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Don't forget making it all the way to the register, money in hand, only to be told that because you are of a certain nationality that "they don't serve your kind here"(1).

(1) I used to think that analogy was ridiculous hyperbole. I'm less sure every day.

    > An example of this is netflix who use silverlight
    > DRM on all of their streams so I cannot play them
    > on my Linux HTPC.

Just thought I'd thank you for this bit of info. I'd been considering subscribing to Netflix for a while. Glad I found out it won't work on my computer before giving them any money.

I guess I'll have to see if I can find some other way to get access to films and TV shows via the Internet. Wish me luck.

Good luck, but I think you'll have limited success if your looking for something legal that will work on Linux.

It seems that it is the rights holders who are insisting that everybody who distributes their stuff online must use the silverlight DRM rather than the service providers themselves who I'm sure full well realise how pointless it is.

In the UK we have a service called "LoveFilm" which is similar to netflix, they used to allow streaming of all their content using Flash which wasn't ideal but it worked.

However recently they were forced by the studios to switch to silverlight, they sent an email around to all of their Linux users apologizing but saying that it was basically out of their hands.

Luckily I have spare Windows XP licenses to use on my HTPC because I'd really hate to have to pay Microsoft £150 for another copy of Windows 7 just for the privilege of running their (now deprecated) plugin.

The fact that people are willing to pirate instead of purchasing $x for product type y is the market speaking.

Given that the fundamental premise is DRM is flawed from a technological point of view, it's at best a polite request.

Governments can pass laws trying to prohibit it, but it's like trying to pass laws prohibiting cars driving faster than 55 MPH. If people fundamentally don't agree with the law, passing the law even if you can buy a few senators isn't going to help. It just promotes a greater disrespect for the law.

But clearly, there are a lot of people in the marketing still paying $x. If there weren't, the music industry would be out of business.

The pirates are actually inflating the prices. If piracy weren't an option, there would be a group of people who would pay $3 but not $4, and some that would pay $5 but not $10. The industry would figure out where they could get the most profit with the standard profit * volume equation. The price would settle lower on the spectrum.

Instead, all of the price sensitive people have turned to piracy. So again, going to profit * volume, you find the sweet spot among the people who are less price sensitive. Clearly the albums end up being more expensive. Why compete for the people who want to pay $3 if they probably will just continue to pirate? You are cannablizing your sales among less price sensitive customers.

>>>The problem with these arguments is they boil down to "I will never pay more than $x for product type y" when these prices should really be dictated by the market itself.

Wait a minute. He is the market! And so are millions just like him.

Buyers only make up 1/2 of the market, only this guy only speaks for a sliver of that segment (as evidenced by prices being what they are).

> The problem with these arguments is they boil down to "I will never pay more than $x for product type y" when these prices should really be dictated by the market itself.

I kind of like the complete view that the OP provides. Copyright infringement is a very real market force in this system. It is empirically the case that the OP will not pay more than $x and that price seems to be surprisingly close to what I 'feel' is right. I wonder how many others agree with these numbers. This price is dictated by the market when the relatively low risk of legal action is factored into the equation.

What he seems to be arguing is that publishers should be less concerned with rectifying this market force via legal means and more concerned with rectifying it via improving the services offered.

Well, on this site of the ocean(I'm French, but living in the Netherlands), we wish we'd have a service such as Netflix in the first place ...

And, to be honest, your use case, while totally valid, does not apply, I think, to the general consumer.