sureAV421

With the industry's constant double-dipping of new releases (release a barebones transfer, then 6 months later a special edition. monster, eternal sunshine, etc.) do you think it encourages piracy? I know of many people that have become so annoyed at this practice and to thwart the studio execs, just download the movie instead. All of us are collectors and usually want the most complete version of a movie, and that shiny new disc we bought a few months ago that is now obsolete is frustrating.

naitram

Just because they came out with a newer, better version of your car a year after you bought yours, does that mean you should just start stealing cars instead of buying them?

Come on.

darkside

Constant double dipping?

I have over 800 DVDs and have only double dipped 20 or so times in 6 years. I hardly call that constant. The great thing is if I don't feel like doing it I can just stick with the version I have now.

This does no encourage piracy. People that want to steal instead of paying for things encourage piracy.

Lonestar9

I don't see how it encourages it either. I normally either wait til I find a good price on a dvd I want to double dip, or buy it used from somewhere. Sometimes I don't bother to upgrade. I usually either give away the original dvd, or trade it/sell it to someone. I occasionally keep it. It's a choice either way to buy or not to buy, it's not an endorsement for me to pirate it.

digitalfreaknyc

Logic????

MEJHarrison

Low morals, a false sense of entitlement and pure selfishness encourage piracy. Trying to blame thievery on anyone besides the thief is absurd.

illennium

The vast majority of people do not re-purchase movies.

PixyJunket

My God this just gets worse and worse.

So when did "fluff" extras make a movie more complete?!

ThatGuamGuy

People who are obsessive enough to double-dip when a new version of a movie comes out [and I don't mean that negatively, I do it too] are too obsessive to settle for a bootleg of a DVD.

However, I would say that there are definitely people who use studio double-dipping as an excuse to justify piracy. (There's a whole thread full of those people, probably still on the first page of the forum.)

thelwig14

I am happy when studios double dip. Usually, something is changed (anamorphic transfer, DTS, etc.) that makes a movie I currently own better. With sites like this and such, I am alerted of the double dip and ebay my old copy if the updated version is better and usually I break even or even make money. As long as it improves a product, I am all for double dipping. When it doesn't improve the original, I do not buy the second release and I do not care.

The piracy argument doesn't hold up too well.

The Exister

Exactly.

Joe Molotov

If people are really so concerned with getting the newest and best versions of DVDs, I don't think they're going to be happy with a DVD-R with the title scribbled on it in black ink, nevermind the fact that your compressing it onto a single-layer DVD so you're either going to have to sacrifice picture quality or dump the DTS if it has it.

cardaway

If anything was going to be affected by it I would think it would be people getting a hold of the new release and ripping a copy of any new extras. I know I certainly have thought about it since it would be pretty simple to make copies of the new extras and keep the first release. The extra Spider-Man disc comes to mind.

PixyJunket

Celibacy plays a big factor in piracy as well.

Fok

I can understand why people will pirate a DVD in regards to double dipping. The problem is that studio's don't give the consumer warning about a pending re-release. Releasing a movie, then a few months later annoucing an SE sucks in my books. Granted some studio's are good about this, but there are others that are not.

Buying a car is different, because we know that each year a new model comes out.

Now I'm not going to complain about a movie being re-released after its inital release years ago, however now days they should get it right the first time.

MEJHarrison

Absolutely!

But that's still no excuse for piracy. If someone steals something, they're wrong. And there are no excuses that will change that.

sureAV421

i agree. I'm talking about new releases with a subsequent release following months later. Titles like Kill Bill get a little justification in being pirated (not saying its right) because its obvious a better release is coming.

Fok

I agree, its no excuse. But I feel that it does encourage people to do so. I don't care how often a movie is released, as long as we're given some warning.

chente

Columbia Tri-Star is the company I have noticed that abuses the most. Realizing this, I don't buy their initial offerings or the SE's, I wait for the Superbit. If want the extras, I just wait a year when the used market is flooded with them (ie Spider-Man) and pick it up then. I often will just borrow the extras disc from a friend to watch them since I rarely rewatch them anyway.

emhello

Yes it does. I get pissed off enough at these companies for re-releasing these multiple versions just after I bought the original product. Reminds me of remastered gold audio CDs with 'extra tracks' that they kept trying to upsell every year.

Jay G.

Studios just can't win. We complain that they haven't released certain titles or aren't releasing films fast enough, then we complain if the release is bare-bones or just doesn't have enough extras in our opinion. Then if they revist a title with better transfer and extras, we complain about double dipping and how they're "forcing" us to buy it a second time.

Rereleasing is a fact of life. Since LD and VHS, movies get rereleased constantly, sometimes with better transfers and extras. Do you really think all those movies you own on DVD aren't going to be rereleased on a Hi-Def format a few years from now? Why do you think all those DVDs mention Hi-Def remastering? If you don't want to buy anything that will become obsolete in the future, you may as well just give up buying DVDs period.

Granted, some studios rerelease titles too quickly or don't warn of Special Editions that are just months down the line from the original release. However, studios are always going to rerelease titles, it's just part of what they are. What's important is to focus on what you actually paid for. When you bought the DVD, you didn't pay for any future release or extras that don't exist on it. You payed for what's on that DVD because you judged it was good enough for the price. If another release comes later, you can judge whether or not that release is worth purchasing based on its relative merits. Never does a rerelease give you an excuse to steal.

naitram

I'm sorry, but if you haven't figured out by now that when the first release of a movie comes out on DVD and it's a single-disc version with a trailer, a 10-minute "making-of", and standard Dobly Digital sound, that there will be a rerelease shortly down the road, then I have a bridge to sell you...

Fok

Dude I was referring to a early post in this thread

Like I said before, I don't care about double dipping, as long as there's some warning. And like I said before, with the popularity of DVD now, more effort should be made to get it right the first time.

Jackskeleton

There really is no "excuse" for piracy. Regardless of double dipping or not. The only thing that double dipping does is make the consumer wait on buying a product.

If someone is going to pirate a film they will pirate a film. No matter if a better version comes out, why not pirate that?

Tarantino

Is it Pirate Day again already?