Piracy is necessary and doesn't hurt revenues

[cybmole]

Originally Posted by HarryT

There has never been any restriction on who can buy DVDs, any more than there is a restriction on who can buy paperback books.

well I was not planning to join in , just lurking, but as you keep repeating that claim.....

Whenever I've bought a region 1 DVD from amazon uk, there's a warning, first about compatibility but then saying UK CUSTOMERS CAN ONLY BUY ONE COPY of this import.

Here's the exact wording, I added bold to the relevant bit
Region 1 encoding (requires a North American or multi-region DVD player and NTSC compatible TV. More about DVD formats.)

Note: you may purchase only one copy of this product.

so I can't buy copies to give to my friends or family.


Luckily for them it is still legal for me to buy DVDFAB's excellent dvd copying software, despite USA.s best attempts to suppress the web site

but, ignoring that irresistible aside, would you care to rationalize that & square it with your totally legal - no restrictions claim & explain why I can't obtain legal copies to use as gifts.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by cybmole

well I was not planning to join in , just lurking, but as you keep repeating that claim.....

Whenever I've bought a region 1 DVD from amazon uk, there's a warning, first about compatibility but then saying UK CUSTOMERS CAN ONLY BUY ONE COPY of this import.

Here's the exact wording, I added bold to the relevant bit
Region 1 encoding (requires a North American or multi-region DVD player and NTSC compatible TV. More about DVD formats.)

Note: you may purchase only one copy of this product.

so I can't buy copies to give to my friends or family.


Luckily for them it is still legal for me to buy DVDFAB's excellent dvd copying software, despite USA.s best attempts to suppress the web site

but, ignoring that irresistible aside, would you care to rationalize that & square it with your totally legal - no restrictions claim & explain why I can't obtain legal copies to use as gifts.

Presumably to prevent people bulk-buying to re-sell, because although it's legal to BUY out-of-region, it's not legal to SELL. ie it's legal for you to buy a Region 1 DVD from the US, but it wouldn't be legal for you to resell those DVDs in the UK.

[FinancialWar]

who here doesn't get their books from [deleted]? lol it's free and almost instant lol. [deleted] is the best thing since losing my virginity.

[HarryT]

Moderator Notice
We will not permit MobileRead's forums to be used to advocate piracy. Do it again and you'll be banned permanently.

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by Ralph Sir Edward

Nobody has to do anything but pay taxes and die.....

"The only things certain in life are death and taxes."

"And not even necessarily death."

[cybmole]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Presumably to prevent people bulk-buying to re-sell, because although it's legal to BUY out-of-region, it's not legal to SELL. ie it's legal for you to buy a Region 1 DVD from the US, but it wouldn't be legal for you to resell those DVDs in the UK.

I'm sure you are right - but it IS a restriction - and wanting to buy 2 copies as Xmas gifts is hardly bulk buying!

I wonder if they even enforce it; they may not accept 2 in the same trolley but if I went back to one I bought last year & tried to buy it again.....

Also, I have in fact bought (music instruction ) import DVDs from Amazon and than sold them on amazon market place when done with them. I have yet to see a "sorry you are not allowed to sell that" popup- Amazon just sit back & take the commission.

Ebay.co.uk place no restriction on selling used Region 1 DVDs either.

Meanwhile , back with the GOT debate; I may be perverse but it feels less ethical to me to boost the evil Murdoch empire's profits by taking SKY TV -( in order to legally view that & other HBO shows,) than it does to pirate now, but the Blu ray later. [ me & over a million others if the news reports are to be believed ) We do have S1 - S3 on Blu ray ,but no fan is going to want to spend a year dodging spoilers & waiting to see S4 on disc.. And when the owners of HBO issue a press release saying we don't care about piracy, is that not almost a licence to go ahead

I have explored all other options for legally viewing HBO - I even have a paid for DNS service when gets me to most USA content, but when I try to sign up for HBO GO it's wants my USA cable TV account. Some companies just don't seem to want to be paid! Waiting for virginmedia to strike a deal & screen the HBO/ Sky Atlantic shows on my cable is ... well... lets say I probably won't live that long

[HarryT]

I don't know what the actual "rules" are. I'm simply speculating when I say that I suspect it's done to prevent - or at least discourage - commercial re-sale.

Amazon have a "you can only buy one of them" limitation for all sorts of products, BTW. I recently tried to buy two identical external USB drives, and it wouldn't let me. I had to buy one, then place an order for another one the following day. I phoned customer service and asked them the reason for it, but they didn't know.

[Barcey]

Originally Posted by HarryT

They aren't "so-called" pirate sites. They ARE pirate sites. The question of whether or not she "has" to resort to them is what this thread is about. There is no compulsion on her to do so - it's entirely her choice to do so. Nobody "has" to watch a particular TV show.

We have sensor pads in North America for some traffic lights that detect if a car is stopped at the light. Occasionally I come across one of these on my motorcycle that won't trigger and the light doesn't change. If I utilize your logic then:
1) I agreed to abide by the highway traffic act when I accepted my drivers license so I can't violate the traffic light.
2) I need to determine if it's necessary for me to violate the traffic light. Is it compulsory for me to get back to the hotel in the next two hours or should I wait for a car to come along and trigger it for me?

After waiting 5 minutes and if the road is deserted and there is clearly no traffic coming I will just go. The technology put in place didn't consider every real world situation and failed. There are not absolutes. If I sat there a police officer would likely come along and laugh at me then tell me to move it.

I'll repeat again, the blog post was not about if it was necessary or compulsory to access a web site that violates copyright. It was about the MPAA counting every access to the "pirate site" as lost revenue when sometimes it's clearly not. She admitted accessing the "pirate site" to access content that she had already paid for accessing and she wasn't going to pay again. The technology measures put it place were blocking her access so she went around them.

[cybmole]

there's also format shifting + laziness.

e.g. consider:

I own a DVD but I want n P4 video of it to view on tablet when travelling - tablets are not good with round shiny things.

so do I:
1. but dvd ripping software, which the MPAA is doing its level best to stop me from doing - then spend an hour or so making my own rip ( which also is a crime in their book)

or do I conclude
2. life's too short, I'll just D/L one that someone else has already made

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Barcey

I'll repeat again, the blog post was not about if it was necessary or compulsory to access a web site that violates copyright. It was about the MPAA counting every access to the "pirate site" as lost revenue when sometimes it's clearly not. She admitted accessing the "pirate site" to access content that she had already paid for accessing and she wasn't going to pay again. The technology measures put it place were blocking her access so she went around them.

Let me pose an analogy in exchange for yours.

Suppose you buy a season ticket to see films in a particular cinema. One week you happen to be working away somewhere, so you sneak into a cinema in a different town and watch the film there. After all, you've paid to see the film, so there's nothing wrong in doing that, is there?

That's exactly what services like Netflix, or Amazon UK's video streaming services are: a season ticket to watch video in one particular place. The fact that you happen to be in a different place doesn't (IMHO) make it acceptable to pirate the material. You knew (or you should have known, at least) at the time you paid for the service that you wouldn't be able to watch it in a different country.

[mgbino]

Originally Posted by Barcey

We have sensor pads in North America for some traffic lights that detect if a car is stopped at the light. Occasionally I come across one of these on my motorcycle that won't trigger and the light doesn't change. If I utilize your logic then:
1) I agreed to abide by the highway traffic act when I accepted my drivers license so I can't violate the traffic light.
2) I need to determine if it's necessary for me to violate the traffic light. Is it compulsory for me to get back to the hotel in the next two hours or should I wait for a car to come along and trigger it for me?

After waiting 5 minutes and if the road is deserted and there is clearly no traffic coming I will just go. The technology put in place didn't consider every real world situation and failed. There are not absolutes. If I sat there a police officer would likely come along and laugh at me then tell me to move it.

I'll repeat again, the blog post was not about if it was necessary or compulsory to access a web site that violates copyright. It was about the MPAA counting every access to the "pirate site" as lost revenue when sometimes it's clearly not. She admitted accessing the "pirate site" to access content that she had already paid for accessing and she wasn't going to pay again. The technology measures put it place were blocking her access so she went around them.

Not to be that guy, but in every state I'm aware of there are laws on the books that specify that if a bicyclist or motorcyclist fails to trigger a sensor light, they are to proceed through the intersection after verifying that the path is clear... after waiting a reasonable amount of time (I think it's 2 minutes in PA, but I don't remember exactly).

That being said, I was a police officer for a few years and I never once encountered this as an issue, but I do know we had this our traffic codes.

[cybmole]

Originally Posted by HarryT

That's exactly what services like Netflix, or Amazon UK's video streaming services are: a season ticket to watch video in one particular place. .

actually, netflix is a season ticket to view from anywhere you can get an internet connection !

It works on every console & tablet we own, as well as on all of our PCs - the same login credentials work for every version of the app. Viewing ( in the same region) sync across all devices - what's not to like! [ well if could cost a lot on 3G / 4G I guess, but I'm a wi-fi only person ]

Amazon is more infuriating :- I have Amazon prime video, & I see them announce - with great fanfare - now you can watch HBO on Prime, & then in very small print ( only if you live in the USA & bought the USA flavor of "prime")

Netflix is a great example of good branding and legal access from anywhere. They also know that lots of their cusomers use geo-location fakery and they really don't care. so I can flip between netflix UK, netflix USA, and netflix-anywhere-else with a couple of mouse clicks. And the quality is so good that it makes no sense to download any movie if it's already on Netflix

Amazon is an example of the opposite - a brand ( prime Instant Video) that means completely different things in different parts of the world - and which delivers a poor 2nd rate service to its UK users. ( including NO subtitles on 99% of content - that latter failing alone could drive me to download a movie that I could otherwise view legally on Prime ). & my latest peeve - arbitrarily removing content then putting it back a few weeks later. ON Prime we got 1/2 way through TV series "the Devils Whore" - went to view e3 on prime - gone - nothing - nada - go to amazon - can I buy the Blu Ray - only in Spanish....-- can I buy the missing episodes even... no - not in the catalog, not for sale....So go to great lengths to find & "acquire" the missing 2 episodes".... and then I'm browsing prime content a few weeks after doing that & it's back on line! - but too late. When it vanished it just vanished, no explanation of why or when/if it was ever coming back.

Netflix would have given a warning saying this show is only available until....

[ I know I'm drifting a tad off topic but this is another example of needs-must piracy, though someone will argue that I didn't need to know how the story ended, I just wanted to. ( & don't get me started on libraries who stock parts of series with but with arbitrarily missing titles )

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by HarryT

They aren't "so-called" pirate sites. They ARE pirate sites. The question of whether or not she "has" to resort to them is what this thread is about. There is no compulsion on her to do so - it's entirely her choice to do so. Nobody "has" to watch a particular TV show.

It depends on your definition. Since she doesn't specify which sites she's talking about, I have no idea if the sites she uses match my definition of pirate or not. Perhaps she refers to some site where over the airwaves material is made available. On the other hand, she might be referring to one of those for profit sites in some country that doesn't pay much attention to the idea of copyright.

[Barcey]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Let me pose an analogy in exchange for yours.

Suppose you buy a season ticket to see films in a particular cinema. One week you happen to be working away somewhere, so you sneak into a cinema in a different town and watch the film there. After all, you've paid to see the film, so there's nothing wrong in doing that, is there?

That's exactly what services like Netflix, or Amazon UK's video streaming services are: a season ticket to watch video in one particular place. The fact that you happen to be in a different place doesn't (IMHO) make it acceptable to pirate the material. You knew (or you should have known, at least) at the time you paid for the service that you wouldn't be able to watch it in a different country.

When you purchase a ticket for a specific venue it is a different expectation then when you purchase a license to receive content via the world wide web. If you have an internet connection you expect to be able to access the content regardless of what country you are in. Personally if I travel two hours north, east or west I can access content via my Netflix account. If I travel two hours south I can't. I also can't purchase a Netflix account when I'm two hours south because I don't have a USA billing address. That is a market failure. You can apply geographical restrictions based on where I am OR where my billing address is. If you try to apply both then you really don't want to sell me a service.

The point of my analogy is that we as humans make our own decisions on right, wrong and necessary. We don't accept absolutes and we won't sit in an endless loop waiting for conditions to change.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by cybmole

actually, netflix is a season ticket to view from anywhere you can get an internet connection !

It works on every console & tablet we own, as well as on all of our PCs - the same login credentials work for every version of the app. Viewing ( in the same region) sync across all devices - what's not to like! [ well if could cost a lot on 3G / 4G I guess, but I'm a wi-fi only person ]

Amazon is more infuriating :- I have Amazon prime video, & I see them announce - with great fanfare - now you can watch HBO on Prime, & then in very small print ( only if you live in the USA & bought the USA flavor of "prime")

Netflix is a great example of good branding and legal access from anywhere. They also know that lots of their cusomers use geo-location fakery and they really don't care. so I can flip between netflix UK, netflix USA, and netflix-anywhere-else with a couple of mouse clicks. And the quality is so good that it makes no sense to download any movie if it's already on Netflix

...

Exactly. Netflix isn't remotely like a season ticket, it is rather a monthly fee to access the contect that Netflix has.

For years, Tivo had a robust hacking community that tivo tolerated with a wink and a nod. It was technically illegal, yet Tivo really didn't care as long as no one abused it and got Tivo into legal hot water. I'm sure that Netflix takes a similar view of people paying for a Netflix account and then using technological means to bypass the Geo-restrictions to watch US Netflix in Germany. As long as it doesn't cause them to get in legal hot water, they aren't going to go out of their way to block it.


- Is it legal for someone in Germany to record something off the air waves? In the US this falls under the fair use exception of copyright.
- Is it legal for someone in Germany to send that recording to someone who is outside the US for their private viewing? I don't know that this specific question has been decided legally, however, many people do it and as far as I know, no one has tried to prevent it.

If the two previous situations are legal, then what is the moral difference between someone recording something for the author of the original article and sending it to her, and her downloading that content from a website? Remember we aren't talking about her downloading content that she hasn't paid for. If that is the question, then I agree that it would be wrong.