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1. Comment - Gates: Blu-ray DRM is 'Anti-Consumer'

   (Oct 18, 2005 - 10:47 AM)

   The movie industry doesnt really need to protect their movies. Their spending more money fighting piracy than piracy looses them in the first place. 95% of people would rather drop the extra cash to see something right away, then have to wait for software to rip/download it.
   
   Has anyone ever thought to look at the root of the problem. The more it costs to buy a ticket, the more likely people will download a bootleg. The more it costs to buy a DVD, the more likely someone will borrow it from a friend to rip it to a new disc. Maybe the industry needs to really re-evalutae their pricing schemes.
   
   Would you download or buy a bootleg if you could stream a new release movie the day it was released to your TV at home if it only cost you $2-$3. If you cut out the manufacturing, shipping, storage, materials, etc invoived with a physical product like a DVD, all of those costs are gone. One file could feed millions, and then its just bandwidth which is very cheep since they overbuilt the fiber networks in the late 90's.

2. Comment - Gates: Blu-ray DRM is 'Anti-Consumer'

   (Oct 18, 2005 - 10:33 AM)

   I think the problem is this. DRM is an over-reaction by the media industry because of the Napster/MP3 music revolution. I large number of studies of the late 90's when Napster was being used by 30+ million people to download music shows the music industry did not loose any money, in fact their sales were higher and were still showing growth. Napster pushed music out to a large community of people who usually would never even buy music in the first place. Thus they listened to more, found music they really liked, and then would actually buy the CD's. Napster was actually helping the music industry. The problem is, the music industry did not control Napster.
   
   We are now seeing the same thing with Movies. The sad thing is, the number of consumers who have the technical knowledge, software tools and patience to download/rip movies is such a small minority that DRM is basically a waste of money and time. But the industry is paralized by the fear that they are going to loose money. They site the decrease in movie ticket sales too people downloading, instead of looking at the soaring ticket prices as the root of the problem. Poeple would not download, if it didnt cost $10+ to see a movie in a theater these days. Ticket prices rise, people then start picking fewer movies to see over the year, because of the cost, less tickets are sold.
   
   I have more than enough knowledge to rip/download movies. I don't because it takes just as long to rip a movie as to watch it, and even longer to download it. I don't want to watse my time waiting. In the past I have gone out of my way to see every summer blockbuster when they are released. Now I just wait for them to come out on DVD and get it through Netflix on my HDTV. Even though I said I dont want to wait, and I have to wait a few months for a new movie to hit DVD, I am not waiting to watch a movie in my living room. At any given time I have 2-3 movies I have not seen sitting on my table wating to be watched. I save hundreds of dollars a year, and see more movies, what else could a consumer ask for.