Freaks and Geeks

I don't know... you could do something crazy, like respecting other people's copyrights, and just shell out the lousy $45 to order the legal, professionally-produced version through ordinary channels, rather than waste everyone's time while you try to pirate it for free off the Internet.

Just sayin'.

Re: Freaks and Geeks

I would love nothing more than to buy the actual DVD box set. However, I simply cannot afford to at this point in my life. I make $7.70 an hour and have bills and rent to pay, not to mention food to buy. I fully intend on eventually purchasing a legitamite copy. This is just temporary.

Re: Freaks and Geeks

As a producer of media content, I cannot afford to have people steal my work. How would it be if I came into your workplace and ripped you off? Sure, it doesn't seem like much to you, but I've got bills and rent and food to buy, not to mention daycare and child support and car insurance. So you see, my needs are greater, plus the law is on my side. So forgive me if I'm not going to hand you the tools to rip off my (or my contemporary's) work. If you were a producer looking for help, or even trying to make a dvd of your home videos, I would help. But for piracy? I think not. Take it somewhere else.

If you're only making $7.70 an hour, might I suggest going to college or tech school (like Brown Institute/College, for example) and getting a degree in TV Production, then you could do this stuff legitimately for a better wage then you're making now. Such experience might also shift your perspective on copyright laws.

Re: Freaks and Geeks

OK, a few things:

a) you had nothing to do with the production of freaks and geeks, so quit your whining.

b) here is my stance on copyright violation...take this scenario:
a young man goes into his local wal-mart and pockets a DVD box set of freaks and geeks (he has big pockets). he leaves the store without paying. the copy this young man stole causes wal-mart to lose money. they paid a set price for each individual box set in their store.
now take a different young man, who decides he would like to own freaks and geeks, but not enough to pay for it. he goes another route by downloading the episodes from the internet. every time someone downloads those files, online/local vendors and production companies do NOT necessarily lose money. many online pirates do not want the episodes enough to buy them. if they don't download them, they still aren't going to buy them (or steal them). the production companies did not pay for each individual copy that is downloaded. hence, no one loses out.

c) suppose i taped the episodes when they came on tv, transferred them to my pc, and burned them to a DVD? is that ok?

d) if you weren't so rude about it, maybe i would have taken your opinion into consideration. you catch more flies with honey...

Re: Freaks and Geeks

you catch more flies with honey...

At least you're acknowledging that you're a dirty parasite. That's something, I guess.

No, I don't work for Freaks & Geeks. But I do work for a production company that has had our content compromised by pirates like you before. It might seem like no big deal to you, but it is still theft. You ask people to help you do this but you have no right to edit or modify this work. If it were under an open source or Creative Commons license, that would be one thing. But it isn't. You're not simply making a copy - that would be different. You're talking about creating custom menus and other things which are defined as content. What's to stop you, or the next guy who reads this thread, from making 500,000 copies and selling them illegally? What's to stop you from making 20 copies for your friends, who then start selling them on E-bay? If we give you step by step instructions on how to pirate other people's material, what is there to stop you from pirating my material?

the production companies did not pay for each individual copy that is downloaded. hence, no one loses out.

Not true. We incur a cost in producing content, which we hope to recoup through ad sales, and more recently, DVD sales. Frequently, the producers rely on the residuals from those sales for their income. If I have a show like this with a cult following, I'd prefer people purchase the quality version that I approved for release, rather than the crappy super compressed-video with lossy audio and cheesy menus put together by some 18 year old in his mom's basement. That's not just from a profitability standpoint, either, but also from an aesthetic one. The video that you download from the net is compressed to what, 4:1? 2:1? do you even know? It's an abomination! What if 10 people see each one of the 20 copies you make, and 200 people tell their friends not to watch my show because the video quality is barely watchable and the audio sucks?

Re: Freaks and Geeks

i don't know anyone stupid enough not to watch a show because the video quality on a homemade DVD sucks.

i can understand why you aren't going to help me with this, what with the possibility of someone making copies and selling them. i assure you, though, that no copies of the DVD's will be sold as a result of my making my own copy. but i understand where you are coming from.

Re: Freaks and Geeks

oops, forgot to log in. that was me.