The BBC had rights to broadcast it as part of the shows. But that’s not the same as including it as part of a paid for distribution. They would have to renegotiate rights to sell the “music”, or as is often the case with shows from the 2000s – digitaly alter the recording to use different backing music they do have the right to sell. 15 stories high is a good example, I think. It’s DVD release had different music to the broadcast.
I guess the effort required to either renegotiate rights or alter the musical score keeps a lot of slightly older shows from being economically viable for release to buy.

This sums up the idiocy prevalent in the entertainment industry perfectly. In the quest to extract as much money from as many people as they possibly can, they end up with nothing, and people pirate the material instead.