Bill Gates Speaks Out Against Next-Gen DVDs

jZnat writes "Although we all know that Microsoft hates Blu-Ray, Bill Gates doesn't seem to like HD-DVD either. Primarily, it seems, because Mr. Gates believes media storage on hard drives is likely to be the default standard sooner rather than later. From the interview: 'Well, the key issue here is that the protection scheme under Blu-Ray is very anti-consumer and there's not much visibility of that. The inconvenience is that the [MPAA] got too much protection at the expense of consumers and it won't work well on PCs. You won't be able to play movies and do software in a flexible way.'"

Storage on hard drives

[Data Link Layer]

Is an interesting idea, but, for it too work there has to be a distorbution system in place, that means high bandwidth. I think disks will be around a lot longer then mr. Gates thinks.

Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

I hate to admit it but, I actually agree w/ Billy on this one...

Isn't it funny

[the_unknown_soldier]

While Bill Gates talks about how content should be hard drive based, The ITMS actually lets you buy epsisodes of lost for $2.

If you are going to make a format irrelevant, provide a viable alternative Bill.

Re:Wow

[FidelCatsro]

Agreeing with Bill Gates is an odd experience .
I just can't help shake the "What's his angle " .
  Then Thinking a little more , I imagine It will be HDD based WMA files with MS DRM that is consumer friendly .
  Cutting out Sony , Philips etc. with their nasty DRM and allowing free reign for his slightly less nasty DRM

Re:Is this the same Bill Gates?

[Xyrus]

It should be noted that every decision at MS is not necessarily Billy Boy's decision. Bill Gates is a public figure, the public knows him. But companies are not just one man shows, especially ones as large as MS.

~X~

Blu-Ray really a non-starter

[Anonymous Coward]

It is true that organizations are looking at blu-ray only to hedge their bets. Blu-ray can easily prevent people from properly using the format - it is loaded with an unprecidented amount of "control" technology that can be used to target or knock out particular hardware or software products. If I were a hardware or software vendor, I'd be very concerned about blu-ray. As a consumer, I'd be only more concerned - what if the disc I buy rejects my player or computer or software package? Instead of one simple standard like the classic CD, suddenly there are thousands of incompatibilities, all with the name "blu-ray". Crazy! I can foresee the side panel of blu-ray box, with a technology compatibility list 100 lines long. This is not what we need.

As a system that is loaded with patents and license agreements, you can bet that blu-ray will be well supported by industry licensees until the key patents start to expire. Then you can expect a mass-exodus to a new, yet unnamed "standard" that has more patent protection. Given the most of the patents involved are 3-10 years old, give Blu-Ray a 10 year life.

Sour Grapes?

[bbzzdd]

Funny how he was riding the HD-DVD parade all the way up until Warner Bros jumped ship this week, spelling pretty much the death of the format. Now, he's all about direct digital distribution? Sure optical media is going the way of the dodo, but Gates is very much flop-flopping here.

Re:i am not a blue-ray fan either

[Meagermanx]

Too expensive.
Let's face it: For distributable media, people don't care about RW capabilities.
That's where next-gen recordable media comes in.

Re:Is this the same Bill Gates?

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course the scheme is anti-consumer -- on that I agree with Gates. However, the HD-DVD is also anti-consumer, only marginally less so. The fact is *both* of these new standards are anti-consumer and both make sure that the players are never truly out of the control of the manufacturers... they are never really "owned" by the people who pay for them.

Gates' problem with Blu-ray is that it is controlled by Sony, the big dog in the console world where Microsoft wants to play. His "anti-consumer" argument is pure hypocrisy. Nevertheless, his outburst will hopefully highlight the issue and shine a light on the bullshit in both the HD-DVD camp and Blu-Ray and get some much needed publicity. Sadly, I don't expect mant journalists to either understand it, or investigate it properly -- they'll just let Gates frame the argument as HD-DVD = the consumer's friend, Blu-Ray = consumer's enemy.

right on the spot

[javilon]

He is right in his view that the MPAA will back blue ray because of the anticonsumer copy protection in the format.
He is also right when he says that people is increasingly storing stuff in hard drives because they are competitive on the price per dollar side and they are much more reliable than the easily scratched current recordable DVDs.

He is mostly wrong about a lot of other stuff, but I have to give him this one.

The sole reason he doesn't like Blu-Ray:

[Anonymous Coward]

Its DRM is Java-based.

Re:Wow

[miffo.swe]

I cant but agree. For me the first thing that hit my mind was Bill G wanting all media being stored under Windows powered appliances instead. Those pesky DVD things arent really tied to one vendor, namely Microsoft. I do want my media tied to a movable disc much more than i want it tied to a specific computer or appliance. I also dont believe for a second that the DRM from Microsoft will be one bit friendlier than the ones on the new DVD formats. Who will decide that, Microsoft or the media companies? Just because MS wants it nice and friendly does not say RIAA and MPAA will follow their wishes.

All DRM sucks as it tries to take away basic functions from the consumer by technichs when laws say otherwise. Its just a way to sidestep fair use law.

Re:Wow

[ebuck]

I believe that his "angle" is that a very large corporation which is directly responsible is releasing a new operating system who's only major advertisable feature is a new media player.

So, it might do Bill some personal economic good to talk about how the future of film / media distribution will not use the DVDs/HDVDs/Blu-Rays but will use hard disks, which will only be enjoyable with a media player. And since this corporation has such market penetration and will be giving away said media player pre-installed, such perceived needs only move to drive the perceived need to adopt this (so-called) new operating system.

And I didn't even have to add in the DRM angle.

Ad Hominem

[backslashdot]

What the hell .. we are going to like DRM because Bill Gates says it's wrong?

How stupid.

Anyone who realizes this cult mentality can use it against us. What if he's really pro DRM and saying he isn't? LOL!

Most of the postings on here are actually supporting DRM !! WTF??

Has their seething hatred of Bill Gates caused people to blindly lose their sense of reason??

Isn't it possible to hate without losing a sense of reason?

Re:No it isn't

[0xC0FFEE]

Way of missing the idea. What he's saying is that static media is not consumer friendly. In expanded form, this means that a product shouldn't be tied to its original media (Gates should take note of where his flights of thought bring him). This is kind of obvious when you consider that a static media is nothing more than a transit system between the media producer and you. It can also act as backup.

The conceptualization of a "disk" where you can read and write frequently at relative high speed doesn't change whether it's HD based, flash based, internet based or hologram based. I'm sure Gates still wants a file to be DRM'ed to death, he must make sure that MS are the gatekeepers.

Still. Cryptographic locks are potentially very interesting features for securing content, assessing authorship. Paraphrasing Linus: "_real_ men just upload their important stuff encrypted on ftp, and let the rest of the world mirror it". You're not really putting up stuff on ftp, but who knows what can be accessed without your explicit approval/knowledge. Preemptively act as if that was the case. Contrary to material properties, information is very resilient and durable. The only downsides are that it can be lost in an instant (hence the need for redundancy and backups) and can be disclosed in an innoportune fashion (hence the need for cryptographic protection).

As we embark (on the inevitable) road to making information a full-fledged property, we need to make sure all the usual ingredients of a property are present. Some will say that instead of trying to fit information in the usual definition of (material) property, we should instead enlarge and refine the definition of property. Sure, that doesn't invalidate the fact that we want to be able to protect and lock down information properties. What I guess I'm saying is that a property has attributes that are requisite for trade and that since our civilization is mostly built on that (and some form of democracy), any new property will have to incorporate those attributes we have come to rely upon.

Since when does Bill Gates care about consumers?

[Rocketship Underpant]

Bill Gates doesn't care that Blu-Ray and HD-DVD use restrictive, anti-customer technologies. After all, Gates is that one who's letting Hollywood studios design the high-powered DRM in Windows Vista. He's the one crippling media playback on non-approved PC peripherals.

What Gates mostly cares about, I'll bet, is that Blu-Ray and HD-DVD keep your data chained to another vendor's disc. Microsoft could have a few problems with this; after all, the inability to back up or rip discs will make Windows look like a second-rate OS, while Linux will undoubtedly end up with open source DRM-cracking tools. Gates would rather keep your data locked into your Windows installation. That way, Microsoft-approved devices like the Xbox will work with it, but non-approved devices like the iPod won't.

Didn't work for the WWW, won't work now

[krygny]

Every time something he doesn't like (for whatever reason) starts to gain prominence, he makes comments like this in an attempt to freeze the market and play the White Knight with an alternative that is really, REALLY bad for consumers, but much better for him.

Re:Sour Grapes?

[Cylix]

Nah,

I think they had that planned with their DRM anyway. Think iTunes and multiple registered computers. So you could share out your hd-dvd stuff to another device (probably with a codec shuffle or recompression).

They have simply dropped the media and pushing digital distribution.

That might work somewhere else, but I didn't think HD codecs were good enough for the typical broadband found in American homes.

It's just a grab for something in the mist, but I don't believe the media partners are going to follow his tune right now. The problem lies in rallying the proverbial troops to push a consumer demand for a product they don't currently possess.

So basically Bill Gates just said download ITMS and watch Lost.

Re:Storage on hard drives

[ultranova]

Is an interesting idea, but, for it too work there has to be a distorbution system in place,

There is [piratebay.se].

Seriously, (ATTENTION MEDIA EXECS) do you know why I prefer P2P over DVDs ? Because:

1. Getting a DVD forces me to get out and go to a shop. And, if I don't find what I want at the first shop I'll go to, I'll have to look around for it. On the other hand, a torrent search engine or P2P program finds me the movie in seconds, without me having to move more than my fingers.
2. If I have a "HitMovie.avi" file, I'll watch it by giving the command "xine HitMovie.avi" to the computer. If I have a HitMovie DVD, I'll have to suffer trough FBI warnings (and possibly MPAA's "piracy is theft" music video wannabe), fuck around with the start menu, then I'll finally get to see the movie. Of course, all this assumes that HitMovie has already been released to DVD - HitMovie.avi is typically available before the movie's first shown in theaters.
3. A typical movie, when encoded with a good encoder to a reasonably high quality file, takes from 700 MB to 1.5 GB - lets say 2 GB to get a good, round number. A 200 GB hard drive can store a hundred such movies and fits to my hand. A typical DVD case is half a centimeter thick, so a hundred such cases take half a meter of shelf space.
4. When searching my collection, "locate -i HitMovie" returns in seconds, while a by-eye search of my shelf takes easily minutes - not for a hundred DVDs, of course, but locate keeps on returning the results in seconds even with a thousand movies (10 200GB disks, or 4 500GB disks).
5. DRM. Files loaded from P2P don't have any crap in them that tries to stop me from watching and using them how, where or when I see fit. DVDs have unskippable parts, region codes and CSS encryption, and the movie producers are using profits from DVD sales to buy laws to make DRM compulsory in computer devices. Why on Earth would I want to pay someone who will then use the money against me ?

A telling quote

[markbark]

"'Well, the key issue here is that the protection scheme under Blu-Ray is very anti-consumer and there's not much visibility of that. The inconvenience is that the [MPAA] got too much protection at the expense of consumers and it won't work well on PCs. You won't be able to play movies and do software in a flexible way.'"

Translation: ANY version of DRM where WE don't hold the keys? That will not do!

--MAB

Bill is threatening the movie / consumer industry

[sane?]

Hmm, I have to wonder if this might be a shot across the bows of the movie industry. Consider that Bill wants the PC (and Media Centre) to be at the heart of the future home. As it stands the PC will be at best an expensive HD delivery mechanism, since they are trying to prevent you downloading and storing the HD disk on your hard disk.

Bill is not happy.

However, he has WMV9, DRM and high bandwidth broadband connections to play with. If he launches a solution that will enable you to encode and replay HD content via your PC - with say a movie at 720p in 10-15Gb then he can say to content providers "sell your content with my DRM, in my store, to replay on this system". They will say no, but he doesn't care, he just waits for the hackers to create a system to extract and replay Blu-Ray content via the new system. They can distribute it in the same way they distribute DVDs - at the same time fixing the existing holes that RIAA exploit.

People then have a choice of paying lots for a new system, and new content - or just a HD capable PC and the file sharing that people are already happy with. Cue movie industry meltdown.

This looks to be very much "play nice or I'll get nasty". He can make it so that the easiest HD solution is one based on file sharing. Expect to see secure download to your PC as part of an updated Blu-Ray and HD-DVD spec.

Re:Storage on hard drives

[Tet]

Of course, all this assumes that HitMovie has already been released to DVD - HitMovie.avi is typically available before the movie's first shown in theaters.

You say that like it's a good thing. Much as I dislike the MPAA, the fact is that movies cost money to make. A lot of money. Yet you're proposing that the best way to view those movies is to download an unauthorised copy from the net before it's even hit the cinemas. That brings in precisely zero revenue to recoup the cost of making the film. I hate to break it to you, but there won't be a HitMovie.avi for you to download in a few years if this becomes the norm.

Re:Wow

[Gherald]

> All DRM sucks as it tries to take away basic functions from the consumer by technichs when laws say otherwise. Its just a way to sidestep fair use law.

The DMCA already took care of sidestepping fair use. DRM is just an implementation.

Re:No it isn't

[n0-0p]

I think MS can just see the real implications of Blu-Ray and they know it's a danger to them (and consumers in general). I don't think MS is being altruistic here, it's just that this time the general good happens to coincide with their goals. I've talked to a few people involved in DRM work at MS. They say that MS is only supporting DRM to appease content providers. From their point of view it limits their capabilities and doesn't really buy them anything. However DRM is the only way to get content providers to play ball.

Now the real danger in the whole Blu-Ray issue is this. The DRM model for Blu-Ray is extremely restrictive and especially wouldn't play nice in a PC type environment. Also, Blu-Ray is a closed spec that must be licensed, so any deviation from this DRM model risks legal action by Sony. The content providers like this because it's a model with legal and/or technical barriers at every link in the chain. However if Blu-Ray really becomes the preferred format for HD media we risk a situation where Sony gets final say in all HD content distribution because they own this heavily restricted standard. So in the end Blu-Ray would become a monopoly coup for Sony and fair use would be seriously crippled in the HD world.

So I'd prefer HD-DVD mostly because it's an open spec that is by nature more consumer friendly. Of course, it also helps that HD-DVD will be significantly less expensive and available for large-scale production in the near term.

Nothing to worry about

[OpenSourced]

If the technology is so user-unfriendly, then it'll be defeated by the users, sorry, the customers. The customers already have a technology that works, called DVD. It works good enough for most of them, so you have to give them reasons to upgrade (Bill should know a thing or two about it, from a certain product he has, called Office). If you don't, you won't sell a Blue-Ray player ever.

Well, the studios could refuse to release the films in DVD format, but, you know, that's kind of difficult till you have a big customer base. After all, it's your main revenue source, you don't play with that. And then there is piracy. No amount of protection is going to protect the content, as you will always have at least the analog output to recode, and most likely a tweaked Blue-Ray player to play with.

So I don't particularly care one way or the other. If they protect too much, they'll never win market share, and hard disks are not the only competitor that they will find. Think cheap memory cards, for example. I personally think that these standards are a bit early in the day, driven more by the desire of selling us again the same old films in the shiny new format, than by any customer desire. If they really cared about the customer they would quit displaying stupid screens at the beginning of the DVDs that you cannot skip. I regularly copy my DVDs and you know what, the copies are more used by my family than the originals, because you simply pop the disk and the film starts, no menus, no nothing. So that's a customer desire (my family being fairly typical), and it's not even being considered.

Note to the studios: Do you want to end piracy? Sell DVDs at 3$ from the same day of the first screening, and you are done. You'll even win probably more money than now, as people will buy the cheap DVDs before their friend tell them that the film is no good (what happens with most films nowadays, which was the last film that left you Wow! ? For me it was the Matrix, and that's some years away).

Re:Storage on hard drives

[Lepaca Kliffoth]

That argument would have a basis if those movies deserved my money. Before I gave up Hollywood completely I was deleting 99% of the movies I downloaded halfway through seeing them. Just imagine how wasteful it would have been to pay for all of them. The problem is that Hollywood has lost the ability to appeal to its potential customers long ago and now nobody who has a clue would ever pay for a movie before he's seen it once and most won't care about owning a DVD with a barely average movie on it. Dowloading is easier, cheaper and you can dispose of a file with a simple command. I said "no" to Hollywood years ago. It can't produce more than a single great movie every 2-3 years. Most of its money are blown on movies that are so stupid that when I'm unfortunate enough to watch them I actually feel things grating against each other somewhere inside me. Let it die.

Re:Storage on hard drives

[leifm]

I think discs will be around for a few more years as well, however I think the discs that will stick around are DVD not Blu-Ray or HD-DVD. Most people don't have a TV set that will let them enjoy any sort of quality improvement by jumping to HDDVD/BR and by the time they do I wouldn't be suprised to see bandwith catch up with HD content.

Re:Storage on hard drives

[Xarius]

1. perhaps the studio executives and actors are hideously overpaid, and that's why it costs a lot of money to make?

2. There will always be a way for people to perform illegal activities, there is no situation I can imagine where they can be effectively stopped. They've been trying to stop it for more than a "few years" now.

Re:Since when does Bill Gates care about consumers

[DarkBlackFox]

Another post early on explained it in a great way. Gates may not necessarily care about consumer rights from a humanitarian perspective, but he certainly does from a business perspective.

Basically, he wants Windows to become the complete center of the digital home universe. Everything from TV, music, movies, home automation, personal management, purchases, etc will be done on and controlled by the computer. Problem is, Big Media doesn't want it's content accessible to computers unless they can be guaranteed people won't make copies and/or distribute their copyrighted works. Gates himself has nothing to gain, rather, everything to lose by caving in to high level DRM such as with Blu-Ray. He wants the computer/Windows to be the complete media management solution where people can do essentially anything with media, including stream/copy media to any computer in the house for playback. But again, the media conglomerates see that as an encroachment of their copyright, even if it falls under the category of fair-use.

Anything considered fair-use (in terms of media) is a good thing for Gates, because it means people are free to use his platform to do whatever they want with media they purchase.

Re:Wow

[quarkscat]

Amen!

Bill Gates's (MSFT's) position regarding the BLU-RAY HD-DVD has virtually nothing to do with "protecting" "consumers' rights". If that was even a credible position, neither Trusted Computing nor MS-Vista DRM would be in their roadmap. It is all about who controls the DRM-protected IP that is to be spoon-fed and metered out to the lowly consumer. The larger (and longer term) revenue stream will come from the control of the DRM, rather than the IP it restricts.

Re:No it isn't

[Kjella]

I've talked to a few people involved in DRM work at MS. They say that MS is only supporting DRM to appease content providers. From their point of view it limits their capabilities and doesn't really buy them anything.

I would say it is a double edged sword, but it is definately not nothing. On one hand, you have the lock-in to Windows systems protected by hard DRM, on the other side, the infamous Star Wars quote. The last thing Microsoft wants is to create a world where people choose Linux because it is full of DRM workarounds (illegal as they might be), while Windows is stuck with a ton of restrictions. If people understand that "Trusted computing" means "Protected from the user", there will be trouble.

Re:Storage on hard drives

[Anonymous Coward]

You fool. Have you seen how many people are in the credits? The payroll for all those people is much bigger than for the main actors. Movies wouldn't suddenly become cheap just because the main actors aren't getting paid heaps.

Re:Storage on hard drives

[Xugumad]

1. People buy DVDs in shops? Strange stuff, I swear by Amazon.co.uk (it's got search, and a great selection).

2. Agree

3. I tend to only find DVD storage space an issue for TV shows (to anyone producing TV shows on DVD - putting your DVDs one to a box is a massive waste of space). If it's a real nuisance for you, invest in a DVD folder [novatech.co.uk]. Sure, you lose the pretty packaging, but it doesn't seem you wanted it anyway.

4. Never saw this as a big problem. Just sort your DVDs alphabetically then perform a binary search across them :)

5. Unskippable parts make me want to kill the person responsible, slowly. Region codes mostly just irk me, although that may be because they're easy to work around these days. CSS doesn't bother me, except for the fact that I can neither back up DVDs, nor get a free replacement if I send one back to the manufacturer. Mostly this seems to be an issue with movie publishers believing they're doing the customer a favour by letting buy (a license to watch???) their content.

Re:No it isn't

[Anonymous Coward]

I've talked to a few people involved in DRM work at MS. They say that MS is only supporting DRM to appease content providers.

Chicken or the egg? MS is offering to the media providers, a method that MS will be part of from begining to end and can license and control to ensure it will only work on a PC loaded with some type of MS licensed software that someone somewhere paid for on your viewing end. Appeasing the content providers yes but the motivation is for their own benefit.
If there is going to be a flow of data from a content provider to you, MS wants to be a part of the action and extract fees from it. Of course everyone else wants a piece as well. The reason there no one "standard" now is playing out as the extractors battle it out for the method that will get them the most money. The better technology and a happy consumer are not even considered at this point. This scenario plays out for every new standard from memory subsystems, 56k modem protocols, HDTV encoding, to system buses and interfaces.

Re:Storage on hard drives

[walt-sjc]

Maybe someone should consider that maybe it isn't a good idea that you can download a movie before it hits the theaters.

Me? I'm FINE giving the movie industry time to pay for the cost of producing a movie by having it exclusivly shown in theaters and then in the rental market for a little while before allowing the public to download it for $9.99 - 14.99 / copy in a format unencumbered by insane restrictions (DRM / DVD player restrictions from fastforwarding, etc.) If it's not a blockbuster, then sell it for $5 / download. They would make a TON of money that way. Maybe sell the MPEG4 version for 75% of a HD version... As time passes, the price can drop further.

The problem with the industry is that they refuse to listen to consumers. This gives the consumer no legal outlet to satisfy their desires. It's like prohibition and the "war on drugs." Give us a legal way, Mr. Movie Exec, and your problem will be a fraction of what it is today. I have a number of old (purchased) VHS tapes that are no longer watchable. If I could download a MP4 version for $4 - 5 I would do so. Over a few years, I would pay for HUNDREDS of good movies (classics and new releases.) This is a revenue stream that you don't have today, Mr. Movie Exec.

Re:Storage on hard drives

[The-Bus]

That argument would have a basis if those movies deserved my money.

They apparently deserve your time and effort. If you find it worthwhile to sit for 2 hours and watch Doom I think you'd be able to work for 15 minutes to get the $8 to see it at a matinee/cinema. Or, to wait a couple of months and spend $3 to see it on video. Or wait a year or two and see it on cable or broadcast TV.

The thing is, "Hollywood" makes a lot of really good movies. And they make bad ones. For the "great movie" they make every 2-3 years, do you go to the theatre and pay to see it? Do you buy the DVD? Rent the movie? Tell your friends?

If movies are really that bad, why even watch them? Downloading movies means you want to watch the movie. If you want to watch it, you should compensate the people who made it by seeing it in theatres / buying it on DVD / renting it / waiting for cable TV. If you think Hollywood movies are garbage, then fine. Don't support them. Don't pay for them. But you certainly shouldn't watch them, otherwise you're a hypocrite.

The death of movies

[po8]

In the history of the world, no medium has been killed because folks couldn't afford to produce for it. Do you know how much it costs to run a symphony orchestra for a year? Yet much new symphonic music is written every year, and performed by the hundreds of symphony orchestras all over the world. This for a medium in which only a tiny fraction of the population is willing to listen at all. Note that ticket prices pay for only a fraction of the cost; the rest is made up in other ways.

If we can keep producing symphonies, I say movies aren't going anywhere, regardless of shifts in their profit model.

Re:Storage on hard drives

[WaterBreath]

It's amazing how many people don't get this.

Actors, musical artists, pro athletes, etc... They make so much money because what they do attracts millions upon millions of consumers. And because people are willing to pay a certain amount for access to the product of their work. Simple economics. The market will settle on a price that people are willing to pay. No more, no less. So, the distributers could charge less, and pay less. But then they wouldn't make as much money. So there is no economic reason to do so. The amount of money that a star makes in a successful movie is peanuts compared to the overall amount of money that the movie itself brings in.

So, there is a certain amount of money to be made in these areas. Where do you suggest the money goes, if not to the people whose skills are central to the production? The suits? The production crew (camera, microphone operators, etc.)? The stuits are already getting paid very well. The production crew, unfortunate as it may be, are fairly replaceable. While the "star" is not. So while an individual star's cut of the profits is not particularly large, it's "deserved", because it's their name that brings in the consumers.

That's why they make so much money. In short, it's because most people, don't share your view of what the product is "worth". Or not worth, as the case may be.

Re:Storage on hard drives

[NanoGator]

" Personally, I don't know why you would pay an actor over a million dollars to act in a movie. It's not that hard of a job, and they don't need that much money. Perhaps if they paid the actors less, the movies would cost less to buy or see."

I'd like to point out a couple of things:

1.) Actually yes, it is a hard job. Learning to act on a theatrical level takes a lot of time and commitment. Don't believe me? Go watch any fan film ever made, then go watch something like the Green Mile. Not only does good acting (i.e. the acting we take for granted in movies today) take a lot of time, energy, and talent, but the actor also typically put a lot of hours in to a day. Remember Star Trek Voyager? It wasn't uncommon for the main actors to put in a 20 hour day. Yes, 20 hours. Even movies require very stressful deadlines.

2.) The actors make millions in a movie because the movie makes millions as a result. You say it shouldn't be that way. Why? What's wrong with it? Acting is the most important factor of a film. Truely talented actors are the ones that really can fit the role. It's not something that just comes naturally, anybody would have to do some serious work to project their character into our minds. Even if you hire somebody who really really is the character you're making a movie of, just throwing them into a set and telling them to be themselves isn't going to make them a movie actor. There's a reason they call it acting instead of being. It's very difficult to set up a situation for them that causes them to react in precisely the way you need them to be for that particular shot in the film.

Could movies be cheaper? Yeah, but we'd notice.

Re:Storage on hard drives

[despisethesun]

See above. It's their movie and their copyright. It's your immaturity and "I want it now" attitude. Nothing else.

So wait, it's immature to not want to have to pay $15 to watch less than 90 minutes of entertainment once when I can get a DVD for not much more? It's immature to not want to pay $4 for a fucking pop, or over $10 for a pop and some popcorn, when I can get a fucking meal for cheaper than that? It's immature to not want to have my seat kicked, or put up with idiots who don't turn off their cell phone or constantly make loud smartass comments during the movie? It's immature to actually be willing to pay for the convenience and comfort of watching the movie at home without having to wait months for the priviledge? I can't wait until I "grow up" and accept what corporate consortiums force down my throat.

Read "I don't want to pay for it, I want it now, and I don't have any self-restraint".

I pay for a DVD, and I have to sit through piracy warnings, advertisements, and other crap just to watch the movie. I am also restricted to watching it on specific devices. If I want to watch it on my Linux laptop, I've violated federal law by breaking the encryption. If I move to Europe, I can't watch any of my North American DVDs (which I paid for)because of region encoding. I can't rip several movies for my laptop so I don't have to carry a bunch of easily scratched discs or their bulky cases around with me without violating federal law. There exists the technology to provide a distribution method which will circumvent all of this bullshit and provide us the convenience we crave. I and millions like me have the bandwidth, the disposable income, and are willing to pay. The business model has already been proven successful for music (with iTunes). We're immature for wanting this, for being willing to provide a new distribution market? Right.

Re:Storage on hard drives

[shmlco]

There's this new concept called a "review". You should check it out.

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/ [rottentomatoes.com]

Re:Storage on hard drives

[shmlco]

"If I slave away coding for 12 hours a day and seven days a week to meet the deadline for a project, do I get paid millions by my employer? Of course not."

Of course not. Because you, quite simply, are easily replaceable. There are, quite literally, millions of people ready, willing, and ABLE to do what you do.

I notice you conveniently failed to mention that there are highly paid developers and software types who've made millions of dollars creating things that people want and need.

In ANY profession there are people in the top tier, and then there are those who simply do the grunt work. For every multi-million dollar actor or actress there are 10,000 more who do minor roles, bit parts, commercials, or stand in as extras.

And forgive me, but your comments strike me as equal parts envy and jealousy: "How dare society consider those people as being better than I am. How dare the world reward them for their efforts and ideas and abilities, and ignore mine."

If you're slaving away for 12 hours a day, perhaps YOU'RE the one who didn't make the right career choice...