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Why I Pirate - An Open Letter to Content Creators

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40hz:
They might call it "shareholder value" or "the interests of the corporation" and just because it is interpretable in a court (many 'higher' laws are challenged in court too) doesn't mean it's not being practiced.

One read:
law.bepress.com/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2238&context=expresso 1.4MB PDF
-rgdot (March 08, 2012, 02:54 PM)
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Thx! Much appreciated. :)

rgdot:
Protecting their way is part of the "profit". How? they will go down in flames otherwise so lower profits for longer time is better than conceding.
-rgdot (March 08, 2012, 02:19 PM)
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How do they know that?  And if they go down in the process because they hung on to the old ways in the interest of protecting perceived profit instead of adapting to change their business model to keep up with their consumers, then don't they lose out in the end?  Because that's the way things are going...

Even the language- conceding instead of serving.  In the end, if you depend upon a consumer for your livelihood, you are in the business of serving, not competing with your clientele.  So in order to serve them (and in the end yourself), it would seem to behoove you to listen to and work with your customers instead of digging your feet in an alienating your client base.

Thoughts?
-wraith808 (March 08, 2012, 03:01 PM)
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The board of director types see your downloading exactly as that. They see you using megaupload as competing with their not free version.

wraith808:
The board of director types see your downloading exactly as that. They see you using megaupload as competing with their not free version.
-rgdot (March 08, 2012, 03:05 PM)
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But does that make them right?  Or misguided?  As I said, I don't pirate.  But my buying habits have definitely changed because of their actions.

I had a DVD I bought.  I'd already seen the movie, but I bought it because I liked it.

One night before bed, one scene was on my mind.  So I decided I'd look at the end of the DVD.  I had about 15 minutes before I wanted to be in bed... plenty of time.

I put the DVD in.  First I had to watch the warnings.  In 3 different languages.  With no way to get past them.

Then there were the trailers.  The standard buttons didn't get past them.  I finally figured out how.

Then, it advertised the publisher.  I fast forwarded past it as I couldn't automatically get past them.

I prepared for the menus to come up.  But the warnings came up again.

Long story short, I spent 30 minutes trying to get to the scene I wanted.  But all I ever saw was the promotional material and warnings against copying.

It was at that point that I stopped buying DVDs immediately when they came out.  Not because of that one instance- that was just the straw that broke the camel's back.  But a series of decisions by the same executives came to the point where it reduced me from buying almost every release of action, sci-fi, and many other movies when they came out, to buying them for vastly discounted prices later, to just not watching many theatrical releases on DVD.

So how did their decisions to inconvenience a paying customer result in increased revenues?  It's not just the file sharing people they're alienating.

superboyac:
^^ EGG-xactly.

When I was in college, I had a downloaded copy of one of my favorite movies, Terminator 2.  A few years later, the Xtreme edition DVD came out, so I got it.  It bragged about having a special high-def version of the movie on it.  So I put it in, and similarly had to wade through all the promotional/advertising nonsense.  I watched the movie.  Fine.  Then I tried to "access" the high-def version, which could only be played at the time with Windows Media Player.  I spent, no joke, a week trying to configure everything to work...codecs, installation, reinstallation, rebooting, etc.  I tried everything and never got it to work.  What did I do?  Plopped in the downloaded copy and watched that.  no problem at all.  Double-click...boom, I'm watching the movie.  hassle-free, buffer-free, ad-free...just pure enjoyment.

Now...can I take any "action" against the comapnies for making it darn near impossible to watch the high-def version that was so prominently featured on the DVD cover?  Nope.  At best, i can get my money back.  What about all the time and effort I wasted?  Not their problem.  not an issue, will never be an issue...it's just the nature of things.  Governments and big companies...all of that stuff...they will NEVER value the time/effort people waste by reacting to THEIR decisions.  Because it doesn't mean anything to them as far as money is concerned.  They will only move or act on something if their money is threatened.  This is the nature of things.  It's not worth fighting, at least not for me.  I just do my best to be aware of it and not waste more of my time and effort than I can stomach.

I live in Los Angeles...and even if your household is pulling in $100k, you will still feel "poor" because of the demands made on your time and effort.  And that's a crazy thing.  I see it with my friends and family members that have kids and spouses.  Chasing after the scraps is basically living in poverty.  Sure, the scraps amount to $100k, but that's all relative.  Can't easily go on vacations.  Can't easily have time to relax as a parent.  Can't afford to just take a month off and decompress.  Wanna move?  Go ahead...good luck finding a job...and good luck managing the move until you do find a job.

db90h:
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