Not yet
I went to Emporium to have a look at the merchandise. They had a Blu-Ray demo running on a Sony 70 inch television at only 1.3 million baht. I said “Ouch! Too big. Can not”.
These capitalists are good at coming up with things I didn’t know I wanted before I saw them. A Blu-Ray player, for example. But if I can’t find any movies I would be ahead of my time if I bought one. They will sell me a player that will only play movies locked for Asia, and which will not play 25 dollar movies I buy by mail order from Amazon in the states.
Chalerm is not aware that there is a difference between pirate and genuine software, music or movies. He thinks the copies are the originals, because the originals are harder than to find the pirate stuff on the street in Thailand. Most Thais never buy anything original.
The discussion about movie disks in this blog revealed little sympathy for Hollywood studios and Big Music. It seems nobody likes their copy-protection and region coding schemes.
Now that Blu-Ray is coming Hollywood is looking forward to cash in once again, selling us movies we already paid or.
For example, when the first Star Wars movie (which I still think is the best one) was released I forked out good money to see it on the big screen. A decade later I paid to see it again on VHS video. And then it came on DVD, and I got one of those too. And now it would be nice to see what it looks like in high definition Blu-Ray. Every time George Lucas makes more money from the same product.
I have a song I bought first on a cassette, and then on LP when the cassette wore out, and then on CD. The artist released Greatest Hits CDs and the song was on two of those too, and since no greatest hits album contains all the greatest hits (which are spread out as much as possible) I bought both. This means I have paid for this same song five times already. The singer is stinking rich and the producer isn’t starving either. And then they want me to pay for it again if I want it as mp3? They will send a SWAT team to my door if I download it from the Internet?
Blu-Ray players are 400 dollars now but I can wait. If Hollywood only sells overpriced disks with funny coding tricks I will see what my friends the pirates on Silom road can come up with.
January 30th, 2008 at 4:37 pm
Hmmmm……Thanks SF, I never looked at it that way before.
January 30th, 2008 at 8:32 pm
In Thai cinemas, several times during the film, funny white numbers flash on the screen for a microsecond… very quick, but enough so you notice it. I think this is to combat piracy.
January 30th, 2008 at 11:02 pm
Definately a new perspective. As an artist, I had always leaned towards the side of copyright owners. But you’re right … how many times should you have to pay for a song/movie in a lifetime?
January 31st, 2008 at 12:22 am
When copyright law was first written in the U.S. the copyright on any piece of art stood for 14 years. So Star Wars should have fallen into the public domain more than a decade ago. But the protection period is now up to 125 years — after the authors’ death. And the period is extended by the U.S. Congress (and then by international trade pacts such as the WTO) every time Mickey Mouse is about to lose his protection. At this rate nothing will ever fall into the public domain, and our popular culture will always be owned by greedy corporations like Sony. So don’t feel guilty if you buy a piece of Hollywood along Silom Rd for 100 baht some night. You’re not the one who’s stealing. Studios and crooked legislators around the world have figured out how to do that, from you, and get away with it.
January 31st, 2008 at 2:00 am
Also, it costs us every time we off someone from a GoGo bar.
January 31st, 2008 at 3:50 am
Your thoughts on copy protection regarding music overlooks one few key point: most singers don’t write their own songs, so the $ you pay for CD’s, downloads, etc., is filtered back to the creators of the words and music. The performers (whom you typify as “stinking rich”) can profit through merchandise, touring, etc. while those who write the songs are out of luck when their music is stolen though pirating and illegal downloads., depriving them of their income. That’s the copyright lesson for the day. Now please post more pix of beautiful guys!
January 31st, 2008 at 12:15 pm
Software companies offer an upgrade discount. If this applied to movies the owner of a legitimate VHS copy of Star Wars could buy the DVD version at a reduced price. But I don’t see that coming.
January 31st, 2008 at 2:36 pm
Which format has the most porno movies?
January 31st, 2008 at 3:42 pm
Blu-Ray seems to have turned the corner in the format war that was going on with DVD HD, and it looks like Blu- Ray will win. (Didn’t the marketers realize that blu-ray was just like blur-ray?) Anyhow, player prices should be coming down a lot in a year or two.
February 1st, 2008 at 7:32 pm
I like the idea of the “upgrade fee”.
I think successful artists really deserve to be “stinking rich”… the risk of persuing such a career is so high because the probability of success is so low. Very few succeed in making any money.
Therefore, unless the reward for success is high, not many will persue such a career, and we would miss out on so many of the amazing artists there are out there today.
For artists contemplating their dream careers, it is often the slim hopes of achieving these “stinking rich” rewards that overcomes the fears they have about the overwhelming odds against them ever succeeding.
Similarly, the corporations that support them deserve to be rewarded. Many of them take a major risk each time they sign up an artist. I’m sure, that out of every 100 artists they sign up and invest production/marketing dollars in, only a few will succeed in making any money.
The same goes for movies… how many stinkers do you see out there that don’t make any money? Is it any suprise that the ones that do make money should be allowed to make a lot of money?
Record companies give artists the production capabilities and the marketing firepower to launch their careers sky-high.
Having said that, many have said that record companies are screwing the artists and consumers alike. If that’s the case, solutions will be found and the market will soon weed the record companies out. The band, Radiohead, for one, has recently released their latest album direct to the public.
Having said all of this, if companies are going to show such contempt for their consumers by making their legitimate products so constrained, inconvenient and unnattractive (through region coding, MP3s that have limited playability after you’ve paid to download them and formats that are continually made obselete) then I personally have no quelms about bypassing them and getting my stuff from the pirates!
February 3rd, 2008 at 4:16 am
wow, you been chipped. Don’t allow mass media to exploit you like that. I guess I’m from the Napster generation and i don’t understand the concept of buying Media when i can download it for free. Yes, you can download blu-ray dvd contents for free using Megaupload and other direct download sites. We should exploit the technology given to us and not be exploited by greedy media companies.
I’ve never brought DVD in my life. I can’t count with 1 hand how many music CDs I have brought in my entire life. Seriously.
I don’t understand people who buy DVDs, don’t do it.