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Hollywood: Google Fiber Leads To More Piracy
- Thread starter HardOCP News
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Over the years, the music and movie studios have opposed new technologies (cassettes, VHS, CDs, DVDs, etc) and in almost all cases these new technologies, when embraced, provided them with more profits. If they'd embrace the latest new tech (internet) they could have been Netflix or iTunes. They have to be some of the most short sighted people around.
They'd be more iTunes than Netflix. I don't doubt for a second they'd charge at least $2.00 per episode streamed .
westrock2000
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And what prey tell will these pirates put all these movies that they are able to download faster on to? Obviously they can download movies faster then they can watch them so they must be storing them on something. Does that cost money? Does that put money back in to the economy that eventually ends up back at the movie studio?
TwistedAegis
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Breaking news: MPAA sues Lenscrafters as they discover better eyesight leads to more piracy of movies. Lead MPAA lawyer, Hugh Douche, had this to say:
"Nowhere in the Constitution do you see the right to clear vision. Lenscrafters egregious and blatant attempt to provide consumers with the ability to clearly view pirated content is a disgusting breach of content creators rights to restrict who views their properties. We hope the court will be able to clearly see this, and we've freely spoken with them to the tune of $10M each and a new Ferrari; we believe our verbal argument will be persuasive."
Wrote this up as a joke, but it hits so close to home on certain issues, now I want to puke.
"Nowhere in the Constitution do you see the right to clear vision. Lenscrafters egregious and blatant attempt to provide consumers with the ability to clearly view pirated content is a disgusting breach of content creators rights to restrict who views their properties. We hope the court will be able to clearly see this, and we've freely spoken with them to the tune of $10M each and a new Ferrari; we believe our verbal argument will be persuasive."
Wrote this up as a joke, but it hits so close to home on certain issues, now I want to puke.
Armenius
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Remember that this is coming from the same group-think idea when the RIAA espoused that the music you could fill and iPod with was worth $8 billon, making the potential loss to the music industry equate to $264 quadrillion over the ~33 million iPods sold in 2012 if all of that music was pirated.
Copyright Math
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZadCj8O1-0
That's right folks, the geniuses that run Hollywood actually said this.
While everyone else bitches about the statement, I think it's stating the obvious. If one is prone to piracy, then a fatter pipe will allow you to pirate more stuff. Does anyone think that music piracy would have gotten and much traction if we were all still on 56k modems?
In other news, Gb Fiber will lead to piracy of higher quality Blu Ray rips. Most probably wouldn't bother with a 50GB d/l over a 30Mb (or even 50Mb) pipe, but at 1000Mb, you go for a higher quality.
Before broadband, it'd take hours to download an album (assumes 56k modem hitting 5.6KB download speeds) at roughly 192 kbs (used, because I used that for some old vorbis files). Today, virtually everything is 320kbs and it'd probably take you you 2 minutes to d/l a flac version of the same album.
This doesn't make Gb Fiber bad, but only an ostrich would argue it won't lead to an increase in piracy and that the quality of what is pirated will improve.
D
Deleted member 108676
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Your argument assumes that anyone with said internet connection will pirate. I have a pretty badass internet connection, and I STILL don't pirate. I, for whatever stupid reason, still buy/rent movies/music legally and am getting tired of it. I tried to rent The Interview in HD...well, Sony only allows it in SD over the internet (on YouTube at least). So you know what, fuck you Sony, I did it legally and you boned me. I hope Sony looses every red cent they have.
Decreased revenue relies on buying less, not pirating more. Is there any reason to believe that someone with a 30mbps connection who sometimes pirates some movies and sometimes pays for other movies is only paying for those other movies because their connection *just isn't fast enough* to get the number of movies they want in the time-frame they want them? Sounds bonkers to me, but I'm not a hollywood lobbyist.
But they've lost TRILLIONS due to piracy!
Low Roller
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Leave it to Hollywood to view gigabit internet connections as a threat to their business, instead of a massive opportunity. They've learned absolutely nothing since Napster.
Screw'em.
Screw'em.
I make no such assumption and there's no way you can argue that all people who get Gb Fiber have to pirate for piracy to increase as bandwidth increases.
As for the Interview, I have no idea. I didn't have any interest, since it looked like a dumb movie (though I generally like Rogen and Franco)
Yeah. If it's inconvenient to d/l it, you won't do it. Can you imagine downloading a 2GB compressed movie over a 56k modem? At some point you're going to just say, "Fuck it, I'll drive to Blockbuster."
Revenue isn't just purchases, it's rental, streaming and premium cable channels too. I'm not arguing that everyone with Gb fiber will pirate, but more will be pirated than would be with a slower pipe. Hell, I know a lot of people who bought music 20 years ago and now they just get it from a torrent site or a dropbox link.
How likely is it that Google Fiber is going to be going into places where the only alternative is dial-up? You said that people who already pirate will pirate more. I don't disagree with that. My argument is that people who already pirate aren't deterred by their connection speed, regardless of what it is. As long as the time to download is less than or equal to "overnight", I don't think connection speed has anything to do with likelihood to spend money. Likelihood to pirate? Sure, but not likelihood to spend money. The article specifically states that hollywood is talking about additional lost revenue, not just increased piracy. "Lost revenue" requires people who would purchase with whatever connection they have now to not purchase just because they have Google Fiber, and they're talking to the tune of *billions* of dollars. It's crazy.
Really? So you believe that the people who pirate would all pirate if they had 56k connections? Piracy/theft is governed by the same rules as anything else. you wouldn't live 50 miles from work if you couldn't go faster than 10 miles/hour, because any money saved by living 50 miles out is eaten up by your commute/fuel costs.
If you think otherwise, then you either don't value your time.
As for your last sentence, I already know at least 50 people who bought stuff 17 years ago that don't now, because their internet connection allows them to get it for free.
People with 56k account for less than 3% of people in the US. Why do you keep bringing up 56k? Do you really think 3% of America would cost Hollywood "billions" in lost revenue because now they can pirate a movie or two? How long do you think it would take for Google Fiber to reach all those people who's only option for internet is 56k? It's plainly nonsense.
Reading comprehension really isn't your friend is it? I'm illustrating how increased bandwidth makes it easier to download large files and that makes piracy more convenient. I'm telling you that virtually nobody I know that's under 40 (and many older than 40) buys music, because they can download it for free.
Increased bandwidth makes it easier to download high quality video. 10 years ago, almost nobody was downloading HD video. The files were too big and they didn't have the bandwidth to download it in a reasonable amount of time. Today, you could d/l a 720p HD movie in roughly 10 minutes (assumes roughly 1GB/hour of movie) over a 30Mb connection. Convenient, but quality is definitely lower (though probably not much worse than Netflix or HBOGO)
With 1Gb, you could download a 50GB Blu Ray in well under 10 minutes. Are you arguing that quality of the video doesn't matter?
I deal in reality, but you're welcome to pretend that the increased speed of broadband, which enabled everyone to easily download music has no corollary here, but the fact is that 1.5 Mb DSL was roughly 25x as fast 56k modem connection. 1Gb is 20-33x a Cable connection (I'm not even looking at the millions that have speeds lower than 25Mb/s).
Either way, the increase is similar. It will increase piracy. It's inevitable. Whether it will be a huge increase or not, I don't know. Time will tell, but we've seen this before, and there's no reason to believe it won't happen again.
And yet Hollywood's revenues are way up despite them claiming otherwise. Piracy is up, of course, but revenues have not decreased as Hollywood has said they would(and have, and will, apparently). I already agreed that faster connections would increase piracy. I don't agree that they'll decrease revenue, and reality(which you claim to "deal in") seems to be on my side as far as that's concerned. But hey, maybe we just need to wait for *even faster* connections for the bogeyman of "lost revenue" to rear its ugly head and gobble up all the Hollywood jobs?
Are you adjusting for inflation? Are you calculating the costs (keeping in mind that I Film maker's have sketchy ways of calculating profits)?
Bottom line is that's really beyond the scope of what I said, which is that faster speeds will lead to more people pirating stuff. I have no doubt that ultimately more good will come from fat pipes than bad (though I still think there's virtually no need for a 1Gb connection at this time, just like there wasnt a need for the L.A. highway system, as it exists today, in the 1940s.
We'll find ways to use it, but it's a long way off.
But hten, I fall solidly on the side of cheaper internet at roughly the speeds I can get now (25-50 Mb/s with 100Mb/s being more expensive, but hopefully available for the few power users that need it).
Then again, if I was in my old stomping grounds, I'd have exactly that and I'd get 100 Mb/s within the ISP's footprint (which means I could connect to my friends and families computer at 100 Mb/s, which ain't too bad (and good enough for transferring pics...even raw images).