Re: Some thoughts for Mr Williams
Hi Timarco Baggaley
>> You are not entitled to dictate when, how and in what formats the fruits of others' labours are to be distributed. That's the creators' prerogative. It's called "Copyright" for a reason; look it up. (Hint: the clue's in the name.)
If you want me to part with my cash, then yes I will dictate the terms in which I will do it - it's called Commerce (the clue is also in the name)
> >Good luck finding all the contact details for the estates of actors, producers, directors, etc.—many of whom will have died long ago—and getting the necessary waivers and permissions to do this. You don't get to just rip up a contract unilaterally just because something happened that your lawyers didn't predict 30-40 years ago.
Fortunately I don't have to, these rights from the actors, producers and directors have already been purchased by the studios who now are milking the rights for their own purposes. If the rights haven't been sold then where are all the royalties going? I would assume if a contract exists one simply needs to follow the money.
>> The amount of work they put into restoring archive material is astonishing—including the development of reverse standards conversion software, video emulation software and even recolouring tools, to restore grotty old recordings of Doctor Who episodes.
Ironically a lot of episodes of Doctor Who were thrown out or lost by the BBC - fortunately fans who recorded these shows [note: "illegally"] (in some cases audio only on cassettes) have been used as the only surviving sources (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctor_Who_missing_episodes) I guess for this example the BBC should be thankful of those 1960 pirates.
>> Define "realistic". I've seen 79-cent applications for Android devices on BitTorrent sites. Everyone wants great stuff for free.
It's true that you will never eliminate piracy, no matter what you do or how much you charge it will never (read never) go away, some people for many reasons will not pay, not always because they are evil, some honestly don't have the money (even for that 79 cent application - as it still requires access to a credit card) -what you can do is make it less common by charging less for it, introducing alternative payment methods (Android is about to drop a pre-paid play store cards - this will reduce instances of piracy for sure - but it won't eliminate it completely).
Back in the day I pirated my copy of Doom 2, I didn't have the cash and it was easy to get. But I've just purchased the entire Doom series on Steam (even though I won't play it again) - my way of paying it back (although late admittedly)
>> Why the hell would you want to be able to transfer content to an obsolete optical disk format? This is hardly a common use case. Many people will just stream it to their internet-connected TV by the time this kind of content is finally made available.
Why the hell couldn't he, if he purchases the content he should be able to transfer every frame to a photo album if he wants, it should be his to do what he wants with.
>> Many content creators hold you, the faux-entitled, in contempt too. Artists and producers are people too, you know. The managers of corporations like the BBC, Sony Pictures, Disney, etc., are legally obliged to do what their shareholders / owners tell them to. They don't get to choose NOT to make a profit.
That's his entire point, they do hold their customers in contempt, it's not good service to hold customers, potential or otherwise, in contempt is it.
>> And, in case you hadn't noticed, [b]iTunes exists[/b], and has done for years now. The BBC has their iPlayer / iPlayer Global apps (as well as a firm commitment to release their own archive material). Even Amazon, Hulu, Netflix, etc. have been offering music, videos, movies, etc. for [b]legal download[/b] and streaming for some time. Hell, I live in Italy and can trivially access, say, Comedy Central's "The Daily Show" videos online quite legally, directly from their own website. It's not THAT hard to find legal options for your entertainment needs. So those managers and fat-cats you're whining about ARE trying to change their business models, you self-righteous dick.
I call bullshit, I don't know what it's like in Italy - I don't live there. But this article is by about a situation in Australia, come here and try and get content from the BBC, Amazon, Hulu or Netflix. In the markets these services are in there are outstanding examples of success, hell Netflix traffic outstrips that of Bittorrent - so there is proof that there is a desire for cheap easily accessible content - and people will pay.
But in Australia THAT IS NOT AVAILABLE TO US, we are barred from these services and can only get them if we purchase costly and poor performing VPN services and figure out how to get a US credit card.