Re: Why Sony Will Die


"Karyudo" <karyudo_usenet@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:8mbtv1ldfuj8u345kh3fl65qmg4sb16rmv@xxxxxxxxxx
On Thu, 23 Feb 2006 21:09:37 -0800, "Charles Tomaras"
<tomaras@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

I agree about fair use, but fair use is NOT what has gotten us to
this place in digital history. Fair use is a bull*** excuse because the
reality of bit torrents and the thieving masses is far different than fair
use. Seeders and leechers are just other names for thieves. These thieves
are
the ones who have screwed up the notion of fair use and made all our lives
more difficult.

I don't completely agree. I use BT all the time. But I don't think I
am doing anything so beyond the pale. I grab TV that I could have
taped the night before, but decided not to, because my local station
shows the program 4:3 instead of its native 16:9. BT gives me the
choice to watch in OAR, when I can't get that from a commercial outlet
locally.

If I'm not mistaken aren't you the same Karydo who has complained in the
past about 16:9?



I also use BT to download Japanese TV shows -- and fan-created
subtitles for those same shows -- that have never and will never be
shown in North America. Again, something I can't get from a commercial
outlet, anywhere -- much less the next day after it airs.

Finally, I use BT to download fan edits of movies (most notably the
original Star Wars trilogy) because those versions are not available
elsewhere. I own multiple legal copies of the Star Wars films (both on
DVD and LD) of the films, so again I am getting something that I can't
get from a commercial outlet.

What the success of BT (and other sources) should be doing is
indicating to content providers that their product is still highly
overpriced, and still not diversified enough. As great as BT (et al)
is, it's slow, subject to the vagaries of the posters/seeders, and
vaguely annoying to use, compared with picking something off a store
shelf or downloading from an official source. Content producers should
be taking advantage of that fact by making their product more
attractive, either by pricing it lower or offering more for the same
cost.

Rather than use BT, I would quite happily go to a central commercial
site that had all of this week's TV, in a variety of formats and
bitrates and file sizes, and pay a nominal fee to download my
favourite shows. Not $1.99 per episode, though -- for a 24-episode
season, that's more than I'd pay for a DVD box set, with actual,
physical discs, art, packaging, and full 720 x 480 quality! In my
ideal model, maybe I could even subscribe online, and have new eps
pushed to my computer while I slept? Episode title, a synopsis, a
little thumbnail, maybe a "Previously on..." trailer? Sounds cool,
doesn't it?! I'd do that for $10 a season, per show. Then if I liked
it enough, I'd pick up the DVD box set at the end of the season. Why
can't I do something like that?? Part of the reason is because the
networks are too greedy (price is too high), they can't agree to put
all their stuff in one place, and there's no choice between codecs and
bitrates and filesizes. All things that BT has pretty much solved, by
the way.

Do you know why I buy "The Simpsons" on DVD? It's not because I can't
get the episodes elsewhere. Hell, the DVDs are being released so
slowly that it'll be 2016 before they're caught up to this season -- a
season that I could be downloading via BT right now, if I so chose.
No, the reason I buy "The Simpsons" on DVD is because of *the box*.
That, and the disc art. The packaging is something I *can't* download
offa BT. And for me, that makes it worthwhile. Personally, I have
never downloaded a Simpsons episode, and I doubt I ever will, simply
because I find the box sets to be good value for money.

Now, Gigli, on the other hand...

I'd be interested to see how the MPAA determines just how much money
it "loses" to piracy every year. Let's take my downloading of Gigli as
an example. Would they count that as a $25 loss, because that's the
MSRP? Or would they count it as a $21.99 loss, because that's the
price at Wal-Mart? How about $12, because that's what I could get it
for on eBay, used (in which case they'd actually lose $0, because
somebody already paid for it; I'd just be buying it off somebody who
doesn't want it any more)? Do I hear $3.50? That's what I could rent
the damn thing for at my local video store (and again, they'd be out
exactly $0, since the rental place had that copy whether I rented it
or not). The real amount the MPAA loses from my downloading Gigli is
exactly $0, because for something I've heard is that crappy, I'd go to
the library. Even if I played by the rules and borrowed it from my
local library, the MPAA would make exactly $0 incremental profit from
my watching of that colossal hunk of crap. But I'll bet that if I
download the file (at lower than DVD quality, probably), I'd still
register in the MPAA's "accounting" department as a "pirate" who
"stole" $25 from their starving mouths. Know what? I call bull***.

It all sounds good but the whole library thing is a rip off as well. I have
relatives who "borrow" CD's and rip every last one of them and I'm sure
there are masses of people with the original DVD XCOPY and other such DRM
beating software who do the same with DVD's. There's lots of thievery of IP
via the public library...don't kid yourself.




With copyright law as it is, it's legal for me to go to the library
and borrow Gigli. It's legal for me to rent it, too. It's also legal
for me to buy a used copy. If I'm unethical enough to make a copy for
myself, well, then, that's wrong, but it's part of the deal of
copyright. But with DRM thrown into the mix, it is not at all clear
that my rights to do any of those things will still exist!

In fact, I have already been punished by DRM when I bought the
Terminator 2 WMV-HD disc: I still haven't been able to play it,
because although I have several players that will play WMV-HD, I
*don't* have one that can connect to Microsoft's stupid DRM server to
get a license!

FYI, Those aren't "Microsoft's" DRM servers nor does Terminator WMV-HD even
play in WMP. It has it's own application called the Interactual Player and
the DRM is administered by someone other than Microsoft. All Microsoft did
was sell a customer a codec that allows for DRM implementation. At no time
when one plays the Terminator WMV-HD DVD does an application contact
Microsoft.


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