Pirated movies and this board

I am brand new here and I heard about this site 2 days ago, Well I heard about it a year ago since anything that has to do with DVDRs on Google is on here, but I started using it 2 days ago. And this is the single best Computer site I have everbeen on. After 2 posts I read the board rules, but I found soimething very funny. 70% of the content is on this board has to do with highly illegal operations such as burning games, 'backing up' movies, andjust about everything else. Amd Im not saying this is a bad thing because if you show me 1 person in America who hasnt downloaded music illegally and Ill show you a flying a pig, but one of the rules states that we may not talk about downloading movies illegally. I just don't get it.... does the board get monitored or something by the movie cops? Or is this just the boards way of not getting trouble?

I just posted this for information purely. I respect everyone here because you guys are dedicating portions of your day to teach people, who are not as computer litertate as them. Ive been on here 2 days and have gotten more answers on here than I have anywhere else on this information in the past 2 years. Ive never been on another board where people will do this for free. Its amazing, and thank you... but why is talking about pirated things illegal?

 

first off, many people, including myself, do actually buy movies/cds/games, and make legit "backups." however, the point of the matter is using it in context. that way our beloved Admins of aD don't get in trouble for discussing illegal material. sure there are plenty of people who claim to make "backups", but are really pirating, but that doesn't mean they have to brag about it. anyone can easily download pirated material. but by obeying the rules it keeps aD from being liable for harboring plots of mass desctrucion such as illegal pirating/cracking.

 

Thank you for clearifying that to me. I also use iTunes, and i have actually never downloaded a movie or game off the internet. The main point of my post was just asking if the board gets monitored by the IRRA or whoever it is. Iprolly should have been more clear though.

 

Bye the way how did you configure a 1.5 TB HD? I thought the highest now was 900 GB?

 

no prob...I wondered that too when I first came to aD. I have 6 250GB SATA drives in a RAID 0+1 array

 

That is sick. I just bought a 300 GB external and I filled it up in a week. Im thinking of going internal but I need to get a new computer first, cuz Dell cant make a frigin case without Fing it up.

 

yeah I gave up on companies like Dell years ago...building your own system is the way to go. That way you can get all the best components, have plenty of room for expansion, and for a lot cheaper. I need all the space cause I do a lot of video editing and audio recording, and the RAID redundancy is great, so if one drive fails the others catch the data off it, so nothing is lost.

 

If a DVD is $10 I think a game should be between anywhere from $20-$30. I know Halo 2 wouldnt be priced that low cuz Microsoft needs to sell games at high prices to make up for the Xbox profit or lack there of, but companies like EA Sports have no excuse cuz ESPN games are just as good and they get away with $20. Maybe on Xbox nxt and PS3 it will be cheaper becuz theyll be easy to make and hopefully cheaper. But for the current counsels you cant start selling them at $50 and switch to $20 becuz everyone will get a paycut, and EA is too big for that.

 

Just a point on the original topic.

70% of the content is not actually to do with illegal content. What we have to remember is not to presume what people are downloading, since presumption cant be held accountable in view of the laws in place to protect copyrights and prevent piracy. Ok, none of us are stupid, and more times than not, its probable that someone is receiving help to performa a copyright infringment. However, its not the policy of this website, or many others, to hypothesise what a person is downloading/copying etc..and everyone is given the benefit of the doubt.

Remember that at the minute it is perfectly legal to create a second copy of an original movie/software that you already own. However, it is not legal to make a back-up of a back-up. Therefore, generally, those who do request information on making a back-up of a back-up are (a) pretty dumb because of its simplicity, and (b) breaking the law. However, that said, what happens if you loose your original? Your back-up is now you only means of that movie/software, so do you make a back-up of that....it starts to get complicated...

Also remember, that although Peer-to-peer download sites generally are distributing (through users computers) copyrighted material, many artists (in the music industry) who are up and coming do provide their songs for free. Also, free software products can be distributed. Studies have also shown that those who download new singles, or a few songs of a particular artist are 65% likely to purchase the album if they like the songs.

What im getting at is that although there is a lot of piracy out there, not everyone is involved in it, and you can never be so crude as to assume that the majority of people are doing just that.

Just my input...
Chris

 

You all make very good points, and I agree with all of it. But I do assume a lot. I know this becuz most of the stuff I talk about on here is legal. As I mntioned before I have never downloaded a movie or game off of a P2P service, and for the majority of my music I use iTunes or Sony's connect, with the exception of hard to find songs.

 

How dude? That's a whole lotta space, at least for me it is...

 

When you do a lot of video editing, and audio production like I do, 300 gigs is nothing. Considering DV quality video is about 14 gigs per hour, plus leaving room for rendering and exporting, that can get eaten up pretty quick. My 1.5 TB raid system isn't actually 1.5 TB, since its raid 0+1, which combines the drives into one, and does redundancy so if I fails the others catch the data. So its somewhere around 1.1 TB of usable storage.

 

I noticed a few people on the site talking about iTunes and sony connect for downloading legal music. Have any of you tried Wal-mart? It is a little cheaper for all of us who like to keep it legal.

 

ag22 if I post a picture of my mom are you really going to make a pig fly? Will posting a picture of my mom and dad get two pigs flying. I think that you would be surprised at how many people don't steal other peoples property. It is stealing if you dont own the cd or plan to buy it. I don't steal music and I expect my children not to steal it. I have 3 $50 Itunes cards, one for each childs stocking. With the internet becoming such a large part of peoples lives it is up to the parents to teach right and wrong. Sorry about the rant, thats just my opinion.

 

I help people with questions about backing up their own media. If it is obvious from the context that they did not back it up themselves, then I don't reply. I don't criticize or comment on the legality of their actions, I just don't reply. I see questions like "How do I extract the files for my backup? They are numbered starting with .001." From that context it is obvious that they did not create the backup themselves or they would know what they used to create it with.

The movie industry themselves encourage piracy with their own actions:

Staggered Release Dates - when I lived overseas it was very frustrating to have to wait months after US release dates for them to release it in SE Asia. Some people won't wait and will download it or buy a pirated copy instead. What benefit does this give the movie companies? You have consumers willing to buy your product but have no legal outlet.

Region Coding - Why? The only explanation is to artifically inflate prices and to enforce staggered release dates. Make the US/EU consumers pay more than 3rd world countries for the same product. Again this is a frustration for the consumer that has legally bought content from another region, either requiring hacks to make your DVD player multiregion, buying pirated copies with the region coding removed, or ripping them yourself to remove it.

Unskippable commericals - a friend always rips his legally bought DVDs to strip the commericals out and menus out. Disney is the worst culprit, with multiple commericals before the movie, many with the menu button function disabled. It is so much easier especially for young children to just pop the dvd in and have it play the movie without having to make any further selection.

The Theater Experience - I can't remember the last movie that I seen without someone's cell phone going off, crying babies, loud talking, or some other disturbance. It is not worth it to me to spend the equivalent cost of the DVD release for me and my wife to go watch a movie which we can watch at home undisturbed. I rarely go to a movie anymore because of that, not to mention the added costs of babysitters, overpriced popcorn and drinks.

Personally I have never used any P2P applications other than Bitorrent to download legal content such as Linux distros. I do not download movies, but I am patient and can wait for the DVD release which usually I will rent though a subscription service for a single monthly fee.

 

Consider this for a minute.

My internet costs about $40/month.
Over a year that costs $480/year.

The internet is a service you pay for. What comes with the internet includes P2P sharing.

So consider this $480 to be a bank of how much stuff you can download. Like $20 a cd, $50+ software,etc.

 

nownthen, The problem with that reasoning is then the only ones that gets compensated is the ISP and in turn the telecommunications companies that they lease lines from. The people that create the movie/music/software get nothing in that scenario. I believe that the creators need to be paid for their efforts.

What I think would be the best solution is similar to what you said - a subscription model. You pay a single monthly price for any content. If you can watch, listen to, or play what you want when you want for a reasonable price then there is no need for massive piracy. Of course there will always be some that won't pay at any price, but I believe that the majority would if the price was right. Usage could be tracked and the creators compensated fairly. A small percentage is paid for each play, divided up out of your subscription. Privacy advocates might be up in arms about viewing or listening habits being tracked (I know I would probably be embarrassed at them finding out that I watched Naughty Housewives #69 on 25 separate occassions last month) but this would tell them who to pay out of my subscription fee.

Of course this will never work. The infrastructure to deliver content on demand in a timely manner is not there yet. With that many content providers there will never be an agreement on how to split the subscription fee. Also for it to work, all content has to be available or else people will still get it via other means.

When I was a kid we didn't worry about content. There was no VCRs, nobody owned movies, there wasn't any personal computers. In today's society content has much more meaning and plays a much larger role in our lives. People are going to use that content one way or another so a subscription model seems to be the best solution, a lot better than suing your customers and spending money on lawyers instead of producing your content.