The Double-Dip Mentality

[Mithrandir]

I'm beginning to get extremely frustrated... Uncontrolled greed has caused the double-dip mentality to really take over the DVD/CD market. It has recently reached ridiculous levels. I basically refuse to buy DVDs now. The re-release Recut/Extended Sin City was the one that put me over the edge. I was all excited for it to hit DVD, bought it on one of the first days, and then they rerelease it for the Christmas season with tons of extras and I'm sitting here thinking to myself, "Now why did I pay for this crappy version again?" Are they consciously trying to flip me the bird for purchasing their product?

My CD buying has also taken a serious hit. What actually prompted this post was my attempt to buy a decent version of 'The Rise And Fall of Ziggy Stardust & The Spiders From Mars' for my dad... only to have to sift through about six different rereleases of the same friggin CD. The result? I just didn't buy anything - it wasn't worth my time.

Which leads into my next point: Is the double-dip philosophy really economically ideal for these companies? A substantial number of my friends no longer purchase DVDs/CDs because everyone is so tired of these companies. The people who still purchase DVDs are now usually waiting 4+ months before they buy them since they want to wait and see if a recut, extended, director's cut, etc. will come out since they don't want to get roped into purchasing an inferior version. This obviously really hurts the oh-so-important opening week sales figures. The internet makes it ridiculously easy to download movies and music... it seems as though making it as difficult as possible for your customers to find what they want and constantly screwing them over when there's the dangling carrot of being able to go download everything for free anyway is just poor business strategy. Whatever happend to releasing a quality product and then selling said product on its merits? Why do these companies feel as though they have to trick us into getting gouged for as much money as possible? All it does is disenchant the customers and create distrust (in my experiences at least).

After having said all of that, I'm still probably going to go and buy the Recut/Extended Sin City (once the price drops), because I enjoyed the movie and I want to see as many of the extras as possible. So I guess they got me there. But the next time I see a Dimension (the studio that produced Sin City) DVD, I'm going to remember that they screwed me over last time with this double-dip crap. I wonder what I'm going to do if I'm on the fence about purchasing the DVD?

[jahcs]

I got burned on The Fellowship of the Ring DVD.
I picked it up about a week after it came out, took it home, opened it up, and saw a little sales flyer in the case for the special extended version that would come out before that Christmas. I haven't bought any of the other LotR movies since.

Nowdays I usually buy from the previously viewed section of the video store (since many new DVDs are now selling for $29.99 :blink: ) or wait for them to go on sale after several months. By then any special editions have usually been put out or the DVD is cheap enough I don't care.


And dammit, someone needs to pass a law that outtakes should be mandatory with DVD bonus features.

[Doc]

As long as the entertainment industry supports double dipping and out right theft, I fully support piracy in any and all forms as protest.

With the latest blunders from Sony, the double dipping and selling 50 different versions of the same damn movie, and all the little jabs and potshots taken directly at the consumer, I refuse to buy anything until such time that changes are made.

It is better to be a pirate than join the Navy.

[--Pete]

Hi,

==snip==
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I learned back in the VHS days that the films one wants to watch are never the ones on the shelf. That's what makes Blockbusters a blockbuster. I'm not repeating that mistake with DVDs. On those rare occasions I care enough to actually own a film, I take the time to find the official web site and check the release schedule. The rant about LoTR (not in the post I'm responding to) should be aimed as much at the poster as at the distributors-- the info was out for almost a year ahead of release. Even I, who shun all things media, knew about it. Caveat emptor was probably an ancient concept when Latin was young.

As for the rest, Netflix is a boon. For the less than the cost of one DVD or the rental of five or so, one can have effectively unlimited access to movies old and new. And since the cost is constant regardless of the movies rented, one can take a chance on an unknown film, watch it for ten minutes, and toss it for being a dog (or enjoy it to the end, and actually see the occasional film that hasn't been hyped by the media.)

Look through your VHS/DVD collection. How many of them have you watched enough times to make the space they occupy pay off? Much less their initial cost? I had videos for ten years or more that were still in their heat-shrink wrappings. Unless you *want* to run a library, let someone else do it.

And that way, those evil distributors will get none of your money. ;)

--Pete

[--Pete]

Hi,

As long as the entertainment industry supports double dipping . . .
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If you are stupid enough to buy without taking the time to be informed, you deserve to be ripped off. And you have plenty of time to get informed -- just cut you number of posts by 50%.

. . . and out right theft,

"Theft' being any practice you don't approve of? Bah.

I fully support piracy in any and all forms as protest.

On the idiotic premise that two wrongs make a right?

I refuse to buy anything until such time that changes are made.

Go one step further -- sell all your electronic junk. Especially your computers.

Don't bother answering. I've finally got so sick and tired of you that I'm going to test the ignore feature of these boards.

--Pete

[Doc]

Sorry about that Pete.

What was that that Ghandi said about the moral obligation to disobey unjust laws and orders... Civil disobedience as a form of protest.

Sorry... Really. But when the entertainment industry treats everybody as nothing more than a common criminal, assuming everybody is devious scum, and then goes out of their way to ream people, I figure it's time to give them exactly what they want. They assume that every one is a pirate, a file sharer. That every one is guilty. That ALL consumers are scum that can not be trusted with their own media files that they bought and paid for. They are even jumping on to the fear mongering bandwagon saying that people that pirate music and sell pirated DVDs are supporting terrorists (Which makes no sense to me) and creating a big stink over the whole issue. When they are lobbying the law makers to introduce tattler software that will inform the powers that be when you do so much as email an mpeg to a friend, when they start finding ways to force entry in to our own personal private paid for computers and see what it is we do, I draw the line. With the new digital copyright laws coming down the pipeline, you can go to prison longer for sharing a single song than you will for raping a child or murdering somebody. The proposed sentences for these digital copyright violations are life sentences. Which is absurd. There is not one iota of difference between me sharing an mp3 with a friend and me making a tape copy to share. (Which, by the way, is perfectly legal.) So I can make a tape or burn a cd, but file sharing one bloody mp3 file and the whole damn world ends. Is this right? I can burn my entire collection of music to tape or CD and give it away to friends and family, and it is perfectly legal to do so under the fair use act, and I can record my entire video collection to copy videos and share them with my friends and family, and so long as I do not make a profit on it, it is perfectly legal to do so, but if I transfer those same files electronically, I am a terrible criminal that supports terrorism and am an enemy to Amerika and its hard working entertainment industry.

So kids... Who can tell me the difference on why it is perfectly legal to make a tape or burn a cd for a friend, but it's somehow wrong to share those files online? It's the same dang thing.

How and why does a song cost 99 cents or so from a downloadable music service... And why does the artist only get about 1/100th of a penny from each one of those sales? Who is the real rip off artists here?

A long time ago, England made a global tax on every vessel, on every ship, on every boat that sailed the seas. Any ship that did not pass through London to be taxed was considered piracy, and any boat lacking the seal of the Crown of England could be captured and have it's goods impounded. Any vessel of any nationality that failed to first sail to London and then on to its destination was considered a pirate vessel. Many good and innocent men fell victim to this tax. Many men were labeled as pirates because of this. Many merchants who could not afford the positively absurd cost of the tax who left their home port and tried to sail to their destination and were caught faced hanging or being sent to slave plantations in Cuba and all those little islands down there. American colony ships sailing from one colony harbour to another had to sail all the way to London first and then back to America.

If we do nothing stuff like this will happen again today.

Arrgh.

[FenrisWulf]

There is not one iota of difference between me sharing an mp3 with a friend and me making a tape copy to share. (Which, by the way, is perfectly legal.)
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Apologies for directly responding to such a tiny portion of your post; I'm a bit tired and don't feel up to crafting a more involved reply. I just wanted to note: it's not actually legal to reproduce a tape and share it with a friend. Copyright owners have an exclusive right to reproduce their works, unless the reproduction qualifies as fair use. Fair use is a pretty fuzzy subject, but copying music to give to your friends pretty definitely isn't covered underneath it.

Note: It's even disputed whether making backups or time-shifting is legitimately covered by fair use (I'm of a pretty strong opinion that they should be, but, alas, I'm not in charge of things like this).

So, given that reproducing a tape to share with your friend isn't fair use, you're bound by copyright law to obtain permission to do so from the copyright owner. If you don't get that permission, then you're doing something illegal.

Now, whether copyright law is right is an entirely different story...

[eppie]

Don't bother answering.  I've finally got so sick and tired of you that I'm going to test the ignore feature of these boards.

--Pete
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And I'm getting sick and tired of your politically correct defending of the music and film industry. (see also the thread some weeks ago).

And just like you advice doc to get rid of all his electronic stuff, I advice you to use you obvious great sense of justice (which is a good thing by the way) to defend groups of people that really deserve it. Like homeless people, 3rd world country children and the environment.

Seriously do you really expect normal people to buy all those extra releases for the price the film business asks for it?
These guys just try to milk us as much as they can......and if nobody came with the brilliant idea to copy music and films for free, the stuff would be even more expensive.

And let's be real, everybody has his budget for spending on music and movies...if the stuff costs more he just buys less, .....but he still spends the same amount.

[Doc]

Wait, I seem to recall that back in the 80s when the big stink about piracy with cassette tapes and VHS tapes was raised that it was deemed that making a copy with out the intent to profit was deemed acceptable as fair use. Everybody was in a panic because cassette recorders and VCRs were in full swing and there was a massive panic that the recording industry would never see another dollar ever again because human beings were all trash and scum and they would just record themselves a copy rather than buy it. All kinds of legal procedings as I recall, using pretty much all of the same scare tactics of today.

What finally shut them up was that they got a percentage of recordable electronic media sold. Blank tapes and such. A sort of sin tax.

The problem here now is, there is no blank media for them to cash in on. Electronic file transfers don't need a VCR tape or a cassette. No way for them to get their pennies in kickback.

I also remember a lot of people being angry way back when because the industry had found a way to make even more money and the artists were the ones still being screwed.

The problem is already fixing it self. Some very smart artists are managing their own music online. They cut the big industry out and charge a small modest fee to download entire albums. I'll gladly fork out the cash for the small time operators.

The sooner we stop supporting the big entertainment industry, even if it means resorting to "piracy" the sooner they will bleed cash out and die. Hopefully. And then maybe the artists will have a fair shot.

I aint got no problem paying for my music and my movies. My problem is who I am paying. And that's what irks me.

[Doc]

And I'm getting sick and tired of your politically correct defending of the music and film industry. (see also the thread some weeks ago).

And just like you advice doc to get rid of all his electronic stuff, I advice you to use you obvious great sense of justice (which is a good thing by the way) to defend groups of people that really deserve it. Like homeless people, 3rd world country children and the environment.

Seriously do you really expect normal people to buy all those extra releases for the price the film business asks for it?
These guys just try to milk us as much as they can......and if nobody came with the brilliant idea to copy music and films for free, the stuff would be even more expensive.

And let's be real, everybody has his budget for spending on music and movies...if the stuff costs more he just buys less, .....but he still spends the same amount.
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All of the "free" stuff available is working. The industry is beginning to realise that it can not fairly compete with free. It's beginning to dawn on them that they need to charge a reasonable bit of money or create a business model that people think is fair. See Netflix. There are some good changes in the system... And those that engineer those changes deserve our hard earned pennies as a means to encourage future growth in similar ventures.

[Fragbait]

Hi,

You are right that it's annoying for a customer to buy something and two weeks later, a new 'special edition' comes out.

Yet there's one solution I see:
Don't buy DVDs at all. They are expensive (15€-30€ when they hit the market), and most of them you don't watch twice anyway. Rent them! There are several DVD-rentals in my hometown, one even offering 24h service via automatic renting with fingerprint scanning. Rental fees vary from 1€ for the first 3 hours (the 24h shop) to 2€ until the next workday if you have a 10-film-combi-card at a standard DVD-rental.

Plus, in my experience, the 'super-duper-bonus-material' isn't worth the extra buck. At the beginning I often skimmed through the boni on the DVDs, and sometimes I do so nowadays. But guess what - it's mostly boring interviews with cutters, deleted scenes that really deserved to be deleted, photos - man, I just watched the movie! Why photos? - , trailers (actually nice, but not content-wise connected to the main movie) or other useless trivia. I don't think that that plays a role, and when you're a LotR fan, you'll wait until the major collector's edition box comes out anyways.

Oh, and one word to Pete: Don't get high-handed . While you may be into it, many people can't handle the internet so very well. And often times it takes place that people make a family purchase and see an offer for a DVD that interests them - zack, they buy it. Stating that every person could inform themself beforehand is hypocrisy in 99% of the cases - I know nobody who never in his life made a wrong choice because the lack of information. I'm giving you an example:
You are interested in a car. The dealer tells you that a navigation system would cost 1750$ extra charge, but that you'd pay 2500$ if you would have it installed later, and so you order it. You seem to recall from your internet research that that what he told you holds true, and you are satisfied.
4 weeks later, your new car hasn't even been delivered by now, the company announces a face-lift of the model series which includes the integration of the navigation system in the equipment version that you had ordered (let's say it's the top-notch variant), coming along with a mere 1% price increase (let's say 600$ for a 60000$ car). Now don't tell me that you ain't mad, no matter whether you could have guessed at the face-lift if you had bought the proper car magazines for a couple of weeks before your deal.

No harm intended.

Greetings, Fragbait

[Occhidiangela]

And I'm getting sick and tired of your politically correct defending of the music and film industry.

eppie, they happen to have the law on their side. Consider how important law is to you, to your community, to your country, to the international community.

I advice you to use you obvious great sense of justice (which is a good thing by the way) to defend groups of people that really deserve it. Like homeless people, 3rd world country children and the environment.

Why do you make the presumption that he doesn't? You reply is tangential to the point and a red herring. Where do you get off assuming undesirable or heartless traits in someone you disagree with on a particular topic? That sort of illogic is called "the reverse halo effect" and it leads to errors in judgment. Trust me on that one, I've walked a mile or two in that pair of manure encrusted boots. ;) Heck, you've seen part of that hike.

Seriously do you really expect normal people to buy all those extra releases for the price the film business asks for it?

No. Pete is suggesting that consumers use their brains, not get sucked in by hype, and defeat the evil conglomerates by not acting like a sheep. Or, one can blissfully wander through life in the Gumpesque mode, demonstrating that "stupid is as stupid does." The choice is in the hands of the consumer.

These guys just try to milk us as much as they can......and if nobody came with the brilliant idea to copy music and films for free, the stuff would be even more expensive.

Yes, and fools get milked, right along with goats and cattle. They smell about the same. I direct your attention to PT Barnum: "There is a sucker born every minute, and two to take him."

And let's be real, everybody has his budget for spending on music and movies...if the stuff costs more he just buys less, .....but he still spends the same amount.

Let's get more real. Smart shoppers get more for their money than easily fleeced rubes.

You might want to revisit Pete's comment on the age of caveat emptor

Occhi

[Occhidiangela]

What was that that Ghandi said about the moral obligation to disobey unjust laws and orders... Civil disobedience as a form of protest.

Civil disobedience in pursuit of material possessions don't quite fit the Ghandi philosophy, Doc. :P

But when the entertainment industry treats everybody as nothing more than a common criminal, assuming everybody is devious scum, and then goes out of their way to ream people, I figure it's time to give them exactly what they want.

Doc, you have applied the "monolithic conspiracy theory" model to the entertainment industry, even though it was Sony who did the root kit thing on CD's. That grand generalization is, to be charitable, bloated. That said, many in the "arts industry" will try to get the laws to be even more draconian . . . BNETD case, anyone?

They assume that every one is a pirate, a file sharer. That every one is guilty. That ALL consumers are scum that can not be trusted with their own media files that they bought and paid for.

Their own media files that they bought for their own personal use. Copying it and giving it to a friend are not "personal use."

I am a terrible criminal that supports terrorism and am an enemy to Amerika and its hard working entertainment industry.

Spoken like a sarcastic Paleocon.

I have no love for the entertainment industry in general, but I also have choices. I exercise them, and light a candle rather than cursing the darkness.

A long time ago, England made a global tax on every vessel, on every ship, on every boat that sailed the seas. Any ship that did not pass through London to be taxed was considered piracy, and any boat lacking the seal of the Crown of England could be captured and have it's goods impounded.   Any vessel of any nationality that failed to first sail to London and then on to its destination was considered a pirate vessel.

Your history smells of fish, Doc. The piracy charge was limited to certain ports of origin, flags, and hulls, while other hulls were considered "belligerent" and others "neutral" depending on the deals the King made. The "have to go through London" deal was limited to Crown colonies. The letters of Marque issued to privateers were not universal, but were generally issued "against enemies of the crown." In other words, if I were Sir Francis Drake and the Dutch were in alliance with my king or queen, I would be in contravention of the Letter of Marque I was issued if I attacked a Dutch hull, but in compliance with it were I to attack a Spanish treasure galleon.

Another bit of trade war was applied against the English, the Continental System of Napoleon.

Before you sound off about historical precedent, try getting a few more of you facts straight.

If we do nothing stuff like this will happen again today.
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If we are informed and wise consumers, the retailers will have to adopt better methods of getting more of our business.

Occhi

[Professor Frink]

it's not actually legal to reproduce a tape and share it with a friend. Copyright owners have an exclusive right to reproduce their works, unless the reproduction qualifies as fair use. Fair use is a pretty fuzzy subject, but copying music to give to your friends pretty definitely isn't covered underneath it.
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In the US, the Audio Home Recording Act of 1992 exempts "the noncommercial use by a consumer" of a recording device to record music from copright infringement. This was specifically intended to legalize the common practice of making copies of music to give to your friends; record companies and artists get a royalty paid by the manufacturers/importers of music recording devices to compensate.

-- frink

[Occhidiangela]

In the US, the Audio Home Recording Act of 1992 exempts "the noncommercial use by a consumer" of a recording device to record music from copright infringement.  This was specifically intended to legalize the common practice of making copies of music to give to your friends; record companies and artists get a royalty paid by the manufacturers/importers of music recording devices to compensate.

-- frink
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I stand corrected, I am however pretty sure that the act is limited to record/tape devices. I don't think it covers the digital realm of current issue. I would be pleased to be corrected on that understanding if I have that wrong.

Occhi

[kandrathe]

I agree with you Pete. It not just DVD, CD's or Video... Same excrement, different product... :)

Some books are better as library or used books for a one time reading, and some I want to own a limited edition hard cover edition signed by the author. These are the same sales and marketing techniques that have been used for thousands of years. "Ah, yes I sold you those average goats yesterday, but look at these superb goats I have for you today!"

I approach all purchases the same. So people need to learn to differentiate consumables from treasures. If it is a treasure, it is worthwhile to do the product research to prevent getting screwed. I avoid any sales that are time pressure ("Buy now before they leave the shelves!" "Be the first one to get the newest XYZ")

[Occhidiangela]

  I avoid any sales that are time pressure ("Buy now before they leave the shelves!"  "Be the first one to get the newest XYZ")
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I think you spelled that incorrectly. That would be "Be the first one to get the newest XBox 360." :lol:

Occhi

[kandrathe]

...They are even jumping on to the fear mongering bandwagon saying that people that pirate music and sell pirated DVDs are supporting terrorists (Which makes no sense to me) and creating a big stink over the whole issue. ...
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Any organized criminal enterprise (Terrorists, North Korea, Cosa Nostra...) can profit by counterfeiting (Money, Software, Media, Toys), and at the same time believe they are striking a blow at the western capitalist infidels. In this day, if you can find one example, it is taken as a trend and a new law must be written to close that loop hole.

According to some reports I read recently, North Korea earns about 1/2 a billion per year counterfeiting US 100$ bills, and another 1/2 a billion distributing drugs. That's about 1/3 of their economy. Of course, most terrorist operations don't require more than a few thousand.

North Korea's Counterfeit Goods Targeted

Funding Evil: How Terrorism Is Financed by Rachel Ehrenfeld

BBC - What is a superdollar?

[Doc]

In the US, the Audio Home Recording Act of 1992 exempts "the noncommercial use by a consumer" of a recording device to record music from copright infringement.  This was specifically intended to legalize the common practice of making copies of music to give to your friends; record companies and artists get a royalty paid by the manufacturers/importers of music recording devices to compensate.

-- frink
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And this is just a rehash of the same old same old of what happened way back when in the late 70s early 80s when there was a mass panic about VCRs and Betamax machines and cassette recorders. I was not aware that they did it again in the 90s. Er, I knew in the early 90s they updated this to include CDROMs when some of the first burn technology became available and easily accessable to the public. The sin tax was applied to both CD burners and CD media.

So, what, there is like a ten year cycle?

See, it's like I said. The problem here is that the entertainment industry can't get any cash kickbacks from the actual means of transfer. With VCRs and tape players, they got cash money kickbacks and they relented on calling everybody pirates. It was perfectly legal and ok to make a copy of AC/DC's Back in Black or Houses of the Holy and share it with your friend. Or if you rented a video or bought one and made a copy. It was all considered ok because the entertainment industry strong armed all the right people and found a way to at least make a little bit of money somehow. They knew people were doing it, and there was nothing they could do to stop them. Throw your weight around, make a lot of noise in the media, and then when they found a way to make a few bucks here and there it became legal and they shut up and stopped bitching. But until they found a way to make money, it was the bloody end of the world going on. Piracy was rampant. They were losing millions of dollars and their stable of artists and performers were having to buy second rate cocaine and settle on living in 10 room mansions instead of the 20 room models they desperately wanted. People transfering music from one cassette to another was going to be the end of the music industry. It was going to fall any day now, people were jumping out of windows and the future was uncertain. VCRs and cassette recorders were going to bring an entire empire to it's knees, and possibly even destroy America. Geeze, there was such a panic way back when. And then it practically dried up over night and just like magic, everybody shut up about the whole mess.

Now however, with Limewire and email and all those different means to transfer files, they can't get their kickbacks. So they want to make sure it stays illegal, till they can figure out a way to make money off of it, and then at that time, it will be made legal. To bad it's not as simple as slapping a sin tax on a dual cassette recorder boom box that dominated the 80s. Or jacking up the price of a VCR to over 500 dollars.

[Doc]

Any organized criminal enterprise (Terrorists, North Korea, Cosa Nostra...) can profit by counterfeiting (Money, Software, Media, Toys), and at the same time believe they are striking a blow at the western capitalist infidels.  In this day, if you can find one example, it is taken as a trend and a new law must be written to close that loop hole.

According to some reports I read recently, North Korea earns about 1/2 a billion per year counterfeiting US 100$ bills, and another 1/2 a billion distributing drugs.  That's about 1/3 of their economy.  Of course, most terrorist operations don't require more than a few thousand.

North Korea's Counterfeit Goods Targeted

Funding Evil: How Terrorism Is Financed by Rachel Ehrenfeld

BBC - What is a superdollar?
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Ok, so selling a few pirated DVDs might bring a few bucks to the wrong pockets, but damnit, somebody explain to me how exactly the terrorists are making money off of Limewire mp3 sharing? People that support file sharing support terrorism... HOW?

Using that kind of fractured logic... I say, if you don't use file sharing, you support terrorism. If you go out and buy a pirated DVD instead of ripping it off and getting it for free off of Limewire, you are supporting terrorism. For the sake of American safety, it is your civic responsibility to not spend money because you don't know where it might go. Better to just get it for free and not pay anything at all.

Please note that the sarcasm meter here is off the charts and tongue isfirmly in cheek.

Once again, I have no problem paying for something. I want to pay for things. I just want my money going to the right place and I don't want to have to worry about being reamed over something.