Comments on: Distributing Media on the Internet…User Vicious?

By: Slayer

Slayer — Sun, 26 Feb 2006 00:40:37 +0000

Very well said. Interesting read.

By: Mintz

Mintz — Sun, 26 Feb 2006 05:02:34 +0000

If only we lived in a perfect world where someone could eliminate competition and live in a money-less society where everyone was happy… Oh right, that’s not gonna happen anytime soon. Neither will your thing. There’s always going to be someone who cracks the code and distributes it for free, because they believe those people who go to work from 9-5 don’t deserve the money they get for making such a perfect system of media distribution.

By: Midnight

Midnight — Sun, 26 Feb 2006 05:32:02 +0000

Mintz,
Don’t construe what I am advocating as socialist/communist. It is actually quite contrary to that. In fact, I think someone could have a thriving business and turn quite a profit with the model I explained above.
It is also a fact that some people will always figure out how to get it for free. Heck, I’m one of those people. I am a tried and true pirate (Arr!). Looks at the proxy issue we had a few days ago. I think half of the allure of piracy is the problem-solving gratification it can give. You know…sticking it to the man…unless you are the man…nevermind.
But I think the other half is the failure of the media market to meet the demands of its comsumer base. For many types of media there is not a legal distribution system in place, but anything is possible with the thousands of sharp minds at work in the underground.

By: rapture

rapture — Sun, 26 Feb 2006 18:46:09 +0000

Is the use of pirated media ever justified? Even if we are fighting a war? I believe soldier moral is very important during wartime.

Pirates aren’t necessarily poor. They are lazy.

By: Taggirl

Taggirl — Sun, 26 Feb 2006 19:46:32 +0000

Lazy and empowered by BitTorrent :)

I think your system would be ideal, Midnight. Some ingenious Bill Gates capitalist needs grab on to that and make it happen.

By: Midnight

Midnight — Mon, 27 Feb 2006 05:32:18 +0000

Rapture,
In no way did I intend to use morale as an excuse for piracy. I actually didn’t really intend to substaintiate piracy at all; my post merely assumes its presence as an entity that will always compete with legal distribution. However, don’t get the wrong impression. I have certainly pirated my fair share of media.

By: Sean

Sean — Mon, 27 Feb 2006 06:58:20 +0000

I usually let the other people do the dirty work and bring along a external hard drive (wait I did a post about that once.) Not that I would pirate anything;-D Nice blog you have here, hopefully we don’t run into each other in the line of duty, stay safe.

By: Obsydian

Obsydian — Mon, 27 Feb 2006 22:02:13 +0000

Despite you marked lack of enthusiasm for “Socialists” I’d still have to direct you towards the VLC player. If you haven’t picked this up yet, you’ll be amazed. It’s an open source media player. Great thing about it, no codecs necessary. They are built in. It plays almost every damn thing I have thrown at it. They are working on an update right now for WMV’s. it seems as if sometimes the audio doesn’t want to play on the most recently released videos. It’s the only one I’ve noticed has a problem, but it’s not that bad since 98% of all windows machines have a WMP on it.

Check it out though.

http://www.videolan.org/

By: Slayer

Slayer — Tue, 28 Feb 2006 00:58:05 +0000

“You know…sticking it to the man…unless you are the man…nevermind.”

“It was all a plan, just to bop da man!” - Homey Da Clown

By: Midnight

Midnight — Tue, 28 Feb 2006 05:54:17 +0000

Obsydian,
That sounds really innovative! I’m not going to test my patience by trying to navigate to the site using this connection, but if it’s reasonably priced I am definitely in. The only other user friendly option I see is to use a Windows Media Center PC to stream video to your TV, and I’m sure this is less expensive.