Seems to me like blaming the creators of a browser for the fact that illegal sites can be reached. Or is that a bad comparison?

Seems to me like blaming the creators of a browser for the fact that illegal sites can be reached. Or is that a bad comparison?

The thing is, what you have to understand is that something drastic needs to be done. While everyone here may like to download stuff and your own personal downloads probably have no impact whatsoever on the market, multiply that by at least 5 million and you can see the impact it starts to have.

Cinema takings are well down this year. The music industry is saying that profits are at an all time low. Game companies are going bankrupt because of poor sales.

Now you may have no sympathy for these people, because they are ultimately richer than you, but it was only a matter of time before something big came into play to try and stop the sheer amount of piracy that is taking place now. It's out of control. Literally everyone I know has bought pirate DVD's over the past year. This was only to be expected when broadband was introduced and couple that with CD Writers and now DVD writers, it was completely fucking obvious where this was all heading, and part of me thinks "well, fucking blame Sony for making CD Writers. What the hell did you think people were going to use a PC with broadband internet and a CD writer for????"

$7 or $8 per ticket

I think we have somewhat cheaper popcorn in the theaters though.

ok, piracy of just-released movies comes from crappy handheld camcorders in cinemas (a failure of cinema security) or from leaks in the distribution network. Without these P2P has nothing.

But largely it's because - as a poll in the UK recently suggested - most people don't see it as theft, and it isn't difficult to see why. If I steal your TV set, I have your TV and you don't. However if I copy one of your DVDs, you still have your movie, and now I have it too. That just doesn't seem like theft to many people.

And when you factor in the long tradition of videoing stuff off the TV and cassette copying...

However I don't buy those 'lost earnings' figures they quote for two simple reasons:

- they're guesstimates and nothing more. there's no way they can get an accurate figure
- they assume that everyone who ever pirated a movie or software would have bought it if they hadn't pirated it. This just isn't a tenable assumption, especially where expensive software like Photoshop and the like is concerned. Even with cheaper stuff like movies and games there's no guarantee that someone would have bought it if they hadn't copied it.

think again

you're also forced to get a 12 gallon bucket of coke, which noone ever finishes

not to mention the lack of legroom in cinema's
urk

I have no sympathy for the MPAA. I don't d/l movies, but I rent them and burn them. I'm still paying for them, and I feel that if I pay for it, I should damn well be able to watch it whenever I want. Netflix has to pay for the movies they rent out, and I pay Netflix.
The problem I have with going to the movies (which I still do on a regular basis) is that the ticket prices have become OBSCENELY expensive. $7 or $8 per ticket for an adult, and then the goddamn popcorn is literally almost as much. There is no reason on earth for popcorn to cost six fucking dollars, nor a soda four dollars. None.
Until the cost of going to the movies comes down (same for the price of CDs), then fuck the MPAA. They makes hojillions of dollars, and box office sales were down almost this far in 1985, and they certainly couldn't blame that on the internet.
Pirated applications and games are a different story. They're too expensive also, imo, but there's really no way to justify pirating them.

If P2P goes away, I won't lose any sleep. There are relatively cheap student versions of just about everything out there, and I have a job.

The thing is, what you have to understand is that something drastic needs to be done. While everyone here may like to download stuff and your own personal downloads probably have no impact whatsoever on the market, multiply that by at least 5 million and you can see the impact it starts to have.

Cinema takings are well down this year. The music industry is saying that profits are at an all time low. Game companies are going bankrupt because of poor sales.

Now you may have no sympathy for these people, because they are ultimately richer than you, but it was only a matter of time before something big came into play to try and stop the sheer amount of piracy that is taking place now. It's out of control. Literally everyone I know has bought pirate DVD's over the past year. This was only to be expected when broadband was introduced and couple that with CD Writers and now DVD writers, it was completely fucking obvious where this was all heading, and part of me thinks "well, fucking blame Sony for making CD Writers. What the hell did you think people were going to use a PC with broadband internet and a CD writer for????"

i'm totally pro-piracy.

for the first time, mankind can share and reproduce something, in this case information, at nearly no cost. this is as much of a technical revolution as electricity was.

the producing people just need to realize this. currently, they're panicly trying to sustain the satus quo. they will fail sooner or later.

and... you don't need quadrillions of dollar to make good movies.

A movie ticket is expensive here too... like 15 euro's i think?

Oh well, there is a world outside America, a world I happen to reside in and one which will continue to make software with potentially illegal uses.

...Cinema takings are well down this year. The music industry is saying that profits are at an all time low. Game companies are going bankrupt because of poor sales...

Seems to me like blaming the creators of a browser for the fact that illegal sites can be reached. Or is that a bad comparison?