dive into mark

This is not the usual “DRM sucks, piracy rocks” screed. Everybody in my regular audience knows about DRM (I’ve been talking about it since my very first post), and everybody knows you can illegally download pirated material for free (until you get caught). There’s interesting stuff beyond that, if you’re willing to learn.

Disclaimer: I have neither bought nor pirated this movie. Seriously. I saw it in the theater, and that was more than enough. Everything here is based on my personal analysis of public information.

Here’s the NFO for a pirate release of “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest.” The NFO gives us:

• Title
• Genres
• Plot summary
• Exact theatrical release date
• Running time
• User-submitted rating
• Link to movie page on IMDB
• Source (retail Blu-ray)
• Video codec
• Video bitrate
• Video resolution
• Video framerate
• Audio codec
• Audio language
• Audio bitrate
• Subtitle languages (note: this release features subtitles in 11 languages)
• Recommended playback software

Granted, most of the information about the original movie is stolen from IMDB. (What did you expect? They’re pirates.) But the rest of the metadata — video, audio, subtitles — is unique to the release itself (more on this in a minute).

Some thoughts about the IMDB link. I have seen NFOs without a lot of this metadata, but I have never seen an NFO without an IMDB link. First, it serves as a unique indentifier in the case where the movie title is not unique (not a problem here, but think about “Hamlet” or “Pride and Prejudice” which have been remade a dozen times). Second, it effectively offloads the “research-y” part of the decision-making process. Commercial distributors can’t afford to link to IMDB because it’s a competitor (it’s owned by Amazon and offers links to buy things on Amazon). Which is a shame, because it’s packed with information — everything from cast biographies to famous quotes to movie trailers. I often get lost in IMDB in the same way I get lost on Wikipedia, except without ending up reading about famous fictional dogs of the 1930s.

Some thoughts about video. Video is outrageously complex and technical, even when you’re doing it correctly and you have no commercial interest in confusing your customers. On my desk is a plain old DVD that I rented from the local video store over the weekend; it proudly proclaims to be “MASTERED IN HIGH DEFINITION!” Whatever that means, it does not mean that it’s anything but a plain old DVD. The marketing of “high definition” content that actually is high definition (at least, higher than plain old DVDs) is even worse. Will you get high definition video out of your Blu-ray disc? That depends on your player, your TV, the cables in between, and the phase of the moon. Is your cable TV high definition? That depends on what the meaning of the word “is” is. And so on.

It is against this backdrop that I appreciate the specificity of the video and audio codec information in this NFO. It is doubly relevant when you consider that pirates can and do redistribute stolen content in a wide variety of formats. You can only legitimately buy “Pirates of the Caribbean” in a preselected number of vague categories, generally limited by disc format (Blu-ray, HD-DVD, or DVD — but don’t forget “full screen” vs. “wide screen” vs. “Ultimate Edition” with enhanced audio). But pirates can choose to redistribute content in an infinite number of formats, each with its own features and strengths. Plain old DVDs can be re-encoded into a file that fits on a single CD (700 MB), two CDs, one DVD-R (4.4 GB), or untouched. High-definition discs like Blu-ray and HD-DVD can be re-encoded to fit on one DVD-R (4.4 GB), two DVD-Rs, untouched, or somewhere in between. Or they can be encoded to play on specific devices like PSPs, video iPods, or standalone DivX players. And that’s not even accounting for audio formats. (Some high definition discs only contain a new audio format that open-source video players don’t understand, so pirates combine high definition video with the matching audio track from a plain old DVD. Ingenious!)

This NFO tells us that this particular release comes from a retail Blu-ray disc, has a very high video quality at the same dimensions as the original, and features English audio in the (old, compatible) 5.1 DTS format. You will only be able to play it on an extremely fast computer and a high resolution monitor (maybe one of those new MacBook Pros with a 1920×1200 screen), but if your hardware can manage it, this will basically be the ultimate movie experience on your desktop.

Lesson 1: don’t bullshit me. 1080p is 1080p; 720p is 720p. You’d be surprised how many “average” customers know the difference. Ironically, it was the last generation of your marketing bullshit that forced us to learn.

---

So that’s what the pirates offer, in a nutshell. Highly technical, information-rich, and, of course, completely illegal.

Here’s what Best Buy’s product page offers people wanting to buy the same movie:

• Title
• Disc format (Blu-ray)
• Genre (breadcrumbs)
• Plot summary

That’s it. No other information about the movie — not even a running time! No information about audio — not even whether it’s in English! No information about subtitles. No links to additional information, even on their own site.

Lesson 2: There is no shelf space on the Internet. I need to know more than just the title before I plonk down $35 for a movie, and you have infinite space to display it. If you don’t have the information I want, find someone who does and link to them. (And if you do have it, why the hell are you hiding it from me?)

---

Here’s what Walmart.com offers:

• Title
• Two incompatible listings of disc format

I’m not even going to bother listing the rest. (It’s funny though. “Product in Inches (L x W x H): 5.5 x 0.5 x 7.44.” Wow, thanks Walmart!)

Let’s go back to the part about the disc format. Two incompatible listings? WTF is he talking about? See for yourself: in the movie title it mentions “Blu-ray,” but in the details below it says “Format: DVD.” In the plot summary it mentions “Blu-ray,” but in the ultra-small print below it says (again) “Format: DVD.” Apparently no one had permissions to add another row in that “format” database table, so they’re making up for it every which way they can. Result: utter confusion.

Before you say I’m nitpicking, keep in mind that Walmart.com lists the disc format as “DVD” twice in their search results (along with the movie title, which still says “Blu-ray”). So they recognize, at some level, that the disc format is important; they just don’t get it right.

Lesson 3: In this world of intentionally incompatible, mutually exclusive formats, make it clear what you’re selling. By the time I figure out you sold me the wrong thing, I probably can’t return it. I will only be burned by this once, and I will never forget who burned me.

---

Barnes and Noble fares somewhat better:

• Title
• Disc format
• Genres
• Plot summary & reviews
• Major actors
• Theatrical release date (year)
• Running time
• User-submitted comments and ratings
• List of extra on-disc features
• Director, cast, and same-site links for more information

They mention the disc format up-front and give you a link to “learn more about formats.” They even let you search by format, which is simultaneously a nice touch and a sad necessity. The plot summaries are high quality, and their origins are clearly labeled (”Barnes & Noble,” “All Movie Guide,” “Customer Reviews”). The directors and cast listings are a nice touch, and they’re links to (same-site) searches for more information. In fact, Barnes and Noble replicates the core of what IMDB gives you — cast biographies, related links — while keeping you on-site. All in all, a job well done.

But notice what’s still missing: still no mention of audio, still no mention of subtitles. Am I the only one who likes to watch movies with subtitles? How many millions of people in the United States alone only speak English as a second language? I guess those people don’t shop at Barnes & Noble.

Lesson 4: “secondary” features like audio and subtitles can be a dealbreaker. Again, just be clear about what you’re offering. Not everyone speaks English. Not everyone who can speak English can hear perfectly. Not everyone who can hear perfectly can watch movies at full volume without waking up their kids upstairs. (When did you think we could find two hours to watch a movie, anyway?)

---

Finally, here’s DVD Empire’s page for the same movie. They’ve got it all: title, disc format, running time, complete and accurate audio and subtitle information, on-disc extras, reviews, ratings, actors and directors and producers and writers and — God bless ‘em — links wrapped around every last one of them. They even list the video aspect ratio and the UPC code. I don’t think there’s a single bit of readily available information that they don’t list or link to. They’ve got it all.

And after all that, the pirate release is still better. Really. I don’t mean “it’s better because it doesn’t have DRM,” or “it’s better because it’s free (until you get caught).” It’s better because it has unique features that you simply can not find from any legitimate distributor. Look at those subtitles: 11 of them! English, Spanish, French, Swedish, Finnish, Norwegian, Dutch, Czech, Hungarian, Romanian, and Portuguese. Holy crap, where did all those come from? The original disc only has 3!

Well, they come from people, real people who take the time to translate subtitle files into other languages and share them on communities like OpenSubtitles.org. User-generated subtitles are a massive worldwide phenomenon that most English speakers don’t even know about. Ever since DVDs were cracked wide open, open-source video players have offered the capability to play retail DVDs but display subtitles from a separate file, which you could download without feeling too guilty about stealing anything. Translation quality varies widely, of course, but something is better than nothing. In this release, the pirates have gone to the trouble of locating all those subtitle files for you, and they ultimately provide a “total package” that even the best legitimate distributor can’t match.

Lesson 5: in the edge cases, you can’t compete with pirates because you don’t control what you’re selling. (Lesson 5½: there are more edge cases than you think.) Pirates aren’t just distributors; they can also be content creators. They can rip, mix, burn, and mashup content at will, and they have a twisted sense of pride in offering “the best” — whether that’s release speed, video quality, file format, or subtitles in 11 different languages. (What, you thought this was the only pirate release of this movie? There are dozens more, and they’re all optimized for different definitions of “best.”)

Every legitimate retailer could learn lessons 1 through 4. Some retailers have learned them already. But solving this last problem would require a complete overhaul of the content distribution network. More than that, it would require a rethinking of the fundamental roles of creator and distributor, to give retailers the sort of control that pirates take without asking. I don’t think it’s realistic that the copyright kings of the world would ever allow such an overhaul (after all, they designed the current system from top to bottom), but this is what we’re losing by not even trying.