News UK Govt. to hear calls to disconnect file sharers

This basically sums up my opinion.

Prices need to drop - I stopped going to the cinema quite a few years back because I wasn't impressed with the experience (loads of ads at the start, uncomfortable seating, some random fool who can't keep his gob shut or his feet still or his phone on silent or something, and finally the cost...) but equally I've decided that I'm gonna stop buying DVDs or Blu-rays until I see them in the bargain bin. I ain't that desperate to see the latest Hollywood blockbuster... which is probably crap anyway.

Also... worldwide simultaneous release of films and shows would be a good start - and release the disc a bit before an ice-age after the cinema release, too, please.

Thing is... I read what John Woodward says, and think, "Huh, odd, sounds like troubles that could be caused by a recession. And guess what? We're in recession. Next thing is, he'll be blaming the recession on piracy.

Nicholas Lansman sounds like he has his head on straight, though - we need the content providers to get their heads out of the 19th century and start giving us the content we want in a legal fashion, in a way that doesn't screw both our rights and our wallets.

I'd be prepared to pay... I dunno... £1 for a 30 minute show, £2 for an hour show... £5 for a film? Something like that. And it'd have to be in h264 with AAC high-bitrate audio in an MKV wrapper without any of this DRM nonsense. I would also be prepared to pay a slightly increased price for HD content... but no more than a 50% markup. Considering that an electronic copy doesn't cost them packaging (design or materials or volume or transport or storage) and doesn't require shelf space at a retailers... those seem like reasonable prices. Because the prices for some stuff now is utterly ridiculous - £16 for a DVD with four episodes on? £16 for a DVD with three episodes on? Some shows would cost more than £100 for 26 episodes at those prices! Are they having a laugh? Yes, unfortunately they are. All the way to the bank. Instead, I wait until said DVDs are on Amazon for ~£3 each (which happens fairly often and usually fairly quickly) and when that happens, you aren't telling me they're still making a profit. Or if you do, why charge such inflated prices to begin with?

...

But aside from everything else... I'd have thought the UK Govt. would have bigger worries at the minute. What with the expenses scandal fires only getting hotter...

 

As far as music is concerned, the traditional "industry" may not be the answer, but the important thing is giving recognition & remuneration to artists, and giving them a chance to get their music out there. Unfortunately, this utopian solution (whatever form it may take) is still a long way off.

I've spent quite a bit of time with local unsigned acts, and for many the dream is still to get signed by a label and record their material.

 

Music is a weird one. I love listening to it, but I can't bring myself to pay for it in a record store, at least not on launch.

Personally, I'd be happy sending money directly to the artist rather than buying the CD. If at all possible I buy directly from the artist - They get more of what they deserve for their effort. Not many bands do that yet, though.

 

Indeed; a few bands have already experimented with this: Nine Inch Nails, Marillion, Radiohead (NIN seem to be quite on the ball)... But the average "garage band" doesn't currently have an effective way of self-promotion & distribution - all these other bands have already "made it", and have the money and infrastructure to experiment with this. The internet is a fantastic tool for this, but it needs a concerted effort to come up with a solution that works for artists.

 

Too right! Using the net as their PR and marketing front, bands and artists can get their creations out in the open and allow us, the consumers, to purchase directly from them, with all proceeds and fees going to them.

Obviously there is still much infrastructure to be developed (i.e., faster and more equal up/down speeds) but once that progresses, I really don't see why the record industry will be needed..?

 

And the recording industry is terrified of this, which is why they're kicking up such a stink about stuff... and signing groups into some fairly noose-tight contracts at times.

 

^^THIS^^

 

How/what constitutes a warning? What triggers one? Any P2P traffic?? Won't the people who get warned "repeatedly" just stop, you would have to be an idiot not to.

 

what really gets me about all of this is that major stars (hate the phrase but hey) demand $30 million dollars for a movie they then drop the cost of that onto us in the form of £8 cinema tickets £15 dvd's what the simple answer would be is to say hey your not worht $30mill anymore as we are not making as big a profit on your movies heres £10million (still obscene) the dvd's now cost £7.50 cinema £4

as for online content, whilst im happy to use steam i do worry about what would happen if valve went under would i lose all of my games? if say i got an account with movies online(for example) and i downloaded say 200 (which is a smaller amount than you may think) movies (probably near a grands worth of movies) from them and stored them in a nicely organised library then one day they went belly up would i lose them to a drm system that was no longer functional

 

lol, im not even going to get started on the govt cracking down on P2P people there...

 

which is part of the problem of living in a capitalist society. the people with the money are the people with the power. when something comes along to challenge that power they have the ability to fight back with more strength than anyone else.

think of the power of the worlds media companies over the last 10 years they have started to manipulate their power up to the point where they can pretty much print anything and get away with it.

if it was not for the power of the Riaa and MPaa the internet would have been used much quicker as a form of media distribution.

 

They probably do realise it, and probably realise that it'll take them a lot of time and effort to win back customers they've scared off, only to lead to them making slightly less money than they currently do.

 

As a member of the "film industry", if we had one, I'd like to distance myself as much as possible from the hopelessly predictable drivelling of the UKFC's underling-o-the-week.

The British film industry would do a lot better if the UKFC stopped promoting stuff that's so politically correct it's visible from orbit, meaningless "issue" movies that interest nobody.

That and the fact that we have no legal protection from overwhelming American film imports.

Going on about piracy while these two factors conspire to bugger us is rather ignoring the elephant standing in the corner.

 

I remember back in Germany we used to go to an English cinema in Frankfurt [10-15 people with me every week] to see the sneak preview of random movies. EUR 3.50 + 3 for the train. And we had boatloads of fun over there.
The next day we used to go to a German cinema in Offenbach [my hometown] and watch the German sneak preview. Another 3.50 and well worth it again.

Seeing two movies roughly 1 month before anybody else was great and if it's **** you don't really care because it was cheap.

Those were the days... make it that cheap again and I'll go back to the cinema more often.
[/rant]

And please don't just try to blame BitTorrent for piracy. There are soooo many ways to download stuff today it's not even funny.
In my opinion BT gets blamed because it's what every single idiot on the planet knows how to use. It's being turned into the Kazaa/Morpheus of 2008/9.

 

spot on there sir,
for you some rep.

on a side note...
Combatus are you from the old CPC forum and as your name is in red you need to be feared for having mod status?

 

Cheers!

And it looks like he actually works for them.

 

remove internet from user = he never buy any real stuff agane (i would not) it just fuel local piracy as every one will just buy dvd movies from some one for £3, as i do not use p2p not really an problem unless thay come to me house and check (i do not sell dvds)

if you whent to every ones house in the uk (apart from +60 users) thay find something thay should not have

 

They definitely won't find an Oxford dictionary at your house though. Sorry, I just had to.

Anyways, I still think this'll be over pretty soon. Just like when they tried to blame any kind of recorder for the downfall of movies/music/software before. Cassettes didn't kill any of those. Nor did CDs, nor DVDs. They [whoever they are a.k.a. the people making money with the aforementioned media] just have to realize that maybe they can't keep trying to get more and more out of the people. There is a certain limit and it's over, no more money available.

 

It's all because of outdated distribution methods. Digital is the future. There is a series of videos on youtube called "Piracy is good" (I'll find a link when I get home - work has blocked youtube) which was a talk to the Australian Television Industry about how P2P can be used by the content providers and still make money.

1 suggestion was to put watermark advertising at the bottom of the screen and then release the content for free on P2P. "But I don't want ads you say." They're already there. Has anyone seen a downloaded episode of Scrubs/BSG/anything you care to mention and seen an NBC/FOX/BBC logo embedded in the corner (or worse - "Watch this new show tonight banners"). Replace these with the watermark ads and release them for free and we win (free shows) and the content providers win (revenue from advertising). The only problem then is that the TV stations and DVD distributors will complain. It's a case of too many people wanting a slice of the pie and the cost of the pie having to go up.

We want smaller pie costs with less slices thank you very much.