Is Piracy In the Consumers' Best Interests?

moviemodel writes "Warner Home Video in China are beginning trials of 'simple pack' DVD releases at $1.50. They state they are doing this as a test to see if they can recover a market lost to pirate DVD's at 75c each. They also sell higher priced and more complete DVD sets as 'silver' and 'gold' packs. Maybe this marks the beginning of movie industry realism and long hoped for shift in business models, forced by piracy. Perhaps they can take it on as a better model for movie downloads worldwide, facing the same problem of competition from pirated movies. Is such a model viable in the long term?"

Of Course

[RedHatLinux]

Free stuff is always in the consumer interest.

Re:If they're serious about it, then it is

[carpe_noctem]

Man, you slashdotters are all the same. First, it was all "read the article, read the article, blah blah blah, rtfm", and now it's "read the summary, rtfs". I bet next you'll be wanting people to read the entire headline before posting! Well, good sir, from now on, I fully intend on just glazing over the keywords of the summary, maybe one or two of the works in the links, and then posting the first thing that comes to my mind!

Lower prices and equal greater profits

[thunderpaws]

All they need to do now is package advertising for cheap drugs / medications, low interst mortgages, genitalia enhancement, etc. Good for the consumer, eh?

This is to cut their piracy losses

[91degrees]

Every time you pirate a movie, the studios lose the cost of that movie. If the movie costs $20 then they lose $20, and if it costs $30, then they lose $30. They know they can't possibly compete with free, so they're doing the best they possibly can to reduce their losses. By only charging $1.50 for each copy, this will cut their piracy losses considerably even if they don't sell any.

Re:Of course

[Zordak]

>> if you set your price point correctly; you make up in volume what you lack in single sales profit.

Yes, it's almost as if you could draw two intersecting lines. One line would represent the number of units people would demand as the price increases. The other would represent the number that manufacturers would be willing to supply as the price decreases. I wonder what it would mean when those two lines intersected.

Re:monopoly vs piracy

[Anonymous Coward]

Too bad we can't pirate gasoline.

Fictitious losses

[MarkByers]

Every time you pirate a movie, the studios lose the cost of that movie.

So if I make 100 billion pirated copies of a movie, does that mean they will go bankrupt?

Re:Just Think

[robertjw]

Now add price point of $0.99 with only 20 minutes or total of two episodes or better yet, single episode with multiple language versions. Parents now purchase 2 discs per week for total of 102 per year instead of 12-24 per year.

Great. And since nobody has a place to store 102 DVDs we will start throwing them out to make room for new ones. Since there will be no secondary market they will just go in the trash and the landfill. Then the environmentalists will start bitching about it, the EPA will pass laws restricting the number of DVDs that can be manufactured and the prices will go back up. People will be digging through landfills for old Blues Clues DVDs. Anarchy will ensue and modern civilization will come to a halt.

Nice plan for causing the end of the world.

Re:They already have a website for these.

[EnderWigginsXenocide]

Inside you'll learn...

        * The truth about finding cars (and yes, even your DRM crippled Holywood Movie) for under $500!

OMFG! What a bargain!

        * How to instantly locate hundreds of DRM crippled Holywood Movies being sold right now in your area ...without having to talk to a dealer or a broker.

Broker? Blockbuster?

        * How to track down DRM crippled Holywood Movies that have been repossessed or siezed by the government ...and snatch them up for pennies on the dollar!

Seized from evil creatures with peg legs, steel hooks for hands, and eye patches?

        * How you can find your DRM crippled Holywood Movie on the Internet

Hell, I do this already(netflix, not BT or USNET like you criminals thought!)

        * How you can make anyone selling DRM crippled Holywood Movies drop their price by thousands!

At gunpoint?

        * And much, much more!

Do tell!

Re:If they're serious about it, then it is

[EZLeeAmused]

You're absolutely right, but why stop there? Set up a bot that extracts the first noun from the tagline and posts "I, for one, welcome our new <insert noun here> overlords" as soon as an article is released. And make the title of the post "Obligatory."

Small children

[tepples]

I find no need to own the DVD after I watched it already, unless it is a good movie or something and then I'd buy a copy.

You more than likely do not have small children, who will happily watch the same G-rated animated movie week after week.

Re:If they're serious about it, then it is

[mrogers]

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Oh great, another dupe...