Looking for a new way to use
FairUse4WM? Have a
Netflix account? If so, go on and roll your sleeves up, as a crafty (and acrimonious) fellow has managed to find a workaround that enables you to not only decrypt the
DRM-laced "Watch Now" movie files, but save them to your hard drive for future viewing. Admittedly, the process is somewhere between painless and potentially frustrating, but the gist of it involves Windows Media Player 11, FairUse4WM, Notepad, a Netflix account, and a broadband connection. Through a series of hoop jumping, users can now strip the "
Watch Now" files free of DRM and watch them at their leisure and on any video-playing device they choose. Granted, there's certainly issues of legality mixed in here, but where there's a will, there's a way. [Warning: Read link language potentially NSFW]
[Via
TVSquad]
posted Aug 8th 2007 6:29AM
It's really incorrect to call this "Fair Use". To do so really undermines the whole Fair Use movement. No amount of self-denial makes up for the fact that Netflix is a RENTAL site. You don't own the license, you don't own the product. If you don't like the requirements of the "Watch Now" system, rent the DVD or cancel your subscription.
The "saving" part is the gray area. It's fair use because it removes the DRM which locks us into one operating system. What if we want to rent movies on Linux instantly? Why can't we? What do they have against Linux?
I see your point, it's not fair to save them and keep them, but it is fair to strip the movies of their DRM so that they can be watched on any device, player, etc... until the time is up on the rent, that is.
As usual everyone misses the point of releasing a hack into the wild. As long as the hack is kept quiet the company has no reason to change. Once the hack is public the company stands to lose revenue unless they fix the hack. It's like being on a ship and finding a hole in the hull. Do you tell everyone in hopes it gets fixed, or just keep it to yourself?
The saving forever part is wrong, but the DRM stripping is completely fair use as you can not use this media on Linux with the DRM in place. Unfortunately removing the DRM also removes the self destruct aspect of the media so deleting it is now optional. In all reality this hack Only saves time because you could rent the DVD just as easily and rip it.
People who are going to break the law will break the law not matter what, a lock only keeps an honest person honest. Breaking the law for legitimate reasons, such as fair use, is civil disobedience. Breaking the law for illegitimate reasons, such as piracy, is wrong.
I'm seeing too much of the hacks & cracks thing going on in the engadget posts. What gives? It seems as though the group is turning itself over to the control of caffeinated teenage anarchists. Can we post things of substance, which the IT PRO who's actually reading these posts may find interesting??
Where do you see anything that says this site is intended for "IT pros"? It's a site about gadgets. The thing that makes gadgets useful is content. These "hacks" are all about freeing that content so it can be used anywhere.
The morality of this particular use of Fairuse4WM can be debated, but most DRM is just begging to be stripped, and I welcome the posts about doing so.
Really what's the point? Video pirates tend to use IRC and Torrents which is much easier and more painless than this method........or just rip a dvd.
this trick or the hacking of the coins machine won't make me rich...
Tell us for example ... I don't know... How to hijack 100,000 AK47 from US supplies in Iraq?!
you sir, are an idiot. the US does not use the AK47.
Maybe, z0iid, but 110,000 AK-47s have basically gone missing from the Iraqi Security Force stores and so the US has essentially provided 110,000 AKs (not to mention 80,000 pistols and over 100,000 items of body armour) to the insurgents it is trying to fight, completely free of charge.
the number is actually closer to 190,000. and if you want to assign blame the the US, fine. but honestly, explain to me how those weapons are our responsibility once we gave them to the Iraqi Security Force? Are you so racist that you are implying that the Iraqi's are of lower intelligence, so they need to be babysat? That they can't handle responsibility? Maybe they can't, but it isn't fair for the US to be held responsible for supplies once they have changed hands.
WTF does an article about hacks/cracks and an online movie rental place have to do with Iraq? Jesus, can you people ever let it rest?
lets face it there is nothing you can't copy using a pc no matter the DRM employed .. even if you loose quality theres still a big chance you'll get within 90-100% quality conversion if you use the right method.
renting is something i think you can't do digitally the same way you do physically - service providers will just have to get over it ... and convince people to care enough about the content that they pay and keep what they rip for themselves.
its like bitching about beeing able to record movies off the TV with a VCR. ZOMG !
sorry about the double post ... but here's a suggestion
if they really wanna be smart and kind to their customers they should let their subscribers download the content also with the content locked for use only by their computer.
Stealing is wrong.
No ifs, ands, or buts.
You can rationalize 'till the cows come home (and some of you will) but it changes nothing.
Stealing is wrong.
yeah.... stealing is wrong.... but at least your stealing from someone who won't miss it, even though they claim to.
movie studios gross between a 9 to 11 figure profit off of blockbusters.... and thats AFTER rampant internet stealing of their films, even though i am too lazy to partake and just wait til the DVD is 9.50 at my local walmart, i would feel about 2 seconds of guilt before i enjoyed my free movie... that everyone had already gotten paid to make.
just kidding, a 7 and 9 figure profit.... i got carried away there for a bit.
Why is it relevant how much the movie studio makes?
stealing is wrong indeed. sorry my i'm not supporting piracy or saying that stealing is ok.
but please consult your penal code for the deffinition of stealing and compare. i dont want to go on about this ...
again i'm not saying ripping and sharing is ok... i'm just saying ripping ethreal/immaterial content for personal non-commercial use in such a digital renting scheme is ok speciffically because of the nature of the content and service.
So, how's that illegal cable box working out?
Illegal cable box? Didn't people stop using those in the early to mid 90's?
haha sorry to dissapoint you m8 .. i pay for my cable in full .. HBO included - internet, games and such ... oh and i wouldnt offcourse tamper with gadgets that are loaned to me with legal contract by my cable provider.. now that .. would be illegal.
what i do personally with the TV signal that comes out of their box is my business as long as i keep it personal.
Yet another proof that DRM doesn't work...
.. funny how no one commented on that.
"10. The file will be around a gig or two, so pass the time as it downloads by going to the park and masturbating to some dead pigeons (or what have you…). "
funny write up, i don't even use netflix and enjoyed the read.
Weird that while reading this, there on the right side is an ad for Netflix. Talk about product placement.
This is not theft in any way shape or form -- it is two things:
Circumvention of Technological Measures under the DMCA. (With serious civil and criminal penalties).
Copyright Infringement. The fair use exemption is (possibly) nullified by the home use license agreement at the beginning of the movie. (Minor civil penalties.)
Illegal? Yes -- of course it is. Theft? Not even close.
I would agree with you about that, unless someone then decides to circumvent the 'pay for Netflix account' part. If people are going to download/keep movies (even under a freebie trial period), then cancel the service, then that does become theft. This hack takes away the entire point of having a Netflix account in the first place, in that it is a subscription service where you can have access to any of their movies as long as you pay for the service. This is the biggest issue w/subscription/rental services; people who have no ethics just want to find ways to smash-and-grab from them.
What's up with all the skeleton avatars and the "masturbating to dead squirrels"? What a loser...
So Grant, now the rationalization for stealing is 'if someone won't miss it (assumed by you), then it's okay'? So robbing a bank is okay; they have lots of money and won't miss it. As far as everyone 'already getting paid', that's not true. People keep getting paid royalties from sales, and that money goes towards salaries and new projects. Less money from sales = less people get paid = less good new movies that get funded. You socialist/commie types never do seem to understand you're not sticking it to the man, and never will. They won't miss your ten bucks; that's what their stock portfolio and investments are for. You're just reducing the wages of those people in the credits, giving studios more and more excuses to use foreign crew talent (i.e. cheaper), and snuffing out new projects. You're just hurting that retail employee that will get their hours cut because 'sales are down'. You're just hurting the people who work at Netflix who will either have to constantly pay a bunch of developers to try and keep their products secure, or not make enough profit from deploying the service to keep it for the legitimate users. You can try to rationalize that all you like, but your belief that work and effort in creating things is worthless, and that people should not have wealth or profit off of their work, is just wrong.
you get an F.
What makes you think that banks wont miss money - a loss is a loss - even if customers dont loose the money the bank has to make up for the loss somewhere and the money it has been deprived of leads to inflation.
on a different note..
I AM SO FED UP OF PIRACY = LOSS - i know this is not the subject here but .. just because someone pirated your stuff doesnt mean they would have paid for it most of the time or that you indeed lost something. This is something that i hear way too often and its a missappropriation of data.
its kinda like picking flowers in the park imho... it will very slightly financially burden those around you, but no one is robbing a bank... cant we all just get along and go skeet on some pigeons.
Id prefer Netflix as a company over Blockbuster anyday. Netflix's "watch now" is a feature that still gives Netflix an edge over Blockbuster now that blockbuster has their online subscription service. But sure why not tell everyone how to get around that bonus feature that Netflix threw in that is to the customer's benefit. This way they'll pull it down or think twice about how their customers are going to abuse any slack given to them.
What a bunch of pathetic thieves you people are. I laugh at those stupid Anti-piracy ads at the start of dvd's now-a-days... but people are getting to be annoying with expecting everything that they want for free. No im not sticking up for the recording/movie industry and companies.. i think its BS that they release an album/dvd and then 3-6 months later they re-release the product with added bonus features that the original customers miss out on. But I support the artists that I like and the things that I like and dont support the ones i dont.
I have plenty of friends who pirate $hit when they dont even like what they are stealing... its like an addiction or competition to see how much they can have.
When Notepad is outlawed, only outlaws will have Notepad!
That should be on a t-shirt :)
Grant, you're just wrong. Of course a bank would miss the money - that's the point. I'm not the one saying that's it's okay to steal because of a presumed lack of knowledge of the theft. Maybe your mom doesn't miss the $20 you stole from her wallet, but later on when you're buying some crap with it she's realizing she can't eat lunch because she doesn't have the money she earned.
If you want a movie, either pay to rent it or pay to buy it. When you don't, you do cut the sales at the local rental place, because you're not out renting movies. You do cut the staff at the local retailers. You close down businesses and get people laid off. There IS loss. You can be as fed up with the truth as you like, but it doesn't change the truth. Even your own words: 'someone pirated YOUR stuff' show that you know it belongs to someone else. Now, you could argue that it's a stupid business model to be a middleman service provider for someone else's products (i.e., a retailer of intangible goods like music, movie, and/or software downloads) whether subscription-based or pay-for-license. And you can certainly vote w/your wallet that you don't need these services, and restrict media to physical forms. But why would we want to move backwards?
Alright MPAA fanboy/girl whichever you are. I'm not advocating piracy here, however I would really like to know what you base your opinions off of. How many jobs in retail centers were lost last year because of piracy? I really want to know. Kind of like how the Big N knew exactly how much they lost with modded consoles. Gee I wonder where that figuter came from? They made it up!
Netflixer: IRC is not a program for downloading anything. IRC is used for communication. Torrents are the actual files that allow you to get the media. But there is a part missing, you have to have a program to d/l the torrent as well. Get informed before you start blasting away. kthnxbye
@Somoney
IRC has Files Servers, DCC send and XDCC send capabilities allowing users to get direct downloads. Just wanted to clear that up.
To answer your question: I don't know about last year. I know about ten people who were cut because of lagging sales in one movie store last year, so heck, lower that and estimate just 5 people either laid off or just not able to be hired per movie rental store or movie buying store. I'll give a super-low estimate of 2000 such stores. The mantra of retail is 'if we don't sell enough, we cut back the staff hours, cut back the staff, and don't hire anyone else'.
But, I do know of about ten years ago. I left the music retail chain I worked for when I saw our customers loading up on Napster. Not long after, that chain closed. That was about 4K people out of work. Some were lucky and got hired quickly (usually into some other retail store, at reduced hours and reduced pay). I got out of retail, since I'd been doing IT and video work on the side for about nine years then, and there was no longer any value in someone knowledgable and passionate about the music industry. Some weren't as lucky as I was. Since then, I've seen about ten other chains, most a lot bigger, completely shut down. I haven't seen an indie music store in about five years; the indie movie stores are either foreign-only titles or adult-only. The staff are undertrained, undermotivated, and constantly jumping ship. Yeah, you'll never truly be able to know how many people it hurts. But why does it matter -how many- people are impacted by stealing, when even one being hurt by it is one too many? I just don't think that the 'amount' of people impacted is any means of justifying it. it's another way to try to reduce people to objects instead of humans for selfish gain. Isn't it ironic that you're just playing the same game that the MPAA is, only you think they're wrong and you're right?
I just look at the money I spend as an investment; an investment in products and services being developed, an investment in jobs in this country, and an investment in my community. If that means I have to spend $4 to rent a movie, not a big deal. A buck for a song I like? Fine. I don't need to waste my precious time in life on bad music or movies, so if it isn't worth those amounts, it isn't worth my time, or I'll get it as part of a subscription service I pay for (sat radio, Fiber TV, Netflix, etc. etc.).
isn't the proportion of users who will actually do this very small anyway? and I'm sure most people still rent dvds, I certainly do
@TrickyKid, my bad, you're right of course.
I've just found plenty of uses for IRC and using it as a Torrent search engine was not really one of them. But since pirates are Public Enemy # 1! I wouldn't know anything about that. Poor record and movie companies! They might actually have to save up for a couple weeks to get that new yacht. Yeah I feel really sorry for them, don't you?
Probably because IRC is not a 'torrent search engine'. But rest assured, IRC (next to usenet) is one of the 'founding fathers of piracy' and is a very ACTIVE community, but it sucks for this purpose nowadays unless you're l33t.
I'm curious... what 'other uses' have you found for IRC besides chatting?
And I know people who use both IRC and usenet for stockpiling ridiculous amounts of stuff just to... have ridiculous amounts of stuff. It is an odd addiction. But I guess it's like the people I knew in jr. high - kleptomaniacs who learned a lesson when they got caught. But if they'd never gotten caught, they wouldn't have stopped. And when I arrested shoplifters, they were all the same. Every single one offered to pay for it, because every single one had the money. It was never about not having the money to pay for it; it was always about wanting to keep the money to get something else too, not having to decide or compromise, not having to work to afford things. It was always their greed and lack of caring about anyone else, their sense of entitlement. Every single one was a tough cookie at first, but then had some sort of sob story when they were being handcuffed.
Please stop with the ridiculous idea that it's okay to steal because media execs make a lot of money. The exec for that toilet paper company does too, but you bought the damn tp. Everything you buy has an overpaid exec behind it. If you want to be a socialist/commie, fine, but be consistent. Media companies also pay for utilities, and all of the people who do waste removal services, cleaning of facilities, internal mail delivery, admin, graphic design, writing, developing, maintenance, sales, distribution, postage, legal, marketing and promotion, coordinating, managing, grunt work, as well as recording studios, equipment, food/catering - you name it, like all big companies do. So call a spade a spade.
its NOT stealing
It copyright infringement
please people lets get it right
walking into a store putting a dvd in your pocket and walking out is stealing
downloading/burning/stripping copy protection is copyright infringement
It's a distinction without a difference. If people want to call it "copyright infringement" so they don't feel guilty about stealing that's one thing. But in most US jurisdictions "stealing" is not a legal term. Theft is, Trespass on Chattels is, but not "Stealing." Either way stealing is "the illegal taking of another person's property without that person's freely-given consent." That sounds just like "copyright infringement" in this context.
Taking something into your possession without permission is stealing.
Candy-coat it how you like, for it is a bitter pill to swallow.
Glass of water?
Yes, yes, let's get technical.. come on, it's theft.
Whether it's physical property or intellectual property, you're using the property of another without prior permission or compensation. It's wrong, whether or not it's technically infringement under law. Making the distinction in order to convince yourself that somehow one is ok while the other is not is just silly.
No, it is not "theft."
Copyright infringement is a civil matter (a tort) and only in certain circumstances is it a federal crime.
"A copyright infringement is subject to criminal prosecution if infringement
is willful and for purposes of commercial advantage or private financial
gain. 17 U.S.C. 506(a). If the offense consists of the reproduction or
distribution, during any 180-day period, of 10 or more copies having a
retail value of more than $2,500, the offense is a felony; otherwise, the
offense is a misdemeanor. 18 U.S.C. 2319."
So, are you downloading that movie to watch at your leisure, or are you making copies and selling them on eBay?
You may have your own ideas of what the rules *should* be, but please do not obfuscate the law with your opinions.
You just keep telling yourself that.
lol
guess what if your caught and prosecuted it wont be for theft or stealing
it will be for copyright infringement or violating the dmca
just telling you how it is, there will be no "theft" or "stealing"
so you can call it what you want ill stick to what the laws and courts will actually charge you with no candy coating involved, no need to convince myself, no need to keep telling myself or others
it is what it is copyright infringement
sorry
Stealing and Copyright Infringement are similar but different. The biggest difference is when I steal someone's car, they LOSE their car and I GAIN it. If I rip a Netflix movie off Watch It Now, I GAIN the movie, and they don't loose anything. "Lost Sales!" you say? Who says I would've bought the DVD in the first place? That's not a 1:1 ratio. Most Piracy of copyrighted material wouldn't have been a sale in the first place, though I am not disputing that Piracy hurts video and music sales - it does, but unlike stealing, does not directly implicate a loss on the victimized party.
Yes, you can use FairUse4 for theft. You can also use it for offline watching. You can still only watch the number of hours Netflix says you can. Sure, you may be offline on a plane, but I think you can still use this software and stay within the realm of the spirit of the law.
The letter of the law may disagree, and some don't follow the letter of the law. If I were to use this software, I'd admit that likely my usage breaks the law, and I have to decide if I'm OK with the consequences of being caught.
This would be more of an issue if Netflix actually offered movies made after 1992 in the Watch Now section and if the picture quality wasn't horrible.
If you really want a copy you're much much better off renting the DVD and ripping it, which is also much much easier to do.
And thanks to this BS, they're far less likely to.
Netflix is at the complete mercey of the content owners. They have to beg and plead to get movies on the Watch Now service. What is this hack going to do for that?
I'm so sick of the "DRM is bad no matter what" mentality. For stuff you buy and own, DRM is BS and it should go away. But for a rental/PPV type service like Netflix - this is exactly when DRM is a good thing. I like being able to watch stuff over the internet on my PC rather than rent some cable box.
I'm
Chicksta, for the people that lost their jobs due to the place of business having to cut back due to not making as much money. I feel for them, the loss of a job is a horrific setback in life that I’ve suffered from before as well. Surely you aren’t trying to say that this is exclusively because of piracy? We are in the midst of a recession in this country right now. We are also at war. These things historically have always had a huge impact on every industry. Also, what about the iTunes and Netflix type companies out there. They are most definitely taking a huge toll on physical music stores, movie stores, etc….
Piracy does have somewhat of an impact on it, but it’s not the whole problem.
As far as indie music stores, I know of at least 3 in my area, I don’t frequent them because I don’t really care for their stock in the times I was there. But they exist and I’m in Kansas. We are at least 5 years behind each of the coasts. I fail to see how there aren’t any in your area? Maybe there aren’t but that could also be because there were too many of them clustered into one area and they couldn’t build a customer base. My music tastes are usually of an electronic (techno) genre and most of the artists I listen to regularly don’t even have albums that are available to me. Or they are producers who want their music to get out anyway. Brother Ali, Sporophyte, Alexkid, etc….
Check out RIAA radar, they are of the belief that if someone likes their stuff enough and can find the album, they will buy it. What about NIN’s latest release, Year Zero. If you didn’t actually buy the CD then you didn’t get half of what they were putting out. The actual CD changes after you play it to give a hidden message, the whole marketing campaign for that was sheer genius and stoked their record sales because of the creativity they used to make that album.
As you say if I don’t like it you won’t pay for it. Well that choice wasn’t around 10 years ago, and the quality of the albums put out nowadays aren’t anywhere near what they were in the past. The last piece of software I bought (Civilization IV) was so glitchy that it wasn’t even enjoyable, it froze, didn’t save, froze again. Just a constant annoyance that I spent $50 on. Why would I want to do that again? If the products were of quality and had content with them that couldn’t be pirated (I refer again to the NIN album) then that might help solve the problem would it not?
@Chad, I use IRC to get news on topics that I might not be able to see anywhere else, I don’t have to necessarily chat with the people in the channels I’m in. I learn all kinds of things from gaming industry related news to what programs would work for me best. I have every intent of purchasing Two Worlds for Xbox360 on the 24th if that’s still it’s release date because I believe that game will actually work and the online feature is something that a modded console would not be able to do. Again the content that can’t be pirated.
As far as Usenet, isn’t that a pay service?
I'm not attributing the loss of jobs exclusively to piracy, but who benefits from piracy? DRM software makers, lobbyists, and lawyers - so the people the pirates 'hate' so much are the people who are profiting from their theft. The other people they 'hate' so much, the execs, are unscathed. I'm not relating the evolution that is natural in business (business darwinism) to a business sinking because of theft. That's moral decay, not evolution. The demand is still there for the product/service, just not the willingness to value it and therefore pay for it. So I'm focusing on the aspects that were addressed here in this topic (theft), not on Business 101. As to changes in economics, sure - I did mention that one could argue that certain industries are riding on the waves of society, and that certain business models are specious or undercut other business models. A lot of the people I know right now would lose their jobs if we weren't at war, for example. They're disabled people who make uniforms and first aid kits, etc. It's not just the contractors and such that earn a living from the war. But historically wartimes have brought about an increase in the media industries, because people wanted an escape.
Real estate is too expensive here for a small indie shop to operate. It's nice that new marketing tactics are being developed to add value to a product (I like NIN although I've never found Trent Reznor to be pleasant any of the times I've met him). But who devised that? The artist? The label? Can every artist really afford to take time away from creating work and devote themselves to marketing? For many artists, that's the value that the label/studio provides them - services that are necessary to sell their product that free them to create the product, like marketing.
I'm not sure how you can convince any company to pay for quality if the sales don't warrant them expending that 'overhead'. If you balk at spending an extra $5 on a game so that it can be less buggy, they'll shave off that $5, but they'll cut that cost somewhere down the line. The rule is to charge as much as the market will bear while paying as little as possible to make it. Stealing it doesn't help nor change that. It's the people who pay for quality, that demand quality from the things that buy, that keep the standards up. As long as businesses feel that people will pay for quality, they'll be someone who wants to meet that demand. So, yeah, if you buy a NIN album because you like their music, if you pay to rent a Pixar movie because it was good, they'll keep producing. If you don't, who knows what sort of crap movies and music we'll have :) But saying that you should buy something just because you can't pirate it is silly. You should buy it because it has value and because you're not a thief; because you are investing in the future creations of those artists.
That's cool. Nothing against IRC mind you, just wondered what someone would do besides chat or download. I use a trigger sometimes to get access to a FTP for downloads for my xbox, and for my news content, I'm all Netvibes so as to harness all my RSS feeds, and Digg so that's cool, whatever works for you :)
"As far as Usenet, isn’t that a pay service?"
Yes indeedy; $15 for unlimited a month. Very cheap when you consider the limit to exposure and the dedicated speed (unlike bittorrent although it has it's LEGAL uses) and lack of contention by design (unlike IRC booting your form a bot after waiting a day for something waiting in queue) it's the winner. Not saying I use it, but if you were to compare to what has been discussed; specifically IRC and P2P for strictly downloading content, there is no competition. Usenet wins hands down. :-)
I find it quite ironic that it is easier, faster, and far more convenient for me to downloaded pirated versions of games, movies, and music than it is to get these things legitimately. It is no wonder people flock to P2P sources for entertainment. Individual people using free software have established vast social networks that work better than the retail system of the billion dollar corporations. Now why is this?
Case in point: Some time ago, I wanted to check out the Doom 3 demo. I click on the links to get the demo, but do I get a download prompt? Hell no, I get treated to the corporate runaround. They want me to register for this or that service, they want my private details, they want my email, they expect me to fill out copious amounts of paperwork when all I want is to see what the game is all about. Now if you do go through the rigmarole of jumping through all those hoops and actually do get to a page where you can actually download, the page you will find there is a lengthy wait because you didn’t BUY the premium service granting you instant access.
Why go through all this for a mere demo when in less than 30 seconds I can open my browser and get a torrent from Suprnova for the full game. No registering, no waiting, no hassle. I say these companies have no right to complain since they make getting their products so difficult. They have really dropped the ball if they let themselves get skunked by a bunch of ordinary people who created a sophisticated retail distribution system quite literally by accident or chance.
The root of their problem is outright greed. It is greed that compels them to seek out my private information and email address so they can sell me even more crap. It is never enough for them to be happy they made a sale, oh no, now you the consumer are made to feel guilty because you didn’t buy enough. Last Xmas the major retail chains even had the balls to blame customers for their poor sales. Oh the customers just wouldn’t buy enough. Boo fucking hoo, lower your damn prices asshats.
These companies like the RIAA and MPAA are acting as though they are entitled to all of your money. They consider every CD-R or DVD-R ever sold as being used only to copy music and movies. Why by their estimates they are out several hundred quadrillion dollars a year in sales. It is funny that the same arguments they use against piracy are the ones a more enlightened government used to establish public libraries. Here we have these buildings in every podunk little town in the US that I can go to get the latest Michael Crichton novel, for free mind you, while at the same time the parking lot at the Barnes and Noble isn’t exactly empty.
Indeed books cost just as much as a CD album despite the fact the book costs far more than the cheap piece of plastic from the drugged out hippies who didn’t even write the songs they are contractually obligated to sing. No, the only people who get hurt by music piracy are the massive corporate conglomerates that belong to the RIAA who have historically screwed both consumer and singer alike. I don’t know if there is such a thing as karma, but the RIAA is surely getting exactly what it deserves.
It is not so much the piracy for piracy's sake as it is just easier for the consumer to obtain the pirated goods. Furthermore it is not that getting pirated goods is too easy, but that getting the legit thing is so damn hard.
The movie industry is so scared about pirates that they will not release movies online. This means a lot of people are just fucked because they have no way to get the movie they want. With P2P I can watch just about anything I want for free by downloading it. I ask you this: Who is wrong, me for getting something for free that I have no idea where to buy, or them for failing to offer something I would buy if I knew where to look?
A friend has introduced me to the theory that money is a substitute for work. For years I have been trying to wrap my head around where exactly wealth comes from. I have heard about, and agree with, wealth is NOT a zero sum game (in zero sum if you get rich that means someone else gets poor). Now I see that wealth, or money, is work made real.
Therefore if money is a substitute for work, then I should be able to fork over some cash and have a company let me download a movie without any hassle. Yet the exact opposite is true: It takes far more work AND money to get the legit article when I can just download the thing without any hassles AND get it for free.
The point being all these movie big wigs have to do is let me download their films for a modest fee. Just let me have what I want when I want for a reasonable amount. Is that hard? Apparently it is because they will not do this. They would rather sell nothing then concede that someone might get something for nothing when they are getting that something for nothing either way. That is like cutting off your nose to spite your face.
Today I opened windows media player to listen to some net radio. I noticed the "music" tab and clicked on it. I don't use WMP that often so I decided to check out some of its features. I was whisked off to a page with a selection of the latest and most popular albums. One of those albums was something by Green Day. I decided to check it out and clicked on the link. I don't know what I was expecting, but I was not at all surprised they wanted me to buy the songs. 99 cents a pop and two you had to buy the album to get. Quite tricky on their part since there are 9 songs (at 99 cents a pop) but the album is $10.89.
I decided to try a little experiment. Would it be easier to get the songs by paying or from P2P? I went to ThePirateBay and found several torrents of the album, and I found several rars and zips on DC++. These began downloading in earnest, the DC version at 45k/s and the torrent at around 90k/s. Back on the MSN network I first had to "sign up" before I could order anything. Needless to say by the time I was ready to submit my order for ONE stupid song the torrent was done (and the torrent was a full CD quality rip).
The reason it is so hard to get music and especially movies is their greed. I mentioned earlier I would gladly pay a reasonable price for movies if I could download them. I would also pay a reasonable price for music. But their prices are NOT reasonable. They are outrageous! Paying $25-$30 for a titney spears album is not reasonable. 99 cents for one song is not reasonable. Renting a movie for 24 hours for $5 is not reasonable.
These bastards are getting pirated because their sense of greed is so overwhelming. They go beyond greed and into malfeasance. They are little more than monopolists, or rather collusionists. The RIAA already got sued a few years for conspiring to keep retail prices of music artificially high. The longer they keep trying to peddle their overpriced wares on an outdated distribution system the more rampant piracy will become simply because it is the most efficient economic system.
"I pirate not because I don't have the money, but because they won't offer the product."
The software scene is something different altogether. I understand the need for many software publishers to charge high prices simply because they have such a small market. This argument does NOT apply to the likes of Microsoft or the gaming industry as they have plenty of customers, but they charge a lot anyway (greed). How many people really need to buy photoshop? A few thousand companies maybe? The current price for either Adobe CS or the Adobe Video Collection is about $1500. Outrageous yes, worth it no, unless you are a company. I can download both of these for nothing faster and easier than buying them.
However, if I could not pirate these I would never pay that much money for them. The fact is most people who pirate software never intended to buy it in the first place. I think it is disingenuous of the software industry to decry every pirated download as a lost sale. The fact is Photoshop would not be nearly as popular as it is if millions of people could not pirate it. These millions of users have created reams of how-to websites and guides, posted informative articles, and have contributed to the design of macros and plug-ins. These resources have in turn allowed Adobe to become as popular as it is. Piracy helped Adobe.
Until there is a new paradigm of thinking in the corporate world involving significantly lower prices and better distribution piracy will reign supreme.
Consider this: The cost of computer hardware has fallen dramaticially over the past 10 years. It used to be a mainstream system would cost well over $3000. At these prices the cost of Windows OS is something of an afterthought. Today, computer systems are starting to reach a price point of true affordability except for one component that remains increasingly expensive: the OS.
That's right, good ol' Windows in keeping the cost of computers sky high. In a low end system it is the single most expensive component! A quick websearch of current prices for XP pro reveals it costs between $120 to $250. A year ago my graphics card cost me $160, and it was the most expensive component. Even upgrades to XP cost over $100.
Microsoft spends too much time trying to do everything and ends up sucking at just about everything. Who among you relies on the Windows firewall? What about the encryption features? DO you use the CD burning utils? The movie maker?
There are tons of appz out there that replicate the features of windows and do an infinately better job. That's funny considering how staggeringly wealthy Micro$oft is. If I knew how to safely rip out most of the WIndows bloatware I would. Maybe if they concentrated on actually making an OS that worked things would be better.
They won't, of course. They are greedy, so they try to include as many features as possible to block any competition from gaining a market share and to justify an entirely new version of windows rather than a mere service pack. Service packs don't make money.
In the end Windows is a jack of all trades, master of none. Full of features only newbs will rely on, and still it crashes. I hope someone starts suing software makers because of bugs. If software companies were held to the same standards as physical product manufactures I bet Windows would not be the piece of crap it has always been.
wow, I only got halfway though, but kudos to that. well said...