This is one of the best (or at least most sensible) articles I've read on this in a while.
It's all about cost and convenience. The only way you'll ever prevent movie piracy is to offer a legal alternative that is as easy and convenient, and priced in a way that makes the legal way the easy choice.
Charge a dollar or two for a regular download, double it for HD and new releases. I doubt most people would even bother to get a copy from a friend because it would be so cheap just to get it themselves.
Some people are never going to pay, some people are always going to pay. You're trying to catch the people who currently aren't paying because there isn't a sensibly priced legal alternative that's as easy as just firing up utorrent and the pirate bay.
Surely small amounts from lots of people is better than a slightly larger amount from a few people?
Absolutely agree. In 2003 I vowed never to own any kind of physical media again. I put all my cd's out on the sidewalk with a 'FREE' sign and the box was gone within the hour. I dj'd for a stint and the same thing happened in that industry. Although, there are still some vinyl purists, but I saw that go vinyl, cd, and then mp3/wav. It's inevitable.
As a 'downloader' I'm still buying a few limited blurays. This is strictly for the picture quality, but I'm almost done with that. The fact that my bluray player is so goddamned slow (some discs take a ridiculous amount of time to start up) and I have to sit through 20 ads or movie announcements, just pushes me more to 1080p downloads. Although, these are compressed downloads and not 'real' 1080p raw files. But it's just that whole thing that keeps sticking in my mind which is: I just want to easily watch the movie.
I'll definitely see all this change in my lifetime and I'll some day explain to my kid how ridiculous it used to be and how he's got it so good now.
It's all about cost and convenience. The only way you'll ever prevent movie piracy is to offer a legal alternative that is as easy and convenient, and priced in a way that makes the legal way the easy choice.
Charge a dollar or two for a regular download, double it for HD and new releases. I doubt most people would even bother to get a copy from a friend because it would be so cheap just to get it themselves.
Some people are never going to pay, some people are always going to pay. You're trying to catch the people who currently aren't paying because there isn't a sensibly priced legal alternative that's as easy as just firing up utorrent and the pirate bay.
Surely small amounts from lots of people is better than a slightly larger amount from a few people?