Buying The DVD: Unhelpful And Unethical
Written by J.J. King on February 21, 2008These last few years P2Pers have got used to TV entertainment ‘our way’: unfucked, de-loused, delivered efficiently in economical, good-looking codecs. Because we rarely turn it on, it’s been easy to forget just how cynical, unsatisfying and downright venal television, as a distribution medium, has become.
Whether it’s the stupor-inducing gambling channels dedicated to parting fools from their money, the late-night pseudo-porn selling premium-rate phone sex, or the corrupt ‘competition’ call-ins plaguing the UK’s prime-time (even that Holy of Holies, the BBC), there’s the unavoidable sense that TV is on the rocks. Anyone who’d have you believe filesharers are the only scourge afflicting an industry that would otherwise be healthy is smoking crack, in the business, or both.
This is why Tape It Off The Internet seemed like such a good idea until you actually started trying to use it. There are just not enough good shows being made to justify something as complicated and involved as TIOTI. Enter all your favorites and share them with strangers ‘just like you’ and discover… what? That there are only seven good shows in the world at any one time, you were already watching six of them, and they’re all in the Pirate Bay’s Top 100 anyway. When you strip away the hours of dross and advertising, the truth is that the world’s mighty entertainment infrastructure is only capable of producing half a dozen hours of passable content a week. Maybe it’s because they spend the rest of their time on lawsuits.
One of these rare hours is The Wire. If by some small chance you’re not mainlining it already, think yourself lucky. You have four back seasons to enjoy, of what is quite possibly the last great show television will produce before it’s entirely superseded by — well, by whatever is coming around the way.
I’m not sure anyone has ever attempted to make a show of this scope: The Wire’s by-all-accounts-not-very-nice creator David Simon (Homicide, The Corner) has said his theme over the series’ five years has been ‘the decline of the American empire’ — which means decay of its cities through poverty, of traditional jobs, of the education system, of the police force and of the media. For those getting restless at the back, the show’s also got the slickest, nastiest drug slingers you’ll see on screen and is so realistic that the Baltimore Police have apparently complained it reveals too much about how crimes are — or are not — solved; apparently real thugs love it as well.
Find it and download it — though probably David Simon doesn’t want you to and neither does HBO, which has been actively poisoning Torrents of its other shows. Tell everyone you know about it. Maybe those of them still rocking TVs will raise the show’s increasingly dismal viewing figures.
Or maybe that’s no longer the point. While I sympathise with the plight of the David Simons, David Milchs (Deadwood, John from Cincinnati) and Joss Whedons (Firefly) of this world, and would like to help them in future endeavors, I specifically do not sympathise with the plights of the craven, dim-witted, played-out producers that surround them on all sides. And by ‘playing fair’ and buying the DVD or the cable package, besides the fact that most of our money is not going to the creators and their families, aren’t we really saying we accept the meshwork of shit in order to get the two or three gems that occasionally sift through it? Aren’t we signalling the industry that there’s something we still find acceptable about their way of doing business?
Now I suppose this could seem a bit extreme to some. But again and again in blogs and comments about shows like The Wire you hear ‘I’d pay for this if…’ — if it wasn’t DRM’ed all to hell like HBO’s own online offering, if it was freely shareable, good to be watched whenever, wherever, on whatever, without constant interruption by adverts. The kicker is that we’re not only unable legally to liberate and re-distribute shows from the broken, corrupt mechanisms of television and DVD distribution: we also have no way of supporting creators like David Simon and crew outside of it.
This means that right now, people still stupid or unfortunate enough to sit in front of TVs watching months-old shows or paying massive cash-or-attention premiums for the new ones are heavily subsidising us P2Pers. This is genuinely immoral, because we’re really exploiting people less fortunate than ourselves. Instead, we should be helping them out of the wasteland, and thinking of new ways to get the creators we like creating outside the prison of mass distribution. It cannot be that we are able to figure out how to make GNU-Linux - a world-class operating system — together, but not to make a dozen decent shows a year.
The irony is that TV series really feel like they’re coming into their own, just as the media that spawned them is dying. From the ‘high art’ of Deadwood and John From Cincinnati to the epic modern-day myth of Lost to the (dare I call it) Beckettian dark comedy of Trailer Park Boys, the drawn out tales of our series (often consumed a ’season’ at a time: I know at least three people waiting for The Wire to finish before downloading it) are an undeniable core of our emerging P2P culture.
We are the most passionate viewers ever, talking and writing profusely about the media we love, analysing, promoting, hosting free screenings… And they need us as much as we need them — all of these shows, without exception, enjoy their primary life on the networks, through our blogs, comments, reviews, remixes and fan fiction. Lost in particular has learned that incorporating online feedback can make a great (if utterly Shaggy Dog) story.
Can we find a way to get the shows we want made without buying the goddamn DVD? I remember this guy talking really sensibly a couple years ago about how Joss Whedon could get to make another season of Firefly, and we got this project back up his musings. Why didn’t Whedon try it? Because someone else owned his ideas? Perhaps it could have worked otherwise, and maybe it could work for the future. If you’ve got ideas, throw them in the comments box below. And if you have time in between catching up on The Wire, read this by the venerable guru of Wired magazine, Kevin Kelly — I’m going to try to get him into the next installment of STEAL THIS FILM. See you around. I’ll be back in two weeks to pick up the pieces.
TorrentFreak welcomes Jamie King as our new bi-weekly columnist. Jamie is the Director of STEAL THIS FILM I & II and a member of the League of Noble Peers. He is currently working on a cinema release of STEAL THIS FILM and prototyping an experimental, post-P2P remuneration system for creators.
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99 Responses
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The only reason I still have cable is because I live with my mom and she won’t buy a computer nor cancel the cable. Shows I watch every episode of: Simpsons, Family Guy, 24, Lost, House MD. All available for download the same night they air. I’m paying $60 a month for four hours of TV per week, two hours of which aren’t even on right currently, and aren’t on half the year or more. Who’s crazy?
Or you could…do something more constructive. Honestly, anything you can think of - anything at all - is more constructive and a better use of your time than watching television. Get a hobby, play a game, hang out with your friends, read Digg obsessively, hell even watching a movie is time better spent than television.
Sad, but true.
If you want the guess what the future of entertainment looks like, peek around youtube.
Entertainment follows a power law, and youtube showcases how long exactly the long tail can be.
At the same time, there are gems on youtube. While the medium encourages short and amateurish creations, it wouldn’t be that much harder to progressively evolve the medium toward better produced creations.
I don’t think salvation is going to come from the TV, recording or movie worlds. They still have too much to lose in the transition. My money is on the public at large being given better tools of creation and distribution. If that can translate into commercial endeavors, familiar names will inevitably start to appear in the new arena.
I’m not addicted to the products of the modern entertainment industry. So to me, all you people who whinge about the ‘evil empire’, old guard of media sound a lot like people who whinge about how expensive it is to smoke cigerettes due to the taxes the government puts on it.
So, if you can’t afford to smoke, don’t smoke and if you can’t afford to consume media, don’t consume it. But for heavens sake, don’t go around pretending to be some kind of couch potato vanguard, ‘liberating’ products robin hood style for the peasants consumption.
How about a solution where a show has one of those donation thermometers, so the initial pilot gets made, and the next one won’t get made until it reaches a certain level in the donation thermometer. I’m sure JFC addicts like myself would have banned together and paid for the next installment. The creators would have to subsidize the first pilot, but that’s their risk, but if they feel they got a hit, they can go for it, the donation system could hold funds in escrow and if the critical mass is not reached in a certain time period then the donations could be refunded. There could even be a system where if a series did well in advertisng, dvd, or product placement revenue, the donator/investors would get a slice of the pie. Wow I like this idea, I’m gonna go launch my new website.
Brilliant - sums up so well the thoughts that have been brewing up inside of me.
I haven’t paid for tv in over a year.
I have a 72″tv for my monitor to watch dvd-r and xvid rips.
I refuse to pay for protected media.
That’s nice and all, but nothing gets made without producers. They need to get paid too. Don’t leave them out of your grand scheme here. We wouldn’t see tv shows with high production quality like lost without guys with lots of money paying for these things.
That’s just how it is.
This is one of the most beautifully written articles I have seen up to date on the ‘net.
Keep on.
Ciao from Italy.
1. downloaded content is usually from much lower quality then tv.
2. don’t watch prime time tv. it’s for desperate people.
3. get HDTV. you will enjoy it.
4. continue watching unavailable stuff on your computer, that’s what it’s for.
[quote comment="295678"]That’s nice and all, but nothing gets made without producers. They need to get paid too. Don’t leave them out of your grand scheme here. We wouldn’t see tv shows with high production quality like lost without guys with lots of money paying for these things.
That’s just how it is.[/quote]
Yeah, yeah. The problem is exactly well produced recycled shit.
and btw, true artists dont sell themselves, entertainers do. and prostitutes.
I said the same of music not too long ago. That if any RIAA label is connected to the music at all, don’t buy it new. Buy used or download it.
Same with gibson guitars and it’s subsidiaries.
The people you like aren’t getting the benefits of the money so give it direct. I’m hoping enough people can figure out how ready big media is to just collapse in on itself.
An interesting article because I was having similar thoughts.
I recently downloaded I am legend, and I really enjoyed it. I thought, hmm, I should buy the dvd in order to support the makers of the film, but then I remembered that the money would go elsewhere, and only a very small amount would go where I wanted it to go.
So I said to myself, fuck it.
I am sorry “I am legend” guys, I wish there was a way to support you in a different way.
The creators and the others that take part in creating the media need to make a living somehow. We don’t want to pay for it - call it the want for convenience or blame the shabby state of TV in general, but at the core of it we just don’t want to pay.
Case in point - the last Radiohead Album. I believe only three people paid for it. The rest deleted the files after the first listen, but that is beside the point.
Extremely Naive! I am a proponent of the try before you buy idea, concerning torrents, but the writers outlook is overly simplistic. The success of a film or TV show and the financial rewards gained by the producers, distributors etc… make it more likely these writers, carpenters, camera technicians, make-up, caterers etc… will get hired again!
Whoever is putting out the money is taking the biggest risk and deserve the greatest financial rewards. That is how market capitalism functions. Take a look at the German film industry. Heavily subsidized and floundering in incompetence. Even the German press heap scorn on the committees who dole out the funds. Hollywoods market driven system has put it at the top for quality film production.
I have to disagree with the thrashing the BBC is getting. I think they are putting out some good stuff. There documentaries are a refreshing change to Hollywood popcorn films. But then again I’m not in England and I’m getting BBC via Sat, so I’m not paying for it. Thanks to those who do :).
Cheers. Viva la Revolution
[quote comment="295547"][quote comment="295152"]The really need to bring back Firefly[/quote]
YESSS!!! yes they do.[/quote]
yesss
agree with WTF
[quote comment="295767"]
I have to disagree with the thrashing the BBC is getting. I think they are putting out some good stuff. There documentaries are a refreshing change to Hollywood popcorn films.
But then again I’m not in England and I’m getting BBC via Sat, so I’m not paying for it. Thanks to those who do :).[/quote]
And there lies the problem. Most of the people in the world who priase the BBC for their so called quality programming are not forced by law to pay for the damn thing. Every year we pay more and get less, all so they can sell the programming we pay for to every other country on the planet who then get to watch it for fuck all. The commercial wing of the BBC makes more than enough money to support their cheap ass programming, the british public should not be forced to foot the bill so the shareholders in the commercial part of the BBC can get fat bonuses by selling the programming we pay to get made. Its about time they stopped leeching off of the british public. As for the BBCi player, its a drm infected pile of shit, and whever mentioned BBC3 BBC4 ecterea, stfu, they are a comlete waste of air time. I’d rather have my eyelids forced open ala Clockwork Orange, and be forced to watch QVC 24/7, you moron.
We need a system where the following can happen:
1) Show makers can create a pilot for a show, and upload it to a site.
2) Fans can review pilots to find shows they would like to see. Once they find one, they pay $X (minimum amount decided by the show’s creator, but people could always volunteer more) to get a “subscription” to the show.
3. Once enough people have paid enough money to meet the show’s production costs (again, determined by the creator ahead of time), the show would go in to production. The intermediary site (the one hosting all these pilots) would handle the contract between the fans (who paid) and the show, to ensure that no one gets cheated (they’d make the payments to the show, and deliver the show to the fans).
4. Once a season is done, the process would repeat, only this time without a pilot.
5. Ideally any finished (and paid for) shows would go in to the public domain.
Is there really a single ‘creator’ in film? Sure, Joss Whedon developed the idea for Firefly, but just think about how many people needed to be involved to produce the finished product. Who is the ‘creator’ here? I would suggest that everyone involved in the filming and production plays that role. As such, are they not all entitled to compensation? And therein lies the problem. The complexities of compensating so many people require some sort of organization. You have to deal with multiple unions, multi national financial considerations, insurance, and a myriad of other issues. The time and effort required for these productions is enormously expensive. I have read about how inflated movie budgets are, but they are not 90% inflated. If you are happy with low-budget movies, then that’s a different story. But the Hollywood blockbuster requires an entire infrastructure to create it. And therein lies the problem. You don’t like all the adds? You don’t want to have adds on the DVD? You don’t want to share the thing with people? So where does the money come from to pay the bill for the film, and the salaries of all the people involved? Suggesting that file sharing is a ‘protest’ against copywrite and DRM is crap. Its about watching a movie and not paying for it. And I personally don’t care what people do, but its dishonest to suggest that it has some ethical motivation.
If you truly want a different system, stop WATCHING Hollywood movies. Find a film that is freely distributed, watch that, and promote it. All you yahoos swapping Hollywood movies and yammering on about how ‘ethical’ it is are full of shit. Sharing those movies is supporting the system just as much as buying them. If you truly care about digital freedom, go BUY an independent film and let people know that they should go BUY it too so that the ‘creator’ can pay the rent and make another film.
Here’s a question: how many torrent users have actually donated money to the guy who created BitTorrent? I did, and I hardly ever use the thing. If every Bit Torrent user donated $5, the guy would be RICH. And guess what? He’s not. Unfortunately, this scenario is often used to point out that people do not always put their money where their mouth is. So go give that guy a donation, and then come back to talk about the ethics of file sharing and how we need change.
Well, I did write this piece almost two years ago and I would still like to try it out as an idea.
and by “this piece” I meant
http://www.dbzer0.com/blog/2006/06/22/public-venture-public-content
(the link was eaten)
Nick is a troll.
Attack!
This article should have been entitled “Ode to The Wire”. And worse, it misleads the reader by purporting to be about technology that it never fully discusses or explains.
JJ, please take a course in journalism and stop emulating the worst sort of editorializing writers the New York Times has to offer.
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