Piracy is necessary and doesn't hurt revenues

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by mgbino

... thinking about it, there really isn't anything authors/publishers can do about e-book piracy anyway. Obviously DRM doesn't work. It creates a hassle for legitimate purchasers and does nothing to prevent piracy. I highly doubt any company will be able to create a DRM scheme that can't be cracked in a matter of months.

Do you think this is pertinent to the discussion? The question being discussed is whether or not "piracy is necessary", not whether or not it's difficult.

[mgbino]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Nonsense. Buying out-of-region DVDs (and players) is perfectly legal. Please quote where I said otherwise, or retract your statement.

From my understanding, the purchasing of region-free DVD players is legal in most countries, but the production of such DVD players is not. In the U.S., manufactures can't sell a region free player. In Australia they can.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by mgbino

From my understanding, the purchasing of region-free DVD players is legal in most countries, but the production of such DVD players is not. In the U.S., manufactures can't sell a region free player. In Australia they can.

Fine in the UK, too. Eg here's a multi-region Sony DVD player on Amazon UK:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Sony-DVPSR17.../dp/B00CB1V366

[mgbino]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Fine in the UK, too. Eg here's a multi-region Sony DVD player on Amazon UK:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Sony-DVPSR17.../dp/B00CB1V366

And, quite easy for someone like me (in the US) to order from Amazon UK... and perfectly legal.

...also, there is nothing illegal about modifying a DVD player to be region free in the U.S. (can't speak for other countries). Usually, for Sony, Samsung, and Toshiba players, it's a matter of entering a number combination when you first turn the player on... and takes about a minute.

[Greg Anos]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Nonsense. Buying out-of-region DVDs (and players) is perfectly legal. Please quote where I said otherwise, or retract your statement.

HarryT, what is the difference between not being able to purchase a TV show to watch online, due to enforced geo-restrictions, and buying a physical DVD, for which geo-restriction are also applied, because you can bypass the geo-restriction?

Multi-region payers are common, But they are as much a geo-restriction copyright violation as any other geo-restriction bypass.

[GERGE]

That is true.

[mgbino]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Do you think this is pertinent to the discussion? The question being discussed is whether or not "piracy is necessary", not whether or not it's difficult.

Fair enough... I tend to drift off to this anytime piracy is discussed. Part of my job involves combing through pirated material to see if can find digital footprints of the original leaker(s) so I tend to think about the ease of piracy quite a bit.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Ralph Sir Edward

HarryT, what is the difference between not being able to purchase a TV show to watch online, due to enforced geo-restrictions, and buying a physical DVD, for which geo-restriction are also applied, because you can bypass the geo-restriction?

I don't understand the question. The DVD market is open and unrestricted. The video streaming market is not. That's just the way it is.

Multi-region payers are common, But they are as much a geo-restriction copyright violation as any other geo-restriction bypass.

And your point is? Bypassing geographical restrictions isn't piracy. Piracy is taking something without paying for it. There is no "copyright violation" in buying a DVD from a different country.

[Barcey]

Originally Posted by HarryT

A very peculiar definition of "necessary". She claims that it is "necessary" to pirate TV shows because geographical restrictions prevent her from watching them legally when living in another country, but that suggests some sort of inherent "right" to be able to see a TV show. What law grants her that right, I wonder?

You seem to be picking a fight with the Guardian headline rather then what she is saying in her blog. She doesn't use the word "necessary" in her blog entry at all. Maybe the Guardian did an interview with her and she used the word but that's not clear.

What she is saying is that she has used "Pirate waters" because she is being blocked from accessing content that she's legally paid for.

How do I know this? Well because, like many people in the film and TV industry, sometimes I find myself in Pirate waters. Because as an expat household, with three paid Amazon Prime memberships for three different countries, a paid Netflix membership, a paid ACORN membership, a ridiculously high DISH bill and an Apple TV box, we still can't watch most programs from back home, even though we're willing to pay good money for it.

I agree with her. She's overpaid for access to content by subscribing in multiple countries and through multiple services and she still can't access the content because of the security measures. At some point a rational person is going to say, "screw you, how do I get on Pirate Bay".

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Barcey

I agree with her. She's overpaid for access to content by subscribing in multiple countries and through multiple services and she still can't access the content because of the security measures. At some point a rational person is going to say, "screw you, how do I get on Pirate Bay".

A rational person would enquire before subscribing to a service what its terms and conditions were. Eg Amazon UK's video streaming service clearly tells you that the service will only work for customers in the UK:

Due to licensing agreements, you must be located in the United Kingdom or Channel Islands (with a U.K. billing address and payment method) to stream Prime titles.

Anyone who subscribes to such a service without ascertaining this fact in advance has only themselves to blame. It's not a justification for piracy.

[Greg Anos]

Originally Posted by HarryT

I don't understand the question. The DVD market is open and unrestricted. The video streaming market is not. That's just the way it is.



And your point is? Bypassing geographical restrictions isn't piracy. Piracy is taking something without paying for it. There is no "copyright violation" in buying a DVD from a different country.

My point is, Hollywood added geo-restriction codes to limit the distribution of DVDs to only the region the copyright owners (Hollywood) wanted them to be released in. The exact same reason there are geo-restrictions on video streaming. Just because one can be easily bypassed and the other can't does not change the fact that morally, they are one and the same. (Perhaps, in the early days, Hollywood should have sued every firm that delivered DVD's outside, the legal region. Then, it might not be easy to bypass regions codes, due to unavailability of discs...)

Here's a what if, if the person in question had a friend download a TV show onto a SD chip, pay for it, and ship it to the person who wants to get the show, would that be right or wrong? And, by your ethics, why?

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by HarryT

I don't understand the question. The DVD market is open and unrestricted. The video streaming market is not. That's just the way it is.



And your point is? Bypassing geographical restrictions isn't piracy. Piracy is taking something without paying for it. There is no "copyright violation" in buying a DVD from a different country.

So, if you pay for a DVD and illegally bypass the georestrictions, that is OK.

Does that mean if you pay for the streamed video (which you can't access) and then watch a prated copy, that is OK too?

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by eschwartz

So, if you pay for a DVD and illegally bypass the georestrictions, that is OK.

To repeat yet again, buying a DVD from a different region, and a multi-region DVD player, is not illegal. Not in either the country where I live, or the country where you live. This has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with piracy.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Piracy is taking something without paying for it. There is no "copyright violation" in buying a DVD from a different country.

I've bought a few out-of-region DVDs--mostly Japanese movies that don't make it out west. The creators are fully compensated.
If I track down a torrent of the same movie, the creators are not compensated.

I don't care about the ethics or morality of anybody but myself and my direct relations--live and let die--but I'm not going to let a blatant rationalization pass as a law of nature. Breathing is necessary; piracy is optional and willful. Going without one will kill you, doing without the other doesn't.

[Catlady]

Originally Posted by mgbino

For books, geographic restrictions are an absolute joke, and anyone who spends 5 minutes on a Google search can figure out how to BUY digital content from another country, ensuring that the creator gets paid. For TV and movies, wait until it get's a home release and buy the Blu-Ray or DVD.

Well, perhaps I am especially dim, but I've attempted to figure out several times how to purchase geo-restricted material, and it seems quite daunting and confusing. Isn't it illegal anyway? Just as illegal as pirating? Why condone one but not the other?