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Hurt Locker producers are gunning for pirates

C

Cam Crowley

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Interesting: Anyone received any settlement demands? And how much money are they asking for settlement?


http://thresq.hollywoodreporter.com/2010/05/hurt-locker-producer-to-sue-pirates.html

I'll be interested to see how this pans out. It has shades of the Metallica vs Napster debacle. I can not however see what good can come from trying to sue end users.

I think the writing may be on the wall for an end to the free-for-all status that is currently enjoyed by internet users. I've been telling my bit-torrent abusing friends since the demise of Napster to enjoy this time while it lasts because it's not going to be like this for ever. Having said that, the film industry seems to be one of the slowest at adapting their product - it's not like they haven't had a successful model to work off. Itunes and others have proved that you can move a majority of end-user 'pirates' over to legitimate consumers with a minimum of fuss and enough profit to keep everyone at the top in ivory backscratchers for life!!

M2C

Cam
 
I'm not sure how I feel about this. One one hand, I used to download a lot of movies, so part of me really doesn't like it when companies do this.

One the other hand, pretty much all of the movies I have downloaded I also bought because 1) I'm in film and like getting paid, and 2) the quality is much higher than any downloaded version would ever be.
 
Add paypal to iTunes and you'll scrape another hundred thousand downloaders off the net.
iTunes has started it but easy to access cheap HD downloads needs to come much faster if they want to combat this. Not suing people. That is just plain the wrong way to go about it.
 
Jay Gannon said:
Add paypal to iTunes and you'll scrape another hundred thousand downloaders off the net.
iTunes has started it but easy to access cheap HD downloads needs to come much faster if they want to combat this. Not suing people. That is just plain the wrong way to go about it.
Click to expand...

I wonder if Apple's new $1B data center in North Carolina factors into iTunes at all.

http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2010/02/22/first-look-apples-massive-idatacenter/

Obviously the distribution paradigm has changed and it needs to be monetized.
 
Netflix streaming and iTunes selling movies, that's the way of the future for rentals and purchasing and, conveniently, it's all here right now. I just wish people would start realizing this and stop being a bunch of low down dirty thieves. What ticks me off most is when I'm in class and I hear people talking about a new movie, game, or even software and then, every single time, I overhear someone say "It'll probably be on Bit-torrent soon, I'll check it out". It's stealing, plain and simple, but all I can do is this: :frown2:
 
The U.S. Copyright Group has already filed lawsuits over about 10 other films, including Uwe Boll's "Far Cry,"....

uhh... shouldn't they pay US to watch that one?
: )
 
Zack Birlew said:
Netflix streaming and iTunes selling movies, that's the way of the future for rentals and purchasing and, conveniently, it's all here right now. I just wish people would start realizing this and stop being a bunch of low down dirty thieves. What ticks me off most is when I'm in class and I hear people talking about a new movie, game, or even software and then, every single time, I overhear someone say "It'll probably be on Bit-torrent soon, I'll check it out". It's stealing, plain and simple, but all I can do is this: :frown2:
Click to expand...
But the onus is on the corporations to give the end user something better to pay for.

Right now they seem to be asking the end-users to pay extra for slower service, worse quality, and more restrictions over "alternative" solutions.


iTunes is successful because it is more convenient than buying CDs or even pirating songs, and the $1 price-tag for individual songs is perfectly priced where they make a good profit and the consumer feels like he is getting a deal.

Movies on iTunes cost as much as a DVD, only with less content and more restrictions.
 
It seems like the only way to combat the problem with music and movies is to make them cheaper. I buy all my music now on iTunes and the only time I go looking for a torrent of something is if iTunes doesn't have it. On the movie side of things I haven't bought a movie since getting Netflix and won't until I go down the Blu-Ray path. But I would buy HD movies on iTunes if it wasn't so f'ing expensive. They should make it $5-8 to download an HD copy of a movie from iTunes. Charge more for people that want all the extras that come with the DVD or Blu-Ray copy...$10-15. That would be more than fair. Of course you are going to have people stealing but if you make it easier to just pay for it and download, plus making everyone happy with their buy experience then more people will download legally I believe.
 
The industry has failed consumers. Consumers have sought an alternative - in their eyes superior. Industry must adapt and find a way to have consumers WANT to pay.
 
Alex G. Cohn said:
Movies on iTunes cost as much as a DVD, only with less content and more restrictions.
Click to expand...

I bought a movie off iTunes, same price as it would've been had I bought a DVD copy, it came with no special features (I wasn't expecting it anyway, it's an old movie from my childhood) but I also discovered it had restrictions when it refused to let me watch it after transferring it from my desktop to my laptop. And I believe it had some sort of time limit on it as well, saying if I tried to move it again it would completely stop working.

I'm never buying a movie from iTunes again, that's a guarantee.
 
Sean, I believe you've hit a much better point than the "less content" issue. I agree, if they made it easier for you to do the digital downloads then, yes, everything would be fine and I do agree that they should be cheaper for downloads than physical media as it doesn't cost them anything extra to upload the film compared to having to purchase DVD boxes, develop cover templates, burn DVDs, and all the extra work that goes into making DVD's or Blurays.

However, just because the digital download doesn't come with extra features doesn't mean it's right to download it illegally either. For example, just because I offer lemonade when you wanted orange juice, doesn't mean you can take the whole lemonade pitcher and run with it. If the digital download doesn't offer what you want, don't download it, buy the DVD/Bluray and, if you want it for less, wait until the price goes down or until it gets on Netflix.

I mean, this is just me, I don't want to dictate what people should do. It simply comes down to what you believe is right and wrong and, yeah, it sucks that studios double/triple/quadruple/etc. on movie releases (ie. the practically 1,000 different versions of the "Evil Dead" series and even the Studio Ghibli anime films) but just because you think it sucks and isn't what you ideally want doesn't mean it's right to simply take it. Imagine somebody taking your film, copying it, and then posting it up on Youtube or Vimeo before you can send it out to film festivals, boy that would really suck wouldn't it? Worse, what if it were your first feature, you're just starting out, and it gets thrown up on BitTorrent at some point in the game. What will the distributors say when your sales are weak? How will it affect your next film, assuming you even get the chance? How will you know if you can really support yourself making films? What if that film was your only shot and it was all ruined because some thief stole it and threw it out there in the middle of the night?

Stealing is easy, folks, that's nothing new but it's just even easier now when it happens online with a few clicks of a mouse.

I hope they do figure something out, it'll be a sad day when movies have to be sold for $1 a pop like music. What I don't want to happen is a clamp down on the internet as a whole. Close down BitTorrent or put up restrictions that actually make people liable, but don't start monitoring everybody's IP addresses and make histories of everything we do online, that's just going over the line.
 
When someone stops giving you a choice, you start making one for yourself. This is how war starts people. Theft. Etc.
Because the corporations have now turned their backs on the consumer, the consumer is retaliating with giving them the finger. It's not right. Neither can you call it wrong.
It's illegal, that's a fact. However, laws were made in consensus by humans - that is the only reason the law holds any power in the first place. So if the consumers outnumber the studios then in an ideal society the law would change.
Presto we don't live in an ideal society and here we are seeing the industry ravage itself over the oh-so-evil pirates they themselves created. How ironic.
 
Zack Birlew said:
Sean, I believe you've hit a much better point than the "less content" issue. I agree, if they made it easier for you to do the digital downloads then, yes, everything would be fine and I do agree that they should be cheaper for downloads than physical media as it doesn't cost them anything extra to upload the film compared to having to purchase DVD boxes, develop cover templates, burn DVDs, and all the extra work that goes into making DVD's or Blurays.
Click to expand...

The only issue I had with my legal download was the fact that they tried to restrict my use of the movie, I couldn't even transfer it to my laptop to watch it somewhere else in my own home, it restricted the number of times I could watch the movie depending on how many times I attempt to do that. This is despite having paid the same amount (actually more than) I would've paid had I bought the DVD copy.
 
Andrew Walker said:
It seems like the only way to combat the problem with music and movies is to make them cheaper.
Click to expand...

Bingo. Instead of selling Blurays for $25, sell them for $5 and you will sell ten times as many. Do the math. It would also cut piracy dramatically.

Charging 25 bucks for a 50 cent plastic disc is nonsense.
 
Tom Lowe said:
Bingo. Instead of selling Blurays for $25, sell them for $5 and you will sell ten times as many. Do the math. It would also cut piracy dramatically.

Charging 25 bucks for a 50 cent plastic disc is nonsense.
Click to expand...

Thats it in one. As sad a state as it is, the industry needs to accept that pirating is not going away, they need to stop fighting it and monetizing it.
Make acquisition of movies easy, cheap and ubiquitous, online more stores more rental outlets more ways to get it into consumers hand fast and cheap.
 
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