VCD Pirates

greenspun.com : LUSENET : Video CD : One Thread

I see so many questions and responses about online VCD pirates are there ways to get the authorities to track down such sites and convict the owners? I mean how do you actually track don an owner if he operates from Indonesia?

ThanX

-- sethsolo (sethsolo@hotmail.com), May 20, 1999

Answers

Sutting down one web site will not do much. Think rabbits. Get one together with a another and you have many. Shut down one another pops up. Sure it seems easy to shut them down but this is the internet. Anonymity is everyone's name on this network. Heck my name,Will Shakes is actually a shortened version of William Shakespeare. Looked familar didn't it? One thing you have to remember is that pirates do help an industry. After all Bill Gates pirated Unix to make DOS and MACOS to make Win95. Yes it is all bad and naughty but we have to remember that some people are desperate to own a movie first. After all people are willing to wait one month in a line to see a stupid movie. Others are willing to risk everything so everyone has an opportunity to own the latest thing. How many places sold a Japanese game system so everyone could have it first. That is piracy since you can not export it outside of the designated area. Japanese web sites selling cards so PSX owners can play the newest Japanese games. Look at it this way. I own several pirated movies with Matrix on the way. Many are screener rip-offs, some theater rip-offs. I DO NOT CARE HOW THE MOVIE LOOKS OR SOUNDS...I WANT TO OWN IT ON VCD!!! Yes, I do buy original qulaity movies but sometimes the temptation is too great. And sometimes you have no choice. My Aunt and Dad brought me over movies from an asian country(I will not say which). Only three of those twenty films, I got over the past year from them, were original copies, The rest were pirates. i felt glad to own A Bug's Life before anyone else. Sure it cost the movie studio my ticket but it is also my way of protesting. Movies in America average 7.00(US) General Admission, Europe $15.00(US), and Asia 17.00(US). Now for 10.00 or less I can have a disc with unlimited free play(sort of like DVD vs. DivX, DVD being a VIdeo CD and DivX being a theater in this case). Yes I was upset at first when I received a pirate movie of Mask of Zorro but it WORKS GREAT. I got over zealous with A Bug's Life and my Lethal Weapon 4(pirate) has been watched over ten times already. I know I should feel bad but you can not stop them. Lastly a pirate may be your only chance of getting a movie on VCD. After all a legal copy of Saving Private Ryan on VCd is not going to be available(except maybe in Hong Kong, but Dreamworks has not authorized any films for VCD yet.) so you may have to get a screener or theater rip-off to see it on VCD. Pirates will always be around when someone wants something very badly.

-- Will Shakes (soldier0081@hotmail.com), May 20, 1999.

As the originator of this thread, I think Will has done an informative and good job in answering the question, I was hoping for more such answers as to how others feel about VCD piracy. I understand fully Will's views towards buying pirated VCDs. As for me I don't condone it nor am I against it, but by reading his response I am sad to know that many movie/distribution companies have failed in their basic function of distributing movies and many viewers turn to VCD pirates. You may say that this is tantamount to stealing, blah blah blah....but if VCDs or DVDs and movie tickets are not priced realistically especially in the Asian region, then there is bound to be piracy. I frankly do not see the logic put up by film making companies that they have to cover high costs of film production etc. and that they therefore have to stick to their high prices to support their argument. In the end they loose out almost totally to pirates and this in turn drives up the cost of production of films and causes a catch 22 situation. A better solution is why don't they just price their VCDs, DVDs and movie tickets really low and just be happy with an albeit smaller profit then nothing at all from piracy? Or are they really flushed with profits made from developed countries that they don't really care about other markets? if that is the case then it is the customer who buys and pays for original software that is really the biggest loser in this game.

Cheers.

-- sethsolo (sethsolo@hotmail.com), May 21, 1999.


Movie companies are not greedy. In fact in the US none of the cash handed at the ticket window goes to a theater house. It goes to the movie distributor directly. The profit is made on the 5.00 popcorn and 4.00 sodas(and you wondered why they cost so much). Movie houses up the price of admission so that movie companies can say we have the biggest blockbuster. Last year Titanic tickets went for 6.50 average and made over a billion dollars total. This year Star Wars 1 sells at the box office for 7.00 average, thus making over two billion dollars world wide. Piracy does not affect them as much as computer software thiefs. A disc that sells for 9.95 on the "net" might make them lose around 30.00-40.00(7.00 for a ticket and 15.00 for a Used VHS). A pirate FULL Office 97 that sells for 10.00 makes Microsoft lose 500.00+. That is a huge loss to software companies. Now I am getting long in this answer but to sum it up(you can email me for the full answer) movie companies want to protect thier products but sometimes piracy is too good and the copies look like originals so you can not track down a pirate as easily. The prey will always outsmart the hunter...it just takes awhile.

-- Will Shakes (soldier0081@hotmail.com), May 21, 1999.

I would like to get some vcd, or pirate movies, could yoy help me with this.

-- carl ramo (rcs1010@yahoo.com), December 19, 2002.

Moderation questions? read the FAQ