DVDs featuring Thai LBs

[Guest]

Piracy does put some people out of jobs, but it gives jobs to others. There is really no some loss of jobs and more likely a gain in jobs when you consider all the vendors worldwide who derive income from piracy. In a larger sense, particularly considering software piracy, there are many who cannot afford expensive software. Imagine the next Einstein or cancer breakthrough coming from some one who was educated using a bootleg version of software. Therefore, net gain or bottom line is that the more people exposed to information, free information, the more progress can be made.

[D33]

(stogie bear @ Sep. 19 2007,17:42)

Piracy is theft, plain and simple....

Like I said before... You tell me what's been stolen and I'll compensate you 100%!

Track down these people who have downloaded your stuff and ask them if they'd be willing to pay for it at even 20% of your retail asking price!

People who download porn on the internet have almost NO impact on your retail sales. The fact is that they would NOT pay for it even if it was NOT available for free.

This tired old argument reminds me of the EMI bosses who wanted to ban radio cassette recorders!

Suck it up and figure in the costs of this rampant piracy on to your bottom line the same as clothes shops figure in shoplifting into their prices...

Just about everyone I know working online and on the DVD end is running at about 20% (some as much as 30%) less since the general take off of it torrent sites.

I personally am down about 20% from what figures should be. You want to see my books? Cause I hope you have one hell of a savings to back up your claims, cause 20% of my income is a hefty chunk of change.

There are several groups who are and have been researching this subject and the damages it causes. I'm shocked you are so uninformed on this subject, and I really hope you do have a back up plan for what you will do when you are out of job here. It's easy to sit back with a ladyboy cock in your hand and preach about what you THINK is going on, but your comments have already shown you are not informed.

If you want to see my books and track how month by month, next to the growth of P2P and torrent site traffic as well as new sites, I'm game, but bring cash, I will not accept such a large check.

The bottom line is, I agree (well informed) to disagree with you. I guess we can meet back here in 2 or 3 years and see if you still work here. That's the only way to settle such a debate.

[D33]

(bohemia @ Sep. 20 2007,06:33) Piracy does put some people out of jobs, but it gives jobs to others. There is really no some loss of jobs and more likely a gain in jobs when you consider all the vendors worldwide who derive income from piracy. In a larger sense, particularly considering software piracy, there are many who cannot afford expensive software. Imagine the next Einstein or cancer breakthrough coming from some one who was educated using a bootleg version of software. Therefore, net gain or bottom line is that the more people exposed to information, free information, the more progress can be made.

Online piracy is the biggest problem. The guys selling DVDs in the markets or streets don't really hit us. They are selling in markets we don't sell to anyway.

For example, China is the #1 country for bootlegging DVDs. We do not sell to China so it's not money we could have made. Same with most Asian countries.

[stogie bear]

I'm shocked you are so uninformed on this subject, and...

My contrary opinion doesn't mean I am uninformed! It means that my sources of knowledge, interpretation of data, opinions dervied from information and common sense don't match yours. This is so far a healthy debate but please don't attack my sensibilities on the subject just because they don't match yours...

I personally am down about 20% from what figures should be...

How on earth could you even guess at that? What your figures should be (according to you) and what they actually are could be down to a thousand variables and you are stretching the reality of the situation to imply that the fault lies with cheapskates downloading your vids for free?

It could simply be that the market is changing and the competition is better or the marketing of products has changed... It could be that there is a general downturn in the economy...

The Pattaya "low season" can't be blamed on people getting free sex in other cities... at the same time there are places in Pattaya that are doing very well despite the downturn of the local economy.

Like food and shoes... people will always want sex in one form or another... I'll be in this business in one form or another till I choose not to be.

[D33]

(stogie bear @ Sep. 20 2007,15:33)

I'm shocked you are so uninformed on this subject, and...

My contrary opinion doesn't mean I am uninformed! It means that my sources of knowledge, interpretation of data, opinions dervied from information and common sense don't match yours. This is so far a healthy debate but please don't attack my sensibilities on the subject just because they don't match yours...

I personally am down about 20% from what figures should be...

How on earth could you even guess at that? What your figures should be (according to you) and what they actually are could be down to a thousand variables and you are stretching the reality of the situation to imply that the fault lies with cheapskates downloading your vids for free?

It could simply be that the market is changing and the competition is better or the marketing of products has changed... It could be that there is a general downturn in the economy...

The Pattaya "low season" can't be blamed on people getting free sex in other cities... at the same time there are places in Pattaya that are doing very well despite the downturn of the local economy.

Like food and shoes... people will always want sex in one form or another... I'll be in this business in one form or another till I choose not to be.

Were you at the anti-piracy meeting in LA 2 weeks ago? It was very informative. Lots of good info shared by people who actually study this issue.

I'm sure you are informed, as was I, to a point. But it's a LOT worse than you think. That's all I'm saying.

In regards to our books, it is easy to do a total analysis of your business over a period of time (in this case years) and match it against anything you want. There are even services that will help you do this.

The only NEW variable is the new popularity in the file sharing sites. Not 1000s. We also keep track against competitors, price points and so on. Very easy to do.

Before it was just core guys who used these, now, everyone does. All easy to track. If you are going to run a successful business on an international level, you MUST know your numbers, trends, patterns and why you spike or decline. Many businesses fail because they don't know how to do this or simply do not want to put in the effort.

[D33]

(stogie bear @ Sep. 20 2007,15:33) ...I'll be in this business in one form or another till I choose not to be.

Well, you can help make sure that is true be actively perusing people who are stealing content from AsianTS.com.

Send out DMCA notices to everyone, every host, every site and every biller that is part of the process that is helping to steal your content. It's almost a full time job, but if you do nothing about it and expect the problem to fix itself, you're in for a rude awakening.

Look, I want you guys to be here 10 years from now. And I'm not looking to battle anyone over a issue that affects us both. What I am saying is, it is a HUGE problem that is getting worse exponentially. You guys need to step to the plate and start protecting you content because i'ts EVERYWHERE for FREE!!!

[jonstroud]

(D33 @ Sep. 19 2007,11:27) Most of you have just spoken so far out of your ass on a topic you know nothing about that it is appauling. I'm going to leave it here and agree to disagree. If I want to have an intellectual conversation regarding piracy, I will talk to people who actually know what is really going on.

I should have known better than to discuss such an important matter on a transsexual board.

First, acquire an intellect.

[D33]

(jonstroud @ Sep. 21 2007,09:36)

(D33 @ Sep. 19 2007,11:27) Most of you have just spoken so far out of your ass on a topic you know nothing about that it is appauling. I'm going to leave it here and agree to disagree. If I want to have an intellectual conversation regarding piracy, I will talk to people who actually know what is really going on.

I should have known better than to discuss such an important matter on a transsexual board.

First, acquire an intellect.

Brilliant comeback. Did you stay up all night to think of that?





So tell me genius, who would be better to discuss this piracy issue: People who specialize in piracy issues, attorneys who specialize in piracy issues, producers and companies who are fighting piracy every day OR... a few whore mongers who live in Thailand, steal movies online and will pay to suck cocks?

Sorry mate, but I have to go with the informed and educated professionals in the trenches. Nothing personal.

There is NOTHING wrong with the guys like yourself in Thailand sucking cocks, but it's a little difficult to understand the scope of the problem while sitting in one of the largest bootleg countries in the world and not working in the entertainment industry in anyway that would have a piracy issue.

You will ever understand unless you make something that gets stolen all around the world by people who think it's ok to steal it because "it's online."

[doug]

(D33 @ Sep. 19 2007,13:41) Piracy is theft, plain and simple. None of you would walk up to me, put your hand in my pocket and take my cash....And none of you would walk into your nearest video store and just put a DVD in your pocket and walk out. But online, it is easy and nobody feels guilt for doing it. Somehow they justify stealing because it's on the internet.

Minus the empty threat, this is a valid point.

(D33 @ Sep. 19 2007,13:41) What people think about is "they make so much money, fuck em!" and they steal.  What they don't think about is the people who DON'T make he money and are losing jobs due to piracy. The guy who prints the DVD covers, the guy who presses the DVDs, the guys in the warehouse taking care of inventory, the girl at the counter at your local video store... this IS trickling down right now. Jobs are being lost RIGHT NOW!!!! Not in 4 years, but right now!!!

This is also a valid point.

The people who lose jobs due to piracy are not the corporate execs (the just move on to their next free buffet at some other company in some other industry), but the store clerks at Blockbuster, the lighting grips at the film company, and the render farmers at the little animation shops.

These people have families to feed and while they may not be "professional artists", they deserve to make a living like everyone else.

Nobody is going to cry for Bono or Madonna if someone pirates their shit, but last time I check, Bono wasn't mixing his own sound board or packing his own CD cases or drawing his own album cover art or spinning his own disks at the local radio station.  Those "professional artists" actually respresent the  hundreds of people it takes to produce, market, and distribute music.

Now, of course, the record companies got too greedy and they deservedly got their come-uppance from the likes of Napster and the chinese/thai pirates.  Twenty dollars for a 10-cent CD is robbery, period.  I don't care if God, Himself, shits a gold brick on that disk, I'm still not paying 20 dollars for it.

Economies of scale should take over and top-selling artists SHOULD be cheaper to buy than local artists, but that's just not the case.  Which tells me the record companies are using out-dated laws to protect their buggy-whip-making antique business model.  If my favorite local band can press their own disks and sell them for $8 to $10 at their shows, why can't Sony figure out how to distribute Celine Dion for $5 a pop??

But sorry guys, to use record-company greed as a justification for ALL forms of piracy just doesn't wash.

Let's drop the "art" word since that's causing people to quibble over the definition, and just say "content".  Producing content takes A LOT of time (and yes, money too).  Some people do it for free as a hobby, but that doesn't mean everyone should be forced to produce free material.

Let's use Youtube and Myspace as examples.  Both sites take content that "hobbyists" upload to their sites and distribute it freely around the web.  Myspace goes so far as to block other video services (read about net neutrality, it's an eye-opener), so that you can only get your video content from a Myspace (or Youtube, because YouTube has enough money to sue NewsCorp blind if they tried to block it) server.  Try linking to a video from Revver on your MySpace account and see what happens.

YouTube just got sold for a bajillion-gazillion dollars, but did it's founders give any of that money back to the CONTENT-PRODUCERS??  Of course not!!

But that's not so bad because YouTube pays all the hosting bills and the producers retain their digital property rights so if they do come up with a hit video series (like Lonelygirl15 or AskaNinja), they can still sell their own DVDs and T-shirts to make a living.

YouTube provides a valuable service for these artists who might never have had access to such a huge distribution channel.  Still, for the vast majority of content-producers, they recieve nothing from YouTube's ad revenues.  They give people a reason to visit YouTube, but they recieve nothing in return (unless, like AskaNinja, they are popular enough that Toshiba, Ask.com, and CBS pay to insert ads into their videos).

MySpace, on the other hand (fucking NewsCorp), flat-out robs people.  If you upload a cool video series to MySpace, it because THEIR property and they'll start burning DVDs with your shit on it.  They'll use it in their advertising and promotions, and they'll insert ads into your video and make profits off of it.

So you say, hey, those fucking corporate bastards are robbing people!  They shouldn't be so greedy!  They didn't pay to produce that video!  They didn't spend hours filming and editing it!  They didn't hire actors, scout locations, buy servers to render CGI, or write the scripts!  So why should those fucking corporate suits be able to take content they didn't produce and make a profit off of it!!?!?!?  Bastards!!

Huh...  kinda exactly what pirates do, right?

All those Chinese and Thai pirates who burn CDs and crack install codes are no different than the corporate goons at MySpace or the record companies.

They're feeding off content-providers just the same.

In the end, it's the color/lighting effects code specialist at Adobe who gets the shaft.  When Adobe cuts his job because nobody's paying $700 for their software anymore, how's he going to feed his family?

And when American companies like Adobe, Atari, and Pixar are losing BILLIONS to Chinese pirates, that's no longer an issue of "greedy corporations getting what they deserve".

There is a serious issue underlying the whole debate.  And that is "what is the true value of content and who should get paid for it?"  

The distributor?  Like Youtube, Myspace, CBS, or some Chinese pirate?  Of course the distributor has every right to add a charge to cover their hosting/production costs, but should they be able to just grab content for FREE without paying the content-producer?

Does content have no value at all?  Are we only willing to pay for material costs (the CD) and distribution (the vendors)??

800MBs of video of a pimple on my hairy ass costs EXACTLY the same to burn onto a VCD as the latest Spiderman flick or Ladyboy tag-team action.  So when you pay 100 baht for a VCD in the market versus 10 baht for a blank CD, you're not paying for the video, you're merely paying for the burn (and perhaps the crack code if it's software).  The content provider gets NOTHING from that sale, which makes your average Chinese pirate about as greedy as your average American record executive.

And yet I see people flaming the record companies and championing the pirates.  why?  They're the SAME!!

Oh, and by the way.  Someone is making money off those bit-torrent sites.  It ain't free to host all that bandwidth, so you'd better believe that there is profit in those sites for somebody.

Think about that the next time you pop a pirated CD into your computer.  Do you really know what's on that CD?  I mean, if Sony can put a rootkit on its CDs, what's to stop the average pirate from putting that and much worse onto their CDs/downloads?

The "cost" you're paying for your cheap software/videos may be paid in viruses, browser-hijackers, malware, trojan horses, and other nasty things.

Think about that the next time you open up CrackCodeGenerator.EXE on the new pirate copy of Vista.  It's an EXE file!!  Sure, it's giving you the code to install the software, but what else is it doing?

Asking whether or not you trust Microsoft or a random pirate is a bit silly, since both are equally nefarious.  But at least with Microsoft you have a known evil that can eventually be held accountable.  Trusting Microsoft AND a pirate?  Geesh, you're brave!

[stogie bear]

[D33]

(doug @ Sep. 21 2007,11:57)

(D33 @ Sep. 19 2007,13:41) Piracy is theft, plain and simple. None of you would walk up to me, put your hand in my pocket and take my cash....And none of you would walk into your nearest video store and just put a DVD in your pocket and walk out. But online, it is easy and nobody feels guilt for doing it. Somehow they justify stealing because it's on the internet.

Minus the empty threat, this is a valid point.

(D33 @ Sep. 19 2007,13:41) What people think about is "they make so much money, fuck em!" and they steal. What they don't think about is the people who DON'T make he money and are losing jobs due to piracy. The guy who prints the DVD covers, the guy who presses the DVDs, the guys in the warehouse taking care of inventory, the girl at the counter at your local video store... this IS trickling down right now. Jobs are being lost RIGHT NOW!!!! Not in 4 years, but right now!!!

This is also a valid point.

The people who lose jobs due to piracy are not the corporate execs (the just move on to their next free buffet at some other company in some other industry), but the store clerks at Blockbuster, the lighting grips at the film company, and the render farmers at the little animation shops.

These people have families to feed and while they may not be "professional artists", they deserve to make a living like everyone else.

Nobody is going to cry for Bono or Madonna if someone pirates their shit, but last time I check, Bono wasn't mixing his own sound board or packing his own CD cases or drawing his own album cover art or spinning his own disks at the local radio station. Those "professional artists" actually respresent the hundreds of people it takes to produce, market, and distribute music.

Now, of course, the record companies got too greedy and they deservedly got their come-uppance from the likes of Napster and the chinese/thai pirates. Twenty dollars for a 10-cent CD is robbery, period. I don't care if God, Himself, shits a gold brick on that disk, I'm still not paying 20 dollars for it.

Economies of scale should take over and top-selling artists SHOULD be cheaper to buy than local artists, but that's just not the case. Which tells me the record companies are using out-dated laws to protect their buggy-whip-making antique business model. If my favorite local band can press their own disks and sell them for $8 to $10 at their shows, why can't Sony figure out how to distribute Celine Dion for $5 a pop??

But sorry guys, to use record-company greed as a justification for ALL forms of piracy just doesn't wash.

Let's drop the "art" word since that's causing people to quibble over the definition, and just say "content". Producing content takes A LOT of time (and yes, money too). Some people do it for free as a hobby, but that doesn't mean everyone should be forced to produce free material.

Let's use Youtube and Myspace as examples. Both sites take content that "hobbyists" upload to their sites and distribute it freely around the web. Myspace goes so far as to block other video services (read about net neutrality, it's an eye-opener), so that you can only get your video content from a Myspace (or Youtube, because YouTube has enough money to sue NewsCorp blind if they tried to block it) server. Try linking to a video from Revver on your MySpace account and see what happens.

YouTube just got sold for a bajillion-gazillion dollars, but did it's founders give any of that money back to the CONTENT-PRODUCERS?? Of course not!!

But that's not so bad because YouTube pays all the hosting bills and the producers retain their digital property rights so if they do come up with a hit video series (like Lonelygirl15 or AskaNinja), they can still sell their own DVDs and T-shirts to make a living.

YouTube provides a valuable service for these artists who might never have had access to such a huge distribution channel. Still, for the vast majority of content-producers, they recieve nothing from YouTube's ad revenues. They give people a reason to visit YouTube, but they recieve nothing in return (unless, like AskaNinja, they are popular enough that Toshiba, Ask.com, and CBS pay to insert ads into their videos).

MySpace, on the other hand (fucking NewsCorp), flat-out robs people. If you upload a cool video series to MySpace, it because THEIR property and they'll start burning DVDs with your shit on it. They'll use it in their advertising and promotions, and they'll insert ads into your video and make profits off of it.

So you say, hey, those fucking corporate bastards are robbing people! They shouldn't be so greedy! They didn't pay to produce that video! They didn't spend hours filming and editing it! They didn't hire actors, scout locations, buy servers to render CGI, or write the scripts! So why should those fucking corporate suits be able to take content they didn't produce and make a profit off of it!!?!?!? Bastards!!

Huh... kinda exactly what pirates do, right?

All those Chinese and Thai pirates who burn CDs and crack install codes are no different than the corporate goons at MySpace or the record companies.

They're feeding off content-providers just the same.

In the end, it's the color/lighting effects code specialist at Adobe who gets the shaft. When Adobe cuts his job because nobody's paying $700 for their software anymore, how's he going to feed his family?

And when American companies like Adobe, Atari, and Pixar are losing BILLIONS to Chinese pirates, that's no longer an issue of "greedy corporations getting what they deserve".

There is a serious issue underlying the whole debate. And that is "what is the true value of content and who should get paid for it?"

The distributor? Like Youtube, Myspace, CBS, or some Chinese pirate? Of course the distributor has every right to add a charge to cover their hosting/production costs, but should they be able to just grab content for FREE without paying the content-producer?

Does content have no value at all? Are we only willing to pay for material costs (the CD) and distribution (the vendors)??

800MBs of video of a pimple on my hairy ass costs EXACTLY the same to burn onto a VCD as the latest Spiderman flick or Ladyboy tag-team action. So when you pay 100 baht for a VCD in the market versus 10 baht for a blank CD, you're not paying for the video, you're merely paying for the burn (and perhaps the crack code if it's software). The content provider gets NOTHING from that sale, which makes your average Chinese pirate about as greedy as your average American record executive.

And yet I see people flaming the record companies and championing the pirates. why? They're the SAME!!

Oh, and by the way. Someone is making money off those bit-torrent sites. It ain't free to host all that bandwidth, so you'd better believe that there is profit in those sites for somebody.

Think about that the next time you pop a pirated CD into your computer. Do you really know what's on that CD? I mean, if Sony can put a rootkit on its CDs, what's to stop the average pirate from putting that and much worse onto their CDs/downloads?

The "cost" you're paying for your cheap software/videos may be paid in viruses, browser-hijackers, malware, trojan horses, and other nasty things.

Think about that the next time you open up CrackCodeGenerator.EXE on the new pirate copy of Vista. It's an EXE file!! Sure, it's giving you the code to install the software, but what else is it doing?

Asking whether or not you trust Microsoft or a random pirate is a bit silly, since both are equally nefarious. But at least with Microsoft you have a known evil that can eventually be held accountable. Trusting Microsoft AND a pirate? Geesh, you're brave!

Awesome post. You hit the nail on the head and said it incredibly well.

[jonstroud]

(D33 @ Sep. 21 2007,11:13)

(jonstroud @ Sep. 21 2007,09:36)

(D33 @ Sep. 19 2007,11:27) Most of you have just spoken so far out of your ass on a topic you know nothing about that it is appauling. I'm going to leave it here and agree to disagree. If I want to have an intellectual conversation regarding piracy, I will talk to people who actually know what is really going on.

I should have known better than to discuss such an important matter on a transsexual board.

First, acquire an intellect.

Brilliant comeback. Did you stay up all night to think of that?





So tell me genius, who would be better to discuss this piracy issue: People who specialize in piracy issues, attorneys who specialize in piracy issues, producers and companies who are fighting piracy every day OR... a few whore mongers who live in Thailand, steal movies online and will pay to suck cocks?

Sorry mate, but I have to go with the informed and educated professionals in the trenches. Nothing personal.

There is NOTHING wrong with the guys like yourself in Thailand sucking cocks, but it's a little difficult to understand the scope of the problem while sitting in one of the largest bootleg countries in the world and not working in the entertainment industry in anyway that would have a piracy issue.

You will ever understand unless you make something that gets stolen all around the world by people who think it's ok to steal it because "it's online."

Not at all, although your posts would make a marvellous cure for insomnia.

You've made an horrendous job of attacking some law breaking while defending other law breakers. To be more precise, it's OK for you to break laws and be handsomely rewarded for the endeavour, but not OK for others to break laws that you preceive might threaten your income. Even income derived from your law breaking.

This makes it rather hard for you to assume the moral high ground with any credibility, hence the personal attacks.

Your feigned sympathy for the little folk on minimum wage at Blockbuster whose jobs are threatened is not convincing. Furthermore, unskilled labour can always move on to the next minimum wage position in the retail industry.

One could argue that a few specialists in the filming industry might lose their jobs, but backing that up with hard evidence would be difficult. A counter argument lies with the fact that even my downloading creates jobs for IT specialists and revenues from advertisers on various websites. It's not a particularly good argument but you appear to prefer an exchange of bullshit insincerities to arguments of substance, so that's my contribution.

Feel free to continue your discussion with the experts. Those cosy chats with the attorneys should be fun. I wonder why they agree with you on this.

Lastly, you have a habit over the few posts we have exchanged of making false assumptions about me. You have no idea what I do for a living or how much of my work has been plagiarised. Nor do you know of my reaction to it.

You seem like the kind of person who will want to have the last word, and the one after that, so go ahead and use your full intellectual capacities to whatever end you please. I have no desire to correspond with you again, but I shall never forget you were the first person on this forum to offer me sex and drugs and I shall cherish that memory of you.

[D33]

(jonstroud @ Sep. 26 2007,11:04) Not at all, although your posts would make a marvellous cure for insomnia.

You've made an horrendous job of attacking some law breaking while defending other law breakers. To be more precise, it's OK for you to break laws and be handsomely rewarded for the endeavour, but not OK for others to break laws that you preceive might threaten your income. Even income derived from your law breaking.

This makes it rather hard for you to assume the moral high ground with any credibility, hence the personal attacks.

Your feigned sympathy for the little folk on minimum wage at Blockbuster whose jobs are threatened is not convincing. Furthermore, unskilled labour can always move on to the next minimum wage position in the retail industry.

One could argue that a few specialists in the filming industry might lose their jobs, but backing that up with hard evidence would be difficult. A counter argument lies with the fact that even my downloading creates jobs for IT specialists and revenues from advertisers on various websites. It's not a particularly good argument but you appear to prefer an exchange of bullshit insincerities to arguments of substance, so that's my contribution.

Feel free to continue your discussion with the experts. Those cosy chats with the attorneys should be fun. I wonder why they agree with you on this.

Lastly, you have a habit over the few posts we have exchanged of making false assumptions about me. You have no idea what I do for a living or how much of my work has been plagiarised. Nor do you know of my reaction to it.

You seem like the kind of person who will want to have the last word, and the one after that, so go ahead and use your full intellectual capacities to whatever end you please. I have no desire to correspond with you again, but I shall never forget you were the first person on this forum to offer me sex and drugs and I shall cherish that memory of you.

[stogie bear]

Well, it's a well thought out and sensical arguement, D33... It probably deserves a better response than that, mate.

[D33]

(stogie bear @ Sep. 27 2007,10:22) Well, it's a well thought out and sensical arguement, D33... It probably deserves a better response than that, mate.

No it doesn't.

His post perfectly sums up the mindset of someone who steals movies & music.

The thought that you can't be against piracy and then break the law somewhere is ridiculous. There is the spirit of the law and the letter of the law. It is absurd as saying that if you jaywalk, then you must support murder, because law is law. But if that is what you think, then if you engage in hiring a prostitute in Thailand, where prostitution is illegal, then you can't be against pedophiles raping 6 year old children in Cambodia. Based on this flawed theory of course.

So no, someone with this argument doesn't deserve a real reply.