Few People Copy DVDs

[akrako1]

http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/07/12/a-sigh-of-relief-for-blockbuster-few-people-copy-dvds/

July 12, 2007, 8:29 am
A Sigh of Relief for Blockbuster: Few People Copy DVDs

By Saul Hansell

Tags: Copy Protection, DVD burning, file sharing, NPD, video

It turns out that not every new bit of technology is a nightmare for Hollywood. There are more than 50 programs available that people can use to defeat the copy protection on DVDs. So some fear that Blockbuster and Netflix are turning into giant free-movie banks as film fanatics rent once and burn for all their friends.

Not so, says the NPD Group, a research group that has monitored the behavior of 12,000 Americans with software on their computers. Only about 1.5 percent of those even have DVD ripping software. And 2/3 of them used it in the first quarter of this year.

By contrast, 12 percent of the people monitored burned their own music CDs. Since NPD doesn’t ask questions of its research panel, it doesn’t have direct evidence of why people don’t copy many DVDs.

Russ Crupnick, NPD’s senior entertainment industry analyst, speculates that making music CDs is much more engaging.

“With music, part of the appeal is sharing your own playlists and compilations with your friends,” he said.

And of course the value of video is different. Burning a DVD may save you a $4 rental, assuming you only want to watch a movie once, compared to $15 for a CD.

And there may be the speed-bump effect. The simple act of needing special software to copy DVDs may be enough to give some people second thoughts. It’s so easy to copy CDs it doesn’t feel like doing anything wrong. (The doctrine of fair use, of course, means that some copying probably isn’t illegal, but fine legal distinctions do not seem to influence most people’s behavior.)

Interestingly, downloading video from file-sharing networks is much more popular than burning DVDs, with 6 percent of the users downloading large video files in the NPD sample. By contrast, 11 percent of the users downloaded music files from file-sharing networks, slightly less than the number of CD burners.

Downloading from file sharing networks has a different dynamic than burning disks. You download to get something yourself, while you often burn to share something you already have (legally or otherwise) with others. Moreover, Mr. Crupnick pointed out that about half of the downloaded movies are pornography.

“I’m not sure people share their porn the way they share their music,” he said.

[gotnotime]

Not so, says the NPD Group, a research group that has monitored the behavior of 12,000 Americans with software on their computers. Only about 1.5 percent of those even have DVD ripping software. And 2/3 of them used it in the first quarter of this year.

By contrast, 12 percent of the people monitored burned their own music CDs. Since NPD doesn’t ask questions of its research panel, it doesn’t have direct evidence of why people don’t copy many DVDs.

[/quote]

Exactly how did they monitor these 12,000 people? I find it hard to beleive that 12,000 people would sign up for study to see if are they illegally copying DVD's. If not, how would they know if they had ripping software...this has a an Orwellian scent of "Big Brother is watching."

[j1d10t]

“I’m not sure people share their porn the way they share their music,” he said.

[yoda313]

Yeah how honest is this survey? I mean - hello mr survey person - I rip and burn 100 dvds a month.

I mean come on!

[MOVIEGEEK]

Yeah how honest is this survey? I mean - hello mr survey person - I rip and burn 100 dvds a month.

I mean come on!

Exactly,it's like those personality tests when you apply for a job...everybody lies.
ex:"Have you ever taken office supplies?"

[nic2k4]

Well I think they might be onto something, most people I know that have copied discs at one time, don't even bother anymore.

The thinking is I might want to see a movie, but I don't necessarily want to own it. Beside, half the crap out there is a waste of time and the other half I'll never watch again.

Aside from appeasing some primal feeling of insecurity (explaining why I might feel I need to own a certain movie). The few titles I do want to own, I also want the pretty packaging and all the bells and wistles. And this is despite my experience amassing a VHS collection in the 90's, knowing that most of them were only watched once and now they sit in a box in the basement (yes, some are duplicated in DVD).

Lately, I see recent movies selling for around $5; it's cheaper to buy those than rent them. Now, copying is mostly for backup and the people I know think I'm crazy doing it.

[samijubal]

Not so, says the NPD Group, a research group that has monitored the behavior of 12,000 Americans with software on their computers. Only about 1.5 percent of those even have DVD ripping software. And 2/3 of them used it in the first quarter of this year.

By contrast, 12 percent of the people monitored burned their own music CDs. Since NPD doesn’t ask questions of its research panel, it doesn’t have direct evidence of why people don’t copy many DVDs.

Exactly how did they monitor these 12,000 people? I find it hard to beleive that 12,000 people would sign up for study to see if are they illegally copying DVD's. If not, how would they know if they had ripping software...this has a an Orwellian scent of "Big Brother is watching."[/quote]

NPD is a survey company. People download their software and they track their computer usage. For this they get a few dollars or points. After the software is installed they can track whatever a person does with their PC. Their numbers are accurate.

[mike20021969]

http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/07/12/a-sigh-of-relief-for-blockbuster-few-people-copy-dvds/

it doesn’t have direct evidence of why people don’t copy many DVDs.

it's probably cos the film is rubbish and not worth wasting a disc on?

[gadgetguy]

Not so, says the NPD Group, a research group that has monitored the behavior of 12,000 Americans with software on their computers. Only about 1.5 percent of those even have DVD ripping software. And 2/3 of them used it in the first quarter of this year.

By contrast, 12 percent of the people monitored burned their own music CDs. Since NPD doesn’t ask questions of its research panel, it doesn’t have direct evidence of why people don’t copy many DVDs.

Exactly how did they monitor these 12,000 people? I find it hard to beleive that 12,000 people would sign up for study to see if are they illegally copying DVD's. If not, how would they know if they had ripping software...this has a an Orwellian scent of "Big Brother is watching."

NPD is a survey company. People download their software and they track their computer usage. For this they get a few dollars or points. After the software is installed they can track whatever a person does with their PC. Their numbers are accurate.

Yes, but they know they are being monitored. Why would they do something they know to be illegal when they know they're being monitored? The numbers from their study may be accurate for their study group, but I don't believe they represent the general public at large.

[gotnotime]

The next thing you know, the DRM folks will sue NPD to release all the names of from their "study", and they will all get $10,000 fines. Hope NPO paid them well

[satviewer2000]

Well I think they might be onto something, most people I know that have copied discs at one time, don't even bother anymore.

The thinking is I might want to see a movie, but I don't necessarily want to own it. Beside, half the crap out there is a waste of time and the other half I'll never watch again.

Aside from appeasing some primal feeling of insecurity (explaining why I might feel I need to own a certain movie). The few titles I do want to own, I also want the pretty packaging and all the bells and wistles. And this is despite my experience amassing a VHS collection in the 90's, knowing that most of them were only watched once and now they sit in a box in the basement (yes, some are duplicated in DVD).

Lately, I see recent movies selling for around $5; it's cheaper to buy those than rent them. Now, copying is mostly for backup and the people I know think I'm crazy doing it.

Actually I have to agree. I used to do this too, having many many burned DVD's waiting to be watched. I'd copy them, say to myself, ok, now it's copied, I can watch it later. Well, I never got around to later, and now I have many many (100's? I've lost track) DVDs I've never even watched. This got tiring of course, and I now either watch it or don't. There's just too much data out there to copy, it's a waste of time, energy, and yes, even money (you have to rent a DVD, buy a DVD-R to burn it, use electricity, etc). In the end, I'll likely recycle most if not all those unwatched DVDs.

[lacywest]

interesting

[lordsmurf]

The next thing you know, the DRM folks will sue NPD to release all the names of from their "study", and they will all get $10,000 fines. Hope NPO paid them well

Lay off the caffeine. You're getting too paranoid.

[DRP]

The simple act of needing special software to copy DVDs may be enough to give some people second thoughts. It’s so easy to copy CDs it doesn’t feel like doing anything wrong.

What complete rubbish. It has always been and continues to be much harder to copy CD-DA than it is DVD-Video. You need "special" software to do both but with CD-DA you also need a "special" drive as well and the time, patience and intelligence to setup and configure Exact Audio Copy to do it properly.

[MOVIEGEEK]

What complete rubbish. It has always been and continues to be much harder to copy CD-DA than it is DVD-Video. You need "special" software to do both but with CD-DA you also need a "special" drive as well and the time, patience and intelligence to setup and configure Exact Audio Copy to do it properly.

Huh?!
Audio CD's don't have CSS(encryption)...any CD-ROM will do...just make sure you turn off autorun and use IsoBuster.

[DRP]

CD-DA isn't stored in a conventional computer data format having been developed without computer use in mind in the first place. That inherently makes it more difficult to read and capture properly than any form of data on DVD which was always designed to be readable by computer in the first place.

Scratch a recorded DVD and you can still easily get the data off it. Scratch an audio CD and see how easy it is to get a perfect rip of the data back off it again!

[yoda313]

scatches aside its still 1000% easier to rip a cd than a dvd

[MOVIEGEEK]

CD-DA isn't stored in a conventional computer data format having been developed without computer use in mind in the first place. That inherently makes it more difficult to read and capture properly than any form of data on DVD which was always designed to be readable by computer in the first place.

Scratch a recorded DVD and you can still easily get the data off it. Scratch an audio CD and see how easy it is to get a perfect rip of the data back off it again!

This statement is complete rubbish.
1.Audio CD's are made by analog to digital converters and the data is in binary(digital) form.
2.The only data a computer cannot read is analog,everything must be converted to digital.
3.DVD's were never designed to play on PC's,it was the hardware and software manufacturers that made it so.In fact DVD-ROM's didn't come out until 2001.
4.Scratched DVD's can be just as difficult as CD's,the best tools to rip damaged discs are IsoBuster or DVDFab Decrypter.

[Nelson37]

As far as the data collection goes, I'm pretty sure the users are completely anonymous and the data collected is unrelated to any individual identification. Other programs I have seen were very, very careful to make this point. The reason is exactly what some have expressed concern about, in that people might not act normally if they thought their actions were identifiable. The statement about the survey company unable to question the participants tends to support this.

This method of data collection is at least more accurate than asking people what they did, this never gets a clear picture. These softwares simply record all activity, then send back an anonymous log file. Much like the Nielsen ratings machine.

Favorite Survey Tidbit -

90% - people responding "Yes" to "did you wash your hands?" outside a public restroom
75% - People washing their hands when observed by an individual with a clipboard
50% - People who actually washed their hands when observed by a hidden camera

Numbers are approximate from memory, but you get the idea.

[Paul_G]

@DRP

Stop misleading people, audio cds have always been so damn easy to rip/copy. Saying otherwise or even suggesting you need a "special drive" and using a certain piece of software "Exact Audio Copy" to do it properly is just outright laughable.

[lordsmurf]

I could rip an audio CD in 1994, and by 1995 I was editing audio. By 1996, I was making custom mix CDs for my car. DOS software could read CD-Audio data to WAV files that I could open in mixer software in Windows 3.1.

[DRP]

There's a reason why I emphasised the word "properly" in bold. You all conveniently missed that. If you don't have a drive with known laser offsets that can overread both the lead-in and lead-out of an audio CD then you cannot rip it properly. What's more, if you aren't using EAC to do it, then you can't rip it properly either. The same is not true of DVDs. You can use any number of encryption defeater tools to rip them and what you get off the disc each time will be absolutely the same no matter which drive you use.

Software encryption is all you have to defeat on DVDs. On CDs you have to rip a signal which has minimal error checking and correction capability, which is much harder. Get yourself an audio CD copy-protected with Cactus Data Shield and get exactly the same thing off it twice in a row. I'll bet you can't. I am yet to find a DVD I can say the same thing about.

[DRP]

Paul_G & MOVIEGEEK both speak exactly like people who have never ripped an audio CD properly in their lives. I'll bet neither of you have read any of the EAC documentation either. Until you know what you're talking about please refrain from commenting further. lordsmurf, this only proves that you were able to do poor quality audio CD rips earlier than most others. Well done. Equally, I was able to copy DVDs the day after they came out by pressing record on my non-macrovision equipped VCR and pressing play on the DVD player. This is not however what I would call a quality copy. It was certainly watchable however.

[MOVIEGEEK]

Paul_G & MOVIEGEEK both speak exactly like people who have never ripped an audio CD properly in their lives. I'll bet neither of you have read any of the EAC documentation either. Until you know what you're talking about please refrain from commenting further. lordsmurf, this only proves that you were able to do poor quality audio CD rips earlier than most others. Well done. Equally, I was able to copy DVDs the day after they came out by pressing record on my non-macrovision equipped VCR and pressing play on the DVD player. This is not however what I would call a quality copy. It was certainly watchable however.

I have used EAC but I prefer CDex to rip and I get a perfect bit for bit copy.
So you can take your "I use EAC so I am holier than thou" attitude and piss off.
This thread was about copying DVD's until you hijacked it with your nonsense.

[redwudz]

This thread is about 'copying' DVD's. Please stay on topic.

Moderator redwudz

[lordsmurf]

Few people copy DVDs, I would agree. Most people will probably copy some, but it's not something they do regularly. And even then, they still buy or rent a majority of their DVDs. At the end of the day, nobody really wants a copy, when they could have the original. Affordable discs will ensure more DVDs are bought and not copied. It's moving there with box sets, and movies that are a few years old.

lordsmurf, this only proves that you were able to do poor quality audio CD rips earlier than most others. Well done. Equally, I was able to copy DVDs the day after they came out by pressing record on my non-macrovision equipped VCR and pressing play on the DVD player.

CDs ... DVDs ... it's all ones and zeros. We're doing digital extraction here. There's nothing "poor" about a direct audio extraction of PCM audio from CD-DA to PCM/WAV. It's completely digital, there was no analog or other half-assed copy method in use (like the DVD player to VHS method). You're really in left field on this one. Next thing will be the old "vinyl is better than CD" or "VHS is better than DVD" crap.

[Paul_G]

Paul_G & MOVIEGEEK both speak exactly like people who have never ripped an audio CD properly in their lives. I'll bet neither of you have read any of the EAC documentation either.

There you go again with the word "properly", your talking out of your ass plain and simple. Shame you hijacked this thread in the process, so best to go crawl in a hole and die.

[RabidDog]

music and film are different.. makes sense to me ... good music I listen to loads of times, Good films I probably watch once twice thrice perhaps, and music I dont like? I dont listen to if possible, bad movies I avoid also if possible (look for van damme, or pie somewhere in the wording)

The ASPCA is against cruelty to equines. so shouldn't that ass be arse?

[terryj]

Few people copy DVDs, I would agree. Most people will probably copy some, but it's not something they do regularly. And even then, they still buy or rent a majority of their DVDs. At the end of the day, nobody really wants a copy, when they could have the original. Affordable discs will ensure more DVDs are bought and not copied. It's moving there with box sets, and movies that are a few years old.

today i saw at walmart Discs that had three movies on them for $9.
Sure they were late night cable / saturday commercial cable channel
stuff (Steven Segal early '90s, Van Damme, 1999-2001 Paramount fare)
but if the industry moved to this, this would surely cease pirating
once and for all. Three movies, DL disc, no extras, $9.
to me, that's the IDEAL price point, for movie only discs.
Whether at wal-mart or in iTunes,
I'd jump on that.

[ozymango]

At the end of the day, nobody really wants a copy, when they could have the original. Affordable discs will ensure more DVDs are bought and not copied. It's moving there with box sets, and movies that are a few years old.

Just yesterday at Target I was checking out the movie section (waiting for a prescription) and what did I find but a two-disc set of "Terminator" and "Robocop" for $9. Nine bucks for two classic movies on factory-made DVDs! Also the liner notes say that the films were mastered in HD, meaning (I'm guessing) that they probably re-did them for HiDef and as long as they were at it, why not make some cheap DVDs for cheapskates like me.

When Terminator and Robocop were first on TV (pay channels) I remember programming my Beta VCR to get single-tape, Beta II HiFi copies of these for my own collection and thinking, "Wow, this is cool!"

And now it's nine bucks for two really great copies, official and everything. Will wonders never cease?!