Piracy THAT out of control?

[disturbed1]

In the last few days, I've had contact/conversations with many people at different locations. Staples, the grocery store, walmart, gas station, walking across the street and so on. It shocked me (once I started counting) how many of these people were talking about piracy in one way or another. It would be easy to dismiss if I was in a school setting, or around a certain age range. But this just isn't so.

You know we have a problem when an elderly woman, 60 years +, is asking the guy at Staples how she can take the movies she rents at Block Buster, and give them to her Grandchildren as gifts What does the guy at Staples do? He sells her an Epson printer to print on the DVDs, a Canon Scanner to scan in the images to make them look as real as possible when she prints out the DVD covers, and prints on the disc

Lets move over to the grocery store. A man and woman are looking at greeting cards. I over hear them talking about how someone has a computer program that can make greeting cards, and that it would be no problem for that person to burn them a copy of it so they could have it.

My girlfriend's father asked me if he brought over a movie (The Ten Passions of something or another) if I would run off 20 duplicates of it for the other members of their Church, so they could all watch it in their homes. <-WTF is up with that? Of course I gave the usual spew about copyright law, fines, no, and even muttered thou shall not steal. He said it wasn't stealling because he already owned a copy

I fix/repair/build computers on the side. Recently I built a PC for a friend of a friend of a friend. Legit Windows, bundled OEM Nero, and a slew of free/GPL software (Open Office, FireFox, and so on). The next day I get a call that the PC is locking up, and "won't download". I determin it to be a PBKAC (Problem Between Keyboard And Chair), and instruct them to bring the PC back for a quick fix. I made a restore disc for them, but they managed to lose in 24 hours, but I had a back up Do a simple hard drive restore, and spend 2 hours running tests to make sure all is fine, and take the PC back. 2 days later exact same problem. Turns out they have Emule, Morpheous, and a couple of other P2P apps installed. I give a nice education of spy/ad/malware and that some P2P apps are bad. They ask "How else am I suposed to get my music and movies". Ummmm, buy it like everyone else, so I educate them on copyright law, and how it's just plain wrong to steal. They educated me that they weren't stealing, because they already paid for all the downloads. Yep, they paid money for a P2P program, and thought that this gave them the right to a free for all.

Then I was at Walmart shopping for a PS2 game for my friends birthday. When I went to purchase the game, some dude in line offered to sell me the same game, and any other title I wanted for $5 apiece. He would even mod my PS2 for $50. I said no thanks. However the father behind us, with his pre-teen son, glady took this guys home number down, and put back the 2 titles he had in hand. Way to go Mr. Role Model

That's when I realized the average joe just doesn't understand and/or respect copyright law. No wonder we have so many laws coming at us.

[gadgetguy]

Legislator1: What can we do? The people just don't obey the law.

Legislator2: I know the answer. We have to pass another law.

[Abbadon]

Hello,

Why are you so worried about all this?, are you a copyright owner?, is piracy hurting you because you are an artist and you are starving like the RIAA says?

If you think piracy is getting out of control, become a politician; mandate DRM in the brain of people at the moment they are born.

P.S.

It is funny, for a moment you sounded like a preacher.

[Dv8ted2]

Who would have thought that looting on the high seas was such a problem at stores?

[guns1inger]

For most people copyright is an abstract concept. It doesn't impact them directly, they don't understand the hours, effort and $$$$ that went into producing a work, all they see is the artists being paid mega-bucks and the studios boasting about taking $80 million on opening weekend. The ads they put on DVDs nowadays that start with "you wouldn't steal a CD from a store" don't apply to them because they aren't walking into a store and stuffing it down their pants. They are sitting at a PC watching a little counter tick over until the download completes. Anonymous, victimless.

And when they put their music online, it's not like it is being taken from them when someone downloads from them. The files are still there.

It would be different if you could download more tangible objects. They would uninstall their P2P software in an instant if sharing their CD library actually meant that the CDs disappeared off the shelf.

[Supreme2k]

You know we have a problem when an elderly woman, 60 years +, is asking the guy at Staples how she can take the movies she rents at Block Buster, and give them to her Grandchildren as gifts

Maybe you (and the salesperson) misunderstood her. Could she have been talking about buying "previously viewed" discs? I've heard elderly people refer to certain things as "bootleg" when they are in no way, shape or form related to it, or call a PG movie "porno".

Lets move over to the grocery store. A man and woman are looking at greeting cards. I over hear them talking about how someone has a computer program that can make greeting cards, and that it would be no problem for that person to burn them a copy of it so they could have it.

And you're sure that it isn't open-source or freeware how? You can make greeting cards with Openoffice and many other freeware apps.

My girlfriend's father asked me if he brought over a movie (The Ten Passions of something or another) if I would run off 20 duplicates of it for the other members of their Church, so they could all watch it in their homes. <-WTF is up with that? Of course I gave the usual spew about copyright law, fines, no, and even muttered thou shall not steal. He said it wasn't stealling because he already owned a copy

I'd have to know the specific title, but many religious film producers give certain (tons of) leeway to churches in order to "spread the word". Again, without a title, I can't be sure if this film is Public Domain or comes with an Educational clause.

Turns out they have Emule, Morpheous, and a couple of other P2P apps installed. I give a nice education of spy/ad/malware and that some P2P apps are bad. They ask "How else am I suposed to get my music and movies". Ummmm, buy it like everyone else, so I educate them on copyright law, and how it's just plain wrong to steal. They educated me that they weren't stealing, because they already paid for all the downloads. Yep, they paid money for a P2P program, and thought that this gave them the right to a free for all.

I can see where they get that idea. Many of the pay P2P programs make it very ambiguous or heavily imply that you can download everything you want for free. Even ISPs rave about how fast you can download music and such, but don't even touch legality or copyright.

[quote="disturbed1"]some dude in line offered to sell me the same game, and any other title I wanted for $5 apiece. He would even mod my PS2 for $50. I said no thanks. However the father behind us, with his pre-teen son, glady took this guys home number down, and put back the 2 titles he had in hand. Way to go Mr. Role Model
If you were so concerned, why didn't you get his contact info and turn him in?
I don't condone his actions, but I can understand the father's apathy towards piracy. If he can save some money on something that doesn't benefit him, and that his kid will only play for a couple of hours, of course he won't look at the Big Picture.

I agree with Abbadon. You sound very preachy, but it amounts to "Wow, I didn't know there were so many butterflies this season! I went for a wak, and they're everywhere!"

I do understand the need to vent and gripe sometimes, though.

[hudsonf]

Unless the guy at staples told her how to make illegal copies all she could do is give them photo copies of the dvds.

[Noahtuck]

Unless the guy at staples told her how to make illegal copies all she could do is give them photo copies of the dvds.

Not to mention even if he did tell her how.... so what ??

You know we have a problem when an elderly woman, 60 years +, is asking the guy at Staples how she can take the movies she rents at Block Buster, and give them to her Grandchildren as gifts What does the guy at Staples do? He sells her an Epson printer to print on the DVDs, a Canon Scanner to scan in the images to make them look as real as possible when she prints out the DVD covers, and prints on the disc

Almost everyone here on this board know's how to do that.....
Just having knowledge is not against the law, it's what grandma does with it when she get's home 8)

[reco]

You mean printers, scanners and DVD burners should be banned?

Cmon, your message sound very much like a record company copyright propaganda.

[ViRaL1]

I think the whole point is that since most of us here at videohelp spend so much time face to face with things such as copyright law, fair use and the like we tend to forget that those concepts don't even cross the mind of the average user. All they know is that they can use a computer to copy a DVD or a CD. They don't generally care about or even think about whether or not it's legal. If it can be done so easily, then it must be legal.

[Doramius]

I think it's a problem, but I think RIAA & MPAA are a problem themselves. I believe they have their benefit, and to stop blatent misuse like this is one of them, but I also think they've gone a bit too overboard. How do you make it fair without harming someone else? There's no easy way to do this in this day and age. Physical artists, or artists that produce a phisical product like a painting or sculpture are subject to piracy, but it's a bit difficult to do. Regardless, you come up with starving artists all over the place, from a time earier when they were highly paid and well recognized by kings and majistrates. Literary artists come under pressure with written music & publishings. They were highly regarded and paid high amounts of money to provide their work to the public. It's now coming to a point of starving artist again.

To me, art is not a neccessity. It is a luxury. If you really want it, you will pay for it for bragging rights whre cost has a large part of it. I personally would rather have the original retail version of a DVD with artwork, insert, and cardboard sleeve than have a burned copy of the movie. I only burn movies I can only buy on VHS or other format because it isn't available on DVD. I am a collector. Not everyone else will keep the same idea or thought on the subject that I do. However, I can brag that my collection is authentic.

It's like comparing an original StarWars figure still in the box, to one made today by Joe Public in his garage to sell at the next comicon for $2.

[enstg8er]

You know we have a problem when an elderly woman, 60 years +, is asking the guy at Staples how she can take the movies she rents at Block Buster, and give them to her Grandchildren as gifts What does the guy at Staples do? He sells her an Epson printer to print on the DVDs, a Canon Scanner to scan in the images to make them look as real as possible when she prints out the DVD covers, and prints on the disc

sounds like mr. staples took her to the cleaners. by the time she goes through all that it is nearly as cheap to buy the movie used, legit. not to mention how much faster and easier it is.

i have been curious about this also. when i see someone buying a couple of 50 packs of dvd blanks i want so much to ask what they use that many for.

[Dv8ted2]

i have been curious about this also. when i see someone buying a couple of 50 packs of dvd blanks i want so much to ask what they use that many for.

There are legitimate uses like data backup.

[enstg8er]

i understand. and back up my photos regularly. but thats a whole lot of back-up for dvd storage. i make a video fairly often. each is usually small. this week i video'd my daughter's band and choral performance for video. i just don't suspect there are thast many out there. i don't forcast illegality, i'm just curious...

[Supreme2k]

I can see your point. I got a 5-pack of DVD-RWs for my set-top recorder and haven't even cracked a second disc after 8 months. I often see people I know buy 50-100 packs, then use about 3 or 4. Even though you can get 5 times the amount for only double the price, it's still wasteful (and shady, if the saleperson steered them that way).

[Doramius]

I burn discs left & right. But I'm not backing up the local video store either. I do people's wedding videos, my own home videos, pictures, and recently -security video footage. If there's suspisious footage on someones home security systems, I burn it to DVD with the watermark so people know the video is authentic.

Now If I see grandma buying a 100 pack of DVD±R(W) DL, I'd be wondering why she needs so many. Very few people around here do the same stuff I do.

[Dv8ted2]

Why is it anyone's business when people buy a 100 pack? You are not the one buying it. Why do you care? It is not a crime to buy blanks. If that were the case, then we would all be in trouble. Please leave your suspicion behind.

[Supreme2k]

On the other hand, what's the harm in noticing it? It's not a crime to buy rolling papers, but if some Rastafarian came in and bought twelve cases, you do a double-take. Most people here aren't police, so their mild wondering isn't going to harm the buyer.
I say the same thing sometimes when I'm at Costco and see someone buying a metric ton of ketchup ("Damn! That one big burger!")

[Doramius]

Why is it anyone's business when people buy a 100 pack? You are not the one buying it. Why do you care? It is not a crime to buy blanks. If that were the case, then we would all be in trouble. Please leave your suspicion behind.

Have you got something to hide. We won't tell.

[Dv8ted2]

I say the same thing sometimes when I'm at Costco and see someone buying a metric ton of ketchup ("Damn! That one big burger!")

They may own a burger establishment. :P

Have you got something to hide?

Nope, but I do believe in minding my own business. :P

[enstg8er]

Why is it anyone's business when people buy a 100 pack? You are not the one buying it. Why do you care? It is not a crime to buy blanks. If that were the case, then we would all be in trouble. Please leave your suspicion behind.

i think i'm in compliance...

i have been curious about this also.....

i don't forcast illegality, i'm just curious...

[Doramius]

I say the same thing sometimes when I'm at Costco and see someone buying a metric ton of ketchup ("Damn! That one big burger!")

They may own a burger establishment. :P

Have you got something to hide?

Nope, but I do believe in minding my own business. :P