A solution for all to file sharing

vibe666

i read a while ago that sometime in the next few months legit music downloads are going to overtake physical CD sales.

this shift would have started properly 10 years ago when napster first came out if they'd embraced the technology and the idea behind sharing music online and had controlled it before it got out of hand.

it baffles me that the movie industry is still trying to fight that same fight against what consumers want that the record industry has already lost.

more and more people are getting online and their connections are getting fast enough to make streaming & downloading movies a reality for the majority of net users and this is going to happen whether they like it or not so the sooner they accept it and adapt their business models accordingly the better for everyone, including them.

if they don't do it, people are just going to keep going elsewhere to get what they want and that means piracy and no revenue for the big movie companies.

watty

Partly there is not so much decent new Music.
Partly people spend far more on Games & DVDs than when CDs came out.
Music is over priced compared to DVD. Especially Download, especially Album.

It's good that there is now DRM free on iTunes, but I still would not touch iTunes with barge pole or very long handled spoon.

I'm 100% opposed to Blank Media or Broadband Levies to "pay" for copying or downloading as these penalise honest people (Over 80% don't really illegal copy or illegal download) and benefit only the Media companies rather than new artists or Composers. Ultimately that is a Marxist solution that would destroy innovation and limit market to existing large media companies and often established Artists.

I'm 100% opposed to any kind of DRM or "Cloud" servers to validate your purchased Download. What about fair use, transfer to different media, player wear out, DRM server or Media company close (this has happened), Internet loss, errors and when copyright expires etc.

If I buy via download I want it to work without EVER needing keys, internet, validation, limitation etc. Otherwise I'm really only hiring it.

Rental can logically use as much DRM as it likes. But not purchase.

If I was an eircom customer I would NOT like to think that part of my Broadband subscription is paying for Free Streaming. http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056114045

CptSternn

It doesn't matter what we think a better business model would be, the reality is a small group of people in the industry make boat-loads of money in the current system, and any system, no matter how fair and equal it is will decrease their profits. That is the number one reason they won't change anything and would rather throw money at solicitors rather than take a pay cut of any kind.

watty

But it's fun and educational to think about what "could be". It's a discussion forum, it's very rare that ANYTHING we post causes a company to change policy.

Nehaxak

Steam has it sorted for games, and it works really well. Only thing is that they usually charge the same or more than bricks and mortar shops or online buying of physical boxed games - apart from when they run their specials which are fantastic !

Personally, what I want myself is the ability to download and watch my own personal favourite TV shows, without adverts, whenever I want and stream them from my PC to my TV. I'll only watch them once anyway.

Would also like the ability to view the latest movies (both mainstream and indie stuff), regardless of where in the world it's released first, whenever I want, without going to the cinema.

I can do all the above illegally if I wanted too, pisses me off there's no legal way of doing this :mad:

Why can't the likes of Steam deliver TV shows and movies ? You download direct from Steam, watch on your PC and after maybe a day or two (depending I suppose) it won't let you watch it again unless you pay whatever it costs, again. Maybe have an option to pick a whole Tv series delivered/auto downloaded to your PC as it is also released through normal methods. You then watch the episodes at your own leisure and again they eh, "self destruct" after a day or two once you've watched them fully.

I'm not bothered with music at all, I just mostly listen to internet radio these days on the iphone via wifi as it's convenient.

Far as I see it, in regards movies and TV shows in particular anyway, it's the huge influence of the movie and TV/Sat "cartels" around the world that are stopping the industry itself from progressing and meeting the needs of a changing world who want their shows and movies without the hassle, without the adverts and without the need to pay ongoing contractual subscriptions that include crap channels they don't want.

As for the bandwidth hogging or possible problems - if the likes of Blizzard can release a massive update or number of updates to over 10 million users on a semi regular basis with world of warcraft, and it goes generally very smooth, I can't understand why the likes of say Universal Studio's in the US cannot do similar even on a test basis, of releasing a film to both cinema and worldwide via the internet (not streaming!) and see how it goes.
Hell, even use Blizzard's own torrent technology to deliver it, works well for them. Throw in a DRM that makes the film expire after 2 days of watching it, charge 15 dollars worldwide, see what happens, at least take a risk for once ffs.

watty

Anyone in the Iindustry knows this

Seventy-six per cent of music downloaded this year was downloaded illegally, the BPI reckons in its annual survey of digital trends. The British record industry group estimates there are 8 million people, or 23 per cent of the UK online population, using P2P software.

That means around two-thirds to three-quarters of people don't indulge in piracy – a figure rarely mentioned in this debate, and a remarkable figure considering the risk of being caught (which are negligible) and potential savings (which are considerable). That means most people are fairly honest, and a considerable amount of money is not being tapped by the legitimate music business.

On the positive side, the BPI highlights a fast-growing digital downloads market, now worth £280m in the UK.

Not every unlicensed download is a lost sale, the BPI acknowledges. It uses a substitution ratio of around a 4.5:1. So although it reckons £984m worth of music was illegally downloaded in the UK, the realistic loss to the music business was £219m, according to Jupiter Research.

The realistic loss might be only £20M or less. People tend to no have "spare" money. Only a fraction of the 1/3rd that do use illegal downloads are likely "regulars".

In fact if there is no CAP, about 90% of traffic will be 10% of users.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/12/16/bpi_digital_music_survey/

Yo Buddy. You still alive?

watty wrote: »

Anyone in the Iindustry knows this


The realistic loss might be only £20M or less. People tend to no have "spare" money. Only a fraction of the 1/3rd that do use illegal downloads are likely "regulars".

In fact if there is no CAP, about 90% of traffic will be 10% of users.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/12/16/bpi_digital_music_survey/

Hi watty,

I'm going to take a stab in the dark here and say that those two thirds of internet users who don't entertain illegal downloads do so because they don't know much about it.

I have been on the net for awhile like most of you and have watched the proliferation of internet technology into everyday life, like many of you have. Whereas to people here devices like media players and streaming are second nature they are only now becoming more main stream, though in saying that Unison.ie was too far a head of its time Internet on your TV? pffft!

My point... it has been mentioned about people jumping through hoops and people being offered the next best new thing while the technology progresses, by the companies offering it. Sad fact is that people do bring this upon themselves. Why would apple offer people the iPad II when it knows it can maximise its profits by offering the iPad and then iPad II and then the iPad III? I suppose it is all about the price equilibrium.

That would be the business model I would be after. An equilibrium where the price is low enough to satisfy all parties. Look at how many people were willing to pay 200-300 euro for a dodgy box for free TV? Anyone I spoke to at the time told me they would happily pay double that a year, about 45 a month for the whole TV/Film package to UPC/SKY. But not 90+ a month which is what as offered by the providers, and then some for the FULL package. The same applies to music providers.

The equilibrium I would be after would be a price that is acceptable and enticing to users and thus hopefully the amount of users = cost + profit.

Not being in the industry I have always assumed that the providers are being raped by their material providers and thus the high prices? Makes no sense to me otherwise.

Johnboy1951

Anyone in the Iindustry knows this

Seventy-six per cent of music downloaded this year was downloaded illegally, the BPI reckons in its annual survey of digital trends. The British record industry group estimates there are 8 million people, or 23 per cent of the UK online population, using P2P software.

The matter of what is "illegal" has a real bearing on this also. The present "protection" allowed by copyright has gone way too far in favour of the middlemen - big media companies.
Copyright was not, at its inception, envisioned to be as it is now.
It is waaay past the time when the copyright 'laws' were adjusted to take account of the reduced cost of production in music (particularly) and in distribution.

If copyright protection was reduced to 5 years, I would wonder how that might impact the "illegal" figures being bandied about by big media corporation.

The present situation is protectionism gone astray.

I am of course referring to the non-commercial use of such content.

Get the law into a state that is reasonable and then apply it vigorously ..... and few will object or try to break it.

Laws are *supposed* to be for the benefit of the community as a whole, and not for the protection of the business methods of corporations or a small section of the community, to the detriment of the community overall.

In short .... get the base correct, as the people as a whole want it, and all else will follow, with support from the people.


regards.

watty

Patents and Trademarks have got even worse. Esp. The USA.

Feidhlim

This may have already been mentioned but wasn't there a report a while ago which said if songs were DRM free and cost 9c per song, file sharing wouldn't be worth while and the record labels would end up making more money?
Either way I'm sure a price exists which would make file sharing somewhat pointless and keep record labels happy. I don't think anyone would mind paying €1 for an album.
Another thought, again may have been mentioned, if I buy a VHS tape back in the day - I don't really want to spend full whack to upgrade to DVD and then onto Bluray and beyond. If I pay full price once, I think I should get upgrades at a discounted price.

watty

HaH

Which? Proved that nearly 1/2 of BD are almost similar to up-scaled DVD. There is a mathematical explanation

vibe666

watty wrote: »

HaH

Which? Proved that nearly 1/2 of BD are almost similar to up-scaled DVD. There is a mathematical explanation

i remember reading a report in a magazine a few years ago (possibly quite a few) where some movie company had bought out a special remastered widescreen edition of an old movie that had previously only been released in 4:3 aspect. some movie buff collector guy decided he wanted to replace his old 4:3 version he bought when DVD's were still young so he got it and after weatching it for a bit decided something wasn't right, so he started swapping discs between the old 4:3 edition and the new 16:9 edition and discovered that the studio had actually just cropped the top and bottom off the 4:3 to make it 16:9 rather than re-mastering the original cinematic print. :eek:

there was a bit of an uproar about it anyways from what i remember.

not entirely relevent i know, but the upscaled DVD v's BD post made me think of it again.

watty

Though some Films (e.g. Willow) the VHS version they opened the matte top and bottom slightly to have content not shown on Cinematic print so as to reduce the cropping on the sides.

Many films are masked from other native aspect film.

So DVD does look a bit like the VHS with top and bottom chopped.

But I'm sure sometimes what you mentioned happens too. There is quite some confusion as to what the OAR of Strange Love should be.

In the cinema they can actually change the aspest ratio during projection. Marketing folk don't like this on DVDs as it makes dreaded "black bars"

Most WS DVD are not the Cinema aspect as that is anything between 1.85:1 and 2.40:1 commonly. WS in cinema is 1.66:1 to 2.7:1, or more (at least one film used 3 projectors in line). TV WS is 1.78:1