'Star Trek' The Most Pirated Film Of 2009

[admin]

According to Torrent Freak, the most pirated movie of 2009 was J. J. Abrams's Star Trek. Transformers 2 was closely behind.

However, Star Trek also represented this year's biggest hit on home video, selling in record numbers on Blu-ray, beating last year's The Dark Knight as the best selling Blu-ray title in the first week of release. Transformers 2 also managed to do extremely well on Blu-ray and DVD. And with neither film doing that badly at the box office, the link between piracy and lost revenue needs further examination.

The year's most high profile piracy case was for the movie X-Men Origins: Wolverine, where the pirated version was leaked onto the Internet a whole month before the theatrical debut. But even that did not stop its run at the box office.

So is piracy actually helping movies? I would say yes and no. Piracy is really just another facet of communication on the Internet. It gets people talking about movies, and if the movies are good, many will then fork out money to watch it at the cinemas or on DVD and Blu-ray. If it is bad, then through twitter and other communication mediums, the word now spreads fast, and it's very likely that those who are still curious about the movie will watch it in pirated form rather than pay for it. So piracy may help good movies, but will definitely hurt bad movies.

The fact of the matter is that watching a movie at the cinema is an experience that you cannot pirate. Especially now with 3D presentations. On home video, pirated version do get close to real releases in terms of quality sometimes, and that may be hurting DVD sales, but Blu-ray sales are standing firm as the requirements to get Blu-ray quality pirated copies are out of reach for most people (fast connection, high bandwidth allowance, amble storage and playback devices to TV). But DVD sales are being hurt more by the increased demand for rentals (both digital and physical), analysts say that's because of the poor economy, and so whether piracy has a large role in this is debatable.

Studios should fight against piracy, but it's all a matter of how they do it. They can go all out to try and stop the source and punish those who download, or they can give people less reasons to pirate movies, and more reasons to pay for it. 3D presentations are a step in the right direction, as is the superior quality in Blu-ray and the inclusion of DVD/Digital Copy combos, and the eventual introduction of Managed Copy should further help matters.

More:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/26/movies/26arts-MOSTPIRATEDM_BRF.html?_r=1

[drfsupercenter]

Digital Copy doesn't stop piracy though.

I always take my legally owned ones and strip them of their malware DRM because what's the point with protection on the files?

I mean, it's not like one-click DVD rippers that convert to AVI files are very hard to find, google will give very useful results if people don't have an iPod or want to use iTunes/Windows Media Player for the Digital Copies.

What I think studios should do is - and I will always feel this way - just stop with the whole DRM thing. They should just focus on what they do best - making movies. People will pay to see them, that's very evident. Copy protection on DVDs clearly doesn't work as rips end up on the torrent sites before the DVD is even released to the general market more often than not and just makes it more of a hassle for people like me who buy them legally to do what they want.

I mean, with a lot of "rental copies" emerging (as in, you go to Blockbuster and the copies they rent out are different than the retail ones), would it kill them to drop the DRM on the retail copies and just use it on the rentals? That makes the most sense to me.

I mean, what I'd love to see the most (and I'm quite sure this will never happen because studios are too big-headed to care about their customers) is like, the movie on a DVD disc (or Blu-Ray even), and then if you put it in your computer there's an unencrypted AVI sitting there you can watch or copy to your hard drive. Because like the evidence has proven countless times, people who want to pirate a movie will do it anyway, DRM isn't going to stop them.

This was merely a concept I had in my head, but it wouldn't be half-bad... if the studios just put out rips themselves that you could download for free, with say, banner ads or something. There's no reason to pirate something if you can get it legitimately for free (without jumping through hoops)... and people will still buy the DVDs as that's just how it's happened these past few years - Wolverine and Star Trek are evidence of that.
(For the record, I own both on DVD, the "two disc special edition". Hoping to get the Blu-Ray of Star Trek at one point.)

[Budreaux]

What I think studios should do is - and I will always feel this way - just stop with the whole DRM thing. They should just focus on what they do best - making movies. People will pay to see them, that's very evident. Copy protection on DVDs clearly doesn't work as rips end up on the torrent sites before the DVD is even released to the general market more often than not and just makes it more of a hassle for people like me who buy them legally to do what they want.

Put yourself in their shoes then.
Remember a conversation a while back about their liability of protecting their copyright?
Tell me, if they drop DRM, how do they show their commitment, which is required, that they are taking steps to protect their copyright?

[admin]

Digital copies and Managed Copy will add to the convenience factor, and possible increase value of legal discs, and so that might help reduce piracy. It will certainly reduce the need to rip your own discs, which is illegal under the DMCA (although nobody will take you to court over it, not yet anyway).

The current Digital Copy regime isn't all that useful though, since the copies expire in a year, although it has improved compared to earlier implementations which were limited to DRM'd WMV files, and now supports iTunes.

[drfsupercenter]

That's exactly why I don't like Digital Copy - you pay more for a crippled product.

I mean, luckily decrypters exist... though I'm sure *that's* against the DMCA too, and is no different than just using a movie converter to mp4 or WMV format.

Managed Copy maybe, I haven't really seen anything on it yet - and even with the PS3 and an 80GB hard drive... where's it gonna store all the movies? If you could have your entire DVD collection accessible from your TV (Imagine, something like RealDVD combined with the PS3 media center/a non-branded Managed Copy), THAT would probably help reduce piracy

I noticed that with some newer Disney movies my sister has on DVD, you can either use the code for an iTunes/WMV Digital Copy, or redeem it at their site to unlock an "any time you want" online stream of the movie. That may or may not be a step in the right direction though I find ripping it to the hard disk a lot easier than having to log into a site... (Especially because a quick google search will give you any movie on a streaming site anyway, legal or not)

[Budreaux]

But you still are not answering the quesion.

How do they fulfill their responsibility of protecting their copyright.
I'm not arguing for them, not by any means, but I'm a realist. You can't have your cake and eat it too. So how would you protect your copyright if you were head of this responsibility for these companies.
I'm not bothered by DRM. I know my way around it, but if the simplicity of it all was left unchecked, then the masses would embrace it and start doing the same. Then you would see some significant arguments against piracy and these utilities.
So, their campaign is there to keep an honest man honest, so to speak. If they removed DRM, this would be like saying, "Go ahead, we don't care"... how then do they protect their copyright.

I would really like an intelligent, thought out discussion on this issue.

[drfsupercenter]

What do you mean protect their copyright?

iTunes went DRM free for music a while ago, and now most music stores just have plain mp3 files... so I don't see your point. I'm talking about having no DRM on stuff you PURCHASE, which is precisely what they did with music.

[Budreaux]

What do you mean protect their copyright?

iTunes went DRM free for music a while ago, and now most music stores just have plain mp3 files... so I don't see your point. I'm talking about having no DRM on stuff you PURCHASE, which is precisely what they did with music.

iTunes doesn't own the copyright, they have a Liscense to sell the content.
Movie Labels own the Copyright of the DVD/BR they release.....

You were referring to your Digital Copies and DVD, etc, in one lump category and used the term DRM, so I just followed suite with my response.

So, I ask the question again... if these companies followed your advice and dropped their copy protection methods currently implemented, how would you go about protecting your copyright?
Simple question.

[drfsupercenter]

I don't know.

But what I'm saying is the companies obviously allow music to be sold without DRM (even though iTunes hides metadata in there with your account info), and the piracy rate of music hasn't really changed from what it was before.

So why would dropping DRM from video - just as they did with audio - be bad?

Look what happened when Sony tried to DRM audio CDs (rootkit)... they ended up in court over it, and they deserved what happened. I refuse to use audio CDs that install spyware on my computer, thanks very much.

[Budreaux]

No, what you are saying in reality is that you don't want to be bothered with their problems, you just want to have full, unrestricted access to your digital media.

Digital media in that form would be wide open for sharing and would be presumed by the masses as ok to do.

Fact is, communities of hackers, decrypters, whatever we want to call ourselves, have been a pain in their asses, granted an over inflated pain.

Because of the closeness and heavy support our communities give to each other, these companies are forced to take measures to stop it.

I see this differently than you..I enjoy the protection. I enjoy the reverse engineering..it is a hobby for me. It was actually cheaper to just sub to DTV or Dish Network at times than it was to continue buying the parts needed to build the devices needed to continue hacking their boxes and data stream. But, me and many others did it for the hobby of it and the learning experience.

DRM will not just go away, not without a viable solution to take it's place.

So, I say this...don't bring me problems, bring me solutions. Stop saying they need to just drop it so it is easier for you. Figure out a viable workaround that is benificial to you and them, then we can talk about it.

[drfsupercenter]

I already know how to decrypt the DRM on the Digital Copy files, that's not the point.

I'm saying, removing the DRM from music downloads has helped, as people like me would avoid using stores that sold DRM infected files, and now I'll willing to buy stuff on iTunes if it's better quality than I can find elsewhere.

I'm just saying they should go that route with the videos, it's not about ME but the concept in general. I don't care as I can already decrypt them as-is.