U.K. copyright law takes effect

[Cdr]

http://news.com.com/2100-1028-5100441.html?tag=cd_top

Discuss

Also, if you want to read the full text, go here;

http://www.legislation.hmso.gov.uk/si/si2003/20032498.htm

It will be very very boring tho

 

[Deadmanwalking]

Ah so that is what you were up to.

My god man you need a hobby

 

[GDW]

In a nutshell:

"This law is aimed at the most dangerous activity: the organized crime gangs with warehouses of pirated materials," patent office spokesman Jeremy Philpott said. "It is not meant to bring criminal charges to individual downloaders."

 

[evilmonkeh]

uh oh
best watch out for these organised crime gangs.
but people actually, er pay for pirated stuff?
from gangs in warehouses?
hmm

 

[FatBusinessman]

From here
The purpose of the DMCA was to implement the requirements of the World Intellectual Property Organization’s (WIPO) World Copyright Treaty. Failure to amend copyright law would limit the United States’ ability to participate in the World Trade Organization

GDW, I think this amply demonstrates that what this act is "meant" to do is largely irrelevant, it's what it will actually end up doing.

 

[TheJkWhoSaysNi]

He added that individual downloaders would still be subject to civil penalties, which would include injunctions and/or a demand of payment for damages They would not be hit with prison term or fines, he said.

Lol, Basically if you're caught you have to pay for what you downloaded.

 

[rynnor]

Originally posted by TheJkWhoSaysNi
Lol, Basically if you're caught you have to pay for what you downloaded.

And the chances of getting caught are pratically nil - I think the only way to counter this stuff is to make dvd's a lot cheaper and release them simultaneously with films.

 

[ECA]

Its silly isnt it.

DVD's cost < £1 to make, packaging under £3. Not much more expensive than cd/packaging maybe 50p more, yet they sell them for £20.

I refuse to purchase DVDs/music priced stupidly and more and more people are doing the same.

I would also like to be able to download film/album/game for a fee - bandwidth is cheap, i wouldnt mind paying a few quid for either, and they get to make a good profit on it.

Also w/ games, if they all have cdkeys required to play online, online distribution is very viable as it is quite hard to circumvent - yes keygens exist, but they rarely work for online games such as Q3/CS/etc.

 

[DaGaffer]

Originally posted by ECA
Its silly isnt it.

DVD's cost < £1 to make, packaging under £3. Not much more expensive than cd/packaging maybe 50p more, yet they sell them for £20.

Ah, the old 'DVD's only cost pennies to manufacture' line. What a load of cobblers. Manufacture is a tiny part of the cost of a DVD; there's the publisher's cut (you know, the people who invested millions of dollars in the original film?), the distributor, the retailer (ooh, sorry, we'd like to not a make a profit, but you know how it is, mouths to feed and all that), and 17.5% to the taxman. None of the people in the value chain for DVDs are making excessive profit, its just that it makes easier for people who don't want to pay to justify it in their minds if they think all the evil suits are ripping them off.

NB. Replacing physical DVD sales with (paid) download will change the value chain a bit, but not as much as you might think -in fact pay per view proves that to a great extent, people like the 'collector' factor of DVDs.

 

[FatBusinessman]

Originally posted by DaGaffer
None of the people in the value chain for DVDs are making excessive profit, its just that it makes easier for people who don't want to pay to justify it in their minds if they think all the evil suits are ripping them off.

Then explain to me how Fopp, Play or CD-WOW can offer a DVD (which would cost £20-25 in HMV) for £10-15 and still remain economically viable?

 

[Deadmanwalking]

No shop overheads

 

[CAC]

nor would there be shipping costs getting it from the manufacturer to a warehouse and then on to your local store(and/or in somecases delivered to your front door)

 

[(Shovel)]

Just because the "The DVD only cost a grain of rice" argument isn't entirely thought out, doesn't mean that the cost of a DVD is not excessive.

One thing - on the price front - that I think is true, is that it is cheaper to produce a DVD than it is to produce VHS tape - yet rather than introduce at the same price they natural bump up the cost. And yes, I know that that is 'just the way capitalism works'. And I know that it sucks.

I'm still sceptical that law enforcement is going to solve the problem. Economically, it's a strange shift in business really, rather than the consumer saying "Fuck you we don't want to buy your product at that price" and the industry being forced to sell at a lower price, the Industry is instead taking means to force people to buy the "product" at a price they dictate. It's like an attempt at reversing market force.

I know, if I don't want to pay I don't buy it. The trouble is, is that the arts - be that music or film or whatever - is far more than just a product. The cartel nature of music means that acts of similar sizes on different labels are not in competition with each other on price, but also that human demand for music and soforth is based on more than just "Ooh, a material item. I shall buy that". Something such as the law cannot deny the human needs for the arts.

Bollocks, that went a bit off topic there. Oh well.

 

[ECA]

Originally posted by DaGaffer
Ah, the old 'DVD's only cost pennies to manufacture' line. What a load of cobblers. Manufacture is a tiny part of the cost of a DVD; there's the publisher's cut (you know, the people who invested millions of dollars in the original film?), the distributor, the retailer (ooh, sorry, we'd like to not a make a profit, but you know how it is, mouths to feed and all that), and 17.5% to the taxman. None of the people in the value chain for DVDs are making excessive profit, its just that it makes easier for people who don't want to pay to justify it in their minds if they think all the evil suits are ripping them off.

NB. Replacing physical DVD sales with (paid) download will change the value chain a bit, but not as much as you might think -in fact pay per view proves that to a great extent, people like the 'collector' factor of DVDs.

On downloadables, you cut out the manufacturer, the distributer and the shop, say they each get £2/dvd, they can sell for £5-10, make as much, and make me a lot happier.


Their IP development costs remain the same, but their publishing and distribution costs will be minimised.

I wasnt ignoring the cost of IP development, but if we're talking about a game company, lets say rockstar, they can cut out the publisher and all supply chains thereafter.

The only problem is ensuring it CANT be ripped off.
They would need to develop a very robush and secure copy protection mechanism, and that probably isnt viable ( on the windows platform ) and is the main stopping power at the moment.

So....they should create a specification forum of developers and work together....for eg PCI forum, USB forum or whatever they call themselves.

Anyway.... :/ got installations to attend to.

 

[Flamin_Squirrel]

I dont think security is a problem for 2 reasons. 1, because getting an illegitimate copy is easy anyway, and 2 because no online games work with dodgy keys.

You can already buy plenty of downloadable software online, it should be extended to games at least.

 

[(Shovel)]

Downloadable games have been tried before - you pay a lump for the first game module, then you pay some more for the next level, and so forth. It's an interesting idea, but obviously unappealing for publishers since it means they can't sell the whole game to people who don't like it.

 

[-KnoX-]

They are a bit late don't you think.

 

[ECA]

Yes, its WELL overdue.

 

[FatBusinessman]

Originally posted by Deadmanwalking
No shop overheads

Fopp isn't one of these online jobbies, it's a small chain of shops.

 

[rynnor]

Originally posted by DaGaffer
Ah, the old 'DVD's only cost pennies to manufacture' line. What a load of cobblers. Manufacture is a tiny part of the cost of a DVD; there's the publisher's cut (you know, the people who invested millions of dollars in the original film?), the distributor, the retailer (ooh, sorry, we'd like to not a make a profit, but you know how it is, mouths to feed and all that), and 17.5% to the taxman.

In a former job I used to maintain the costs spreadsheets for a moderate sized magazine publisher who sold CD magazines so I have a pretty accurate idea of the costs involved - for a run of 50,000 CD's the manufacturing +delivery to warehouse complete with case was about 50p per unit - DVD's would prob cost a little more but I'd still expect it under a quid - if your doing a much larger run - say 500,000 - 1 million units you would expect far lower costs so we are probably back to 50p manufacture + delivery.

DVD's are small and light and imperishable so the storage and transportation costs are minimal (think about how cheap large bulky items like bottled water or sugar are and then imagine how cheap DVD's are to ship...).

The copyright deal is again dependent on the volume of production - even so I'd be extremely surprised if it was more than £1.50 a unit - its prob closer to a pound a copy.

Add another 50p per unit for marketing - TV adverts/promotion at point of sale etc.

So we are up to about £3.00 a unit (and thats being generous - its prob a lot lower on really popular high production run films).

You can see whos really making the money here - the distributor will probably double the price to the retailer £6 per unit and the rest is down to the retailer (who makes at least another 6 quid a copy for the hardship of displaying the dvd on a shelf

 

[Yoni]

All this said and done there are still people like me out there who value the box as well as the dvd / cd / game in it. I will download music but usually to see if I like the whole album. There is nothing worse than buying one and finding it full of shite fillers. If I don't like it I delete it if I do i put it on my long list of wants and purchase it when I have the spare cash.

The issue with just downloading and not purchasing is that the value chain needs to cover the cost of those who don't pay by upping the price to those of us who do pay. So you see catch 22 situation.


So if you want lower prices then buy your software / music / films

 

[rynnor]

Originally posted by Y0ni
So if you want lower prices then buy your software / music / films

Actually thats the opposite of what has happened - as the threat of downloads and pirate dvds has increased the cost of a dvd has come down plus they are out a lot quicker than they used to be after a film.

 

[DaGaffer]

Originally posted by ECA
On downloadables, you cut out the manufacturer, the distributer and the shop, say they each get £2/dvd, they can sell for £5-10, make as much, and make me a lot happier.


Their IP development costs remain the same, but their publishing and distribution costs will be minimised.

I wasnt ignoring the cost of IP development, but if we're talking about a game company, lets say rockstar, they can cut out the publisher and all supply chains thereafter.

The only problem is ensuring it CANT be ripped off.
They would need to develop a very robush and secure copy protection mechanism, and that probably isnt viable ( on the windows platform ) and is the main stopping power at the moment.

So....they should create a specification forum of developers and work together....for eg PCI forum, USB forum or whatever they call themselves.

Anyway.... :/ got installations to attend to.

Except you're missing one of the biggest single costs of selling any product - MARKETING. Much as you might hate it, most products have huge marketing budgets behind them, and if download was a big market you wouldn't get away from that, and its also very unlikely that each individual developer/publisher would put up their own download service because people simple don't shop that way - when they buy Vice City they don't think 'rockstar', they don't think 'Take 2' (you might but most people don't) they think 'a place that sells games'. Now that isn't necessarily your friendly neighbourhood GAME, it could be your ISP, or GSP or whoever, but it will be an outfit selling a variety of games from different people, and taking a cut.

As I said in the last post, the various slices of the pie may change but if you think creator of content > customer with no intermediate steps is going to happen you're sadly mistaken (oh, I'm sure there will be individual exceptions like Valve, but that won't be the norm).

Oh and one reason why the online retailers you mentioned can undercut is very simple - they have a 17.5% advantage right from the word go.

 

[MYstIC G]

Originally posted by Y0ni
So if you want lower prices then buy your software / music / films

I love ya Yoni but that is _so_ not a trend that applys to "Media" for want of a better word. To get realistically lower priced CDs, games, DVD's, etc you have to play the waiting game. With media the stuff goes down in price once the retailer hits the point of "shit's not popular anymore (based on Marketing at DaGaffer points out) & is taking up too much shelf space that could be used for selling something that is popular."

It has to be said this is why I like the Amazon "Wishlist" I generally bung a rake of stuff I would get but cba to pay top £££ for to have straight away & once in a while check to see if they've got any offers on which mean I can grab a wedge of them for a reasonable price.

Would be nice if the GAME shop had a similar feature as I have to confess I was less bothered buying Turok for the GC for a fiver off the site & it being shit than I was to buy the new WWE: RAW 2 for X-Box in store at full whack which was also shit.