Is there a way to LEGALLY download as a one-off a movie which is not on iTunes?

Colours

Hoping someone can tell me definitively whether it is possible to legitimately download online a movie which is not available in the iTunes store. After several failed attempts at googling into this, I have come to suspect that it is not possible to do which is very disappointing given how there has been such a huge clamp down on "illegal" file sharing sites on the grounds that they were depriving the movie entertainment industry of significant revenue.

In my case I would like to purchase online for download the move Sixty Six (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sixty_Six_%28film%29) which is not available on iTunes even though this movie only came out in 2006 and is in no way obscure or niche. All that I've dredged up on my quest - ie to find a site which has this movie available for purchasing as a download - has either been sites where I have to commit to complex and dubious membership conditions and a fee or else so called movie download sites which have a distinctly shady air about them that militates against giving your credit card details to them. The former scenario doesn't suit me as I only want to purchase this movie as a one off. The latter scenario is basically a scam and it is incredibly ironic that after these entertainment companies have banished the file sharing sites which illegally shared many movies free of charge, they have failed to fill the gaping hole left by coming up with a suitable alternative and legitimate version, with the result that the internet consumer is now at the mercy of internet scammers and charlatans of the worst and most "legitimate" kind!

It'd be great if someone could prove me wrong and tell me the url of the site which provides the service I'm looking for. Thanks.

All that I can come across is Blinkbox (owned by Tesco) http://www.blinkbox.com/Movies/612/Sixty-Six?utm_source=findanyfilm&utm_medium=affiliate, although have never used them, and not even sure it works here, as it is a UK based site.
If you are not in a hurry, it is very cheap on dvd, on amazon http://www.amazon.co.uk/Sixty-Six-DVD/dp/B000MGB0RE/ref=sr_1_1?s=dvd&ie=UTF8&qid=1364603415&sr=1-1. But I am guessing if you wanted a dvd, you would have asked.

Colours

Hi Wextext, thanks for those suggestions. The Blinkbox site appears to cater only to UK residents. The Amazon DVD offers are indeed very good and I will probably end up purchasing it by this means. Notwithstanding this, being somewhat stubborn and coming up against a brick wall in my attempts to purchase online the .avi or mp4 file of it has annoyed me and I think it is a poor state affairs that it is not possible to do this. It begs the question that if the production company behindthis movie could supply it on DVD, then why couldn't it provide it for purchase online as a download especially after being so up in arms about other illegal free sharing sites who were able to do it easily?

Thanks again Wextext for your useful suggestion.

iPhone.

I can see where you are coming from, however, just because you feel something should be available to you 24/7 in a manner of your choosing, I.e instant download doesn't mean the suppliers of this product or service have to agree.

For example if the legitimate producers of the movie decided to make it available for purchase via download six days a week from Monday to Saturday but the local dodgy market stall sells a knockoff copy on DVD seven days a week, it doesn't automatically follow that the, legit producers should make it available for download on Sundays too just because you feel they should.

Colours

I take your point iPhone but I'd argue that these movie companies would offer this service to consumers if they cared about enabling as many interested people to access all of their movies in as many ways as they could. It's clear that they don't care about the audience or the entertainment value of the movies they produce. They are only interested in promoting the main stream new releases because that's where the money is. Any associated art and entertainment value are incidental.

iPhone.

iPhone. wrote: »

I can see where you are coming from, however, just because you feel something should be available to you 24/7 in a manner of your choosing, I.e instant download doesn't mean the suppliers of this product or service have to agree.

For example if the legitimate producers of the movie decided to make it available for purchase via download six days a week from Monday to Saturday but the local dodgy market stall sells a knockoff copy on DVD seven days a week, it doesn't automatically follow that the, legit producers should make it available for download on Sundays too just because you feel they should.

The movie is available 24/7, Hollywood hates this but still doesn't offer an alternative to pirating. Shutting down online sharing sites in the basis of lost revenue means that they should in fact open that revenue stream in the first place.

Overheal

I used to be able to think downloading an old NES game would be ok because it was all abandonware essentially, but these days all those games are resurfacing on console marketplaces or are being rehashed completely. Most recent announcement was a 3D remake of the original Ducktales for NES: basically the same game in every sense except with a 3D facelift. You see a lot of examples of this on the apple App store too, I just picked up a Final Fantasy relaunch as an app the other day.

KuriousOranj

Just DL it the 'bad' way so you can watch it now,and then buy the DVD off Amazon or wherever.That way you still paid to watch it.

Torqay

Overheal wrote: »

but these days all those games are resurfacing on console marketplaces or are being rehashed completely. Most recent announcement was a 3D remake of the original Ducktales for NES: basically the same game in every sense except with a 3D facelift. You see a lot of examples of this on the apple App store too, I just picked up a Final Fantasy relaunch as an app the other day.

Amazon and Apple are shamelessly selling books which are abailable for free elsewhere (The Internet Archive, Gutenberg, etc). Change a word or two and call it a "new translation" or have some moron writing a new foreword and then charge a tenner. That's how you make money and people feel happy about having it all in "de one place" instead of searching elsewhere.

Colours

Deleted User wrote: »

The movie is available 24/7, Hollywood hates this but still doesn't offer an alternative to pirating. Shutting down online sharing sites in the basis of lost revenue means that they should in fact open that revenue stream in the first place.

That's exactly the point I was trying to make which Ads by Google put very succinctly.

Colours

KuriousOranj wrote: »

Just DL it the 'bad' way so you can watch it now,and then buy the DVD off Amazon or wherever.That way you still paid to watch it.

Note how I mentioned that these big companies have successfully clamped down on the free sharing sites - well they've gotten to our internet providers too who are hyper alert to this kind of activity and act accordingly if they detect any activity in this area.

PogMoThoin

Colours wrote: »

Note how I mentioned that these big companies have successfully clamped down on the free sharing sites - well they've gotten to our internet providers too who are hyper alert to this kind of activity and act accordingly if they detect any activity in this area.

Nonsense, ISP's don't monitor what you do nor do they care. The media mafia pay companies to join torrents and take note of the ip addresses of all connected. It's only public torrents, there are many other private methods of downloading that don't leave your public ip visible.

Only Eircom have a deal with the media mafia, this is to save themselves money on court cases. Yes the media mafia are bullies, you will not win if you go up against them. They have deep pockets and will keep throwing money at it until they crush you. This is instead of spending that money on a more modern distribution system.

yoyo

Please don't be encouraging illegal downloading folks.

Colours

Ok yoyo noted...so the conclusion is that there is currently no way to legitimately download certain movies which were released say over 5 five years ago which is what I have been trying to do?

Very poor state of affairs. These big movie industries should be ashamed of themselves. I presume it's still ok to say that. It's a legitimate opinion after all

norrie rugger

Torqay wrote: »

Amazon and Apple are shamelessly selling books which are abailable for free elsewhere (The Internet Archive, Gutenberg, etc). Change a word or two and call it a "new translation" or have some moron writing a new foreword and then charge a tenner. That's how you make money and people feel happy about having it all in "de one place" instead of searching elsewhere.

To be fair, Amazon have loads of free books on the store and grows it always

yoyo

Colours wrote: »

Ok yoyo noted...so the conclusion is that there is currently no way to legitimately download certain movies which were released say over 5 five years ago which is what I have been trying to do?

Very poor state of affairs. These big movie industries should be ashamed of themselves. I presume it's still ok to say that. It's a legitimate opinion after all

It is annoying alright but it's a legal issue if people are suggesting to pirate content, so safer to ban all such discussion . You may have try buy the DVD on Amazon as a last resort!

Nick

Colours

yoyo wrote: »

It is annoying alright but it's a legal issue if people are suggesting to pirate content, so safer to ban all such discussion . You may have try buy the DVD on Amazon as a last resort!

Nick

Yes yoyo I agree I'll have to concede defeat and just buy the DVD on Amazon. But it does highlight the fact that there is currently this gaping hole in the market which is crying out to be filled. Perhaps some Irish entrepreneur(s) could jump in and fill it? Or else it might be a direction Golden Discs, say, might see fit to go down to revive their ailing business?

PogMoThoin

Colours wrote: »

Yes yoyo I agree I'll have to concede defeat and just buy the DVD on Amazon. But it does highlight the fact that there is currently this gaping hole in the market which is crying out to be filled. Perhaps some Irish entrepreneur(s) could jump in and fill it? Or else it might be a direction Golden Discs, say, might see fit to go down to revive their ailing business?

The media mafia do not care about gaping holes in the market, they make it virtually impossible for any entrepreneur to make money and all through the years have done whatever they can to stifle the move to electronic means and still insist on you spending top dollar on a worthless piece of plastic. You just have to look at the poor selection of content on Netflix UK to see this.

Colours

PogMoThoin wrote: »

The media mafia do not care about gaping holes in the market, they make it virtually impossible for any entrepreneur to make money and all through the years have done whatever they can to stifle the move to electronic means and still insist on you spending top dollar on a worthless piece of plastic. You just have to look at the poor selection of content on Netflix UK to see this.

PógMoThóin I don't accept this or even agree with it because if this were the case then I wouldn't be encountering so many cowboy online outfits who are exploiting this gap in the market and luring naive consumers into agreeing to engage in monthly subscription membership fees which no doubt are nigh impossible to extricate themselves from after they've had enough. These cowboys are obviously operating on the right side of the law because otherwise they'd not only be depriving the movie industry of revenue but they'd be stealing that revenue for themselves which I'd imagine would drive these industries apoplectic with indignation and vengeance.

So I think there is a gap in market which I don't see would be impossible to fill by a reputable company like Golden Discs. Indeed Golden Discs was the first shop that came to mind when I figured it wasn't going to be possible to download the Sixty Six movie online as I've bought many similar movies at reasonable prices from them in the past but unfortunately they didn't stock it when I went in to my local shop the other day.

Torqay

norrie rugger wrote: »

To be fair, Amazon have loads of free books

There is no such thing as free at Amazon. You'll have to be a subscriber and agree to be profiled and inundated with advertising which in itself is worth money for Amazon.

Just as an example, a friend bought The Fall of the House of Usher the other day on Amazon for €3.50, when she could have gotten it for free here. "Oh, I have heard of of this place", she said, "But how would I get this on my Kindle?" :facepalm:

Bottom line, Amazon et al have no shame to capitalize on works which are in the public domain (and indeed on the stupidity of their customers with loose credit cards).

riclad

Many movies are avaidable on netflix,
or lovefilm.
Even on a sky box,with no subscription, there s free movie channels,

and bbc ,itv, c4 , film4,
AS far as i know its legal, to record films,
on a vcr, from bbc ,rte etc
ITS probably ,like a vinyl , record.
KIDS these days, don,t know what a vcr is.
eg legacy technology.

Squeaky the Squirrel

iPhone. wrote: »

I can see where you are coming from, however, just because you feel something should be available to you 24/7 in a manner of your choosing, I.e instant download doesn't mean the suppliers of this product or service have to agree.

For example if the legitimate producers of the movie decided to make it available for purchase via download six days a week from Monday to Saturday but the local dodgy market stall sells a knockoff copy on DVD seven days a week, it doesn't automatically follow that the, legit producers should make it available for download on Sundays too just because you feel they should.

Jesus...