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Piracy Outstripping Legal Video Sales?
Posted by
ScuttleMonkey
on Wed Dec 27, 2006 03:29 PM
from the consumers-have-made-their-desires-clear dept.
from the consumers-have-made-their-desires-clear dept.
b.burl writes to tell us a recently released report by the NDP Group supports the horror stories being fed to us by studio execs, but not quite in the way those execs would have you believe. The study shows a continued rise in video piracy compared to legal video sales. The largest target continues to be adult oriented content and TV shows, with only an estimated 5 percent being mainstream movie content. From the article: "[A]mong U.S. households with members who regularly use the Internet, 8 percent (six million households) downloaded at least one digital video file (10MB or larger) from a P2P service for free in the third quarter of 2006. Nearly 60 percent of video files downloaded from P2P sites were adult-film content, while 20 percent was TV show content and 5 percent was mainstream movie content."
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The Internet is for Porn! (Score:5, Funny)
Porn! Porn! Porn!
Re:The Internet is for Porn! (Score:5, Funny)
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=543034384
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Arpanet was born for military and university communication. Internet, as we know it today, has about as much to do with Arpanet as your cells have to do with whatever pond scum first arose in primordial oceans (or where ever life began). Sure, they're technically related, but...
Maybe Internet was not born because of porn, but it sure acted as a midwife.
Adult oriented content (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
They download pr0n for the articles?
Color me skeptical.
Re:Adult oriented content (Score:4, Insightful)
1) How to use a mouse.
2) How to launch and use a web browser.
3) What local files and folders are, and why it's a good idea to save your favorite videos locally in your own folder.
4) How to hide things stored locally so your parent, boss, girlfriend, etc. can't find it.
5) How to install and use P2P software (often followed by how to install anti-malware software).
6) How to locate and install video and audio codecs.
7) How to find and use anonymous proxies to circumvent those pesky web filtering devices.
8) How to set up their own proxies, write scripts or programs, and/or hack the filtering device to circumvent it.
Some kids end up becoming programmers, IT specialists, or even hackers just to be able to see a boob.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
A real-estate agent advertises a "porno 4-room apartment for sale" here: http://e24.no/oppogfrem/article1535337.ece [e24.no]
A shame... (Score:4, Interesting)
And this is a crying shame.
I download television show content myself. What I can get on iTunes, I get on iTunes and pay $2 per show, or buy a whole season at a time. What I can't, I seek elsewhere, including P2P networks. I don't download movies at all, because I can simply get them on DVD.
The fact is that I'm not going to pay $50 a month for cable or satellite for something that's, frankly, not worth that much to me. Television and movie studios can either get compensation for their stuff by making it available to me in a manner I want (iTunes/timely release of DVDs), or they can get bupkiss when I download it for free, an option that I'd really rather avoid, to be honest.
If, god forbid, the industry succeeds somehow in making television shows impossible to download, then I simply won't watch their stuff at all. Most of it has that little value to me.
It's all so stupid. I can't believe there's an industry out there that is so desperate to stop the pirates that they're willing to forego billions of dollars, yet here we are, living it.
If someone gave you the choice of making $1 billion for making a television show, but the show is pirated to an extent such that over half the people who watch it don't pay you, or making $500 million for making a television show with little or no piracy of it at all with a much, much smaller audience, which would you prefer?
Yeah, me too. Stupid, huh?
As for porn, I don't care. I've only seen a few porn movies myself, and I don't find them exciting. I honestly think that porn is one of those things that everyone thinks they're supposed to be really into, so they watch it and act like it's a big deal; but realistically, once you've seen one, you've pretty much seen them all. People get naked and do it, ho hum. Check out this other one where... Um... People get naked and do it, ho hum. But you know, whatever. I guess if there's anything I don't understand about that is why people still buy DVDs or the naughty channels on cable when they can pretty much get anything they want over the Internet.
MythTV your TV (Score:3, Insightful)
I agree, and this is why Free-to-Air satellite, and the dismal excuse for basic cable that Comcast gives me are okay options. I record those things of interest with my MythTV [mythtv.org] Knoppix distro [mysettupbox.tv]. While there aren't that many science fiction shows, I am quite satisfied to watch whatever comes across the airwaves, like ST:TNG, and the weekly episode of Farscape. I can't justify spen
Re:A shame... (Score:5, Insightful)
$1 billion and no future customers vs. $0.5 billion and lots of currently unsatisfied future customers?
They're not exactly in it for the money, not for today anyway. You're thinking short term. The RIAA and their partners at Microsoft are willing to make the necessary investments now so that they can eventually do for arts, culture, and politics what DeBeers did for diamonds. They basically want a stranglehold on popular culture so that they can reduce the diversity of viewpoints you hear and limit the quality of audio/video signals that you see- quite a lucrative position to be in that also confers significant political power. With consolidated media you can selectively promote political candidates who will let your lobbyists write the bills that they pass in Congress, and you can easily suppress alternative viewpoints from being heard anywhere except on the Internet. Political suppression on the Internet will require political/legislative fixes, to solve problems like Net Neutrality that just let anyone say anything.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Therefore, pay-to-download doesn't just substitute one form of income for another; it completely undermines this immense boondoggle they've been given in over-the-air broadcasting. And
you obviously know nothing about porn (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Take Heroes for example. I'd much rather go to nbc.com and watch any episod
Re:A shame... (Score:5, Informative)
Here's some of what you're missing:
Straight hardcore, girl on girl, 3-somes, BJ-only, HJ-only, foursomes, orgies, orgies with vampires (my personal fave), black porn, white porn, asian porn (another fun one), watersports (need to take a leak?), bukakke (are you thirsty?), double stuffing (only if your buddy and you are REALLY secure), gay hardcore, gay orgies (not my cup of tea), amateur, amateur upskirts (that creepy guy in the clubs with a vidcam and a raincoat on), amateur db (downblouse viewing), latex fetish, puffy fetish (these are hilarious! almost as much fun as a ball-gag, a ball-pean hammer, and a fifth of Jack)..... and I haven't even touched on the various sub-genres of poop pr0n!
Hmmm.... off to the newsgroups.....
Parent
Re:A shame... (Score:5, Insightful)
Anyone that says you are stealing a TV show that AIRED is so full of it they stink. the show was created, they got paid for it, the broadcaster got paid for airing it by the commercials that aired during it. THEY ALL GOT THEIR MONEY.
The exec's that are whining like little babies are the ones that want to wring another $1.00 per viewing out of it after it aired. I.E. the pigs that smell the cooking bacon out there and want a piece of that pie too.
It's drivin by 100% unadulterated greed, and they try to villify it to justify it in the minds of the public.... Their real definition is that you are a thief if you have a VCR, DVR, recording DVD player or PC that can watch it... They just dont say that in public as it will piss off the public.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Honestly guy, you've never been butt-raped in the mud by a doberman while being tied up and whipped by your dungeon mistress? Everybody is doing it! You don't know what you're missing! Maybe you're the one who needs to see a sexologist. Loosen up, pal, it fun!
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Suddenly your sig made much more sense...
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Well, the OP didn't really say he had no interest in sex, just in porn. To be fair, I understand what he means. I've not seen much porn in my 20 years on this Earth, but go to a random porn site. Now another. Huh... You know... they look kinda... nearly... 100% identical.
Isn't that a bit like saying that once you've tried out the different positions a few times there's no reason to have sex again because you'd just be doing the same thing over and over again? Or that there's no rational reason for wanting a variety of partners because they're all identically equipped? A pussy's a pussy, after all.
In defense of porn, you can't really expect them to scale new heights of originality with their subject matter. There's only so many variations of suck/lick/fuck you can do.
Metrics used are flawed (Score:5, Insightful)
Ready, normal people? (Score:2)
The Internet is for porn! [youtube.com] (What NDP wrote!)
The Internet is for porn! (I shake my Wiimote!)
Wii up all night honking our horn
To porn, porn, porn!
I'm shocked and surprised (Score:3, Insightful)
Only 60 percent? The fact that the amount of porn being downloaded is nowhere near the 90% mark surely spells doom for the mainstream tv & movie industry.
Why is this surprising? (Score:5, Insightful)
I think TV series are in the position that VHS movies were 15 years ago. Back then, movies cost 80$ US, and nobody bought them. When the price came down to the 20$ range, they started to sell. I think many people feel the same about TV series. At 80$ a season, they're not going to sell. I mean, after all it's just a TV show. If the prices came down to the 30$ range, I bet more people would buy them because they're major fans, or to watch the two episodes they missed.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
My problem with iTunes is that $2 per show (regardless of time) is just too damn much. That comes out to $40 per season for a 20 episode season.
Most (all?) seasons on iTunes are cheaper than $1.99 times the number of episodes. The ones I've looked at are $35.
Why buy on iTunes?
Of course, YMMV (and in fact, clearly does), bu
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/blcab letelevision.htm [about.com]
Sure enough! No need to be impolite.
Thanks.
I'm a bad, bad pirate (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course, as a result, my wife and I sit down and watch Heroes on NBC every week, including commercials (we don't watch enough TV to need a TiVo). If we hadn't been able to illegally download those videos, we'd likely not be watching the show OR the commercials.
So I ask: Did it benefit or hurt NBC that I illegally downloaded and watched the first three episodes of Heroes?
Re:I'm a bad, bad pirate (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:I'm a bad, bad pirate (Score:4, Interesting)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Actually, Nielsen has set-top boxes in a small fraction of homes all the time, but then does random polling of the general population to supplement and calibrate the data they get from "Nielsen families." So *any* of us might figure into Nielsen's statistics, if we happen to get tha
5 Percent? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Every time I've watched one of those commercials at a theater I've heard a few people say "How do you download movies?"
Outstrip? (Score:4, Funny)
I don't think this word means what you think it means. To outstrip legal downloads, piracy would have had to been behind first, which is a preposterous claim.
tv shows illegal? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I pretty much agree with you if they're broadcast over-the-air shows, but some of the most popular shows being downloaded are actually shows on HBO, SHO, etc, which are premium channels with no commercials to begin with.
That being said, I can also understand why people continue to do it: Premium cable is not at all cheap.
Pay content will increase (Score:4, Informative)
I believe once content providers use and improve on this model pay pay to download content will approach or surpass illegal downloads.
Where can I buy videos for download without DRM? (Score:5, Insightful)
As soon as they put the videos online for sale and download without DRM and a standardized format (Divx or Xvid), I think you will see a dramatic change.
My method (Score:3, Interesting)
I've also recently discovered that this method also works with DVDs from the library.
* There's no such thing as "I've got to hav
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Six hours encoding time for a 100 minute movie (give or take depending on content), is that about right?
Disk space is cheaper than my time. I just rip the VIDEO_TS and watch with a DVD player a few minutes later.
cut off nose to spite face (Score:4, Insightful)
I dont have an IPod and dont care for itunes, but if I could buy a download at a reasonable price that was at a resolution viewable on my tv I would have no problem doing so. A few networks have at least figured out part of that, my son for example watches Ben10 on cartoon networks website for free regularly. Since its free he doesnt mind watching it on the computer, they flash banner ads so they get their ad revenue and everyone is happy.
For some reason the networks have a hard time accepting that times have changed the days of the whole family sitting down at 8pm to watch Ed Sullivan are long over, people are busier and have more diversions and distractions. Giving the viewing audience flexability is the future, the old ways will die, it might take a while and will be fought tooth and nail but its no less inevitable.
I beg to differ, sir! (Score:3, Insightful)
8 percent (six million households) downloaded at least one digital video file (10MB or larger) from a P2P service for free in the third quarter of 2006.
Free? Nonsense! I have to pay my ISP every month!
Nyuk nyuk nyuk!
NPD group is biased (Score:5, Informative)
Report is from NPD Group, well who are their clients [npd.com] ... EMI Music (a large RIAA member).
This is not an unbiased research firm, they are a marketing company and will serve the interests of their clients.
Probably just another arm of the RIAA/MPAA. I don't see how it would possibly serve this for-profit company's interests to say anything other than downloading is theft
I don't see the RIAA defending porn (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Pr0n? (Score:5, Funny)
Would you want to fuck Ron Jeremy for free?
LK
Parent
Re:Pr0n? (Score:5, Interesting)
Actually there are many things about the reality of the porn business that would amaze most people, mostly about how mundane and professional it is, and the large number of women who are porn producers - not performers. One day I really should write a book.
And yes, porn actors in my experience are a pretty happy lot. They are much easier to deal with than "real" actors; fewer tantrums, less drug abuse, punctual, professional, sober, reliable, etc...
Parent
Re:So this means.... (Score:4, Insightful)
No, it's a survey, remember? Only 4.8% of internet users ADMITTED to downloading 10MB of porn
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Downloading TV episodes you "missed" is not timeshifting as was ruled fair use under Betamax.
Receiving it through the regular broadcast means and recording it yourself is timeshifting. Getting a copy from someone else who recorded it, edited it from the format it was broadcast (say, by removing commercials) and made it available to you is something completely different.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes because heaven forbid that someone who signed up for your service actually USES the bandwidth you have promised him. Or did you just make promises that you really can't/have no intention of keeping? Here, sign up, pay the monthly fee, but don't use the service. This is like a car insurance company that decides not to pay a claim because someone