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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

Hurt Locker producers are gunning for pirates

Rick Burnett said:
No actually, I don't believe that. I don't see it as that much different than the effort for a DVD. I don't need all the other crap on the disk. I want just the movie.

For a modern release of a movie, I don't understand why the DVD is $12.99 I have seen where the Bluray was like $23.99. If anything, the DVD required an extra step to downconvert from 1080p or what have you.
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A couple of friends of mine own a DVD authoring business where they will create, burn and package dvd's. They've told me what their price breakdowns are in terms of raw material, and that's not including labour. Whenever I get them to do DVD's for me, I sell the DVD's to the end user for $10/dvd since that's pretty much the lowest I can go to simply cover costs. It's a lot of work to create DVD's and Blu Ray. Once the final movie is exported and finished from whatever program you use, you still need to transcode, which takes hours, create the labels, the menu's, and all that stuff, plus testing the whole thing to make sure it works and there are no bugs.

It takes a significant amount of time to create the DVD's and Blu Rays, so, that's why they cost a lot. DVD's are cheaper than blu ray simply because of the lower cost of raw materials.

With Blu Ray discs, what you can do in terms of the menu's and the encoding is so far beyond DVD. It's fairly interactive and does create a lot more work. If you're simply burning the exact same menu system and files on to both DVD and Blu Ray, well whatever, it still takes time.

/rant

Where I agree with you is that for people who don't want extra's, there should be a way to get them without all that stuff for a much cheaper price. If again, iTunes gave you unrestricted downloads of just the film for a cheaper price, all would be well.

You will never ever stop pirating though, as people who don't want to pay will still simply not pay.
 
Jay Gannon said:
If your cost price per DVD is 10 dollars you are getting well ripped off, I can get short runs at almost half that.
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I sell them for $10.

It costs me $4/disc to do. The rest of the money goes to food and caffiene to keep me running.
 
OK thats all right then, I have no problem with you paying for some coffee, that it just sounded like you were covering your DVD production costs at 10 dollars a disk. 60% markup is a decent markup to be making in business once you've covered your capital investment.
 
Mark Collins said:
I sell them for $10.

It costs me $4/disc to do. The rest of the money goes to food and caffiene to keep me running.
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I'm sure you're not talking millions of disks either. I have friends that also do DVD and CD production for people. when you get into high quantity, the prices drop SIGNIFICANTLY. This is true of almost all produced items.

I should know, I did a T shirt business for awhile. I could not compete with companies that did large runs. They were SO MUCH cheaper. Yet, for 10-50 shirts, they could not compare to me because my setup was designed for small runs.

I'd find it hard to believe a DVD or Bluray would cost over $1 at very large numbers.

Look at these:

http://www.rovix.com/blu-ray_dvd.htm?engine=Google&match=phrase&keyword=bluray+duplication
 
Jay A. Kelley said:
You think this is a war? This is not a war.. This is a bunch of snot nosed morons taking things that do not belong to them cause they don't want to pay for it. Pure and simple. No matter what companies do, they will find justification to continue to steal because that's what crooks do.

It's not their god-given right to watch someone else's creative material.

You see, it belongs to the creators. They made it, they paid for it, it's theirs. Not yours, not even close. They have chosen to sell it. I don't care if the price is $1 or $1,000 per DVD. It's theirs, they can charge what they want.

Now you seem to think that if the DVDs where cheaper, or if the companies "were fair" to the consumers, things would be different.

At this point you need to excuse me while I go off somewhere and laugh until I throw up (This is good for losing weight I hear).

People that justify an illegal act for their convience will do so because that's who they are. Not because they are pushed to do so. :frown2:

In other words, a scumbag that's willing to steal, will steal. There is no price cheaper than ZERO.

You have resentment against companies who control the marketplace, and tend to overcharge for their product in your eyes. That's cool, I can understand that. But how people go about "attacking" this problem is what separates the men from the boys.

You can not buy the product. Or you can do something like start your own company, give excellent product, and keep the prices where they should be. If you are successful, you will turn the industry on it's ear, and force pricing down across the board. You will be hated, and loved all at the same time.

Don't laugh.. This is exactly what Jim has done with RED.

And to my knowlege, he did not have to break the law to do it (At least, not a lot....:)

Jay
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Well, I have films on DVD too and I disagree with you. You are not willing to look at the cause of the problem. Fighting the effect instead of the cause is pointless.

I'm not justifying stealing, I'm only saying that if you are serious about solving this problem you have to make people WANT to buy your product and give them a reason not to download it for free.
It's also obvious that if you cling to the old distribution methods and rely on DVD sale revenues alone, your business model is probably doomed.

You can be angry at pirates all day long, it will not change a thing. DVD is dead, embrace what's coming instead of fighting it and you will prosper if you have the goods. :)
 
Jay A. Kelley said:
Cut it how you want. You are breaking the law. You (not "you" per sea) are committing an act that causes financial, and most likely emotional harm to someone else.

My RED101 DVD is on a torrent, and if I ever find out who did it, I'll hunt them down, cut off their nuts, and choke them to death with them.

The profit from those DVDs helps pay for my kids school tuition, the ones who "steal" my property without paying for it are attacking and hurting my children.

Pure and simple.

Jay
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Those who downloaded illegaly wouldn't buy your DVD anyway, they're not and will never make your kids starve.

However if you gave them a cheaper easier option, you'd get more money instead of illegal downloads.

http://kotaku.com/5533615/another-view-of-video-game-piracy

http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_sof_pir_rat-crime-software-piracy-rate
 
Pietro Impagliazzo said:
Those who downloaded illegaly wouldn't buy your DVD anyway, they're not and will never make your kids starve.

However if you gave them a cheaper easier option, you'd get more money instead of illegal downloads.

http://kotaku.com/5533615/another-view-of-video-game-piracy

http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_sof_pir_rat-crime-software-piracy-rate
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Bullshit. You can never be cheaper than free. That's what crooks want.

No matter what you charge, they will think it should be cheaper.

It's not about business, it's a state of mind, it's ethics.

To even suggest that I change my business to "win over" those who break the law is... Well, let's just say I don't agree.

Jay

Jay
 
Its not about the ethics for most people, its the fact they want it easy.
Make it easy and most will be happy to pay, iTunes is proof of this.

If what you say was true iTunes would have been a total and utter flop.
 
So you're arguement is as follows:

Thousands of people were downloading torrents of music, but once Itunes came out they all ran there because it was easy?

So does this mean there's data showing a 30% or 40% DESCREASE in music torrent downloads since Itunes has come into being?

As for what I am saying.. I am saying only one single thing:

Taking something that does not belong to you without permission is wrong.

That is what I am saying. The rest is just icing on the cake.

Jay
 
Well 1st off its actually technically impossible to monitor thats being shared illegally so any figures would be totally subjective. But yes I would wager that a large number of music downloaders have moved over to itunes , I say this due to the fact that CD sales have remained marginally static while the iTunes store has racked up billions in sales.
These consumers are generally in the 12-24 age group and they have seen a marked decline in illegal music downloading which I would say correlates a lot with the increase in iTunes sales.

And its not just me who is saying this, its sound marketing theory, iTunes hasnt cornered the market for no reason. Same with Hulu, why download a crappy rip when you can watch it for free on Hulu is good quality. Same model is flourishing worldwide at the moment. Make is easy and good quality and cheap and people have no reason to download it illegally.
 
I think he's saying, which I see to be true in certain demographics is they just don't have money, so if they couldn't get it free they wouldn't. I'll admit that at a time I was like that (more with music), but then I began to make my own money and would buy what I wanted because the quality and features are better. I've even watched movies recently that were not out yet online, which made me want to go see in theaters which I did. Now this is not the best system for things to work under but I think that is the point, things need to change with the new technology and the ease of communication and sharing that is out there these days.

I also believe that part of this is on the artist them self, if the standard method of delivery is not working for you make your own or find a new one innovate. or dare I say it...it might just be the product itself. online downloads is only one side of the problem the other side is the people making the recordings and selling them on the streets and then getting them online. You take out the online distribution and all you do is put more money in the pockets of the bootleggers and move them further into the shadows where it is harder to locate and deal with or even notice. I think we need to (like with all things) tackle the roots of the problems, the delivery system we have currently, the people actually filming the movies in theaters, the workers who are leaking the dvd file early etc...

either way it's a messy issue that we are just getting into dealing with. The main thing to me is hackers and modders or whatever out there are always working on these things and will always pop up and break your code or unlock your program. That to me this is the major issue and unless you can make the methods of delivery steal proof there is not much you can do but suck it up and keep on working, yes fight the battles that become apparent to you but don't go out looking for them.

mah I know others have much more invested in this I just think at times we don't see the other side as well as we should. no offense meant to anyone I'm just sating my opinions, which as we all know are like a-holes everyone's got em and most of them stink.
 
It's not just Torrents guys, it's banking, it's oil, hell it's even the Vatican! It seems to be the new "normal" in this country (and others) to not take any personal responsibility for one's actions.

I know people will think I am overreacting but I see us as a people tearing ourselves apart at the seams because it looks like we all EXPECT everyone to be dishonest, and now seem to be trying to find ways to "adapt" to it instead of demanding we be a better people.

I have two sons, and it's going to be very hard to keep their focus off all these bad examples.

I'm tired and I really really need to stay off this thread!

Gonna try again.

Jay
 
Amazon music sells increased when they made it DRM free.

I'm suggesting that digital distribution is the future.

Why aren't movies being sold at reasonable price digitally DRM free?

They don't want this market because they're conservative and want to stay old fashioned selling overpriced boxes.

Look at games, everyone likes STEAM, it's easy, it's convenient, it's a community. It's outta my league to explain why film distributors hasn't gathered and done something similar.

I even emailed Gabe Newell about making STEAM not just a game distribution platform, but a digital media. No answer yet... :)
 
Actually, remaking STEAM but with the addition of a "Movie" category would be ridiculously simple given that you can already download any game trailer there is to your own media tab. That, and very fast downloads, coupled with a smart move or two in the choosing of their codec...you might just be on to something :)
 
I will add that also, Torrenting is NOT the only problem studios are dealing with right now. Look at Red Box and Netflix. The industry failed to prevent Red Box from renting movies for SO cheap (and they tried, but Red Box I believe took them to court).

So now, with the new ruling that they can lock your analog outputs as off on your set top boxes, they are going to start allowing you to watch movies BEFORE they are released on DVD and Bluray, but after they're theatrical release.

They get it. It just seems they are being careful.

I don't believe for a second that torrenting drove these decisions, but legal outlets like Red Box and Netflix (streaming) have really pushed the bar and caused them to take action.

What will be important to me is seeing how much a movie rental is.
 
Jay Gannon said:
OK thats all right then, I have no problem with you paying for some coffee, that it just sounded like you were covering your DVD production costs at 10 dollars a disk. 60% markup is a decent markup to be making in business once you've covered your capital investment.
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Yep. It's been recommended to me to go to $12 a disc, however the projects I do are small, and based on a great number of factors, $12 a disc just feels to me like I'm ripping people off. Normally I tape theatre show and do the multicam edit in FCP, then get it packaged and shipped to the client. It's fine, but because it's theatre I have almost no control over anything except which angle to choose, so I usually charge the minimum amount I can for it.

If it was feature films, I would have no problem going to $12/disc.
 
Mark Collins said:
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.
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I bought Hurt Locker on Bluray...

and the damn thing wouldn't play on my BluRay player (Sharp Aquos).

If I had downloaded it for free, presumably I would have been able to watch it on my PC!!!!
 
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