This is why I rip rather than buy from iTunes

[Wavell]

for me, my primary reason to stay away from iTunes movie purchases is DRM.

The movie studios are so out of touch with a now global market, it's just insane.

If I purchase a movie:

• I'd like to play it on anything I like within my own house, thanks and not just limit to 5 machines.
  
• I'd like to be able to play it without recourse to an Apple server being available to authenticate me
  
• I'd like to be able to purchase HD movies at the same time they're available in the US and not x months later at a lower resolution.

Some of the iTunes prices are good (for new movies, mostly) but the older stuff is crazily over-priced.. the film studios are so greedy - they're killing the hand that feeds them. They will learn the hard way, eventually, just like they did with MP3.

 

[CylonGlitch]

• I'd like to play it on anything I like within my own house, thanks and not just limit to 5 machines.

Five COMPUTERS; unlimited iPods, iPads, and ATV's.

• I'd like to be able to play it without recourse to an Apple server being available to authenticate me

That is legitimate; but to me, trivial since my internet is always on. In theory their servers could go down and cause problems. But really, have they ever?

• I'd like to be able to purchase HD movies at the same time they're available in the US and not x months later at a lower resolution.

Often distribution in other countries has to do with a lot of other issues that the studios have to deal with. MOST countries have a screening process that has to be gone through first; this takes time. Then edits (yes, many countries edit imported films and video games) have to be made and resubmitted. These delays are not necessarily the studio issues, but the cost of doing business in a country.

Some of the iTunes prices are good (for new movies, mostly) but the older stuff is crazily over-priced.. the film studios are so greedy - they're killing the hand that feeds them. They will learn the hard way, eventually, just like they did with MP3.

Agree 100% here. They need to understand that a movie from 1972 isn't going to have nearly as much of a following as one from 2010; so why should it cost the same. Make them damn cheap and you'll get more people just willing to check it out. I always wanted to see the original War of the World (just picking something) but I'm not going to pay $9.99 for it. Why not make it $1.99 and I'll buy it without thinking. Everyone wins, more people see it, more people buy it, more royalties to the studios and Apple, everyone profits. Sure they aren't making the same profit they did from the $9.99 for every copy sold, but if you sell 10x the number of copies you end up making more money long run.

Look at the article from Gabe Newell on video game prices I linked early on in this thread. They dropped the price of one new game 50% and sales went up 3000% (that is PERCENT!). The made more during the weekend sale than they did during launch! It was unheard of. The end of the article talks about how this could be a fluke. But since then (that was in 2009) they have sales ALL THE TIME and it is awesome. I know I spend a ton of money during the holiday sales; many times on things I have no desire to play right now. But I'd buy them just to have them. If studios would just learn this model, they could be making a ton more money.

 

[eliehass]

Besides for rentals, you don't need an Internet connection to play content purchased from the iTunes store. You only need an Internet connection to authorize your device. Once that's been done, it never needs to be done again, and you can play any content linked to your iTunes account without an Internet connection.

 

[larrybeo]

USED CDs on AMAZON

Used CDs on Amazon usually get shipped for around $4.I don't necessarily find it worth the time and effort to turn around and sell them again on Amazon, but I suppose you could. Paying $1.29 for a song is for the birds.

 

[hafr]

Agree 100% here. They need to understand that a movie from 1972 isn't going to have nearly as much of a following as one from 2010; so why should it cost the same. Make them damn cheap and you'll get more people just willing to check it out. I always wanted to see the original War of the World (just picking something) but I'm not going to pay $9.99 for it. Why not make it $1.99 and I'll buy it without thinking. Everyone wins, more people see it, more people buy it, more royalties to the studios and Apple, everyone profits. Sure they aren't making the same profit they did from the $9.99 for every copy sold, but if you sell 10x the number of copies you end up making more money long run.

On what do you base your assumption that the price elasticity is greater than one (absolute value that is) and that an increase in digital sales won't cannibalize other, more lucrative sales?

I'm not saying you're wrong, I'm just curious.

Look at the article from Gabe Newell on video game prices I linked early on in this thread. They dropped the price of one new game 50% and sales went up 3000% (that is PERCENT!). The made more during the weekend sale than they did during launch! It was unheard of. The end of the article talks about how this could be a fluke. But since then (that was in 2009) they have sales ALL THE TIME and it is awesome. I know I spend a ton of money during the holiday sales; many times on things I have no desire to play right now. But I'd buy them just to have them. If studios would just learn this model, they could be making a ton more money.

Overall sales, or just for one specific vendor?

 

[ericrwalker]

So you rip your movies, then you go and buy them from iTunes too?

 

[Wavell]

Besides for rentals, you don't need an Internet connection to play content purchased from the iTunes store. You only need an Internet connection to authorize your device. Once that's been done, it never needs to be done again, and you can play any content linked to your iTunes account without an Internet connection.

I used to think that.. until that is, the apple servers went down and I couldn't play any of my previous purchases from my media server for.. I think.. 3 days or so.

(//EDIT: I believe this is to do with homesharing.)

I'd like to think that if I buy it, then it's *mine*. With apple's DRM model, this isn't the case. People can argue that it's only 3 days in x years.. but I think there's a principle at stake here.

----------

So you rip your movies, then you go and buy them from iTunes too?

more often than not, I'll buy the DVD and then Rip that over say, buying direct from iTunes.

Having said that, I do have a pretty large quantity of iTunes Movie and TV series purchases where convenience of the sale was enough to tempt me.

 

[ericrwalker]

more often than not, I'll buy the DVD and then Rip that over say, buying direct from iTunes.

Having said that, I do have a pretty large quantity of iTunes Movie and TV series purchases where convenience of the sale was enough to tempt me.

OP's title of the thread suggest he buys blu-rays, rips them. Then after he's done ripping he buys them again from iTunes.

Unless he meants he prefers to "rip THAN buy from iTunes".

 

[Wavell]

OP's title of the thread suggest he buys blu-rays, rips them. Then after he's done ripping he buys them again from iTunes.

Unless he meants he prefers to "rip THAN buy from iTunes".

I took it to mean "Unless he meants he prefers to "rip THAN buy from iTunes"

 

[ericrwalker]

I took it to mean "Unless he meants he prefers to "rip THAN buy from iTunes"

Would make sense, then and than have completely different meanings.

I'd like to go back to the famous facebook quote:

"I'd rather be pissed off, then pissed on" I think it really pissed Jenny off when people started peeing on her.

 

[steve-p]

I took it to mean "Unless he meants he prefers to "rip THAN buy from iTunes"

Obviously Which is more likely: a simple one character typo in "than", or it's really "then" and there's a completely spurious word "rather" to account for which doesn't even make grammatical sense

 

[ericrwalker]

Obviously Which is more likely: a simple one character typo in "than", or it's really "then" and there's a completely spurious word "rather" to account for which doesn't even make grammatical sense

Makes sense, he's just wants to make sure Hollywood is getting paid.

 

[steve-p]

The prices for some things on iTunes really are eye watering. Take for example a 10 hour HD series which can remain nameless, but is two years old, is on a fairly low popularity channel, has been aired repeatedly ever since and is still on now, and is more or less just filler. It's £44.99 which is like $70. I bet they haven't sold more than a handful at that price, if any at all. Crazy.

 

[Detrias]

The cost of servers, electric to run the servers, cooling them, the electric to cool them. The money for the rent/own that the building the servers are on, property taxes, People to maintain the servers, and other stuff. All that adds up. You're also probably paying a covenant tax also. Getting it from iTunes, you don't have to drive someplace and waste gas.

Seeing how all those costs mentioned go to Apple's tab and are based on a percentage of sales rather than a fix amount, i fail to see how is this valid.

Also convinience tax? Sounds to me is more convinient for both the client and the seller (since you are more likely to purchase based on an impulse when borwsing from a couch bored). This model will be awesome once the studios fix their pricing structure imo.

 

[Wavell]

The prices for some things on iTunes really are eye watering. Take for example a 10 hour HD series which can remain nameless, but is two years old, is on a fairly low popularity channel, has been aired repeatedly ever since and is still on now, and is more or less just filler. It's £44.99 which is like $70. I bet they haven't sold more than a handful at that price, if any at all. Crazy.

yep.. and another thing that irks me is the availablity of a movie in HD in one iTunes store but only available in SD in another (e.g. the UK) even though that same movie can already be bought HD (bluray) in the UK. I just don't get it.

 

[nwcs]

I used to think that.. until that is, the apple servers went down and I couldn't play any of my previous purchases from my media server for.. I think.. 3 days or so.

I had a recent opportunity to see what would happen first hand. After a major storm my internet connection was down for 20 hours. So I wanted to see if I could play any purchased content on my Apple TV streamed from my MBP. I fully expected it to not work because of the authorization issue. But I decided to be patient. After waiting about 5 minutes on the spinning icon my content started playing. Not just one thing but anything I tried. So there must be some sort of failover that eventually looks to see if the computer streaming was last authorized or something. I haven't tried it with the newest 5.0 update but this was encouraging.

 

[Wavell]

I had a recent opportunity to see what would happen first hand. After a major storm my internet connection was down for 20 hours. So I wanted to see if I could play any purchased content on my Apple TV streamed from my MBP. I fully expected it to not work because of the authorization issue. But I decided to be patient. After waiting about 5 minutes on the spinning icon my content started playing. Not just one thing but anything I tried. So there must be some sort of failover that eventually looks to see if the computer streaming was last authorized or something. I haven't tried it with the newest 5.0 update but this was encouraging.

Yep.. sorry, I'll elaborate.

I could play on my Mac.. I could also play if the media was held on my iPad / iPhone. What I couldn't do was stream from an iTunes server to any device as, at that point I believe, it needed to use homesharing. Apple servers dictated what DRM material I was and wasn't allowed to stream to using that and the servers were offline.

anyway.. all a long time ago.

 

[eliehass]

Yep.. sorry, I'll elaborate.

I could play on my Mac.. I could also play if the media was held on my iPad / iPhone. What I couldn't do was stream from an iTunes server to any device as, at that point I believe, it needed to use homesharing. Apple servers dictated what DRM material I was and wasn't allowed to stream to using that and the servers were offline.

anyway.. all a long time ago.

For that situation, you can always use AirPlay from your Mac to your AppleTV. So your content will never be rendered unplayable.

 

[Wavell]

For that situation, you can always use AirPlay from your Mac to your AppleTV. So your content will never be rendered unplayable.

yep - agree.But going back to one of my reasons why I also rip in preference over iTunes, is that DRM as it stands forces me to have to work around things when in this day and age, we really shouldn't have to. it was only DRM movies that wouldn't play.. my ripped movies were just fine

 

[nwcs]

What I couldn't do was stream from an iTunes server to any device as, at that point I believe, it needed to use homesharing.

Actually, that's exactly what I was describing. Streaming from iTunes to an Apple TV via home sharing while I had no internet connection at all.

 

[Wavell]

Actually, that's exactly what I was describing. Streaming from iTunes to an Apple TV via home sharing while I had no internet connection at all.

it didn't work for me

 

[caligomez]

And of course it is naturally in Apple's best interest for the average selling points of the content to remain high - as their 30% cut is higher as well.

This is false logic.. I work in travel, and the intermediaries (like Expedia, Orbitz, etc) are ALWAYS pushing for lower rates from hotels, as those promotions drive VOLUME. Their revenue is based on a percentage, just like iTunes, and all other marketing expenses being fairly equal, they are much more profitable when they can drive volume.

 

[steve-p]

yep.. and another thing that irks me is the availablity of a movie in HD in one iTunes store but only available in SD in another (e.g. the UK) even though that same movie can already be bought HD (bluray) in the UK. I just don't get it.

For me this is the biggest problem with all current on demand and electronic distribution platforms. You get the situation where no one platform has everything because of the way the rights have been carved up and sold off bit by bit. It really doesn't benefit the consumer that they can't choose one ecosystem for everything, it encourages piracy and reduces price competition. If every high street retailer had to negotiate with every rights holder before they were allowed to sell each title, the system would fall apart. Yet they seem to think this model works fine for electronic distribution

 

[Primejimbo]

The Muppet Movie came out today and iTunes has it the cheapest. So probably just need to shop around. I'll probably get it from iTunes because:

1. No previews for other movies
2. I don't have to waste time ripping it and hopes it works (some new moves don't rip right)
3. Don't have to waste gas
4. Thier HD movies are good enought for me.

 

[ericrwalker]

The Muppet Movie came out today and iTunes has it the cheapest. So probably just need to shop around. I'll probably get it from iTunes because:

1. No previews for other movies
2. I don't have to waste time ripping it and hopes it works (some new moves don't rip right)
3. Don't have to waste gas
4. Their HD movies are good enough for me.

Nice, I haven't even seen The Muppet movie yet but I did buy "Smells like Teen Spirit" from iTunes.