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Comment by pedrokost | Hacker News Reader

What's the real purpose of shutting sites like TPB down? People won't rush to stores to get the movies they want to see if they can't download them.

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Funny thing is I would actually prefer downloading from official (maybe more legal) sources if I would find way to do that in my country, with my favorite OS, without stupid DRM restrictions and warnings and maybe for sane prices. But living in Germany and using Linux - such a movie-download service does to my knowledge in 2010 still not exist and is also not in sight.

Something like eDonkey but at the cost of lets say 1€ per GB and I would be happy. Then a DVD would be same price like cheap DVD's in a shop and I can decide to go with lower-quality if I don't want to spend as much.

I don't even know why producers don't just do that. Or maybe they do in other countries?

http://www.eztakes.com/

I haven't tried it yet. 5000 titles. Decidedly non-mainstream.

Oh wow. You proposed a great business model I hadn't even thought of. Guess it goes to show that there is plenty of room for innovation in the digital download market. Companies like movie studios and record labels just need to get a bit more creative and just come to the realization that the old business model isn't going to cut it these days.

>Funny thing is I would actually prefer downloading from official (maybe more legal) sources if I would find way to do that in my country

You're not the only one.

http://www.news.com.au/technology/download-culture/internet-...

Title is "Most pirates say they'd pay for legal downloads"

Serves as a deterrent effect. If there were no enforcement ever, lots of people from sites like HN would be thinking of fun, clever new ways to post/share stuff. Since there is, only a smaller segment of the hacker population is willing to put up with the legal hassle.

Thing is, there's nothing wrong with thinking of fun, clever ways to post/share stuff. If nothing else, you can do it to anticipate what the bad guys might do, on the same principle as any other kind of attack research.

On the other hand, it also adds to the publicity, doesn't it?

They probably assume the deterrent effect has a greater impact than all the press and the buzz about banning and shuting down?

Same purpose as scheduling a department meeting -- it feels better than doing nothing.

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