I watch movies. And, as any sane tech-savvy person, I get them via bittorrent. Here in Bulgaria it is still OK to do that without the risk of special forces breaking into your home, although intellectual property laws still apply. And since I appreciate the work of creative people, I decided to pay for movies that I watch at home. Obviously I am not going to rent a DVD, because I don’t even know if there’s a DVD rental store nearby, and I’d certainly don’t want to order it via Amazon and wait 10 days for the postal service to lose it. And some of the movies are just not worth watching on the big screen in the movie theater – they are for a casual evening at home.
So before watching each movie I check iTunes. And if it is not there (and none of the ones I checked were there, or at least not available in Bulgaria), I open the official site of the movie and contact them with something roughly saying “I am going to illegally download and watch your movie. But as I value your creative effort, I’d like to pay, so give me a PayPal account or another means of payment and I’ll wire money equal to the movie theater ticket price”. I’ve done this six times already, and I got no response. Some of the movies were Hollywood ones, some were European. No response.
I will do this a couple of times more, and if there’s still no desire from the creators to get my money, I will just continue to illegally download movies until the film industry realizes that it is the 21st century now, and their distribution channels are way outdated.
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You are not the only one. People forget that there are some of us not living in the great great West and yes,we want to watch movies. And yes,we have credit cards,we have internet access,but no means to buy films legally,because they have been locked out of our countries for,well….legal reasons.
And yes,it’s not illegal in my country to download films off the Internet in my country, at least not for personal use.
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It sucks big time. But if you genuinely want to pay, why the excuses? You are able to buy the DVD. End of story. Doesn’t matter if it’s lost in transit or it’s the wrong region or whatever: you’ve got a copy from torrents the way you prefer, they’ve got the money the way they prefer.
Order via Amazon and download the torrent.
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And pay shipping costs and DVD costs? This whole thing would cost way more than going to the movie theater. I may want to pay, but I don’t want to get broke.
It’s amazing how we go about justifying those things we want to do….
The technology for cheap and quick electronic distribution has existed for many years. I think what Bozho is saying is that without any commercial offering in this space he is making a best effort to reimburse movie studios without pandering to outdated business models such as physical media.
If you have the money and don’t pay, well, you don’t get to say that you wanted to. There’s Amazon and there’s your credit card.
You can argue all day but ultimately if the industry hasn’t got any money from you, that’s what you really wanted.
Particularly, they haven’t got a sale to Bulgaria so no way to tell there’s a market for their stuff in your country. Who is served by your promoting self-righteous torrenting instead of attempts to show there’re paying customers near you?
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There is a market for movies, because there are movie theaters that are making money.
If I had the option to download & pay 3 euro, I’d do so. If I have to order useless DVD, fill in shipping address and pay 5 times the price – it’s not customer-friendly.
Sadly, people like you who claim that the film (and music) industry are doing everything just fine, are the ones behind idiotic laws like SOPA, PIPA, ACTA, and the likes. These industries need a drastic change in order to fight the “easy to use and free” torrents, and they don’t want to think about such a change. Even in the US they consider services like Netflix their “enemy”.
Did I claim they’re doing fine? Weird. No, they don’t. People like me behind those laws? Okay. We’re in the same timezone for what it’s worth. I use torrents and I don’t judge you for doing the same, obviously I don’t think we should be raided by police.
Also I recognize that one should pay for stuff, let’s say, within reason. Like if you feel you might’ve paid for that movie — if only blah blah, 3 euro, shipping, blah blah — come on, you can do it. That rambling indignant justifications for not paying are bullshit. Moreso that encouraging entitlement and refusal to pay is harmful to the makers of the media.
The change has already happened by the way. See http://thetrichordist.wordpress.com/2012/04/15/meet-the-new-boss-worse-than-the-old-boss-full-post/
Remember that as a programmer you have it better, money-wise, than the majority of arts-people.
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