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Would making media more available legally bring down piracy?

mrsir2009

mrsir2009

macrumors 604
Original poster
Sep 17, 2009
7,505
156
Melbourne, Australia
Would making media more available legally bring down piracy?

I think it would, especially in countries where I live that don't have very good access to TV show seasons that are quite new.

For example, I can't get The Simpsons season 21 or 22 here in NZ at all. Its not on TV, you can't buy it online legally and you can't get it on DVD. The only way to get it is to pirate it. If I could buy it here on DVD I would, and I wouldn't have to pirate it.

IMO its the broadcaster's fault for not making it easily available worldwide! They say that piracy is "taking money away from them", but in a lot of cases its not. If I couldn't pirate some TV shows I wouldn't be able to watch them. Full Stop. How about actually selling them over here?!
 
mrsir2009 said:
Would making media more available legally bring down piracy?

I think it would, especially in countries where I live that don't have very good access to TV show seasons that are quite new.

For example, I can't get The Simpsons season 21 or 22 here in NZ at all. Its not on TV, you can't buy it online legally and you can't get it on DVD. The only way to get it is to pirate it. If I could buy it here on DVD I would, and I wouldn't have to pirate it.

IMO its the broadcaster's fault for not making it easily available worldwide! They say that piracy is "taking money away from them", but in a lot of cases its not. If I couldn't pirate some TV shows I wouldn't be able to watch them. Full Stop. How about actually selling them over here?!
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You can buy it from a foreign website and pay for international shipping. The only objection to that is that you pay more. However, it is available to you and you still pirate it.

They don't make it available because once they do they cant sell it as easily to a tv station, and that is where the bulk of the money comes from.
 
I don't know it would reduce piracy but content owners should accept the fact that a certain amount of piracy will ALWAYS exist because you can't prevent it and certain people will always want to do it. In the meantime DRM usually has the biggest impact on legitimate people. Why can't I ready my ebook on my sony reader OR my ipad? The only reason is the DRM which doesn't prevent piracy because all the popular ebook titles are out there on torrent sites. I buy the books legally and then remove the DRM which I don't feel guilty about. The same would generally apply to other media IMO. If I could easily remove the DRM (or if it were DRM free) from iTunes movies so I could play them on more than just the iPad/AppleTV, I would actually buy MORE movies from them.
 
I think it depends. Me and my boyfriend watch a lot of movies and old tv shows. We pay for Hulu Plus, Netflix streaming and we rent and buy stuff on iTunes all the time. But sometimes there's stuff we want to watch that's not available online. So in our case yes, we don't pirate a lot but when we do it's because it's stuff that's not available legally online.
 
Socratic said:
You can buy it from a foreign website and pay for international shipping. The only objection to that is that you pay more. However, it is available to you and you still pirate it.

They don't make it available because once they do they cant sell it as easily to a tv station, and that is where the bulk of the money comes from.
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I've looked around and I can't find anywhere where you can get the most recent two seasons of the Simpsons.

BTW thats all very well if they don't bring it out on DVD because they want to sell it to tv stations... But its not even on goddam tv here! It used to be over a year ago, but now its just old as reruns.
 
Not really. So long as there is a price tag to any media, piracy, in some way/shape/form, will always exist.
 
I think if everything were available readily, legally, and affordably, then yes - we'd see a noticeable decline in piracy. But like some others have said, I don't think it will go completely away, simply because there are some people who just don't want to buy it at any price.

It's a shame the media companies don't understand that - they count every illegal download as "lost revenue," which simply isn't the case; many of those who illegally download were never going to pay for it from the get-go.
 
mrsir2009 said:
Would making media more available legally bring down piracy?
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For me, it's the 10 minute of unskippable crap (FBI warning, production logos, legal disclaimers in 2 languages:confused:, trailers and more trailers:mad:) at the beginning of DVDs/Blu-Rays. By the time I get through all that garbage, I begin to wonder why I even bother watching anymore.:rolleyes:
 
I have purchased more music as a result of listening to free media (like Groove Shark and Pandora) showing bands I also like than I would have otherwise.

Probably about $100 on music this year so far. Though nearly everything I buy is a CD and not just MP3 quality.
 
Yes, indeed it would. By making content available on the best available screen to the consumer it reduces (but doesn't eliminate) the chance the consumer seeks to obtain the content via unauthorized channels.

Look at the things ABC is doing with the ABC Player app for iPad. Consumers can now theoretically watch live on TV, timeshifted on DVR, Hulu.com on computer, or ABC Player on iPad. Whatever screen the consumer is on, they can view the content. This is a model that i believe will thrive in the future, and other companies are already following suit.

But, like some have mentioned it never truly kills piracy, because there will always be A) companies who refuse to provide their content on the best available screen for a reasonable price, and B) individuals who don't care/know about the methods and head on over to the torrent sites anyways.
 
Perhaps a little bit generally there are plenty of people that are unwilling to buy any content regardless of the price.
 
it would cut it down substantially if everything was readily available and at a decent price as well. but as others have said, there are some people who refuse to pay at any price.

the net effect though is that the paying customers would likely DL less, and thus also upload less, and in the long run there would be less and less items up for torrents and the like. but there certainly would be no change overnight.
 
QuarterSwede said:
iTunes (and others) have already shown this to be the case for music. The same will happen with other forms as well.
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How so, while with the introduction of iTunes all those years ago did in fact lower piracy it did not stamp it out. In fact we saw the music industry try to subpoena and sue all those students for illegally downloading music.

They keep trying to get ISPs to give up IP addresses for those that swap music. Music piracy is alive and well and iTunes didn't really do too much to stop it
 
Mousse said:
For me, it's the 10 minute of unskippable crap (FBI warning, production logos, legal disclaimers in 2 languages:confused:, trailers and more trailers:mad:) at the beginning of DVDs/Blu-Rays. By the time I get through all that garbage, I begin to wonder why I even bother watching anymore.:rolleyes:
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That's a lame excuse. I'm sure you know about VLC.
 
stroked said:
That's a lame excuse. I'm sure you know about VLC.
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And VLC works on your stand alone DVD/Blu-Ray player?:confused:

$$$ isn't the issue with me. 10 wasted minute EVERY TIME I pop in a disc is. That's the reason I've ripped and burned every DVD I own (and a few I don't own:D). I already own the DVD, I don't need to see the FBI warning. As if a pirated copy of a movie would include the FBI warning.:rolleyes:
I'm beginning to rip my Blu-Ray collection now that blank Blu-Ray disc have become more reasonably priced.
 
pirates going to pirate.

If people can get something free a lot of people will go that route. It's just they way people are.
 
Mousse said:
For me, it's the 10 minute of unskippable crap (FBI warning, production logos, legal disclaimers in 2 languages:confused:, trailers and more trailers:mad:) at the beginning of DVDs/Blu-Rays. By the time I get through all that garbage, I begin to wonder why I even bother watching anymore.:rolleyes:
Click to expand...

+ A million! On most DVDs there is disclaimers in 7 different languages! For ****s sakes!

However some DVDs are good and don't have any of that crap :) Will and Grace DVDs for example.
 
maflynn said:
How so, while with the introduction of iTunes all those years ago did in fact lower piracy it did not stamp it out. In fact we saw the music industry try to subpoena and sue all those students for illegally downloading music.

They keep trying to get ISPs to give up IP addresses for those that swap music. Music piracy is alive and well and iTunes didn't really do too much to stop it
Click to expand...

I don't think this is entirely right.

While music piracy might still be rampant, I think it would have probably been worse without a "single song" downloadable mechanism. One of the reasons Napster was such an early success was because in that era, you had to pay $15-20 for the cd, regardless of how many songs you actually liked.

I think we're seeing a similar effect creeping into the tv industry with things like Hulu+ and Netflix. I really don't want to watch Modern Family more than once or twice and if I can pay $10/month to rotate through a vast selection of video, it makes a lot more sense than paying $25-50 for a tv season on DVD or iTunes.

Of course the rubber is eventually going to hit the road and the networks are going to realize that there's less money to be made when all of your customers are buying a few songs at a time and subscribing to video services rather than buying them at absurd mark-ups. Given the industry's greed, I don't think it's going to be pretty, and piracy might actually be well warranted if the the studios don't bring themselves into the 21st Century.
 
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