October 30th, 2008
If someone wants to watch a movie today, they have quite a few options.
They could download it illegally from the web.
Or they could rent it from a local video store.
Purchase it online.
Pay to download it.
Have it delivered through Netflix (or stream it if it’s available).
Pay per view.
Etc.
There are lots of legal options.
But what about this: what if someone makes a good-faith effort to acquire a movie through legal means, but that channel fails?
For example, if someone receives a DVD from Netflix that’s unplayable, then downloads the exact same movie to make up for Netflix’s failure, do they have piracy immunity?
Pushing it further, could someone claim piracy immunity by subscribing to Netflix, then turning around and downloading pirated copies of movies rather than dealing with unreliable plastic discs or a small streaming catalog?
What do you think?
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Posted by:
Gabe on
October 30th, 2008 4:41 pm
When you get a movie from Netflix - either streaming or Delivered on DVD - you are renting it. When you download a movie, you are probably going to keep it. Unless your the kind of pirate who deletes your content after you’re done watching it, the situations are not really comparable.
Posted by:
Chris E. Avis on
November 4th, 2008 5:09 pm
I was a NetFlix Subscriber for 4 years. Not once did I have a bad disc shipped to me and I had a LOT of discs shipped to me. So i don’t think that is a valid excuse. However, the shipping time is. Even with a 48 hour turnaround, it only takes a few hours to download an HD version of a movie and less than an hour to download an SD version. Netflix took the pain out of heading to BlockBuster to rent only to find it was out of stock and also by making it happen quickly. But there will always be those of us that want it even faster than whatever the current means is.
I like your idea but I doubt it floats from a legal perspective. And I don’t think people keep movies they download for any length of time after they are watched. Why keep it after watched when it is a few clicks and an hour from being downloaded again? Or so I hear…… 
Chris
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