I don't get it. Since when is "They don't provide it in the format I want it" a valid excuse for piracy. (Ethical discussions of piracy aside)
If you want to download it because that is the format/medium you prefer then download it (from bit torrent or whatever) and then afterwards go and pay for it by buying the DVD even if you never watch it.
(If you are going to pirate and claim it's ethical, you need a more reasoned argument for it's validity)
(Perhaps technically a grey area yes, but you are saying you are willing to pay, so why not pay?)
Perhaps even better would be to download it, and then send a letter + payment to the studio and explain that you wanted to pay for their excellent film but also wanted to download it for convenience. If enough people did this it might encourage them to provide the service you want.
oh it's not a valid excuse for piracy, piracy is always wrong but it's an explanation of why I pirate. I do buy films and TV shows when I can (I paid $80 for a boxset of The Wire last week (excellent show btw)) but often I can't find the films I want in store so my choice is to either go without or pirate. I have no problem paying, but the availability is a problem. If there were a service that I could pay for and stream movies when I wanted to and they were available I'd have no problem paying for and using.
For example, last week I wanted to watch the latest Season of Dexter which had just finished, I'd have had no problem paying for it but I couldn't, it's not available, so I pirated it.
Because the price of the DVD reflects a whole different set of cost than digital distribution, and doesn't provide any incentive to the movie industry to do get with the programme and license their movies to digital media distribution hubs like netflix. I;m tired of seeing the same old movies touted on netflix streaming as 'new' simply because the movie industry cannot figure out a licensing arrangement...
Perhaps even better would be to download it, and then send a letter + payment to the studio and explain that you wanted to pay for their excellent film but also wanted to download it for convenience. If enough people did this it might encourage them to provide the service you want.
I doubt it. It's clear that the only thing the studios respond to is their bottom line. There is simply no way Netflix streaming, Spotify, etc would exist if it weren't for piracy. We'd still be buying high-margin CDs and DVDs.
Saying "Your product wasn't available in the format that I wanted, so I torrented it and gave you this money to compensate you" is hardly going to convince them to change their ways. They might sue you though: there's lots of money in that.
I occasionally torrent movies and TV shows, but I have a Blockbuster account and I always check them out once they're legally available months later and return them unwatched, since I've already seen them. That way I figure the content producers still get a paper trail of paid demand or ratings or something.
If they were available on demand, DRM-free NOW so that I could watch them when and where I want, I would happily just pay for them and not go through all this bullshit.
Surely if you put ethical discussions aside, then wanting a movie in a particular format is a valid excuse for getting them in that way? Sure, he could then choose to pay them, but what about ease-of-use.
Also, at what point did he claim that it was ethical?
If you want to download it because that is the format/medium you prefer then download it (from bit torrent or whatever) and then afterwards go and pay for it by buying the DVD even if you never watch it.
(If you are going to pirate and claim it's ethical, you need a more reasoned argument for it's validity)
(Perhaps technically a grey area yes, but you are saying you are willing to pay, so why not pay?)
Perhaps even better would be to download it, and then send a letter + payment to the studio and explain that you wanted to pay for their excellent film but also wanted to download it for convenience. If enough people did this it might encourage them to provide the service you want.