Much like the movie of the same name was.

The Stealth Hippopotamus: Ultraviolet sucks so bad that I wrote my first ever review on itunes. I hates it! I hates it sooooo bad. Oh my do I hate it soooo much.

Rage! uncontrollable rage!


Quick question, Who do they think they are? Itunes charges 15 bucks for Green Lantern, Flixter/Ultraviolet charges 20?! So they want me to pay an extra 5 bucks for a movie I can't watch on my Iphone or Ipad?

Sure! Sign me up!

I hear you. Although, if you're paying $15 for Green Lantern, UV is only the start of your problems.

The DRM game is like playing thermonuclear war, the only winning move is not to play.

I try so hard to be a reasonable consumer. I understand that unicorn farts and sunshine doesn't pay the bills, and it costs money to make things like music, TV, and movies. I want to support the things I like, so that people continue to make things I like.

But, really, it's just so hard. When I was in high school - I'd pirate everything because 'I could'. No justification. It was easy and fun, so I did it. Half the fun was knowing I wasn't supposed to.

Post college though, I had a good job, no kids, lots of disposable income (not that i was rich, I was just living a cheap lifestyle). So, I started doing things I'd never done before...like *buying* DVDs and computer games.

It was horrible. I'd run into all sorts of stupid problems with stuff. 'Oh that e-book I purchased, I can't put onto this device because it's on X device and it's in X format. I can use some complicated tool that hardly works to convert it - or in 10 seconds I can download it as a .pdf' so I'd just download it and wonder why I spent $30 on it.

I'd purchased one of the Battlefield games to play with co-workers on our weekly 'gaming night' only to realize it required the DVD in the tray; so I had to lug it back and forth between home and work. In the time it would have taken me to drive home, pick up the DVD, and drive back; I was able to effortlessly download the whole game, cracked, without such limitations.

Even when I buy the crap, I end up pirating it anyway.

I read it as 'streaming pile' and thought the headline far wittier than it actually is.

Fark_Guy_Rob: I try so hard to be a reasonable consumer. I understand that unicorn farts and sunshine doesn't pay the bills, and it costs money to make things like music, TV, and movies. I want to support the things I like, so that people continue to make things I like.

But, really, it's just so hard. When I was in high school - I'd pirate everything because 'I could'. No justification. It was easy and fun, so I did it. Half the fun was knowing I wasn't supposed to.

Post college though, I had a good job, no kids, lots of disposable income (not that i was rich, I was just living a cheap lifestyle). So, I started doing things I'd never done before...like *buying* DVDs and computer games.

It was horrible. I'd run into all sorts of stupid problems with stuff. 'Oh that e-book I purchased, I can't put onto this device because it's on X device and it's in X format. I can use some complicated tool that hardly works to convert it - or in 10 seconds I can download it as a .pdf' so I'd just download it and wonder why I spent $30 on it.

I'd purchased one of the Battlefield games to play with co-workers on our weekly 'gaming night' only to realize it required the DVD in the tray; so I had to lug it back and forth between home and work. In the time it would have taken me to drive home, pick up the DVD, and drive back; I was able to effortlessly download the whole game, cracked, without such limitations.

Even when I buy the crap, I end up pirating it anyway.

/\
This!

The above story is more or less why I think cracking DRM so that you can use what you purchased across various formats should not be illegal.

Sadly the canadian federal government is a little shakey on that front. it's depressing really.

the best part is my income fully depends on people paying for the services they use.
Turning paying customers into criminals if they circumvent drm is a good way to remove the paying portion of this stuff.

/head meets desk.

Fark_Guy_Rob: Even when I buy the crap, I end up pirating it anyway.

I do this all the time.

Nobody? Really?

Just read a farking book.

Neanderthal: Fark_Guy_Rob: I try so hard to be a reasonable consumer. I understand that unicorn farts and sunshine doesn't pay the bills, and it costs money to make things like music, TV, and movies. I want to support the things I like, so that people continue to make things I like.

But, really, it's just so hard. When I was in high school - I'd pirate everything because 'I could'. No justification. It was easy and fun, so I did it. Half the fun was knowing I wasn't supposed to.

Post college though, I had a good job, no kids, lots of disposable income (not that i was rich, I was just living a cheap lifestyle). So, I started doing things I'd never done before...like *buying* DVDs and computer games.

It was horrible. I'd run into all sorts of stupid problems with stuff. 'Oh that e-book I purchased, I can't put onto this device because it's on X device and it's in X format. I can use some complicated tool that hardly works to convert it - or in 10 seconds I can download it as a .pdf' so I'd just download it and wonder why I spent $30 on it.

I'd purchased one of the Battlefield games to play with co-workers on our weekly 'gaming night' only to realize it required the DVD in the tray; so I had to lug it back and forth between home and work. In the time it would have taken me to drive home, pick up the DVD, and drive back; I was able to effortlessly download the whole game, cracked, without such limitations.

Even when I buy the crap, I end up pirating it anyway.

/\
This!

Ditto. I spent a half hour looking for WC3 the other day, ended up downloading it.

But also, there is the issue with getting what media I want, when I want it. I will not watch tv on Cable's schedule. Its not going to happen. I work 4 to 2 am. There is no tv outside of those hours, and fark scheduling every week in advance with recording devices.

Now, I watch a little tv, just enough that I end up paying for it in a bundle, but am I really stealing anything by downloading an episode that aired last week instead of buying it again ? I bought it when I paid for cable for the last year as far as I'm concerned.

What I need to be able to do is buy a downloadable season of a show for a couple bucks. I'd happily pay that. No contract, no bundles, no buying other crap from the same producer, and no having said episodes go away when they decide to pull them. I don't need a dvd. I don't need to deal with sending shiat back and forth in the mail. I just want to download a nice zipped up file, unzip it, and play it on my computer.

And by all means, make me watch commercials. I don't mind a few. In fact, if you make me watch them like hulu does (which I guess you can skip them with something, but I'm too lazy) then I'll actually watch them, instead of flipping channels like on tv. So the profit margin from the commercials ought to be decent. Not that I'm going to run out and buy some garbage product just because you stuck it in front of me.

/maybe I'm just a bad consumer.

Fark_Guy_Rob: Even when I buy the crap, I end up pirating it anyway.

The last game I bought that wasn't a downloadable (I can't remember what off the top of my head) wouldn't work because of some conflict with the DRM. I grabbed a pirated copy, which I had downloaded and working in about thirty minutes.

After that, I said farkit. I pretty much only play games I can get a downloaded license for, cause at least those seem to work right off the bat and I know what I'm getting into.

Plus, I spend a lot less money on video games now, and keep finding fun open source rehashes of classic games. So I have that going for me, which is nice.

Didn't Fark call this about a year ago?

I recall Ultraviolet DRM was considered a bad idea from inception.

Does it involve Milla Jovovich?

Any takers on how long it gets cracked or bypassed in some way?
I'll take....... 4 months.

We can make that headline a bit more universal...

A new DRM called UltraViolet has arrived, offering customers an easy, convenient way to view movies any way they want. Just kidding, it's a steaming pile

mongbiohazard: I'll take....... 4 months.

If that's the line, I'm definitely taking the under.

Really what the fark is the point of putting DRM on a file that is:
A. Already free to download via numerous sources on the internet
B. The DRM is easily removed via numerous applications
C. Can be extracted from the DVD DRM free with numerous applications

Also iTunes has always sucked, still sucks and is laggy bloated piece of shiat that doesn't have native Linux support, even though it was developed for it's farking cousin. Apple set the bar on this one like a meth-head cocksucking Republican Evangelical sets the bar for being a paragon of moral purity. Is it actually a surprise that it's inbred progeny, UltraViolet, sucks as well?

Oddly, I just tried to work this last night. I got Green Lantern when it first came out, but when I discovered it wasn't the typical iTunes digital copy and I was going to have to sign up for not one but TWO new accounts, I walked away. Then my wife got Crazy, Stupid Love and it had the same stupid UltraViolet copy. Alright, fine, I'll try it.

Long story short, once I finally got both accounts made a half hour later, I started trying to see what I could do with this. Streaming within the browser looked like ass and wouldn't stop rebuffering every few seconds, so maybe the download would look better. Have to download Adobe Air and some other program. Okay, skip that. Let's see what it looks like on my iPhone and iPad. I download the Flixter app and try to log in. Over and over again it tells me I'm not using the right credentials. I try to log in on my computer and it works fine. Back on the iPhone, same problem. Maybe I need to go through the UltraViolet app that I saw on the site. Investigating further, I discover that the UltraViolet app won't be available until...eventually. I finally said screw it and ripped the standard DVD that came with each Blu-ray. Handbrake is a bit of an inconvenient resource hog, but at least I end up with the same type of digital copy that has worked just fine up until now.

The studios needs to quit trying to reinvent the wheel. You can't make the new paradigm more restrictive and less convenient than the one in place now.

/AND MAKE SURE IT ACTUALLY FARKING WORKS BEFORE YOU LAUNCH IT, IDIOTS!!!

pudding7: Hopefully Flixster will go the way of Qwikster.

/I had to go back and look up how to spell both of those. Horrible names.

should it be Flixter? No s?

Also am I the only one who thought the green lantern movie came with the milla jovovich movie?

Daraymann: Just read a farking book.

Thank you!

Hardy-r-r: Daraymann: Just read a farking book.

Thank you!

Those have DRM too now.

There's a new book out called Free Ride: How Digital Parasites are Destroying the Culture Business. Very interesting interviews with content producers who are suggesting that the movie biz as it stands is unlikely to be around 5 years from now. One studio head put it bluntly "There is no revolutionary business model that competes with free".

One story recounted in the book (and it is densly referenced) is about an indy film maker who borrowed over 100K to make a niche film - the model being to sell DVDs off their site for people that were interested after playing in a small number of cinemas. Within 2 months of release, the film had been posted to more than 500 sites and had been downloaded more than 80,000 times. Unfortunately for the film maker the number of people that paid for the film itself was under 2,000. The film maker then put up a tip jar for people to drop a few bucks in if they enjoyed the film, but hadn't paid for it. While many people would drop by the forums of the site set up to say how much they'd enjoyed the film that they'd downloaded, after six months the tip jar hadn't attracted more than $100.

Maybe the film sucked - I dunno, I never saw it - but what case after real case cited in the book shows is that when most people can get your film/book/music for free through locker sites or torrents, they are very reluctant to hand over any money, even if they liked the film in the first place. I know there are films that are made for around 10-20K - but really ... fark ... is that what we're going to be stuck with 10 years from now because investing in a film is pouring good money down the drain because people are about as likely to pay for it as they would be to pay for air?

Fark_Guy_Rob: I try so hard to be a reasonable consumer. I understand that unicorn farts and sunshine doesn't pay the bills, and it costs money to make things like music, TV, and movies. I want to support the things I like, so that people continue to make things I like.

But, really, it's just so hard. When I was in high school - I'd pirate everything because 'I could'. No justification. It was easy and fun, so I did it. Half the fun was knowing I wasn't supposed to.

Post college though, I had a good job, no kids, lots of disposable income (not that i was rich, I was just living a cheap lifestyle). So, I started doing things I'd never done before...like *buying* DVDs and computer games.

It was horrible. I'd run into all sorts of stupid problems with stuff. 'Oh that e-book I purchased, I can't put onto this device because it's on X device and it's in X format. I can use some complicated tool that hardly works to convert it - or in 10 seconds I can download it as a .pdf' so I'd just download it and wonder why I spent $30 on it.

I'd purchased one of the Battlefield games to play with co-workers on our weekly 'gaming night' only to realize it required the DVD in the tray; so I had to lug it back and forth between home and work. In the time it would have taken me to drive home, pick up the DVD, and drive back; I was able to effortlessly download the whole game, cracked, without such limitations.

Even when I buy the crap, I end up pirating it anyway.


Forget DRM - IMHO, the greatest anti-piracy tool the video game industry has is Steam. Buy a $50 game on sale for 10-20 bucks, go off to work, and when you come home it's installed and ready to play. Patches are applied automatically, some games save to "the cloud"... It's all legal, cheap, portable, and even simpler than piracy.

However, I do refuse to buy games even from Steam if the publisher adds its own obtrusive DRM (I'm looking at you, Ubisoft).

If only the movie industry could figure out how to do it. Netflix is close, but not quite there yet.

/Of course, if the company ever folds, my library goes down the toilet...

Fark_Guy_Rob: Even when I buy the crap, I end up pirating it anyway.

I bought Alvin and the Chipmunks for my kids. One of the features on the box? "Digital copy included". "Oh, cool", I think. "The media industry is finally getting it".

So, I get it home and pop the disk in my PC. Cancel autoplay, and go looking for the .avi or .divx file on the disk. Oh, not there. So, I fire up the autoplay. "digital copy download". Click. Oh, and now it wants to install some shiatty software which will decrypt the file on the disk using the provided code. No, Fox, you are not installing any farking shiat on my computer. No farking way.

So, what happens next? I go to some FileRapidOron download site and just download the farker (it's actually more convenient than all the dvd decryption/handbrake stuff).

Listen, asshole media guys: you're making this hard. I'd much rather just buy a farking Divx. Charge me DVD prices if you like. Because if I want an illegal Divx, it's actually quicker than me going to the shops, and cheaper. I can get almost any movie off FileRapidOron within an hour. It's only my good grace that keeps me buying, and you're farking testing that with your bullshiat.

SpacemanSpoof: Fark_Guy_Rob: I try so hard to be a reasonable consumer. I understand that unicorn farts and sunshine doesn't pay the bills, and it costs money to make things like music, TV, and movies. I want to support the things I like, so that people continue to make things I like.

But, really, it's just so hard. When I was in high school - I'd pirate everything because 'I could'. No justification. It was easy and fun, so I did it. Half the fun was knowing I wasn't supposed to.

Post college though, I had a good job, no kids, lots of disposable income (not that i was rich, I was just living a cheap lifestyle). So, I started doing things I'd never done before...like *buying* DVDs and computer games.

It was horrible. I'd run into all sorts of stupid problems with stuff. 'Oh that e-book I purchased, I can't put onto this device because it's on X device and it's in X format. I can use some complicated tool that hardly works to convert it - or in 10 seconds I can download it as a .pdf' so I'd just download it and wonder why I spent $30 on it.

I'd purchased one of the Battlefield games to play with co-workers on our weekly 'gaming night' only to realize it required the DVD in the tray; so I had to lug it back and forth between home and work. In the time it would have taken me to drive home, pick up the DVD, and drive back; I was able to effortlessly download the whole game, cracked, without such limitations.

Even when I buy the crap, I end up pirating it anyway.


Forget DRM - IMHO, the greatest anti-piracy tool the video game industry has is Steam. Buy a $50 game on sale for 10-20 bucks, go off to work, and when you come home it's installed and ready to play. Patches are applied automatically, some games save to "the cloud"... It's all legal, cheap, portable, and even simpler than piracy.

However, I do refuse to buy games even from Steam if the publisher adds its own obtrusive DRM (I'm looking at you, Ubisoft).

If only the movie industry could figure out how to do it. Netflix is close, but not quite there yet.

/Of course, if the company ever folds, my library goes down the toilet...

Steam is DRM too, just one of the ones that's pretty easy for most people to live with.
DRM isn't necessarily horrid, but you need to make it worth people's time.

Steam does that well by offering friends lists / IM service, match making, cloud saves. etc.

That's the way you beat pirates really.
Provide a service that enhances your product, and make the whole experience more convenient than getting the game off of a torrent site and cracking it with virus infested programs from a russian site of ill repute.

narkor: There's a new book out

Go on...

narkor: called Free Ride: How Digital Parasites are Destroying the Culture Business.

And we're done here. There's no way that could possibly be a biased look, is there? So no one bought some dude's movie. Did it ever occur to the moron that his movie just might suck? The Tunnel was officially released for free as a torrent as well as on DVD. "Like the movie? Buy the DVD." And people did. Why? people genuinely dug it and were willing to support it. Then there's the case of Never Sleep Again: The Elm Street Legacy, an independent documentary about the Nightmare on Elm Street series. DIY in the truest sense of the term. They struggled to get mainstream retail support and only managed to snag a few online stores and Frys as their sole brick and mortar retailer. For the most part, if you wanted it you had to go through the makers' site. That is, unless you went The Pirate Bay or Demonoid. Within a day of its release you could have an AVI, MKV, full DVD rip, whatever you wanted. Surely that would sink a small, independent production, right? Actually it was still a huge success, enough that they went back into production for a Special Edition DVD, also a huge success, all despite the numerous torrents out there. There was even a mention on their message board at one point that the torrents were probably helping them. There's more examples like that all over. It's been shown over and over again that if you produce something people like, they'll financially support it. Hell, I've read about numerous studies that show that the "digital parasites" are actually the largest purchasers of media (all in new window). The part that these so-called "content creators" seem to be missing is that whole "make something people like," thing. This all leads me to believe that this book is just another propaganda piece to try to drum up public support for propping up a dead business model and therefore pretty worthless. It's the same old spiel they've been trying to sell for years now and it's just. Not. True. They're just going to have to accept that the days of 600% ROI on any old piece of shiat that they decide to throw out there are over. The world is evolving. Either find a way to evolve with it or die like those that can't.