Your take on downloading movies

I have a 28.8 dial up connection and thus I feel downloading movies is wrong

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My Top 100 favorite movies.

Who? I would think people with jobs, and bank accounts. Hell, DVDs are cheaper than going to the theater (2 tickets, gotta bring the GF), so it's actually not a bad deal. You also get to watch that film whenever you want, for the rest of your life, all for only 15.99.

Late fees are something lazy people get when they don't agree to do what they are contractually obligated to do (you did sign a contract when you got a membership). Here is an idea, get lazy ass off couch, take movie back. Also, what late fee? Most places don't use them at all anymore.

Now, who are these chinese kids you are talking about? Oh, it must be that all special edition DVDs are made by children in china. Oh wait, they aren't. I'll ask you again, just what the hell are you talking about?

As for the pricing...clearly, you aren't the most savvy shopper to hit the planet lately. 45 bucks for a DVD? I can't remember the last time I paid over 22 bucks for a DVD, Criterion Editions aside (And those are only 34, and worth every penny). Here are a number of links to some great websites with really competitive prices on DVDs.

www.bestprices.com

www.deepdiscountdvd.com (The new Martin Scorsese Collection is only 33 bucks here, and that is for a nice boxed set, with special editions included)

Buy.com


As for downloading films, If one is downloading just to preview, there is absolutely nothing wrong with grabbing the files, with real intent to simply preview the material. This all centers on personal choice, and you must ask yourself: "Since many artists and other people poured their heart and soul into making this piece of art, am I comfortable with just stealing it, and that artist never getting a dime of compensation from me, the person who is getting quite a bit out of the art."

If you answer "yes, I do feel comfortable with this", well than fork you, you forking thief. You are a scumbelly and I hope you get chronic groin rash and a massive boil on your ass while huddled in your room, in the dark, ripping **** off.

If you answer, "Why no, good Sedai, I don't feel comfortable just blatantly ripping people off, I may actually buy this piece of art and enjoy it forever, because it is legally mine, and good karma will come to both myself and the wonderful artists I clearly like so much.", well then download away, sample the stuff, and decide if it's worth a buck or two.


If it seems like I am busting your balls, it's because you just seem to spew out rhetoric about stuff your not fully up to speed on, get some information about an issue before commenting, or your just adding to the vast misinformation pool that is the internet.

Now this isn't to say I have never downloaded a song or an entire album, which I then preview for a while and decide if the CD is worth a purchase. I then trash the files and either buy the CD or I don't buy it. Also, I must state, downloading songs and films is NOT illegal, distributing them definitely is. As stated in the I fought the law thread, I see nothing wrong with being able to preview something like music of film before buying it, and then deciding whether or not it is worth the hard earned cash. Many site have raised the sample rates and the length of sample on these materials, and I don't find I need to DL from services like KaZaa, really at all anymore.

Personal responsibility my friends, personal responsibility....

And I'm late but, Welcome to MoFo

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Well said Sedai... I tried to give ya rep but it won't let me I guess I have to spread the love around

i dont care what people say
if it saves me a few bucks its fine by me


however i still go to the theater only not for movies that are not worth a dime

Sedai is right, in the grand scheme of things, DVDs are actually cheap. We all have to remember too that movies, and being able to enjoy the film industry in general, is a luxury. the fact that a DVD is about $16 bucks is a feasible luxury to take advantage of. There are really no justifiable excuses to why people download illegally. I think people just do it because they can for now, not thinking about the consequences or the implications it has on the industry.

Downloading movies sucks -- the quality isn't ususally that good and i'd just rather see it on the big screen. Squinting at a movie beforehand on my laptop sort of ruins the whole thing for me.

How does it effect the industry? Between all the money the movie brings in theatres and the dvd sales, A few thousand downloads only takes about a meer $16,000 away from the industry. Most people download not because they don't have the money or anything like that. There trying to save a few bucks themselfs. Although it is wrong I don't believe everything about it is. Look at most actors, artists, and sportstars. They are always complaining about more money. What they don't realize is that they make more money in a year than we could dream about making in a life time. People do get mad and annoyed about things like that and don't want to put any more money in there pockets so thats another reason why people download is well. But no matter what everybody thinks on this matter your always going to have people do it and it is impossible from stopping it.

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Evil lives...

This is self destructive though, and people just don't see it. By not supporting the art of the artists you like, but taking it anyway, you are encouraging them to quit making art. This is already causing ramifications in the music scene, as many artists and independent record labels are going under directly due to piracy. Being in the underground electronic music scene, I have seen the effects first hand. Again, read the post in the "I fought the law" thread for a more detailed explaination of how this occurs, with specific examples. Massive, commercial, cash-cow artists don't have to worry, so if you like Avril Levine and Brittney Spears, you have nothing to worry about.

Now, if, on the other hand you happen to like less famous, or more underground music, your scene is currently drying up, as it is losing money. Small labels don't have the solvency to deal with pouring cash into multiple projects while not having them make money. They drop the artists because they assume they can't sell records, which they can't, because a bunch of low-lifes are stealing them instead.

It seems people get hung up on the fact that they are saving cash, but they aren't. They are just outright stealing something, and money is not involved at all. This excuse is being used to justify blatant theft of materials that don't belong to the person taking them.

Just because something is easy to steal, doesn't mean it is OK to steal it.
Just because lots of people are doing something, doesn't make it OK.

Stealing = An activity for criminals and sumbags.

Straw man argument. All these things have nothing to do with stealing being wrong. Please show me where it says "Stealing is bad, unless you steal from people who can afford it." If someone gets pissed that some star makes a lot of money and they don't, it still doesn't make stealing OK. Nothing does. I mean really, people can sit here all day and try to justify why it's ok for them to be a criminal, and at the end of the day, they are just a common thief. No, you can't stop thievery from happening, but you can choose not to be a scumbag thief. It's as if all of a sudden, no one has any control over themselves, and they just get in line and do whatever all the other sheep are doing, and they think that because "everyone else is doing it", they somehow escape the accountability for their actions.

Go read some Sartre, realise you control all that has to do with you, and decide whether or not you are ok with being a crook. No desicions are being made for you, by any number of people.

And my dad thought all the philosphy classes I took in college were wasted!

It seems a tad ridiculous to justify stealing by complaining about the inflated salaries of actors. If you are so bothered by it quit going to the movies. If people stop going to the movies salaries will go down b/c that person will not be able to draw as big a crowd. It's amazing how some people can rationalize just about anything.

Sure, the artists have tons of money. But a lot of them have worked their freaking arses off to get where they are. Just because they are successful doesn't mean they don't derserve to get compensated for their work. Also, artists aren't the only ones who suffer from lost revenue in the industry. What about all the people who work for the record companies and production companies. They have to make a living.

I think Sedai is right, DVDs are so cheap these days I don't know how people can't afford them.

Also, I hate it when people say the dvd's only cost a few cents to make etc. When you buy a dvd you pay for the content on the disc as well as the actual disc itself and as we all know making a movie can be very expensive. So overall I think 15 bucks is pretty good value for something that could have taken many years and lots of creativity to make.

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"You smell that? Do you smell that?... Napalm, son. Nothing else in the world smells like that. I love the smell of napalm in the morning. You know, one time we had a hill bombed, for twelve hours. When it was all over I walked up. We didn't find one of 'em, not one stinkin' dink body. The smell, you know that gasoline smell, the whole hill. Smelled like... victory. Someday this war's gonna end..."

I think thats the main reason why people do it, and I think thats the main reason why the industry is getting pissed off, and hitting us back with much higher Pricess on movie tickets!

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This is your life, and it's ending one minute at a time!

i only download movies that i want to see once, movies that are not worth to buy on a dvd or go see in the cinema..

so film-makers..make good movies, so that i would rather get the dvd than download it illegally.

like "alexander"..i have seen that 4 times in the cinema and hell yes i am getting the dvd and soundtrack too.
learn from Oliver Stone !!

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C0ull) 4nY0n3 73ll m3 wl-l3r3 70 637 N40l-l?

once the quality of downloading movies gets any better, I might concider it, untill then I will just buy them!

downloading is good cause it means i get to see a movie b4 it comes on the cinema here i hate the fact that uk have to wait ages before seeing movies by the time weve got its old news lol.

but i do prefer to buy dvds i like to have a real copy

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You Can Not Kill What You Did Not Create

You may be getting the movie before it's released over there, but you are not getting the same experience because the quality is probably pretty crappy, right? I guess I can uderstand why you do it, but it's still not right, plus you don't get to see the movie for what it's really worth, IMO.

The only movie I have ever downloaded was Napoleon Dynamite too - Simply because it was given such a short screening here (Australia) that I couldn't go to the cinema to see it.

Generally I would go to the cinema to see the movie and then if like it I may download it, however when the dvd comes out, 90% of the time I buy it also. Maybe not straight away but wait till it drops a little in price.

I have a multiregion player so can import dvds a bit earlier but what does annoy me is non price parity. An example is, I can buy the Oc box set on amazon.com for $43.99 or on amazon.co.uk for £43.99 which is about $82. Now 90% of all dvd are priced this way and if dvds where more reasonably priced then i think piracy would drop a little. It will never go away. Some of these special editons are just there to milk us for more money to, like the matrix movies, Trainspotting, Terminator, Aliens etc..

For me, if movie companies released the pictures on similar dates and the dvd`s where fixed price then I wouldnt have an issue with buying them. An example of poor release is Alexander, released late november early december in the US, Uk get it in January. How many Uk peeps downloaded it thought thats rubbish, straight in the bin and not bothered to cinema?