Main Area and Open Discussion > General Software Discussion

Why piracy is the better choice

(1/3) > >>

zridling:
Although its title talks about Hi-Definition format wars, author Charlie Demerjian tells us why piracy has triumphed over every DRM, new format, and anti-consumer tactic — because of the mega-corporations' unmitigated greed:

In the meantime, Piracy, the better choice (tm) flourishes. If you take 10 minutes to look around, you will see that every HD movie is now available on P2P networks.... What was an underground clique in the 1980s and 1990s has become mainstream and so vastly much easier to do that it is laughable. Before the technology hits 1% market penetration it is comprehensively cracked and better for the consumer than the legit versions.... The lawsuits, threats, purchased governance and stern speeches could not prevent the children of Warner Music from pirating, the less moneyed masses are a lost cause. As of right now, anyone can get any music or movie they want, for free, much more easily than they can through legal DRM infected channels. Piracy, the better choice (tm).... If you try and purchase any of this content, you descend into a DRM nightmare of incompatibility and legal mires. Your monitor will not work with your Blu-Ray drive because your PC decided that a wobble bit was set wrong. You just pissed away $6000 on a player, media center PC and HD TV for nothing, you lose.

brotherS:
Nice article! I also like the beginning:
THE NEXT GENERATION disk format has been settled once and for all. Thanks to the due diligence, hard work and unprecedented cooperation between the media companies, the hardware vendors and the OS vendor, we finally have a solution. It is quite easy, Piracy, the better choice(TM).

--- End quote ---
:)

superboyac:
Hmmm, interesting.  I have to say, he does have a point.  Let me give a personal example.  My friend let me watch his DVD, "The Girl Next Door".  I used Zoom Player to play it, and was initially frustrated because it was my first time playing a DVD on it and it wasn't set up.  But when it started playing, I wanted to skip past all the menus and just go straight to the movie, but as you know, on DVD's, you can't skip the logos, THX sounds thing, etc.  You just have to sit through it.
Then, another friend told me that he was in the movie, so I wanted to see it again to be sure, but I had given the DVD back, so I downloaded the movie.  It took all of an hour or so.  Then I played it on the same computer, and it was a lot easier to navigate and watch and the experience was much more pleasant.

My point is, it was actually easier and better to watch the pirated version than the actual DVD.  Now, I always think about that whenever I have to sit through those beginning credits.

f0dder:
Too bad how DRM punishes the regular users but doesn't stop the pirates, huh?

zridling:
That's exactly what I do with all my movies and audio CDs — copy and format them into AVI and MP3/flac on my computer and archive them on DVD. With programs like SlySoft's CloneDVD and AnyDVD (both of which come with Lifetime licenses), you can remove all that crap at the beginning, strip the subtitles, or extract the audio to MP3. And if it's a "Special Edition" DVD, I burn all the 'Extras' footage onto a separate movie. If I'm queueing up Doctor Zhivago or Barb Wire, I just want to get on with watching the movie. I could care less what the FBI or whomever forces a blue screen on me. My eyes just glaze over at it.

To his larger point in the article on piracy, though, this is why I think it would have been better if Microsoft had charged either nothing for Vista or sold it for a nominal price of $50. By all appearances, it seems to be a transitional OS given all the things left out of it and the immediate work on its successor. Instead, make money of the apps used on Windows. I can't wait for the day when the OS really is irrelevant. And the reason I won't jump on Vista before SP1 (or by next Festivus) is because of apps. All mine run fine on XP; I have full driver support; and I can do everything I want for now. But by slapping $160-$400 tag on Vista, you only further enable piracy. He's right: you can have the corporate edition of Vista and the full Enterprise edition of Office 2007 right now for free if you want, fully activated.

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page