Hollywood Wants To Kill Piracy? No Problem: Just Offer Something Better

I agree that convenience and ease of use are a compelling argument for piracy, but really I think that most piracy occurs because it is free. It just so happens that the technology that makes piracy possible also makes it convenient and easy.<p>Really, what we are asking Hollywood to do is compete with free. This post is saying "Tack on all these features to your movies, and I'll pay less than the current price of your movie for those features." I get the feeling that Hollywood hears that as "Your product has no value, so do all these things to add value to it."<p>Hollywood is saying: "We shouldn't have to compete with free. Our product has value (regardless of delivery or portability). Free is illegal." Now, this may or may not be the case technologically, but I find it difficult to fault an industry for failing to come to terms with those realities.

This is a nice, but typical Reddit solution which is a bit more complicated in reality. There are outstanding distribution licenses with many companies for many different parts of the world which can't just be wiped away so this service can just spring to life.<p>Also Steam works well because it really isn't easy for the common consumer to copy a Steam game vs. as easy as it would be to copy a single unencrypted movie file to share casually with their friends. It is much easier to buy a movie on this Steam type clone and then put it online or give it to everyone you know, which the industry won't want.<p>Until you get a Steam like service written for OSX, Linux, Windows, Android, iPhone and streamable via the web with proper copy protection this will not fly.

As a user here is what I want:<p><pre><code> * I search for movie/TV series title using Google what I want to watch, * I find it, * I type my credit card number and * I watch. </code></pre> But no - I cannot.<p>I don't need special features or other things: I have money - you have the movie I want to watch.

I remember watching a documentary a while back on how Hollywood screened and rated TV/film productions. It angered me to see that focus groups consisting mostly of soccer moms controlled our movie rating system &#38; what we see on TV. This is exactly what's wrong with Hollywood and the music industry in America.<p>Seriously, it amazes me how an industrial complex like Hollywood can collectively make so many dumb mistakes, that would otherwise cripple/kill other industries, and still rake in billions.

The thing is I don't think you really can kill piracy and Hollywood should realize that it doesn't need to.<p>For me personally, piracy is a crime of opportunity - I do it because it's easy and available. However, me downloading movie doesn't represent lost revenue for Hollywood - if I were forced to pay for a movie, I would simply do something else.<p>This is what I think goes over the head of Hollywood execs. If a youtoube music video has 5M views, it doesn't mean it missed out on 5M customers, it just means 5M were willing to watch something for free.<p>As a side note, the one movie service I have paid for in the past 5 years, Redbox, has strong opposition from Hollywood. I use it because as the OP mentions, it's better than pirating. Instant, convenient, and the cost is a non issue. Why doesn't Hollywood embrace this rather than oppose it? Who knows.<p>All that said, it starting to feel like we're beating a dead horse here on HN.

To me, the offer exists. Is called Cuevana.tv (<a href="http://www.cuevana.tv" rel="nofollow">http://www.cuevana.tv</a>)<p>I would GLADLY pay Cuevana 35$ a month to watch the content in there. That's 35$ the industry is not getting from me when they could.<p>Hollywood should embrace sites like Cuevana: they would have the distribution, the bandwidth, up-loaders, ratings, subtitles... all outsourced for FREE.<p>Not to mention, these type of sites can work like marketing tools: you have ratings, user sentiment, geography...<p>It pains me the amount of effort being placed to find a solution to stop this. It makes no sense.

People WILL pay for convenience. It makes absolutely no sense for them to resist a move like this. Their misguided rationalizations are going to drag them down.

I think Hollywood is way to resistant to change. People (consumers) are quick to pick up new technologies to fit their needs. Big corporations can either comply and cater to those needs or force their own model on their customers.<p>The latter is NEVER the correct decision. Companies exist solely to please customers (which in turn amasses profit and satisfies investors).<p>Hollywood, you work for us.

I have a dream. I want to pay the Government of the United Kingdom for a TV License, and the right to stream all their stuff using iPlayer. I would also like to stream BBC One through Four and BBC News conveniently. You can have GBP 144.50 per year from me. If only you will let me do this.

They will do that at some point, however at the moment it's probably cheaper to pay off politicians and keep the old model going for as long as they can. it's as simple as that.

Thats what is so confusing about hollywood - they want to kill piracy and at the same time kill/supress netflix.<p>They are an outdated model.