Peter Serafinowicz - "Why I Steal Movies... Even Ones I'm In"

Basq

Peter Serafinowicz is one of those actors you'll have seen in some place or another - whether it's "Spaced", "Shaun of The Dead", "Blacks Books" or his own sketch show ("The Peter Serafinowicz Show") - and while he's a bit hit and miss in terms of his performances and comedy, this article really is a damn good read.

Some of his arguments may be flawed but he does hit the nail on the head with regards to geographical limitations and "ownership".

Why I Steal Movies… Even Ones I'm In



Like a billion other people, I download things illegally. I'm also an actor, writer and director whose income depends on revenue from DVDs, movies and books. This leads to many conflicts in my head, in my heart, and in bars.

From an industry standpoint, physical media has a great advantage: It is its own copy-protection. Even disregarding the DRM built-in to discs, to make copies is hugely impractical for the average consumer. But physical media is disappearing. We simply don't need it any more. Remember slinging out your VHS collection? That's how I'm now thinking about my DVDs. And don't think you're safe either, Blu-rays.

With bandwidth and storage increasing exponentially, getting cheaper, and consumers becoming more tech-savvy, it's becoming easier every day to grab free copies of books, movies and albums. This is why Internet users are thrilled. Including me. This is why people in the entertainment industry are terrified. Including me.

***

I live in London and many of my favo(u)rite TV shows are American. So if I want to see the latest episode of South Park or Friday Night Lights I'll head over to Pirate Bay or ez.tv and nab a torrent moments after broadcast. I once even downloaded Shaun of the Dead to use in my reel, because it was easier than ripping the DVD.

Torrenting is probably too hassle-y for the average viewer: Installing Transmission, VLC, perhaps re-encoding to watch on my TV—but I'm pretty techy (ok, a geek) and have been doing this for years. However, if a show is available on iTunes—as South Park is to me now I've set up a US iTunes account (yet another tech hassle I had to overcome…)—I'll click and buy. It's simple, quick, better quality, not to mention legal. It's also cheap. Graham Linehan (creator of The IT Crowd) described this situation to me as ‘better than free'. Matt Stone and Trey Parker of South Park have always tolerated torrent sites hosting pirate versions of their show, as I imagine they see it as constant promotion. Also, they've realised there's nothing they can do about it.

The promotion argument makes sense. South Park for example makes money from from syndication, advertising, merchandising and DVD sales (although the latter market is dwindling) so perhaps the extra visibility helps.

The visibility argument certainly makes sense for my short-lived BBC show. I'm revamping my website right now and my web team asked me if I would like them to hunt down and put and end to the torrents and RapidShare links to The Peter Serafinowicz Show, which was recently released in the UK on DVD. I said no because the show is still relatively unknown and I'd like as many people to see it as possible. In fact, I've used the torrents myself when I haven't had a copy to hand.

Much of it is already up on YouTube. If people like it enough they'll want to buy, to own, the DVD, which has lots of great extra stuff, but the DVD isn't even sold in the USA. The freely available content serves as a calling card for me, and for the other cast members and writers, hopefully enabling us to produce more hilarious stuff for the world's discerning comedy fans.

If you know where to look, the whole contents of the DVD, extras, menus, all in super quality, are available instantly, for free. Great!? Except I don't make any money, nor does anyone else involved with the show. The PS Show started out on YouTube, with me and my brother James shooting stuff for zero dollars, using basic equipment and making it look as good as we could. But all comedy can't be made like this. A slick show like 30 Rock couldn't exist without a huge budget to pay all the writers, actors, cameramen, production staff etc. Who's gonna pay these people in future if everything is free?

***

"Ownership" is starting to change its meaning. If you buy a movie from iTunes you "own" the right to watch it on certain devices within certain constraints. When you "own" a DVD, you have the right to watch it whenever and wherever you want. However: you must watch ten minutes of promos, trailers and anti-piracy threats. I'll take the download, please.

But often you can't do it legally: I recently wanted to show my son Disney's classic Jungle Book and intended to get it on iTunes. Unfortunately, it is currently incarcerated within The Disney Vault. So I'm afraid I simply DL'ed a pixel-clear pirate copy which arrived in seconds. My moral justification for this? I once bought the VHS. It's your own vault, Disney!

I recently got an iPad while I was in the US (my Gizmodo review is coming soon) and have been using its excellent iBooks app. The backlit screen isn't perfect for reading, but it's close. I bought quite a few books but there was one in particular (recommended to me by the comedian Tim Minchin) that I was super keen to read: Ian McEwan's latest, Solar. It wasn't available in the iBooks store, so I tried Amazon via its (inferior) Kindle app. As I tried to check out, it told me that it was unavailable in my country (I have a UK account). Exasperated, I downloaded a pirate copy and was reading it within minutes. My moral justification for this? I will now advertise the book. "Solar is a sun-tastic read!" (Seriously, it's great.)

I own a physical copy of Anthony Lane's brilliant collection of New Yorker reviews, Nobody's Perfect. It's a heavy read (around 3 lbs.) and I wanted to get a copy for my iPad. I tracked down an ePub version of the book at the Barnes & Noble site, assuming, since iBooks also uses the format, that I could tranfer it to my iPad. Only the iPad doesn't read Adobe-encoded ebooks, not now at least. With the help of some sympathetic Twitter followers I then spent around ten futile hours installing Xcode and obscure Python scripts (not the funny ones) on two different computers in what seems to be the only method one can use to illegally decrypt Adobe ebooks. My moral justification for this? I've paid for the book twice.

***

Frank Zappa once said that Communism could never work because people like to own stuff. I felt a similar way about CDs when music began to arrive in MP3 form. Now, my music happily resides in my iTunes library, spread over various computers and iPods.

Music's purpose is to be heard. It doesn't need to live on discs in boxes on a groaning shelf any more. When I go into a Virgin Megastore or HMV (a rare occurrence now, a vestigial habit) I just see a huge room filled with redundant plastic. Now with Spotify and other streaming services I'm even starting to begrudge the space taken up on my hard drive.

I recently directed the music video for Hot Chip's "I Feel Better." Contractually, the video had to be hosted on EMI's official YouTube channel, which disabled non-UK users from viewing it, limiting its audience by around 80%. Frustrated, I put it up on my own YouTube channel with no region restrictions, and at time of writing is just shy of a million views. EMI then remotely disabled embedding on my version, thereby limiting its audience again. If you're in the business of promoting a band, why would you want to stop people watching their promotional video?

***

I don't understand business, but I can see that the old model needs to change. Perhaps it'll involve direct micro-payments. Perhaps you'll pay Apple or whoever a monthly flat fee to license all their content. Most importantly, I believe that the direct and deepening connection artists now have with their fans, be they independent bands or Hollywood talkshow hosts, will play a huge part. But one thing is for sure: artists will always make art, and money-makers will always find a way to make money.

In the meantime, I'll be suing myself for pirating my own show. And I'm pretty scared, because I have an amazing lawyer.

Peter Serafinowicz, a celebrated British writer/producer/director/actor/musician/comedian/voice model, is joining us for a few weeks to talk about the tech issues that delight, frustrate and motivate him every day. He recently launched his Peter Serafinowicz Show DVD in the UK—also on YouTube—and will soon release his Look Around You DVD in the USA. This fall, he will be starring with Will Arnett in a Fox sitcom created by Arrested Development's Mitchell Hurwitz. If you don't already follow Peter on Twitter, you should be ashamed of yourself.

Source: Gizmodo

PS - mods.. I'm not advocating or promoting piracy, and I hope this thread stays merely discussion only as the above does bring up some valid points.

mike65

Its hard to argue with many of the points, esp the outrageously stupid "terratorial" restrictions stuff (hello UK sport radio rights holders!).

The most important bit of the above though is the bit not expanded on. Who makes 30 Rock when no-one will pay for it?

johnny_ultimate

Right, this is dodgy territory so this is the only warning after last weeks failed attempt to discuss downloading issues: keep the discussion general, address the issues raised in the article, and try and keep it civil. No boasting that you download, no back and forth insults about who is right / who is wrong. If anyone mentions high horses... :pac:

I totally agree with the points made about regional restrictions. It is extremely frustrating that the services available to us are far inferior to our neighbours for vague geographical and 'rights' issues. It is a significant problem, and yeah a superior distribution system needs to be put in place - a monthly fee is definitely the way I see it going. Also, I'm not as against an advertising based model as some would be. The very minimal ads in streaming services such as 4oD and RTE Player aren't anywhere near as intrusive as watching on TV. One ad at the start and halfway point is a fair compromise.

Sticking with films, though, the availability is far lower than television or music. If I want to watch a film, the only options I usually consider are DVD or cinema. There are times when these aren't possibilities - how does one get their hands on an out of print DVD if even Ebay fails them? Digital distribution has so much potential for getting every film out there. Netflix is a good step forward, but alas for now it's the constant message of 'this isn't available in your territory'. Should access to film really be dependent on territory?

unreggd

Regarding region blocking, it's UK networks that p!ss me off the most

Irish viewers make up a BIG chunk of viewers for most UK shows

Vut then if you wanna catch up on something, you can't use their catch up service [BBC, ITV, Xfactor etc]

Its so annoyin!

Most anti-piracy tactics don't do anything

It's a bit naive to think that restrictions will lead to an increase in legal sales

Like, If all P2P apps were blocked tomorrow, for life, I wouldnt be runnin to iTunes

They shud embrace it

The UK sites I mentioned that are blocked, could show a local ad, matched to your IP's country
That way they can stream globally, and make money out of it

its free to stream everything on the tv sites, so they were never losin money

Oafley Jones

unreggd wrote: »

Regarding region blocking, it's UK networks that p!ss me off the most

Irish viewers make up a BIG chunk of viewers for most UK shows

Vut then if you wanna catch up on something, you can't use their catch up service [BBC, ITV, Xfactor etc]

Its so annoyin!

Most anti-piracy tactics don't do anything

It's a bit naive to think that restrictions will lead to an increase in legal sales

Like, If all P2P apps were blocked tomorrow, for life, I wouldnt be runnin to iTunes

They shud embrace it

The UK sites I mentioned that are blocked, could show a local ad, matched to your IP's country
That way they can stream globally, and make money out of it

its free to stream everything on the tv sites, so they were never losin money

That's probably an issue to do with the distribution rights of programmes, not to mention the fact that UK channels are under no obligation to provide the service for a foreign county.

Valmont

That picture is really funny for some reason.

Klingon Hamlet

OFF TOPIC FUN FACT:
That dude voiced Darth Maul.

ON TOPIC:
Even if everything were currently online for legal viewing, I've found links that don't work because I'm in Ireland. MTV for example region-code interviews. INTERVIEWS!!

Duggy747

Damn right UK channels should open their streams to us, we're the only other country that pumps so much money into their broadcasting by purchasing Sky.

When it comes to UK TV nobody else exists except England.

They need to tackle this digital distrubition correctly, the internet has been set up and been running practically unpoliced (in most Western countries) in such a way for so long that it's next to impossible to change things without breaching other laws that were put in place.

Change the copyright & distribution laws and THEN work on creating a wider scope of available services for TV Shows and Movies.

If I think of a movie or TV show that I haven't seen in years / isn't on TV where do I go to get it? Many shows still don't exist on DVD yet.

And TV Shows that still haven't been picked up by any channels on this side of the atlantic (Or are shown on obscure channels at ungodly hours) doesn't help matter either.

I'm still weary of the whole "Well, I own the DVD so I can download it anyway I want!" Isn't that still contributing to the whole downloading illegaly anyways? You're still getting an illegal copy of someone else's rip regardless whether you have the DVD or not.

Now making backups of your DVD's is fine as along as you don't start handing them out.

Though I do download, it is not (as many people do this) because I can and grab every single piece of TV or movie entertainment out there in existence. Gloating at how I can "get away with it" and such. I get what I can't normally get. Respect the industry that you love and purchase the DVDs / whatever. If things are "too expensive" then spend a few more minutes shopping around.

I don't share or upload either as I never really understood the point of it. Scene groups do this for infamy against each other and the whole "freedom for all" idealogy.

Dman001

Duggy747 wrote: »

I'm still weary of the whole "Well, I own the DVD so I can download it anyway I want!" Isn't that still contributing to the whole downloading illegaly anyways? You're still getting an illegal copy of someone else's rip regardless whether you have the DVD or not.

Now making backups of your DVD's is fine as along as you don't start handing them out.
.

I dont see any problem with this if they have the DVD. Some would just want a copy of the movie for their laptop/iPod so would download the film, rather than going through the DVD Ripping process.

One of the problems with Illegal Downloading is that we have no legal alternative. If the Studios came out with an all-you-can-eat Download service available on a number of platforms (Macs, iPhone App etc) for a monthly fee, I'd join it tomorrow. The iTunes Movie Store was released in Ireland a few weeks back which is a start, but do people really want a service where the movies are the same price as DVDs but potentially more limited than DVDs (I can Rip a DVD and but it on 1000s of devices, I can only watch an iTunes Movie on a Laptop, iPod, Apple TV etc)?

Netflix in the US is a great service. For a monthly fee you can watch as many films as you want (as long as they are in your que), and it is available on PCs, Mac, iPad, Media Players and soon to be iPhone and Touch with HD and SD content. But what does Warner Bros do? They put up a 30 day Rental block, which prevents Netflix from distributing new releases until for 30 days. I one step forward but two steps back.

There's a severe lack of Inovation and Initiative from the Studios.

mike65

Duggy747 wrote: »

Damn right UK channels should open their streams to us, we're the only other country that pumps so much money into their broadcasting by purchasing Sky.

When it comes to UK TV nobody else exists except England. UK

FYP

Fysh

On of the biggest remaining problems remaining in the transition towards offering digital distribution is the old region-specific distribution model - there's no real sense in imposing this restriction on digital distribution. It seems to be sticking around because the people involved have failed to understand where modern technology has put us and what they should be doing to change the situation.

When it comes to digital distribution the key principle is - remove as many obstacles as you can between your product and your audience's ability to give you money for it. Don't platform-lock it, don't DRM it, don't regionally restrict it. If you want to offer a time-limited streaming service, present this as one of several options.

It's interesting that in the UK there seems to be a better understanding amongst at least some in the media that lobby groups can claim they're losing billions to "piracy", but until you offer a fully-functional and easy-to-use legal alternative you won't eliminate the behaviour.

I refer you to the gradual transition of anti-piracy ads from "you wouldn't steal a car (or sh*t in a policeman's helmet)" through "Here's the reject squad from Britain's Got No Talent singing Knock Off Nigel" and the short-lived "Oh look, pirates are sad losers who spend all their time alone in their bedroom playing with themselves" before finally arriving at "hello, thanks for paying to see this in the cinema and support our industry, we depend on your money to keep our industry alive".

Duggy747

mike65 wrote: »

FYP

:pac: Thanks, but I meant to say England. Soctland, Wales, and Northern Ireland are left out a lot of times in regards to UK programming.

liah

Honestly? After using 4oD for the last few weeks, I have to say, I really wish all channels would do something similar. Yes, there's ads, but they're minimal, there's only two at the beginning and one in the middle depending on the program, I don't even really notice them anymore. The player itself is brilliant (buffers quick, resumes if you leave the page which is a lifesaver sometimes) and the sheer amount of content is astonishing.

I'd imagine they're making a bit of bank out of it, too. It's a very, very well thought-out system and if more channels adopted it and embraced the 'net they'd perhaps realize that there are ways around the whole piracy thing. It's much easier to just go over to 4oD than wait for a torrent or anything else.

Once companies cop on that the internet is a fantastic tool for advertising and making money then maybe it'll change, but I don't understand why they're making it so restricted. Do what 4 does, stick ads in and have a streaming service on your own website. It's smart. Easy to use. Gets them a good reputation. Why not?

Valmont

+1 for 4-on-demand. I watched the entire library of Peep Show there and the ads are a minimal intrusion compared to what you get on television. It's too bad the bbc iplayer doesn't work here.

johnny_ultimate

4od is absolutely fantastic - such a huge selection, even available on youtube. Channel 4 are commercial, they actually went out of their way to sort out the Irish rights issues, because at the end of the day, it benefits them - more money. Advertisers will happily pay for Irish and UK access I'd imagine, and since 4oD own most of the material they're putting up (not all) they can do what they want with it. BBC have no obligation to provide us with that service, only the licence payers. There is no benefit to them giving us access, so they won't. In fact, some one would probably complain about giving us access :pac:

There isn't, however, any equivalent service for film, which is a real shame. Film Four don't put much of their stuff up online at all. I think this is where you get into significant rights deals and so on. It's up to the creators in the first place, DVD deals and so on get in the way. It's easier with TV, no middle man a lot of the time with 4oD for example.

The Recliner

johnny_ultimate wrote: »

4od is absolutely fantastic - such a huge selection, even available on youtube. Channel 4 are commercial, they actually went out of their way to sort out the Irish rights issues, because at the end of the day, it benefits them - more money. Advertisers will happily pay for Irish and UK access I'd imagine, and since 4oD own most of the material they're putting up (not all) they can do what they want with it. BBC have no obligation to provide us with that service, only the licence payers. There is no benefit to them giving us access, so they won't. In fact, some one would probably complain about giving us access :pac:

There isn't, however, any equivalent service for film, which is a real shame. Film Four don't put much of their stuff up online at all. I think this is where you get into significant rights deals and so on. It's up to the creators in the first place, DVD deals and so on get in the way. It's easier with TV, no middle man a lot of the time with 4oD for example.

When I had Sky in a previous place I lived and a subscription to the movie channels I used to use their Sky player service

You could access their movie library and download movies and have about 30 days to watch them

it wasn't ideal but it was a good effort at getting movies out there legally and a handy way of watching movie you had missed or just wanted to see at a particular time

faceman

While I liked his article, its really as black and white as that. Defining the line between acceptable and not acceptable, be it a blind eye thrown to some activity, needs to be clearly defined and Id expect it would be a near impossible task to do.

Fysh

faceman wrote: »

While I liked his article, its really as black and white as that. Defining the line between acceptable and not acceptable, be it a blind eye thrown to some activity, needs to be clearly defined and Id expect it would be a near impossible task to do.

Not really - it would be comparatively simple to adopt a similar business model to that which the music industry has eventually accepted of selling digital files alongside physical copies. It would also be comparatively simple to change their licensing model such that buying a DVD/Blu-Ray allows you to rip it for personal use.

The industry doesn't want to do this, because it would rather try and cling to a world where you have to pay once for the physical version and a second time for the digital version.

It's not "near-impossible", it's just an option that's been discarded by the industry because thus far those in the industry have not accepted that their current business model is no longer adequate for the products and marketplace in which they are operating.

norrie rugger

Valmont wrote: »

+1 for 4-on-demand. I watched the entire library of Peep Show there and the ads are a minimal intrusion compared to what you get on television. It's too bad the bbc iplayer doesn't work here.

VPN for the win

DeepBlue

Peter Serafinowicz wrote:

When you "own" a DVD, you have the right to watch it whenever and wherever you want. However: you must watch ten minutes of promos, trailers and anti-piracy threats. I'll take the download, please.

So true.