Posts by Cameron Junge

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  • Speaker: ACTA: Don't sell us down the river,

    Hell, many indies and label-free acts I know will be extremely pissed off if ACTA or any other restraint succeeds in wiping out the P2P networks, Hype Machine and blogs as these are crucial to their marketing and very existence. They don't feel any need to go back to the long past pre-adapt or die days that the likes of RIAA or RIANZ would like to see a return to.

    I think that's a consequence that many don't think of. Not only will something like ACTA entrench the current system into law, with harsh penalties, it'll remove the ability of non-mainstream artists from competing directly.

    I think it's one of the greatest (mis-)achievements mainstream media companies have achieved - to paraphrase: they are the way, the truth, the life. No one sells music/movies/etc except through them.

    Auckland • Since Jan 2009 • 45 posts Report Reply

  • Speaker: ACTA: Don't sell us down the river,

    It took about three years from the release of DVDs before deCSS made it into the wild.

    The main issue with CSS was that it prevented legal access to DVDs on systems like Linux, and it was used to enforce region encoding.

    Luckily for Blu-ray, region encoding hasn't been enforced (yet) so people are less worried about the DRM preventing them playing the DVD they were sent by Aunty Jane in the US. And for those people who can't play it legally (OSX, Linux, etc), there's always bittorrent :P

    Auckland • Since Jan 2009 • 45 posts Report Reply

  • Speaker: ACTA: Don't sell us down the river,

    Blu-Ray's state of imperviousness to protracted attempts at cracking is incredibly unlikely to last, unless the creators of the system have found some new variation of complex, unsolved math (the same basis as public-key encryption, for example) that can be applied to the problem in a totally novel way. That is the reality.

    Um, AnyDVD is as universal a crack for Blu-Ray as you'll find at the moment. It's for Windows PCs & is a commercial product.

    Because Blu-Ray is based on AACS the keys are relatively easy to find and use. There's also BD+ (a virtual machine) which means the protections can change quite rapidly and easily. AnyDVD regularly releases patches to break these protections.

    It did take a while for them to release a version that was compatible - Blu-ray was released Jun '06, AnyDVD HD was released March '07 and was the first (& most successful it seems) method of cracking Blu-ray & HD-DVD.

    Auckland • Since Jan 2009 • 45 posts Report Reply

  • Speaker: ACTA: Don't sell us down the river,

    Meanwhile, Modern Warfare 2 takes a staggering $550 million in its first five days on sale -- and that's while the torrent and warez sites seem to be groaning with cracks and copies of it. People still do seem to buy stuff.

    And yet another place where discretionary spending it done. That $20 a week I mentioned before will need to be saved for 5 or 6 weeks to buy that game, rather than a movie or CD.

    A few games recently have earnt more than many movies. That's another impact on media's bottom line. And it's probably the same target market as well.

    Auckland • Since Jan 2009 • 45 posts Report Reply

  • Speaker: ACTA: Don't sell us down the river,

    That will kill a lot of media, particularly high-investment work like orchestral music.

    I do wonder how much "piracy" really would affect an orchestra. I mean, surely they would make most of their earnings from public performances & other mediums (TV, etc)? In saying that, I have bought classical music CDs, but never downloaded one.

    Seems to me it would be similar to watching an opera on TV.

    And again, we get back to the experience... (I wonder if I'm getting repetitive yet :)

    Auckland • Since Jan 2009 • 45 posts Report Reply

  • Speaker: ACTA: Don't sell us down the river,

    People can and do download without any intention of buying music, attending gigs or buying t-shirts.

    But are they a loss in sales then?

    A student who has $20 to spend a week on entertainment has to choose where to spend it. If they choose to buy the latest CD of their favourite artist then they can't afford to go to a movie. So they download it for free. Or vice versa.

    My point is, in some situations (and probably quite common situations) a downloaded movie or album isn't a loss. & with the right mindset it can be seen as a gain, as it's reaching more customers than if the person didn't download it.

    Thus why various studies have shown that downloading an album for free from a P2P site has, in some situations, increased sales for some artists. It increases exposure, and someone who otherwise wouldn't buy their album finds a couple of tracks & decides it is worth spending that $20 they have to spend that week on the CD.

    If anyone here hasn't heard of Janis Ian, go read her The Internet Debacle. It's a very interesting take on how the net can help artists.

    Auckland • Since Jan 2009 • 45 posts Report Reply

  • Speaker: ACTA: Don't sell us down the river,

    Doubt as much as you want, but Scribd is already here.

    I'm not seeing a problem here. Scribd opens up access for many small, and probably not so small, writers who otherwise would struggle to get their book published, unless they did it themselves, and then distribution would be a issue.

    It's just like indies leaping on the internet bandwagon to promote their self-recorded EP.

    But, as Russell was saying, and as I've said various times, while presenting content digitally, there's still the experience. For a book, it's holding it and turning the pages. For a CD it's reading the sleeve, or possibly extra content on it. For a DVD it's the bonus features, and possibly the case (I've bought 3 steelbooks for more than the plain case).

    Auckland • Since Jan 2009 • 45 posts Report Reply

  • Speaker: ACTA: Don't sell us down the river,

    ...anyone can make and record music in their garage these days - they don't need a recording studio, pressing plants, warehouses, trucks, or stores any more.
    [snip]
    ... real movies genuinely cost millions of dollars to make and for that reason they need to be able to make that money back or we just wont have any movies.

    I think you're getting mixed up with how things were, or are, versus how things are or could be!

    Music used to cost hundreds of thousands, if not millions to make a hit album/artist. Now it can be done with a Mac, Garageband and an internet connection.

    Movies do cost millions to make. But do they have to?

    Recently a mainstream movie called Gabriel was released. Cost: $150,000. Even taking in to account the deferred payments, the total probably was less than one mainstream actor's salary.

    Also closer to home is Peter Jackson's first few movies. Bad Taste: $25,000

    The costs don't have to be that high, and with improvements in digital recording more "home movies" may start being released. With free software like Massive and relatively cheap stuff like Maya even semi-decent special effects can be done at home.

    Auckland • Since Jan 2009 • 45 posts Report Reply

  • Speaker: ACTA: Don't sell us down the river,

    ... I believe limiting piracy is worthwhile avoid the film industry getting into serious trouble...

    I think the non-hardcore "pirates" would take what the MPAA, RIAA, IPA & BSA say more seriously if the numbers weren't so obviously skewed.

    By that I mean that the numbers spouted out by those organisations are so obviously high, with some airy-fairy methodology that they refuse to reveal, that it makes it hard to believe them.

    A couple of examples:
    * The BSA often spout on about how high piracy is, based on some theory that every computer sold has an "average" amount of software on it, and if sales don't match that number then it's piracy! But, with the rise of Linux and free software, this is no longer accurate (OOo anyone?). Also, if I download Photoshop it doesn't mean that I'd actually buy it if I couldn't download it (I wouldn't, it's vastly overpriced!).
    * A few years ago the MPAA decried the death of movies after a particularly bad year. Piracy was destroying their industry, rah, rah, rah. Then it was pointed out that consumers didn't like the majority of the movies released that year. Much easier to blame piracy rather than crap movies.
    * According to the RIAA, every song in a person's shared folder on Kazaa, etc has been downloaded 1000s of times! Yeah right! They can't even sue the right people!

    Auckland • Since Jan 2009 • 45 posts Report Reply

  • Speaker: ACTA: Don't sell us down the river,

    Because my only income is from my writing and if my writing is being ripped off (as it is) and I am getting nothing, what incentive do i have to continue writing?

    Exposure? Popularity? Future sales either directly or indirectly? And to use an example that is often used in regards to piracy... if the person couldn't download it for free, would they download/buy it at all? If the answer is no, then downloading for free is actually better than no download, if you see my point.

    Unauthorised download facilities provide nothing to the artist directly, and the indirect benefits are disputable.

    The $10 example above indicates that there are some instances where it is directly beneficial. But I admit that the example would be rare. But, that's also the wonder of the internet. The cost of exposure now is vastly less than it used to be, and the benefits are a lot more direct.

    I would guess that many artists would be happy to sell a bunch of CDs for $10 each if their profit is in the order of a $1 or 2 per unit. In addition to being a lot cheaper than mainstream CDs, they get more direct benefits.

    Hell, from what I've read, many artists would possibly be happy to take the risk of spending some time on the net to raise awareness of their music without having to sign their lives away to a recording company.

    Auckland • Since Jan 2009 • 45 posts Report Reply

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