Cyberlockers and Streaming - the New Piracy Threat

[admin]

It used to be that movie studios feared illegal downloads... and in part they still do. After all, with uncertain revenues from theaters and the growing market of streaming media they are consistently unsure of how their business model may shake up in the next decade.Now they are facing a new problem: cheap, fast, and completely illegal subscription services. And these companies look and feel professional. The movies are stored in what's known as "Cyberlockers" - places where users can go to stream pirated movie content... for as little as $5/month!

Discuss "Cyberlockers and Streaming - the New Piracy Threat" here. Read the article.

 

[its phillip]

I would never pay to pirate or buy a bootleg or anything like that. Anyway. If these sites have a working business model, it's just another sign of how the movie studio/record label (majors, mostly) industry doesn't. They should learn from it and come up with their own similar services. If people are willing to pay for pirated content, then they would probably be willing to pay the same fee for access to sites with legitimate content...

 

[BoredSysAdmin]

Steve Jobs with his $1 a song model basically killed mainstream music piracy....
Movie studios should paid attention... I almost don't mind paying say $5 to stream new release to home and If I liked it that much another $15 to buy it on BR disk

 

[krzywica]

If the movie companies put all that money they use on fancy lawyers that are running around suing people constantly into a new content distribution system they would be ahead of the curve.

We have been streaming Hulu for years now.....when will these big bloated companies show any foresight whatsoever. Their too busy clammering and clawing to keep what they already have in place than to take risks and expand into new ways of content distribution. Physical media should have died off and been relegated to the niche market years ago.

 

[its phillip]

Physical media should have died off and been relegated to the niche market years ago.

I disagree with this 100%. When I buy a book, cd, game, or movie, I can do whatever I want with them/sell them or whatever. I do believe that streaming and/or digital distribution has its place, but I certainly don't want it to take the place of physical media. If I buy a game on steam and find out I don't like it, I can't sell it or even give it away. Same thing for an ebook. DRM'd music files are a big no-no for me. Also, the majority of digital music stores offer lossy files only, which I will never pay for. I would be willing to pay $5 or $10 a month for streaming of movies (I already do with netflix), but I certainly don't want to pay $15 for an album or $20 for a movie or $50 for a game that is restricted in some manner. This isn't worded very well :/

 

[krzywica]

I disagree with this 100%. When I buy a book, cd, game, or movie, I can do whatever I want with them/sell them or whatever. I do believe that streaming and/or digital distribution has its place, but I certainly don't want it to take the place of physical media. If I buy a game on steam and find out I don't like it, I can't sell it or even give it away. Same thing for an ebook. DRM'd music files are a big no-no for me. Also, the majority of digital music stores offer lossy files only, which I will never pay for. I would be willing to pay $5 or $10 a month for streaming of movies (I already do with netflix), but I certainly don't want to pay $15 for an album or $20 for a movie or $50 for a game that is restricted in some manner. This isn't worded very well :/

Yeah I see what you mean.....but I think most people would rather have unlimited streaming content for a flat monthly fee than buy each movie they want to watch...maybe not...maybe its just me.

 

[its phillip]

Unless every single studio or production company gets on board with vod/streaming, there will be plenty of movies out there that aren't available for streaming. Another thing is potential network issues. What if your connection goes down for whatever reason? It could be affected by weather, it could be affected by other people in the house, you could drop a hammer on your modem, etc. The streaming site could go down for maintenance. Your system drive/video card/mobo/cpu/psu could crap out.

Movies look nice on the shelf too

 

[krzywica]

Unless every single studio or production company gets on board with vod/streaming, there will be plenty of movies out there that aren't available for streaming. Another thing is potential network issues. What if your connection goes down for whatever reason? It could be affected by weather, it could be affected by other people in the house, you could drop a hammer on your modem, etc. The streaming site could go down for maintenance. Your system drive/video card/mobo/cpu/psu could crap out.

Movies look nice on the shelf too

What if Wiley Coyote drops an Acme anvil on your Bluray player?

How often does my network go down at home? I haven't had it go down in almost a year. Thats not even a flicker. Does everyone have reliable service like this? Probably not.

But in all honesty if studios choose not to get onboard it will only lead to their undoing.

 

[GlocksRock]

All I can say is that I hope physical media sticks around for a long time. I have heard talk about gaming going to the clouds, but I hope that doesn't happen any time soon. I like my consoles, and I like the functionality that's being added to them on a regular basis.