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Aren't executives hired to be executives because they understand their consumers?

These guys (in a lot of industries, spanning a lot of companies) just don't get it...

This is a riot... because we all know how "secure" DVDs are....

Give me a break! People will use the iTunes store because they WANT to purchase the content - not because they want to pirate it!!!

Unfortunately, many executives are hired because they are the best at "managing up," even as they undermine other executive competitors within the company. Too often, those doing the hiring are easily fooled. Sounds harsh, but it's true.

What prevents someone from buying a DVD and ripping it a 1,000 times?




Studio logic makes no sense. I mean, it's not like Steve Jobs doesn't have a vested interest in a Hollywood Studio or something...Like Disney...like billions...

Yeah... but try to rip a HD DVD or a BLU-RAY disc I guess they want same level of security...

Do these characters have any idea how piracy works? It's not like the pirates wait for Apple to provide a digital version of the video/audio for them to steal it...

I know this "guy" who belongs to Blockbuster Online and the local Blockbuster video store nearby. Every week he runs to his mailbox to collect three vintage movies at a time, and then to the BB store to check out as many as five brand new titles . . . which he then rips (using MTR) and distributes to a few close friends at a local marina.

No matter how DRM-manic the studios get (SONY is the worst), there is absolutely nothing they can do to stop the above kind of behavior. NOTHING. All they are doing is pissing off legitimate customers who want to play by a set of fair and easily understood rules. They're not affecting the aforementioned "guy" one iota. (According to him, "Superman Returns" was copied this morning in a little less than 10 minutes.)

When will they ever learn?

I'll never own a HD DVD or Blu_Ray disc so I guess I won't get the chance.

now lets seriously think about this for a second.

if i wanted to pirate a movie. what would i do?


1. go down to the local video store, and hire the movie for 5 bucks.

or

2. download the movie of itunes for 10-15 bucks. (up to 3 times more)


now anyone with some sense would hire the movie.
Hollywoos movie studios are just being fussy.

It is important to remember that it took the music industry years of piracy to allow Apple to distribute their products.

It could take a few years of plummeting DVD sales before the movie industry fully accepts a new way of thinking.

As yet the number of people ripping DVDs is small because of the time it takes and the size of the resulting files. But computers are getting faster, include DVD burners as standard and software better. Soon it will be a cinch to do and ever tom, dick and harry will be getting movies off netflix and rip to their hearts content.

As for executives being good at their job, the main aim of an executive is to make as much money for themselves as possible. In a lot of cases that makes money for the company and the shareholders.

Someone will crack HD DVD and Blu-ray sooner or later. However since the files will be larger and the media and burners more expensive in the short term, it will be a while before it becomes mainstream.

I rip all my Netflix films to iPod format. Fuck the Studios.

Studios are idiots. I'll just RIP my DVDs instead. Besides, that way I can edit out the crap hollyweird puts into some of their movies.

Why? People watch a movie once or twice in their lives, with few exceptions. Why would one want to pay such ludicrous amounts of money for movies as they would for music?

Greed is typical in American businesses, and why America will in the long run keep falling farthr and farther behind technologically thant he rest of the developed world.

Bozos

Hehe... those shtupid executives. I can just go to one of the mall in Southeast Asia and bought any dvds, even movies that hasn't even came out in the market yet for US$2.15. Rip 'em using "one of those" free software from the internet and synced them with my iPod with video. Take that...

Seriously, who are they trying to kid. Are they gonna make Apple put in a software on the iPod to phone home (like Windows XP) and disable it until you call the help line and paid extra money since the video is in more than one iPod? Oh yeah... they did that with the Zune thingy "social" three days or three plays

Most of these executives just trying to keep busy to show their shareholders that they are doing something to justify the big bucks they are being paid. If not, their title is just gonna be ex of something (which should be anyway considering how many billions of dollars they are missing out by not offering movies on iTunes hehe...)

If these rumors of demands by the movie studios are true, then Apple should just say F*ck it, and go the other way.

Make iTunes and iTV and iPods compatible with divx, xvid and all that. They'll certainly sell a lot more hardware that way.

Personally I cannot see why they are bending over backwards trying to negotiate with the studios. If the studios listened to Apple, it would be mutually beneficial. Instead, the studios want to create the kind of prohibitive video store that only a Zune would like.

MDN, You've got exactly the type of pirate mentality that Hollywood hates. I can't believe you would advocate people buying "...90 minutes of black soundless content for $9.99-$14.99".

Buying??? You, and your family should go to jail for publishing such thoughts.

It should be $9.99-$14.99 per person, per view.

Plus, I think you're violating copyright law by describing an extended version of a John Cale video.

> differences between the value of music and television content and feature film content

Frankly, I find the value of great TV shows like Battlestar Galactica and Lost to of much higher value than most feature films.

Right now, Disney is the only studio benefitting from Apple. It's only a matter of time. One by one, they will all deal with Apple WITHOUT Apple making any concessions. Apple is in a better positon to wait than the studios.

How is limiting the number of devices going to stop piracy? I don't give my allocation of devices to my friends because I don't want them to have access to my account. I can only watch in one place at a time and if a member of my household wanted to watch the same thing in a different room, do they really think I would have bought a second dvd? On terms of cracking the encryption and redistributing it, well if I've done that there limitations are meaningless anyway. Idiots.

You can tell that none of these people have ever or will ever need to pay for a download and live with this crap they're tying to impose on everyone else.

Steve Jobs must be wondering how it is these guys haven't learnt anything yet.

His principle, of making it simple, easy and cheap -really cheap, so we all buy it without thinking twice- has been lost on them.

They still, despite all the evidence of iTunes and its music sales, have not seen that they have to go a different route entirely and pile 'em high and sell 'em cheap - AND SELL THEM IN VAST QUANTITIES.

iTunes selling every film for $5 would make it too much hassle for anyone to bother ripping or stealing them. Hell they might sell a copy of every film to every household IN THE WORLD.

They would make vastly more money because their distribution costs would come to all but ZERO.

Doug Morris and his ilk are going to be seen as the most short sighted generation of management that ever existed.

If they continue as they are now, they are going to lose big time, even I will resort to ripping and downloading torrents, just to make sure they see their mistake sooner!

These movie studio execs are nuts.

At least two of the music majors have been seriously contemplating selling DRM-free music (probably in MP3 format) for quite some time now. They'll almost certainly put a watermark in the files, and initially at least it's most likely to be from smaller labels (more "independent" operations) owned by the majors.

Why would they do this? Well, they rightly believe that iTunes isn't necessarily the best venue for breaking acts, and see digital sales as being a good thing.

Music companies move very slowly on these things though, so don't expect this to happen any time soon.

The days of DRM protected music may be numbered.

It is a good sign that Apple seems to want to transfer over to movies the ability to copy content on to more than one home computer (hopefully 5, like music) within the DRM.

The customer is always right. Studios need to either find a way to make money helping the customer remain honest, or you will turn customers dishonest by having to try a free work around to get what they need.

In the end, the customer always wins.

If the Hollywood majors hold out, the smaller, independent studios will make a killing with the publicity and limited choice when signing up with the iTMS e.g. who had heard of Lion Studios before the CEO told us they were signing with Apple!

> now lets seriously think about this for a second.

> if i wanted to pirate a movie. what would i do?

> 1. go down to the local video store, and hire the movie for 5 bucks.
> . . . . or. . . .
> 2. download the movie of itunes for 10-15 bucks. (up to 3 times more)
. . . . or. . . .
3. buy pirate dvds from asia at $2 a pop;
. . . . or. . . .
4. download it off <...any number of p2p networks...> and pay zip plus avoid the rip;

5. or all of the above in no particular order.

So, Hollywood studios have a choice: make content easily and cheaply available in iTunes and take the easy money or leave it on the table.

If film studios want to sell films on DVD and online, it is their responsibility to provide uncrackable DRM not Apple's. This only proves that these people are either too damn lazy or too stupid to distribute their product with the necessary protection.

Many good points mentioned here. Congrats to all

i'm getting iAdware diverts form MDN as well. What is going on MDN???????????

These studios fail to realise that SJ is in the movie business too (Pixar, Disney), and he is not about to do anything that will damage those interests...

This isn't really about logic. This is the studios trying to prove that they have a bigger dong than Apple. They feel threatened by Apple's influence and want to show that they can exert power over Apple. Okay, there may be a logic to the studio's position though. If they can get Apple to capitulate on stupid ineffective points now that gives them more power in the next round of negotiations.

The film studios appear to be the using same unconvincing argument that was made when VHS became popular.

The Hollywood studios are moving to piss in their own -- and Apple's -- soup. This is a real threat to Apple. These entertainment Nazis do not seem to get it that Apple's model is based on giving the consumer enough fair use that paying for movies is less painful than illegally ripping them. If those bozos pull out their peckers and squirt, Zune like, into the broth, consumers will throw up their hands and rip DVDs with abandon on a large scale.

But make no mistake, the threat to Apple and AAPL is real. The studio heads are stupid enough to squirt through their Zunes and destroy a money stream with a toxic spray.

Jeff, you are right on the mark. I can rent a flick for $2.00 and rip it or purchase the same film from Apple for $9.99 to $14.99. The economics of buying from iTunes seems to be more favorable to the studios than someone renting the same film and ripping it. I don't see where the studios have the upper hand except to extract a greater share of the profits from iTunes by withholding their product from sale on iTunes. It seems that the studios already know that DRM is dead and their power is waning.

Still, once the technology develops to permit viewing rented films at home in HD online in real time, DRM will finally be buried. If I were a member of the film studios, I would finance and partner with those people who are working to deliver HD online before these same people beat the studios to the punch and reap the profits for themselves.

If hollywood doesn't get their sh*t together, we'll just start stealing everything. I don't think they get it. Make the content worth what they charge or people will just go around the DRM du jour.

Why don't we just let Apple and Universal work it out. We don't a bunch of second guessing, second rate journalists panting about what may happen before it happens.

Easiest job in the world is that of the critic. Saftey from the sidelines.

If the major studios want to sell their products online, let them build their own distribution system. The days of the movie moguls are over, the major studios need to get used to it.

Dave, are you a passive, unassertive, pliable, submissive type?

I thought so.

MPAA to charge $50 licensing fee for home theatre set-ups

well, we'll see who is bigger, hollywood or apple. once one of the studios caves in, the rest will collapse like dominoes....

"Jeff, you are right on the mark. I can rent a flick for $2.00 and rip it or purchase the same film from Apple for $9.99 to $14.99."

Exactly and it gets worse. McDonald's has been test marketing a video rental kiosk in Denver, St Louis and other areas where the rentals are only $1.00.

Probably the best protection the studios have is that every digital purchase from Apple, NetFlix, etc requires a credit card. The studios could thus put a digital marker on each downloaded film. This way, they can perhaps track down the person illegally distributing the film.

On an aside, I sat in on some of the IEEE meetings (8 years ago) where the digital film standards where being discussed. As always, the primary issue was piracy and at that time, every one realized that at some point in the distribution channel, a copyable, useable stream would have to exist in order for the film to be shown. There didn't seem to be anyway to avoid it.

MBguy and others have clicked onto the idea that myself and many of my friends have been doing. We go down to the video store and do the rent and rip. So why do we do this?

1. We all grew up in a time when we taped movies onto VHS tapes and watched them when we wanted to. And contrary to what the movie studios want us to think, we added these movies to OUR collection.

2. Making copies of dvds is just an extension of point one.

3. We all don't give a fudge about DRM. DRM is a challenge that we want to bust through.

4. We all grew up in a time where we made cassette copies of vinyl and our friends made copies of their own vinyl collectionand gave it to us. We swapped music. Nowadays we make copies of OUR music and rip them onto cds or dvds. So what is the difference?

5. I get music and movies where and when I choose.

6. All of my friends still go to the movies and we still go and see bands (although some of my friends see themselves as being too old to see a bands…boring old farts!!)

7. Do you know that when you rent a dvd that a small percentage goes to the copyright holder? What do they want us to do, have us paying left, right and center?

I know this might sound a bit radical but I can see one way around all of this. Put a small surcharge on all dvd players, mp3 players, computers etc and give the money from the surcharge to the copyright holders, with the proviso that ALL DRM is banned. I know it sounds like big government but at least it would stop most of the piracy because everyone would be getting a cut of the action.

P.S. I'm now going to rip those dvds that I rented from the video store so I can add them to MY movie collection.

i advocate pirating every DVD from these studios. hell, most of the movies the studios put out these days are crap. i can't remember the last time i really wanted to see a movie - they just aren't good enough anymore. sure, every once in a while a good one comes along, but hey, peter jackson can only do so many films at a time.

they are nothing but greedy bastards. they obviously do not understand the consumer and are only concerned with their bottom line. well then, i say let's affect their bottom line and cut off their revenue stream. buy all your dvd's from china!

we will see how long their shareholders will like a massive loss of piracy over petty device restrictions that mean squat.

mike k.

ever here of satire? i hope you don't think that is a serious new link. if so, you should check out the onion for real news.

Anti DRM

I like your idea for the surcharge and no DRM. I think it goes without saying that surcharge will be added to the cost of media also, i.e. blank DVDs, CDs, Tapes, etc...

The exception to that should be profession specific uses. Example: A video production company needing to make a copy of something they produced to show a client.

What it comes down to is that media companies, studios or record labels etc., need to change their business model to fit into the reality of today's technology. They're trying to make laws and technology to fit their business model and we all know that doesn't work.

Well, looks like Apple will have to make the studios fall one at a time.

I think it will be more like a dam slowly bursting.

The only thing they hate worse than a dud, losing money to piracy, or having to answer to anyone is to see another studio having success that they are not a part of.

They have a shockingly crappy business outlook.

This is precisely why I don't watch TV or movies any more. The slime balls that run things are so extremely annoying that there is no way I'm going to spend my money on their products. Also the quality of the material they put out is horrible. It's more fun to live life any way than stare like a zombie at the TV or movie screen. To top it all off Hollyood is spilling over with liberal, commie, terrorist lovers.

bruce,

I totally agree. Tax blank media and exempt professional users. You could have problems with many business who use blank media for backups. And perhaps these businesses pay the surcharge anyway, or get a rebate from their income tax payments. However video companies, photographers etc, would most definitely be exempt.

It's just a crazy situation where ordinary users are having to pay huge payouts for copyright breaches. And in Australia they're criminalising breaches of DRM. That's nuts. Likewise, the mere possession of dvd ripping s/ware is a federal offence in that country. Crazy stuff.

If governments don't intervene soon the whole system will become a joke because eveyone will be breaching copyright (like when you give some music to a friend).

How about some more feedback on this MDN readers.

This is pathetic. It's just excuses and bargaining tools to squeeze more money out of Apple and us.

Any even semi-popular American movie is on the street in China. I've seen it first hand numerous times. Never bought one or tested the quality, but it was cheap. I saw Spider Man in China on their TV broadcast with Chinese overdubs the same month it came out on DVD here in America.

Why does apple just have a five second scren on each movie of the name and address of the owner of the movie and use the same digital rights as iTunes.

Then you would have to strip off the rights to remove the 5 second intro.

No one would want to give the movie out. Marry the movie to the machine and be done with it.

webbyswim: ever here of satire?

...

It is amazing how much money the studios will lose this holiday season on lost revenues to the IPod. What are they thinking?

Everyone is getting an IPod. Don't the studios want to benefit from this Holiday season with people buying movies? along with their new video IPods. I would be willing to bet December 26th and 25th would be the most movies sold in the history of home movie sales......

What bumble heads.

This is fine. Let the independent studios along with Disney's studios rake in the money. The DRM is restrictive enough, don't overdo it. Stick to your guns Apple.

I echo the sentiments of some of the posters. Why would a pirate pay $10+ for a "lower quality" digital file when they can join Netflix and rip them at DVD resolution? I know _someone_ who has nearly 3TB (that's right, terabytes) of Netflix rips. iTunes definitely isn't the problem to the studios.

Hey Someone Else,

How is your friend hurting the movie studios? So what if he has ripped 3TB of movies from the rentals from Netflix. Whats the difference if he has a copy of these movies or if he doesn't? Nothing. He paid for the rentals. The studios got their cut. How many of these movies is he actually ever going to watch again? He's just wasting space if you ask me.