

60 Minutes - Pirates of the Internet (2003) ... your thoughts now 6 years on? - froo
http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoID=1014124983

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quoderat
The strangest thing about me for all the brouhaha over piracy is how few
people so far seem to have found a way -- or even wanted to find a way -- to
capitalize on the best, fastest, easiest distribution system in the world.

And there's the fact that computers are basically made to duplicate data, and
we have whole industries trying to stop the very nature of computers and
networks.

I don't think I will ever understand human nature.

But I sure miss Napster, and would've paid $50+ a month for that service
alone. The record industry was just mentally deficient not to capitalize on
that, no matter what Matt Maroon thinks about their intelligence.

~~~
froo
_The strangest thing about me for all the brouhaha over piracy is how few
people so far seem to have found a way -- or even wanted to find a way -- to
capitalize on the best, fastest, easiest distribution system in the world._

To be fair, I think there is a clear distinction between piracy and p2p
networks.

For example, Blizzard uses bittorrent to distribute patches for World of
Warcraft, reducing load on their servers and thus, cost for them.

They were also (funnily enough) a relative early adopter of the Divx format
back when it was almost exclusively used for movie sharing over the internet
(aka Piracy)

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froo
I went back and watched this and found it highly interesting.

The technology has advanced from mostly bittorrent instead of gnutella based
networks.

The film industry is producing arguably better blockbusters (The Dark Knight
vs Signs?) and are making more money than before with this year being one of
the biggest years on record, even during a recession.

[http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-
boxoffice2-2009feb02,0...](http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-
boxoffice2-2009feb02,0,7465333.story)

Mediadefender are now involved in a case where they DOS'd legitimate servers.

~~~
kwamenum86
Contemporary films will always have higher box office grosses because of
inflation. The number of ticket sales is a better figure to use for
comparison. Unfortunately that figure is rarely if ever reported.

~~~
froo
_The number of ticket sales is a better figure to use for comparison_

...which if you check the article I linked is also reported.

Quote:

"An increase in ticket prices also helped boost January's box office. The
average ticket price was $7.29 last month, up from $7.18 a year ago. But
attendance surged in spite of the higher cost. Audiences bought 141 million
movie tickets in January, up 16% from the 121 million sold during the same
month last year."

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mxcl
God, are all documentaries in America like that? Like obviously biased? And
scare-mongering? I couldn't watch more than a few minutes as it made me feel
sick.

~~~
rms
No, it's a lowest common denominator documentary from a broadcast network TV
newsmagazine. A step up is the type of documentary you see on the Discovery or
History channels. The highest form of documentary is cinéma vérité. All of the
different types are made and produced in the USA.

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paul9290
Piracy has prompted Hulu and for me killed my previous downloading habits, as
well changed my view on whether downloading is morally wrong or not. Also
starting up and running my own venture changed my views and sympathies for any
business owner; small to large!

