Whats your take on DVD piracy / The MPAA wants you

[videopoo]

Being a DVD producer I have strong feelings againts piracy. Just wanted to hear what others think about the topic.

Also here's a job alot of you might think about applying for:

http://showbizjobs.com/dsp_currentjob.cfm?jobid=12925

[VideoTechMan]

This can be a sensitive topic, as alot of people have varying opinions when it comes to DVD's, piracy and the MPAA.

And as for the job that is listed, im sure whomever may take that position might remain invisible to the general DVD public because to those who pirate on a large scale, you are just another 'enemy' to them. I dont like the state of CA anyway where the job is based from (too expensive and too crowded and known as the quake state) I for sure won't worry about it.

VTM

[Stingray]

Well just because someone pirated a dvd doesnt mean he/she was going to purchase the original... so you shouldnt feel so bad. 8)

[waheed]

If movie studios offered a better deal on dvd prices, then more people will opt purchasing the original rather than a pirate version.

Movie studios need to learn that spending millions of dollars on copy protections which dont end up working or get cracked sooner or later will give them no benefit in reducing piracy.

That money could be very well used in giving consumers chepaer prices instead on passing on the cost of copy protections to consumers.

[videopoo]

How much are DVDs in the UK? Here in the US they're under $20. Doesn't seem to be very much money

[ricardouk]

might not be a lot to you but it is for other people!

when i was living in the UK new releases were sold at 19.99

thats expensive because one needs to pay the rent,bills(water,electric,gas) council tax, telephon etc...

if you are still living with your parents thats a whole different story!

yes i think its expensive

[hudsonf]

I am against piracy but I do believe we should be allowed to make a backup copy of dvds we own. As for the cost of a dvd, at $20.00 a dvd that can get very expensive. I buy a lot of tv season sets and they are not cheap. As far as I know if a disc from a set gets damaged you have to buy the whole set to replace it..

[JohnnyCNote]

If they direct their efforts towards organized piracy operations, I have no problems with law. But when they go after individuals who arre making personal "back-ups", I draw the line....

[adam]

But when they go after individuals who arre making personal "back-ups", I draw the line....

They haven't done this yet and have publicly stated that they are not investigating such activity. There's no way they could even if they wanted to.

My take on the MPAA... They have every right to file their lawsuits, to conduct their investigations, and to lobby Congress for more support. Anyone who disagrees has a problem with copyright law and not the MPAA.

What they are hated for is the fact that they are so visible and public in their activities. They of course do this on purpose since piracy cannot be adequately addressed through enforcement but only through deterrence. So they WANT you to hate them so long as you also fear them. I think its working personally.

As for DVDs being expensive, you guys are nuts. If you're comparing DVDs to things like rent and electricity then you simply have no disposable income to speak of. For such a person, all entertainment is too expensive, but that's not how entertaintment should be valued.

You can take your average family out for a modestly priced dinner or you can buy 2-4 new release DVDs. Double that number if you are buying slightly older movies on sale. Don't tell me DVDs are expensive.

[BJ_M]

compared to music CD's (which cost maybe 1 million tops to produce (the odd one more)) , DVDs are dirt cheap (which can cost more than 100 million to produce , plus the extras that come with some, etc ..)

[lordsmurf]

DVDs are expensive. My gut feeling is most piracy would end if discs were just more affordable. They spend money poorly. Less on copyright protection, less on movie "stars". Take those millions/billions and sink it into reduced disc prices, quit passing that crap on to the consumers, they obviously don't want it.

Average price of $5-9 (after tax) is where I draw the line. Anything more, and I don't need it that bad. There is no reason for a disc to cost $25. No amount of "logic" can justify what stars and companies make off of these things. If they don't want to do a movie for less money, fine, pass on them. There are plenty of good actors and actresses waiting in the wings, willing to work for more reasonable money. I actually prefer movies with "unknown talent" anyway. I'll just rent/watch anything else that costs too much. That low monthly rental fee will get a lot more viewing time.

edited for spelling and temporary stupidity

[jimmalenko]

I agree with those that say that lowering prices will theoretically lower piracy ... but then again, those companies associated with making profits will find it hard to justify to their shareholders, who are all about the bottom line, and expect a better result every quarter. While I think more affordable prices will result in a greater volume of sales (in terms of numbers sold), raw income will probably be lower, and therefore profit will be lower, which shareholders don't want to hear.

The other method to reduce piracy IMO is to take a leaf out of the book of a few producers now and release all movies worldwide on the same day. I'm talking in the cinemas, and on DVD or VHS. This will also theoretically cut down on people importing said DVDs from the US, because the DVD is not released in their country until 6-12 months after the US release date.

I think it really has to be a pro-active move by the movie studios (almost reverse psychology in a way), as wasting money on legal battles like hunting down perpetrators that provide the means (such as LightningUK!) are only compounding the bottom line woes.

[adam]

The costs of developing copy protection are incurred by private companies like Macrovision, not by the motion picture industry. All they pay are royalties for using the technology, which granted are pretty high but its an absolute fraction of the cost that went into filming and marketing each movie. Removing copy protection would not lower the price of the movie that much. Its also a hollow argument to even suggest this. I'm sure my local Walmart could lower their prices some too if they got rid of their surveillance system and security guards. But then they would lose more money to thieves. (Yes Macrovision and CSS do stop casual piracy, the average person has no idea how to bypass them) Hell my local town could really balance their budget without a police force...

Only with the motion picture industry do people make such demands.

[jimmalenko]

Average price of $5-9 (after tax) is where I draw the line. Anything more, and I don't need it that bad.

There is no reason for a disc to cost $25.

Gee .... that's a shame

You're looking at anywhere between AUD$30-40 here for a single movie new release (which equates to about $23-30 USD), and it's the same with everything - DVD Burners, for example, are still around the $100 mark (just under at my supplier), yet I hear that they're around $40-50 USD. Internet Access is still massively overpriced here too - a 1.5Mbit / 256Kbit connection is at least $100 per month for so-called "unlimited" plans (generally shaped at around 20GB). 3-8Mbit plans aren't available to the average consumer, unless you want to go onto a business package (and you can imagine the cost).

I know it's all relative, but I can almost guarantee that we Aussies aren't earning twice as much as our US counterparts in the same jobs. At least then it would all be truly relative.

I swear that the US fraternity (and even the UK counterparts, to a lesser degree) don't realise just how good you have it at times

[bazooka]

I swear that the US fraternity (and even the UK counterparts, to a lesser degree) don't realise just how good you have it at times

So, tell us, my brother......

[Cobra]

I feel that DVDs are prohibitively expensive. I can only really afford to buy the good ones. I'd probably buy a lot more if it were £7-8 for a disc. In fact, I definitely would! £18-20 for your average DVD at the local HMV (Bath) is a bit outrageous.

[jimmalenko]

I swear that the US fraternity (and even the UK counterparts, to a lesser degree) don't realise just how good you have it at times

So, tell us, my brother......

I just did ...

[bazooka]

I swear that the US fraternity (and even the UK counterparts, to a lesser degree) don't realise just how good you have it at times

So, tell us, my brother......

I just did ...

You missed my sarcasm. :P

[jimmalenko]

I swear that the US fraternity (and even the UK counterparts, to a lesser degree) don't realise just how good you have it at times

So, tell us, my brother......

I just did ...

You missed my sarcasm. :P

Obviously ...

This post is worthless without smilies

[MackemX]

as I've said before, play them at their own game and legalise piracy and have 'official' pirate resellers :P

let's say 20% production costs and split the other 80% between the the 'official' pirate and the studio. That way the 'unofficial' pirates will find it hard to compete if the price is the same or less but at least the studios would be getting a percentage of the piracy trade they always claim to be losing!

can you imagine if Sony set up a website where you could buy copy DVD's for cheap at the same price as pirates. They would not be able to keep up with demand as it would be overloaded with hits and orders!

I'd love to see the ratio for original to copy DVD's that are bought, I bet it's quite large. Most companies have at least one 'pirate' or more who sells the copies to the workforce or someone who knows someone

[mcbit]

Here in Baku DVDs, software, music CDs and are openly sold in the "High St Shops." Probably about 30 or 40 shops (about 1/2 the size of the average HMV / Virgin).

Costs are all CDs US$3/disc and DVDs US$5/disc. These are generally not the cheap crap you find in most of the Far East but quality productions from factories in the Russian Federation which have an additional Russian soundtrack or subtitles.

People here routinely buy 10 at a time (and get one free) and as such probably spend far more money on DVDs than people in the UK or USA so the concept of jacking the prices up to make back production costs doesn't really gel now does it??

Low prices encourage people to spend more! 8)

[adam]

Wow that's fair. The reason why those shops are able to sell so many DVDs is because the studio just bought them $60 million dollars worth of marketing.

Its easy to sell cheap discs when your only expenses are the pressing and the artwork. The studio's have hundreds of millions of dollars that they have left to recoup and many movies actually never turn a profit even after years of DVD sales.

BTW: I buy retail DVDs for $5 all the time at Walmart.

[mcbit]

If the studios spread the production costs across the board then then they would be able to sell them at a reasonable price.

If they sold them at a reasonable price then they would have access to a market of more than 1 billion people where they currently do not.

And the original point being that people the Russian Federation and FSU are actually spending MORE money on DVDs than people paying the artificially high prices of full price DVDs. So the money would still be recouped by the studios!!

[adam]

You do have a point in that there are some countries, or areas of countries, where the income versus cost of living is so terrible that people simply can't afford to buy retail and it is the norm to buy pirated material, as you said. In these countries some studios have toyed with DVDs sold at substantially reduced prices...but I haven't heard if they've had much success.

But you cannot conclude that by lowering prices they will make more, or an equal amount. Sure they will sell more, but that's not enough. The volume sales theory obviously doesn't work everywhere for every product otherwise everyone would use it.

DVDs are a product like anything else. Their price is driven by supply and demand. It is the pirated copies that inflate the prices and the studios cannot compete with those prices because their production costs outnumber the piraters' by hundreds of millions of dollars.