A few thoughts about the whole filesharing debacle

[darkemeralds]

I read somewhere that Megaupload accounted for 4% of ALL THE TRAFFIC ON THE INTERNET, which is an incredible amount of traffic. The odds against the FBI singling any one individual out for an occasional one-off download, among 4% of the whole internet's traffic, must be astronomical.

Still, one would be kind of crazy to continue the practice. It's no longer feeling vaguely daring, or comfortably familiar. It feels like high-risk behavior, and I'm notoriously risk-averse.

Besides, speaking for myself, I can't say that most of the TV content I've consumed (ever) has enriched me very much in its own right. It's my fannish interactions with the content--fic, chatwatches, reviews, comments, conversations--that add value to my life.

I would miss that, and I wonder what might come along to replace it.



BUT! When will the content producers understand that many of us would gladly pay a buck or two per episode to enjoy their damn shows? When will they get that most of us no longer want to own a bunch of bulky, stupid DVD boxes? Or watch the soul-sucking commercials that have nothing to do with our lives?

Why can't they provide content the way I want to enjoy it--streaming, with control over start/stop/reverse/re-watch so that I can synchronize with a friend in a different time zone or a different house, and watch in virtual togetherness? Maybe capture a frame or two for my personal enjoyment or icon-making?

I don't want to steal content or put it back up online. I don't even really want to own most of it. I just want to share it--maybe once or twice--with my friends or family, the way I used to with a DVD set, or sitting together in front of the TV.

Audible.com has a pretty good model--monthly subscription fees for x-number of audiobook titles per month, and access for up to five devices. It lets me and my sister share books without buying two copies--just like with a paper book. They get a lot of money from me and return a lot of value, and it's a happy relationship.

Hollywood should do the same, instead of spending all their resources on congresscritters and stupid draconian laws designed to save a dying business model. I don't understand them at all.

Comments

[executrix]

As a convinced cheapskate I'm waiting until July to see the latest season of Breaking Bad on Netflix DVD, but I *could* spring for, I think it's $2 per, to get it from iTunes--I know I actually did that once or twice last year.

[darkemeralds]

I probably should have reflected a little more before ranting: I'm not an iTunes customer, so I overlooked that option. Does the content appear very soon after broadcast? Is the file high-quality enough to watch on a big TV or high resolution computer screen? And--a big question for me--can you even play it on a Linux or Android device?

In general, though, the iTunes model seems about right. Thanks for the reminder.

[executrix]

All good questions! To which I have no answer whatsoever! (Except that I think the content is available pretty quickly.)

I just read a post about a cookbook club whose 15 members get together every week and have a potluck meal of dishes made from the chosen two cookbooks; if we have to, we could wait until shows were out on DVD and then organize fannish conventicles circulating one purchased copy among a group. Sort of like an APA, come to think of it.*

*For those getting into fandom after printzines went out of vogue, an Amateur Press Association (APA) was a zine distribution model. X number of fen would submit one copy of their fics to the person who was in charge of that issue, who would then mimeograph or photocopy (depending on date) X number of copies and send each member a zine consisting of everybody's story.

[darkemeralds]

I have no beef with paying for a copy, though certainly being able to share a single copy some reasonable number of times, like a family-pak of five or six, would be better.

It's not so much "how many viewings can I squeeze out of this one physical DVD?"--because I don't want a physical DVD in the first place. It's "how soon and how easily can I consume this digital content along with my friends--and then move on to more digital content?"

The number of shows or movies I've ever even wanted to watch more than twice is represented by the very small shelf space I've devoted to DVDs in my house. I'd bet that that's true of the vast majority of all DVDs sold. Do some people rip and share DVDs? Of course. But two viewings per copy is probably a good rule of thumb, no matter what format the "copy" takes.

So why not just put the damn stuff out there, charge a fair price for a "copy", and watch the money pour in?

[executrix]

I think part of the problem is that it's still too expensive to do micro-transactions--i.e., if it costs $2 to sell somebody something for $1, it obviously won't fly, and even if it costs 25 cents that's a problem.

I don't know if it was actually true, but I was told years ago that it was absolutely de rigueur for Europeans to have a card-swipe reader on their personal computers, and swipes could be taken from a stored value card so even people with poor credit could purchase a certain number of euros' worth. I don't see why we can't put, say, $100 on a "buying cheap stuff" card which would be equally usable for bus fares, newspapers, candy bars, and song downloads.

[pandarus]

You can buy or rent over itunes, fwiw, and things seem to go online in a fairly timely fashion - albeit not at once. Maybe a week or two of lag?

[darkemeralds]

I somehow missed the iTunes boat. Isn't that strange? I broke up with music about the time I would otherwise have had an iPod, and so the whole iTunes universe seems alien to me.

I need to change that, don't I?

[darkemeralds]

Also, hi! :D