All the sources except piracy, for movies and TV (and books too), are missing features you can use with other software if you have DRM free media. For example, I have amazon video already paid for and never ever use it because of this -- missing features that VLC has.
IMO they should try achieving feature parity -- or better, actually innovate -- to cut down piracy further. (Yes the paid stuff is arguably ahead on certain features like convenience. But not others.)
Like most people outside of North America, I just skip these steps by default since the answer has been "no" for a decade, and in most cases still is.
Also "purchase" should be "non-DRM or single-platform format crippled purchase".
Oh, we now have Netflix in the Netherlands, since a few weeks. The actual selection is a joke. Yes, I understand it's the copyright mafia's doing, but don't ask me to pay the same price as Americans for a fraction of the product.
This is spot on. If you make it easy to legitimately acquire, I will legitimately acquire it. I don't "watch TV" in the sense that I allocate time for TV-viewing and then find the best thing available. If I want to watch something, I will find it in the most convenient way possible. If you have a pay service that is super convenient, guess what? It's an easy choice to pay $2.99 and watch it _now_ rather than to search torrent sites, wait some time to download it, hope that I got a legitimate copy, hope that I don't get harassed by my ISP, etc. If it takes an hour to download a movie, well... I'd give $3 for that hour, any day.
And since the vast majority of what I watch is anime these days that hasn't been officially brought to USA yet, I pretty much go straight to #4, animehere.com or animecenter.tv or similar. I even have scripts that scrapes the page for the direct video-file URL and fetches it. I run it every Saturday night to get the newest Attack on Titan & Hunter-x-Hunter-2011. Here[1] is a bash script I put together to download all of the One Piece video files from watchop.com . Of course, now that I've posted the script it'll probably stop working in the not-too-distant future.
I have the same process... but stop at Netflix; all the other (legal) solutions are either too complex or too expensive (not to mention, I'm not in the US, so subscribing to US-based Amazon Prime would be of little value).
> Is it available anywhere online for purchase? Cool. Buy it and watch it.
A week later. And I would have to get an archaic optical drive. It also creates useless waste and is usually way too expensive for an hour of entertainment.
For me, none of the options before that is available so I can either don't watch it or pirate it with "I'll pay for it later" attitude. It worked well enough for games and software in general (pirated everything since maybe three or four years back).
"Young consumers, taking on their first apartments..., are ignoring the existence of $100+ premium cable bundles."
I live in a college town and can attest that a lot of the new graduates I know forgo cable subscriptions, either because they are broke, or because they can't be bothered to navigate Comcast's bewildering array of "packages".
"Have the intentions of mandatory CanCon TV spending drifted so far from the reality that the whole scheme should be scrapped?"
[edit] Canadian HN'ers, what are your impressions of CanCon? Is it like a Canadian version of the BBC, and if so, does it make shows with that quality? (The BBC makes a few really decent shows and some amount of debatable tripe.)
CanCon stands for Canadian Content. High level, in order to maintain a broadcast licence in Canada, you need to have a certain percentage of your content be defined as "Canadian". The way you get a piece of content certified as Canadian is via point system - Canadian director, +1 point, Canadian lead actor, +1 point, etc... more info here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_content
One really odd thing about Canada is we don't "naturally" produce enough content for broadcasters to meet their Canadian content requirements (let alone content people actually want to consume), therefore there are HUGE subsidies in place for the production of Canadian content - like billions of dollars a year huge. These subsidies enable broadcasters to pick up Canadian shows cheaply in order to meet their quotas. Most Canadians don't realize how much money is given to media creators because the money is distributed in many different forms from different institutions, at both the provincial and federal level, i.e. those which invest in media (http://telefilm.ca/) distribute tax credits (i.e. http://www.omdc.on.ca/ ), and so fourth.
This is ignoring the CBC by the way, the government financed broadcast organization.
The subsidies haven't followed changes in Canadian media consumption patterns though, meaning we over-subsidize mediums which are consumed less and under-subsidize those that are consumed more. It will be interesting to see if / how things change moving forward.
We do have a Canadian version of the BBC; it's called the CBC. I hear that their radio stations are pretty good, but their TV channel really makes me wish that we just spent our government dollars on making the BBC iPlayer available in Canada.
>Canadian content (abbreviated CanCon, cancon or can-con) refers to the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) requirements, derived from the Broadcasting Act of Canada, that radio and television broadcasters (including cable and satellite specialty channels) must air a certain percentage of content that was at least partly written, produced, presented, or otherwise contributed to by persons from Canada.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_content
As others have said, CanCon is a quota for "Canadian" content on TV and the radio, which mostly means our radio stations play a lot more Nickelback than anyone wants to listen to.
CanCon is generally pretty bad and shouldn't be compared to the BBC, though recently I've read some Canadian production companies have had a fair amount of success in selling their shows to US cable companies.
Someone from Quebec should chime in because from my understanding their locally made product is of higher quality than that of English Canada.
Literally nobody I know has cable, just isn't worth it. Anything worth watching has a way to download it online easily and hassle free and if you don't feel like paying there's a million ways to download it regardless.
In general, we think there is a fundamental misconception about piracy. Piracy is almost always a service problem and not a pricing problem.
Those two sentences should be tattooed on every music, film, and publishing executive's forehead. As every convenient online service (iTunes, Netflix, Steam, Kindle) has demonstrated, people will legally purchase content, so long as the option of legal purchase is easier and more convenient than piracy.
Even Netflix, Kindle, iTunes have significant accessibility issues - as a Canadian I find US friends online have access to a much greater library than the Canadian equivalent. I can only assume this is license related (as opposed to concerns around the incremental cost of distribution of online streams!).
A good example actually comes from BBC - QI (Quite Interesting) uses some media whose licensing/copywrite is prohibitively expensive in the US relative to UK that the program cannot be broadcast by BBC America / BBC Canada.
Imagine how far piracy would drop if Netflix Canada actually had some decent content (there's some good stuff, but if you go looking for anything specific, it's nearly always not there - American Netflix is far superior).
As a Canadian, that's what I've heard too. Netflix Canada = sucks.
Not that I personally like streaming anyway... but the piracy problem is a tough one because it's so quick and easy, but is not always reliable nor safe (and obviously screws the creator in terms of $$). However, piracy can also go beyond the original creation, like how Warcraft 2 was ported to work on modern operating systems. Will be interesting to see in 10 years where things go.
Okay, I'll just come out and say it. As a poor college student, I used to pirate a lot, I don't after having gotten Netflix. It just makes things too easy, that's all there is to it.
Also, interestingly, because I've basically watched all the shows and movies that I was interested in I'll actually be cutting my subscription soon.
People far smarter than me have been saying for a long time that if you make the price of the content more reasonable and make it far easier to get, most people wouldn't bother to pirate.
I have no idea about the numbers, but it's good to see someone who makes money on providing the easier content providing some data on the fact that one of the best ways to remove piracy isn't to randomly sue people to scare them, but to provide them a good product, at a reasonable price and not to go out of your way to make it difficult for people to purchase/license/rent your product.
The impressive thing is that this happened with Netflix Canada's selection being a joke compared to that of the U.S. version of Netflix. This doesn't just show that people will choose the legal path to obtaining the content they want if it's available. It actually shows that a significant number of people will limit their choices to what is legally available!
Personally, I was hoping Netflix Canada would have a tougher time until they bother to improve their selection just a tad.
I've always regarded these piracy statistics with great suspicion, regardless of the point the person pushing them is trying to make (even then, usually any comments made about piracy statistics are by media industry types banging on about how they're close to bankruptcy or similar).
I assume they're doing something like connecting to a random swarm and counting IPs, problem is that makes a number of faulty assumptions:
* 1 IP = 1 person
* Person on the swarm is necessarily there to download
* Person on the swarm is necessarily downloading something they don't have a license for
* Person on the swarm is necessarily consuming the media they're downloading (some people just like to collect)
* Public trackers are the only means of pirating via torrent
* Other mediums are completely ignored (IRC/Usenet/HTTP sites/EDonkey/DC++/etc etc etc etc)
Is there anything else which has happened recently in the Canadian media space which could have led to the decrease? I understand that we should be careful with correlation/causation, but it seems like a fairly reasonable connection.
I've said time and time again: IMO Piracy is often not out of malice and being unwilling to pay for things (although no doubt it happens.) It's about convenience. If you give three options:
1) Walk into town and pay £15 for a disc totalling around an hour.
2) Download it from a pirate site totalling about 10 hours but with no effort required for free.
3) Pay £1.99 on iTunes so I rent it and have it instantly available to stream.
I'm sure it would decrease in the U.S. as well if all the cable companies weren't greedy, antiquated whoremongers. Consumers find alternatives when all the options available are sub-par.
That being said I'm glad newer options are becoming increasingly more available, despite setbacks from the regulators.
Why isn't the movie industry posting this happy news about piracy? Because this is actually defeat to them. They no longer control the most important distribution channel. This is what the war on piracy has been all about for the last 10 years. And the industry is finally losing the battle.
[+] [-] SwellJoe|12 years ago|reply
Is it on Netflix? Cool. Watch it.
Is it on Amazon Prime? Cool. Watch it.
Is it on Amazon Instant Video for rent or purchase? Cool. Buy it and watch it.
Is it available anywhere online for purchase? Cool. Buy it and watch it.
Not available for purchase online? Pirate Bay.
[+] [-] xenophanes|12 years ago|reply
IMO they should try achieving feature parity -- or better, actually innovate -- to cut down piracy further. (Yes the paid stuff is arguably ahead on certain features like convenience. But not others.)
[+] [-] notatoad|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bowlofpetunias|12 years ago|reply
Also "purchase" should be "non-DRM or single-platform format crippled purchase".
Oh, we now have Netflix in the Netherlands, since a few weeks. The actual selection is a joke. Yes, I understand it's the copyright mafia's doing, but don't ask me to pay the same price as Americans for a fraction of the product.
[+] [-] mbillie1|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] MacsHeadroom|12 years ago|reply
Is it on Netflix? Doesn't matter, can't use Netflix.
Is it on Amazon Prime? Doesn't matter, can't use Amazon Prime.
Is it on Amazon Instant Video for rent or purchase? Doesn't matter, can't use it.
Do I actually want to own a copy permanently and is it available anywhere online for purchase for a reasonable price, in high quality, and DRM free?
No? Pirate Bay.
[+] [-] smtddr|12 years ago|reply
1. http://pastie.org/pastes/8353546/text
[+] [-] bambax|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] baddox|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rplnt|12 years ago|reply
A week later. And I would have to get an archaic optical drive. It also creates useless waste and is usually way too expensive for an hour of entertainment.
For me, none of the options before that is available so I can either don't watch it or pirate it with "I'll pay for it later" attitude. It worked well enough for games and software in general (pirated everything since maybe three or four years back).
[+] [-] aylons|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Tichy|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rodolphoarruda|12 years ago|reply
Will it come to theaters someday and coincide with my wife's good mood? Yes. Ok, it's worth the wait.
For any other scenario, Netflix.
[+] [-] parennoob|12 years ago|reply
I live in a college town and can attest that a lot of the new graduates I know forgo cable subscriptions, either because they are broke, or because they can't be bothered to navigate Comcast's bewildering array of "packages".
"Have the intentions of mandatory CanCon TV spending drifted so far from the reality that the whole scheme should be scrapped?"
[edit] Canadian HN'ers, what are your impressions of CanCon? Is it like a Canadian version of the BBC, and if so, does it make shows with that quality? (The BBC makes a few really decent shows and some amount of debatable tripe.)
[+] [-] kitcar|12 years ago|reply
One really odd thing about Canada is we don't "naturally" produce enough content for broadcasters to meet their Canadian content requirements (let alone content people actually want to consume), therefore there are HUGE subsidies in place for the production of Canadian content - like billions of dollars a year huge. These subsidies enable broadcasters to pick up Canadian shows cheaply in order to meet their quotas. Most Canadians don't realize how much money is given to media creators because the money is distributed in many different forms from different institutions, at both the provincial and federal level, i.e. those which invest in media (http://telefilm.ca/) distribute tax credits (i.e. http://www.omdc.on.ca/ ), and so fourth. This is ignoring the CBC by the way, the government financed broadcast organization.
The subsidies haven't followed changes in Canadian media consumption patterns though, meaning we over-subsidize mediums which are consumed less and under-subsidize those that are consumed more. It will be interesting to see if / how things change moving forward.
[+] [-] cbhl|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] yahelc|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] BruceIV|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Tiktaalik|12 years ago|reply
Someone from Quebec should chime in because from my understanding their locally made product is of higher quality than that of English Canada.
[+] [-] trafficlight|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rfnslyr|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] quanticle|12 years ago|reply
In general, we think there is a fundamental misconception about piracy. Piracy is almost always a service problem and not a pricing problem.
Those two sentences should be tattooed on every music, film, and publishing executive's forehead. As every convenient online service (iTunes, Netflix, Steam, Kindle) has demonstrated, people will legally purchase content, so long as the option of legal purchase is easier and more convenient than piracy.
[1] http://www.tcs.cam.ac.uk/story_type/site_trail_story/intervi...
[+] [-] Sniperfish|12 years ago|reply
A good example actually comes from BBC - QI (Quite Interesting) uses some media whose licensing/copywrite is prohibitively expensive in the US relative to UK that the program cannot be broadcast by BBC America / BBC Canada.
[+] [-] BruceIV|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] eigenvector|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cclogg|12 years ago|reply
Not that I personally like streaming anyway... but the piracy problem is a tough one because it's so quick and easy, but is not always reliable nor safe (and obviously screws the creator in terms of $$). However, piracy can also go beyond the original creation, like how Warcraft 2 was ported to work on modern operating systems. Will be interesting to see in 10 years where things go.
[+] [-] selmnoo|12 years ago|reply
Also, interestingly, because I've basically watched all the shows and movies that I was interested in I'll actually be cutting my subscription soon.
[+] [-] el_chapitan|12 years ago|reply
I have no idea about the numbers, but it's good to see someone who makes money on providing the easier content providing some data on the fact that one of the best ways to remove piracy isn't to randomly sue people to scare them, but to provide them a good product, at a reasonable price and not to go out of your way to make it difficult for people to purchase/license/rent your product.
[+] [-] venomsnake|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] beloch|12 years ago|reply
Personally, I was hoping Netflix Canada would have a tougher time until they bother to improve their selection just a tad.
[+] [-] shaggyfrog|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Karunamon|12 years ago|reply
I assume they're doing something like connecting to a random swarm and counting IPs, problem is that makes a number of faulty assumptions:
[+] [-] batiudrami|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] andyhmltn|12 years ago|reply
1) Walk into town and pay £15 for a disc totalling around an hour.
2) Download it from a pirate site totalling about 10 hours but with no effort required for free.
3) Pay £1.99 on iTunes so I rent it and have it instantly available to stream.
I am ALWAYS going to pick the last one.
[+] [-] wluu|12 years ago|reply
There is a demand for it here, and there's even many Australians that buy a US VPN service to buy a Netflix subscription. See - http://www.zdnet.com/au/australians-encouraged-to-bypass-net...
[+] [-] methodin|12 years ago|reply
That being said I'm glad newer options are becoming increasingly more available, despite setbacks from the regulators.
[+] [-] marvin|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] josephagoss|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] luminaobscura|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jack9|12 years ago|reply
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