Hollywood Wants To Kill Piracy? No Problem: Just Offer Something Better
techdirt.com
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Really, what we are asking Hollywood to do is compete with free. This post is saying "Tack on all these features to your movies, and I'll pay less than the current price of your movie for those features." I get the feeling that Hollywood hears that as "Your product has no value, so do all these things to add value to it."
Hollywood is saying: "We shouldn't have to compete with free. Our product has value (regardless of delivery or portability). Free is illegal." Now, this may or may not be the case technologically, but I find it difficult to fault an industry for failing to come to terms with those realities.
No, it's not just because it's free. There's a cost to the "free" route: technical adeptness & tools, time digging for what you want, dealing with crappy rips, etc. Sure, it may be cheap, but it's not free. Nothing is free.
And that's the point of the OP: most customers are willing to pay, so long as the price is lower than the alternatives - and for most customers, that's making selection & delivery drop-dead easy to the tune of pocket change. [poster pauses, noting he hasn't had any change in his pocket for weeks due to ubiquity of plastic]. Apple is doing very well distributing content for a market it had nothing to do with a few years ago - why? because they made distribution easy to the point that those with limited time and a little spare change will pay a few bucks to watch/hear something right now, with less effort & better quality than pirate channels. Oh, sure, a few people will opt for "free" out of more time/resources than money, or out of sheer tenacity, but they're of marginal impact so long as the price & ease balance.
Hollywood's problem, like that of Kodak, Smith Corona, and other big-money megacorps of the past, is that technology changes the supply-and-demand curves, reducing the value of their products. It still ain't free, but the value per unit is dropping ... and the middlemen and stakeholders are going to squeeze every penny they can out of their cash cow until the carcass stops producing.
Difficulty is not an attribute of it being free; it's an attribute of it being illegal. Napster was easy enough that every teen in america was using it; bittorrent is not.
Sure, the user incurs some 'cost' in piracy. To the producer, however, there's no difference between someone spending 10 hours for access to a product, or free (note: I'm not saying this is lost revenue).
I definitely agree that Hollywood should be smart and build something like the OP suggests and monetize it. I disagree with the OP's claim that such a product will eradicate piracy.
That said, I can prove to you right now that this scheme will not work: On the music-side of the media world, I subscribe to Rdio. It's $10 per month for all-I-can-eat music. I listen to it via my computer, via my home stereo using Sonos (I can play up to three different songs simultaneously via Rdio using Sonos -- more than I'll ever need). And, I can download the songs to my iPhone and listen to them offline.
Yet, even with Rdio and the many compatible competitors (Rhapsody, Spotify, etc.), people still download music illegally "for free." For $10 per month, I can have millions of songs available on-demand for instant playback or I can spend my time downloading songs, installing them in iTunes, syncing with my mobile device, etc. Why would anyone choose the "free" option? Personally, I don't know, but they do.
One difference... In the world of Rdio, songs are not free of DRM, but no one should care -- I certainly don't even though I was one of the people celebrating the move of music from DRMed to non-DRMed -- because six million or more songs are instantly available anywhere I might want to listen to them without any hassles. If I can get at the songs anywhere, at any time, from any device, without hassle, why do I care about DRM?
For example, Valve seems to have found compelling evidence supporting the "service" side of the argument: http://www.pcgamer.com/2011/10/25/gabe-newell-on-piracy-and-...
They haven't stopped piracy (which can't be stopped completely), but they have carved out a huge, lucrative market where others with the "free will always trump non-free" mindset were too fearful to tread.
It's like when Netflix talks about Hollywood and the TV industry: sure, they bring up some good points, but always something that would benefit the gatekeeper first.
[1] My argument is that the games they create sell the Steam platform, not the other way around.
Imagine the uproar that would occur in the publishing industry now if the government proposed to create a lending library system where none existed.
I wanted to watch the first season of The Wire, but didn't want to leave the house. I logged on to Netflix, saw that DVDs were the only available format, and closed the tab. Next I went to Amazon. I searched, and saw that that the complete box set of DVDs was priced at roughly $115. It was also available for streaming, so I was in business. Wait a moment. The price for "buying" access to the digital version was comparable to that of the DVDs (~$96 for all five seasons streamed, vs. ~$115 for the DVDs). That seems expensive for something that may not work in five years, but I decided to be a good citizen and pay to watch the first episode. As a bonus, I wouldn't have to sit through FBI warnings, unskippable previews, or a DVD menu. After paying $2, I looked for a way to download the episode to my (Mac) computer so that I could watch it without intermittent buffering delays. My connection is slow sometimes, and I can delay gratification to wait for a whole episode to download. Small problem. There is no download link. I suspect that this is because the episode could not be properly restricted with DRM. Sigh. Frustrated, I decided to risk buffer issues, and started playing the episode. No problems for five minutes, then wham, the video player crashed the Flash browser plugin. That's ok, I can copy the URI, restart the browser, and get back to watching. After hitting play a second time, wham it crashed again. Oh well, maybe Amazon does not test for Chrome. Let's try from Safari. Same problem. At this point I have paid $2, but cannot watch the episode I "purchased." What option do I have left? A torrent file for the series would be a few clicks away, and almost guaranteed to play on my computer--without buffering, DRM, browser plugins, FBI warnings, DVD menus, or unskippable previews. Why am I paying again?
In the end, Amazon apologized for the technical problem and kindly refunded my $2. As a consumer, I am willing to pay for something that works and is as convenient as pirated content. The industry isn't listening.
Will consumers really hazard pirate websites, when they can pay a fair price to download a DRM-free file from a fast server? Some may, but many more will pay.
The message from studios has to be about trust. "We trust you as consumers. You can download DRM-free content from us at fair prices. You can trust that there won't be porno sidebar ads or phishing links. You can trust that we will have the fastest servers, offer the best quality content, and the most intuitive interface. We won't get in your way."
Part of the problem of piracy is due to the release schedules of hollywood content. Perhaps movies should be released concurrently in theaters and online. Why download a recent movie when it is available online, legally? Many people will still visit theaters for the experience, and due to the short-term availability. Those who watch at home will pay if the prices are fair.
Edit: I now realize that the particular content I was looking for is available via iTunes, for the same price per episode as Amazon. I don't associate iTunes with video. Not sure why that is, but perhaps it is because of the lesser inventory.
Is DRM really that important if the legal option is guaranteed to provide the best experience (fastest connection, highest picture quality)? I shouldn't need a "client" at all.
Also Steam works well because it really isn't easy for the common consumer to copy a Steam game vs. as easy as it would be to copy a single unencrypted movie file to share casually with their friends. It is much easier to buy a movie on this Steam type clone and then put it online or give it to everyone you know, which the industry won't want.
Until you get a Steam like service written for OSX, Linux, Windows, Android, iPhone and streamable via the web with proper copy protection this will not fly.
So... you're saying it should be web-based?
I'd also argue the common steam user can torrent just as well as anyone else, they choose not to (at least 95% of the steam users I know) because they can get a legit copy at a fair price.
Copyright is not a right, it s a privilege given to promote the creation of new works in exchange for reasonable access to that work.
Hollywood could easily lobby the government about their contracts not being in the spirit of copyright and that they need to be wiped clean in the interest of the American people.
Instead, they lobby to reduce the reasonable access even further. Forcing people into pirating even more.
I guess they know they have a better chance changing the law for 300 million people than to change it for a couple of other corporations. Pretty sad, really.
I don't think you've thought that through.
Forcing people into pirating
Nobody is forced into pirating.
From the U.S. Constitution, on the powers of Congress: "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries."
That won't fly with me. If I'm paying for content, I expect to be able to make backups and put it on any device I want/need. Again, proposing paid solutions that are harder and more inconvenient than free is just not feasible. You can argue the ethics all day long; but economically, no way.
On the other hand, a large proportion of people will pay for a subscription rather than per-view. That won't work for me or a lot of other users, but something like e.g. Spotify is definitely the music industry's best bet for now.
If, as you say, these kinds of solutions won't fly with the big content companies, they're just not going to survive in the long run.
* I search for movie/TV series title using Google what I want to watch,
* I find it,
* I type my credit card number and
* I watch.
I don't need special features or other things: I have money - you have the movie I want to watch.
'nuf said.
OK, so it doesn't have everything yet, but between that & Netflix there's more than enough to keep most satisfied, and more content is always being added. And you don't have to enter your CC# more than once. Funny, Apple is making crazy money by offering customers the best implementation of what you want, rather than cutting them off...
Does content have inherently lower value now that it is abundant, and distributed for (nearly) free?
If content providers charged say, (cost of bandwidth)+10%, for each item rather than arbitrary whole-dollar prices, they would certainly see more takers--and perhaps higher profit.
For some, a flat-rate cable TV subscription is cost effective. For others (me), Netflix + iTunes is a lot less - and yes that includes impulsive $5 rentals; some of us just don't watch that much TV and don't demand the latest high-profile network shows when we do (BTW: what's "Whitney"?).
56,000 titles and counting. You can generally stream to your laptop, Roku device etc.
One step further, of the current top 5 or so Movies on the Pirate Bay all the ones that are currently available on DVD are available via Amazon Instant Streaming.
The better question is: are you truly willing to pay or are you just like the "I'm a vegetarian meat-eating" guy?
You know... wanting to be labelled as "I have CC but no way to spend easily".
Seriously, it amazes me how an industrial complex like Hollywood can collectively make so many dumb mistakes, that would otherwise cripple/kill other industries, and still rake in billions.
For me personally, piracy is a crime of opportunity - I do it because it's easy and available. However, me downloading movie doesn't represent lost revenue for Hollywood - if I were forced to pay for a movie, I would simply do something else.
This is what I think goes over the head of Hollywood execs. If a youtoube music video has 5M views, it doesn't mean it missed out on 5M customers, it just means 5M were willing to watch something for free.
As a side note, the one movie service I have paid for in the past 5 years, Redbox, has strong opposition from Hollywood. I use it because as the OP mentions, it's better than pirating. Instant, convenient, and the cost is a non issue. Why doesn't Hollywood embrace this rather than oppose it? Who knows.
All that said, it starting to feel like we're beating a dead horse here on HN.
I would GLADLY pay Cuevana 35$ a month to watch the content in there. That's 35$ the industry is not getting from me when they could.
Hollywood should embrace sites like Cuevana: they would have the distribution, the bandwidth, up-loaders, ratings, subtitles... all outsourced for FREE.
Not to mention, these type of sites can work like marketing tools: you have ratings, user sentiment, geography...
It pains me the amount of effort being placed to find a solution to stop this. It makes no sense.
The latter is NEVER the correct decision. Companies exist solely to please customers (which in turn amasses profit and satisfies investors).
Hollywood, you work for us.
They are an outdated model.
They had their chance to evolve.
The problem is these studios are rolling in cash. Even if they were to lose significant piles of it, they'd simply be bough tout by another large corporation that can afford to pump yet more money into it.
They'll remain on life support so long as people go to theaters to watch blockbuster movies. Their business model won't change until people as a whole turn away form them.
It might sound like a confusing inconsistant approach, but it's entirely sensible when you realise that hollywood wants to go back to the 80s/90s. No mass piracy, and no online service.