DVD Piracy!

**George Bellefontaine** · 15 September 2006, 11:40 Friday

Well I have always felt that piracy sucked big time. And after reading your post I can well understand why the studios are so paranoid.

**Kevin P** · 15 September 2006, 12:40 Friday

These are the kinds of operations the studios should be putting efforts into shutting down, not putting all kinds of DRM garbage on the legitimate discs we pay good money to the studios for.

Instead of going after the real problem, they're just trying to tighten their grip on their paying consumers. And as Princess Leia once said, the more you tighten your grip, the more pirates will slip through your fingers...

What's really sad is, if the studios get their ways with HD-DVD/BluRay and all the encryption and requiring HDMI/HDCP to watch in full res, the pirated copies will actually be the superior versions, since they won't have all the protection and will play on whatever you have already.

**aud19** · 15 September 2006, 12:51 Friday

What Kevin said :agree:

Piracy sucks big time but what almost sucks even more is the bass-ackwards way the studios seem to be dealing with it :evil:

As for your dilemna Fauzi, what about internet/mail-order services? Is that an option for you to get media rather than from local pirates?

**Arneson** · 15 September 2006, 13:01 Friday

I honor the license when I answer yes to a Eula agreement, don't own any copied material, except...
I am a hypocrit If I said I have not stolen Tv or Music, I have.
I will fess up here in public that I did make a sat supercard and I was on the kazza site about five years ago. I don't do anything like that anymore, It was a phase I went thru.
I never really at the time thought about the ability to watch every channel and listen to any song as bad, and the laws were gray back then. This of course was my justification.
The payback for this is that my entertainment costs now per month is more than a hundred bucks, mostly to the sat company, and I know others pay more than twice that. You could say I lured myself with free and now pay thru nose, and I'm not alone.

**Kevin P** · 15 September 2006, 13:12 Friday

Originally posted by Arneson

The payback for this is that my entertainment costs now per month is more than a hundred bucks, mostly to the sat company, and I know others pay more than twice that. You could say I lured myself with free and now pay thru nose, and I'm not alone.

And that's one of the reasons piracy is so rampant, it's because prices are ridiculous. Cable/satellite TV is ridiculous, CD prices are ridiculous (expecially for what you get). DVDs are pretty reasonable considering you get a feature-length movie + bonus features for little more than the price of a CD.

What's really sad though, is 90% of the stuff the "entertainment" industry puts out these days isn't even worth pirating, never mind paying $20 a pop for. I bet a lot of people "pirate" to get a free preview of a song/movie before spending their hard earned cash on it.

Of course, I'm not condoning piracy, I hate it in fact, but I also hate what the owners of the oft-pirated material are doing as well.

**Vinny** · 15 September 2006, 16:04 Friday

I agree with what Kevin said about 90% stuff does not even worth pirating. It's ironic but so true.

So far I think DVD does a good job for fighting against piracy. The pirate one maybe around $5?(never bought that.... I would rather do netflix than spending 3hours travelling to Chinatown :B ) A official copy may take you $10-20. For having Netflix, I would still buy loads of DVDs. Not to mention the one that I wanted to have when it was released on theater(Not a big fan of going theater guy here, plus the theater near my home sucked big time!). In addition, many good movies that I watched through Netflix and want to own it. Of course, the lower price is always welcome, but $10-20 is a good price to stay with for the movie on disk that can bring home. That's also why I still refuse to step into HD-DVD/Bluray because the media are way too expensive :B

Different regions have different ways to fight against piracy. Japan does not even have piracy going much as people were educated heavily against piracy and people would rather rent.
Hong Kong intentionally lower the DVD price to US$8-15 for most of the movies. The pirate copies maybe take $3-4 each. Or some would even go for VCDs for only $3-7 for each movie(Not pirated!). It really makes it not much point for getting pirate DVDs(which has a chance for in-theater-videocam-version).

**wkhanna** · 15 September 2006, 21:11 Friday

I think fauzigarib is very noble in his intent, and I would never condone piracy.

Yet, he is in a place with a culture that few of us could ever imagine. Still, I’m not going to say ‘when in Rome, do as the Romans do’.

However the thirst for all things Western and the perceived life style that goes with it is huge in places like India and other emerging countries where there are huge transitions taking place as traditions thousands of years old are struggling to co-exist with the recent generations raised on satellite dishes with access to things like the TV show ‘Dallas’ and 'The Saprano’s’.
Combine this with economies that lack enforced government control of street level commerce and a market with an insatiable appetite being fed by entrepreneurs with less options than someone with a doctorate in art history.......well, I hope you get my point.

Anyway, the fact is there is a significant economy in other places based on the ‘Black Market’, and without them, people would starve. It’s just the way business is done, and people feed their children.

Again, I am not condoning piracy. The world is a big place, still; and things aren’t always done the same way in other places. Piracy exists because there is a market. As such, why don’t the producers of the product take it to that market instead whining ‘Foul! Foul!’ all the time?

As always, IMHO

**fauzigarib** · 16 September 2006, 01:16 Saturday

Originally posted by wkhanna

I think fauzigarib is very noble in his intent, and I would never condone piracy.

Yet, he is in a place with a culture that few of us could ever imagine. Still, I’m not going to say ‘when in Rome, do as the Romans do’.

However the thirst for all things Western and the perceived life style that goes with it is huge in places like India and other emerging countries where there are huge transitions taking place as traditions thousands of years old are struggling to co-exist with the recent generations raised on satellite dishes with access to things like the TV show ‘Dallas’ and 'The Saprano’s’.
Combine this with economies that lack enforced government control of street level commerce and a market with an insatiable appetite being fed by entrepreneurs with less options than someone with a doctorate in art history.......well, I hope you get my point.

Anyway, the fact is there is a significant economy in other places based on the ‘Black Market’, and without them, people would starve. It’s just the way business is done, and people feed their children.

Again, I am not condoning piracy. The world is a big place, still; and things aren’t always done the same way in other places. Piracy exists because there is a market. As such, why don’t the producers of the product take it to that market instead whining ‘Foul! Foul!’ all the time?

As always, IMHO

Hello all,

Well, this did kind of wake the "At the Movies" section up!

WKhanna makes a very valid point when he says that piracy exists because there is a market.

I think it was in 1995 that Microsoft came into Pakistan with the idea to establish their products over here on an official basis. I think they reasoned that there is such a HUGE black market here, that, with the right support from the authorities, they should be able to capitalize on this market.

Well, they DID get the support from the authorities, and there were insane amounts of raids that were conducted, not only on pirated software cd stores, but also companies that used those cd's. Computers were confiscated, and in some cases, entire offices were sealed. But it just didn't last long. Six months later, the situation was back to square one.

Of course, I think to some extent, the authorities are to be blamed... They should have had a lasting effort that would have had some longer term effects, rather than give up when they did. But I personally feel that a LARGE part of the blame lies with Microsoft. The pricing on software (the same goes for movies, music, etc) HAS to be set keeping the market conditions in mind. If you think every household is going to have a licensed copy of Windows XP at $300, where the average household income on a monthly basis is less than that... well, that's just not realistic.

I have a strong feeling that Microsoft (or the Columbia / Tristar agent that I mentioned in my last post) focused more on their pricing, ALONG WITH getting help from the authorities, it would have gone a long way.

Some may not agree with this, and think it to be a little unrealistic. Well, realize this: If something is laid down in the law and enforced, even in a black market like Karachi, it becomes increasingly expensive for the wrong doers to continue. They will have to pay to police to not shut their stores down, pay the relevant authorities off.... and the list goes on and on. At that point, if they have the option of selling a legal product that is slightly more expensive, sells slower than the illegal one, but without those hassles, they might actually consider it.

I'm not saying it's as easy as that. I'm saying it's possible, if MS (or the movie studios, or music studios) want to sell legally in these markets. I think, once the piracy issues are out of the way, Pakistan for one is a fantastic market for them to work in.

Regards,

Fauzi

**Boombox** · 16 September 2006, 03:46 Saturday

Try a new model

CDs are extremely expensive here in South Africa. It pains your heart to see that the same CD you pay for here $20, costs in the States $9.99. Most CDs are between $20 - $30. Almost all the CDs you buy here are copies of the Master made locally by the record label distributor and in many instances of poor quality, with many pops and cracks on the discs. The CDs from Germany in particular, I've found are of a superb quality.

Many households here are single earner households, earning between $100 - $600 per month. You can then understand why people buy pirate copies costing $2 - $3.

In one sense I do like the approach Apple took with their iPod. The iPod costs the same here as it would in the States or anywhere else in the world. I do think that CD/DVDs and software can also use this model, with a slight twist, driving towards "affordability" rather than "profit margins". Instead of asking say $5 for a product across the world, a percentage based model can be used. For instance if a CD costs 0.05% of the average family income (AFI) in the USA, then it should also cost 0.05% of the AFI in any other part of the world. It is widely known that artists get much, much more money from royalties when their music is played on the local radiostation, than CD sales. Now, one could argue, that people will then buy CDs from Zimbabwe or some country that has a very low AFI, but I still think that there are more honest people out there that are willing to rather buy the legal copy if it were "affordable", relative to their local economic conditions, opposed to people that just don't give a $%@#. We all are trying to get things cheaper. The idea is however to get people to rather buy the legal copy than the pirated one.

I do believe that such a model can be applied to CD/DVDs and software. I am of the oppinion that the artists that produce these products are entitled to their earnings.

**Kemp** · 22 September 2006, 11:08 Friday

It is a very bad cycle. If the originals come out at 50% of the old price that could result in pirated copies being cheaper aswell. Although there is a cutoff point where it isn't even viable to produce pirate copies. If you fall into the low income bracket, you will still justify buying the pirate.

**wolfgang** · 08 October 2006, 10:07 Sunday

Originally posted by fauzigarib

About 5-6 years ago, a company came into existence over here to distribute official copies of movies from Columbia / Tristar, Universal, and a couple other studios. Man oh man, not only did these guys lose a TON of their inventory and make HUGE losses... they also used to get death threats on a daily basis. It was just insane.

Needless to say, they are no longer around...

On a personal note, I can't stand piracy... As a businessman, I really appreciate the true pain of not getting paid for what you've created / worked on.

Do you remember how much where they trying to sale the official DVDs for? I am guessing the prime reason the venture died was because they were run by idiot foreign and local businessmen who set the price much too high that even people who otherwise will never break the law run away. If they have set a realistic price for their products the black market will never florish. Black market will continue to florish and remain as long as the huge artificial prices in basis products exist between the so call developed and developing worlds. If they sale the original copies of DVD at the correct market price back then at the one that average DVDs are sold in Pakistan today they'll have a huge successful business now.

**Brandon B** · 08 October 2006, 15:34 Sunday

DVD prices in the U.S. are IMO completely reasonable. You can get pretty much andy movie for $15-19 on release day. And within a year or two, most titles are available somewhere for more like $8-12.

Given what it costs to make and promote a movie, I would never consider obtaining a movie illegally.

Now in foreign countries, $18 (or more) is a different amount of money. The industry needs to accept that they cannot make a profit at that price point there. And selling the movies for 10% or so of what they sell for in the U.S. creates black market issues here (as well as ill-will on the part of consumers here who are aware of the lower pricing in other regions).

It's really a no-win situation for them. No obvious solution. Welcome to the global market.

Now the industry movement towards per-use and per-format charging I will have no part of. If I've bought the movie, I'll damn well watch it where and when and how I want. If that is hurting their industry's profitability so much, raise the initial price.

BB

**fauzigarib** · 09 October 2006, 02:47 Monday

Originally posted by wolfgang

Do you remember how much where they trying to sale the official DVDs for? I am guessing the prime reason the venture died was because they were run by idiot foreign and local businessmen who set the price much too high that even people who otherwise will never break the law run away. If they have set a realistic price for their products the black market will never florish. Black market will continue to florish and remain as long as the huge artificial prices in basis products exist between the so call developed and developing worlds. If they sale the original copies of DVD at the correct market price back then at the one that average DVDs are sold in Pakistan today they'll have a huge successful business now.

Wolfgang,

Actually, you're right about the pricing. However, the interesting thing during those days (now I'm talking about the early 90's, so of course, DVD's weren't the medium of choice, vcr was), small movie rental stores were the order of the day. So these stores were actually his clients, and we just rented from these stores.

So yes, you are very correct in saying that the pricing over here was unreasonable. Hence, the rental store was not able to afford keeping just the originals. He was forced to rent out pirated copies also.

Fauzi

**wolfgang** · 09 October 2006, 06:51 Monday

Thanks for the reply. I suspected this because in my travels to a few countries in South East Asian and China I noticed the prices of certain so called black market goods for DVDs and computer softwares were very popular not because they are ridiculously cheap but these were simply set at the correct price levels based on local people incomes. I thought the movie studios had shot themselves in the foot. There are many ways to do this, one obvious solution was if they have used the DVD regional coding mainly to set a sensible regional prices correctly worldwide they might have prevented the blackmarket copies from become a problem in these countries.

Anyway to be honest this is not my or your problem. I think this a reflection of how unbalanced and idiotic the world economy is at the moment.

DVD Piracy!

DVD Piracy!

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