A Good-Faith Effort to Avoid Movie Piracy

Better Living Through Technology: a blog dedicated to emerging
technology trends in hardware, software, webware, marketing and beyond

Chris E. Avis on:
A Good-Faith Effort to Avoid Movie Piracy
Gabe on:
A Good-Faith Effort to Avoid Movie Piracy

« Egnyte: Business class file server in the cloud | Main | Media Company's Online Video Attempts »

If someone wants to watch a movie today, they have quite a few options.

They could download it illegally from the web.

Or they could rent it from a local video store.

Purchase it online.

Pay to download it.

Have it delivered through Netflix (or stream it if it's available).

Pay per view.

Etc.

There are lots of legal options.

But what about this: what if someone makes a good-faith effort to acquire a movie through legal means, but that channel fails?

For example, if someone receives a DVD from Netflix that's unplayable, then downloads the exact same movie to make up for Netflix's failure, do they have piracy immunity?

Pushing it further, could someone claim piracy immunity by subscribing to Netflix, then turning around and downloading pirated copies of movies rather than dealing with unreliable plastic discs or a small streaming catalog?

What do you think?

Listen to this article posted by Ed Kohler on October 30, 2008 2:55 PM | Permalink
More posts about Netflix

TrackBack

TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.technologyevangelist.com/cgi-bin/mt-tb.fcgi/1521

Comments

1. Posted by: Gabe on October 30, 2008 4:41 PM:

When you get a movie from Netflix - either streaming or Delivered on DVD - you are renting it. When you download a movie, you are probably going to keep it. Unless your the kind of pirate who deletes your content after you're done watching it, the situations are not really comparable.

2. Posted by: Chris E. Avis on November 4, 2008 5:09 PM:

I was a NetFlix Subscriber for 4 years. Not once did I have a bad disc shipped to me and I had a LOT of discs shipped to me. So i don't think that is a valid excuse. However, the shipping time is. Even with a 48 hour turnaround, it only takes a few hours to download an HD version of a movie and less than an hour to download an SD version. Netflix took the pain out of heading to BlockBuster to rent only to find it was out of stock and also by making it happen quickly. But there will always be those of us that want it even faster than whatever the current means is.

I like your idea but I doubt it floats from a legal perspective. And I don't think people keep movies they download for any length of time after they are watched. Why keep it after watched when it is a few clicks and an hour from being downloaded again? Or so I hear...... :)

Chris

Post a comment

Required fields marked with: *
Name*:

Email Address*:

URL:
Remember personal info?

Comments*:

HTML Tags you can use in your posts:
<b>Bold</b> = Bold
<i>Italicized</i> = Italicized
<a href="http://www.othersite.com">Link to Other Site</a> = Link to Other Site

Please keep comments on-topic. Contact authors or other commenters
directly for off-topic conversations.

Notify me of future comments via e-mail

Technology Evangelist Digest - Free Newsletter

Sign up for the free Technology Evangelist Digest to receive daily updates, editorials, and practical advice on emerging technology trends in hardware, software, webware, marketing and beyond.

Technology Evangelist Digest will keep you up to date on the technology trends that will help make you more productive and efficient both in business and your personal life.

Let's face it: If you made it to this line, you must have found something valuable on this page, right? Think about how cool it would be to have something free and interesting to read every day from Technology Evangelist by signing up today.

1. Fill in your email below,
2. Then click on the confirmation email you receive.
3. That's it. Your first Technology Evangelist Digest will arrive within 24 hours.

Previous Entries: