Pirating . . .

[saturnin]

who knew eh.. lol

Originally Posted by 10megapixel

Pirating? on the internet?

[Thorrulz]

Originally Posted by 10megapixel

Pirating? on the internet?

^^^That's the quote of the day. ^^^

[saturnin]

every business projects a % of sales lost, due to damage,theft,returns - same old, this aint different

[Ledrak]

Originally Posted by saturnin

its always about demographic, you are not going to sell expensive shoes to a beggar online...come on.

no one said that the REMEDY/MANAGEMENT is simple, but there are ways to make your business do well. And sometimes you throw all at it and it still fails, hence its called business. ITs a dog eat dog world guys, once again. Nothing new here.

98% of restaurants fail in the first few months, just business.

Agreed!

[Moppie]

Originally Posted by saturnin

sell it for less and make it downloadable dont even bother with DVD/BLUERAY- its just another added cost that can go toward production/bandwith
to make 1000 BLUE RAYS is about 6000US
to make 1000 DVD-9 is about 2300US
............

Fantastic to see someone thinking differently about content delivery and understanding what is really going on.

The video game industry is decades ahead of the movie and music industry in this regard, they are a great example to look at.
The share volume and value of sales they can make is incredible and the margins must be even bigger when you look at the savings they make in distribution and logistics.


While piracy is theft under law people need to stop thinking about it being a lost sale.
The vast majority of people watching pirated content never intended, or were never able to buy it to begin with. Yes they are watching/listening to it for free, but it is NOT a lost sale because there was never a potential sale to begin with.

If your in the business of making money through selling media then this is a VERY important distinction to understand.


As saturnin pointed out there is more to it. It also means people are interested in what your creating, they are just not interested in your current sales and distribution methods.

High volume low cost, segmented content, on demand, etc etc.
How you sell and distribute the content is more important than how you create it.

Beyond downloadable content, it is now possible to make money, and good money by giving the content away.
There are now lots of channels on youtube employing whole production teams just to make money giving away content.

[saturnin]

finally someone who understands where things have gone and are going

and yes.. those ppl who pirate..they have no intention of buying the product to being with - so in reality, there isnt a sale lost.

Also keep in mind that there are so many millions of ppl in this world and not everyone knows how to pirate.
perfect example - the adult industry - its still alive and making billions each year - ppl still pirate, but who cares. Money is there to be made, make no mistake about it, you just have to be creative.

is there anything else we need to cover in this thread hahah?

[Moppie]

Heres two examples of people in the industry who are creating content, teaching and sharing, making money from it and who don't have to worry about piracy or how much they charge:

http://www.slrlounge.com/
and
http://fstoppers.com


Then of course these guys have been doing it for a long time:
http://kelbytv.com/photoshopusertv/

And the company that became a household name and a verb entirely though piracy making its product accessible to millions: www.adobe.com


I used to know a young guy who retired at 21.
He wrote a little ftp program, built into it some clever copy protection and then sold it for a sum of money plus residuals to a large software publisher.
When the residuals started to dry up because it wasn't selling, he wrote the crack for his own software and made it easy to find and get.
This made his software the easiest to pirate on the market, which also made it the most popular.
People would pirate it, use it, like it, then buy a legitimate copy of it for business use.

Sales, and his associated residuals went up accordingly, and it made his little program the worlds most popular ftp program at the time.

[saturnin]

bravo

/thread

[mguffin]

Originally Posted by mega

Reselling a copyrighted good that was legally purchased is absolutely legal in the US. See: first-sale doctrine.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-s...BG_v_Weinstein

You can sell the actual DVD, but not copies of it...

[Ledrak]

All very true points from everyone. But let's not forget that these pirates that aren't interested in buying are a new market that has developed from all this piracy. There is also an in-between market that "would" buy if they couldn't find it online for free, and you never get the chance to convert those sales if all of your product is available online for everyone to steal.

Again, I'm just pointing out that there are many different angles to this. But everyone has made great points thus far.

[mega]

Originally Posted by mguffin

You can sell the actual DVD, but not copies of it...

Nowhere did I ever say that you could sell a copy. That is clear copyright infringement.

[mguffin]

Originally Posted by mega

Nowhere did I ever say that you could sell a copy. That is clear copyright infringement.

I was agreeing with you...

[aias313]

interesting thoughts from all sides.
I'd like to preface my comments by saying I spend my day job in the online marketing world so I have more than a passing interest/knowledge of the subject.

When I look at the DVD sales page on your site Jason it's obvious that the reason you're not selling DVD (beyond the price and distribution method) is that your site and purchase funnel is, in a word, crap.

Take a look at the what Karl Taylor is doing ..http://karltaylorphotography.com/lea...phy-basics.htm what JoeyL is doing http://www.joeyl.com/shop/package/ph...ade-vs-joey-l/

then take a look at your page.. it's clunky, heavy and in a strange little frame, tells me virtually nothing about what i'm getting for $69.99.. there's a small shot of the cover and that's it.. Its a glamour dvd but there's nothing glamorous about your site. It's not showcasing your talent, it's not telling me a story about how i'm going to go from flunky to a glamour shooting allstar. . You say you spent a bunch of your own money on the product but not enough time was spent on where the purchase was taking place. it's like trying to sell expensive jewelry out the back of a van. Some people will go for it but the vast majority will pass.

Piracy is one issue, and yes to some extent releasing it digitally will make it easier to torrent. But as someone mentioned honestly those people we're going to pop down $70 anyway.. you want to convert the maybe's not the nevers and your site is failing at that.

Feel free to PM me and we can have a larger chat about the topic if you want. I don't want to come off as a dick but just giving my honest opinion as someone who does this for a living.

[saturnin]

i just looked at Jason Coles website - and it def looks outdated and user unfriendly, time to get a new design going

[BJWOK]

Some good points made from Saturin in this thread.

It's about moving with the current trends more than anything.

One thing I was shocked at as a fellow Aussie was that it actually cost me $114.92 AUD to buy Jason's DVD.

The pricing was in US dollars with a $15 delivery charge, so with the conversion back to AUD it sucked!!

It shouldn't cost more than 6 to 7 bucks to mail a DVD across Australia.

And why should I be paying US dollars to support an Australian photographer?

I personally wouldn't purchase another follow up DVD unless the pricing/delivery costing was substantially cheaper (and in Aussie dollars!)