We're always told that the reason there's so much piracy out there is because "people just want stuff for free." This isn't actually supported by the facts, because we see people pay when they can get things for free all the time. And, similarly, we know that those who often get the most free stuff, also buy more. In other words, price may be one component of why people buy -- and free may be an appealing price -- but it is hardly the only component in how people make their decisions on obtaining content. One of the key issues, for many, is the freedom and or convenience in how they can make use of said content -- an area where DRM solutions take away value from the end-user (which, by definition, lowers the price that the average person is willing to pay).

Given all that, there's something rather amusing about Hollywood's new pitch for its Ultraviolet platform. As you may recall, this is the kinder, gentler DRM for video content that the industry has been pushing. It does let you watch content on multiple devices (within limits), but it's still DRM. And, as such, it's no surprise that the reception to UltraViolet has been somewhat lukewarm.

In order to deal with that, the movie studios are trying something different: giving away free movies. Yes, there's something somewhat bizarre about Hollywood using "free" movies as the incentive to get people to buy into their Ultraviolet DRM, which is meant to get them away from the "free" movies they were getting through unauthorized means. While it may attract a few people, it seems likely that the industry is going to (once again) discover the point that many of us have been making for ages. It's not just about free. If free comes with massive strings -- such as annoying DRM -- it's just not going to attract that many people. If they were strategic thinkers, perhaps they'd finally realize that it's not just about free, but about the overall package, and then maybe they'd stop making the overall package so annoying all in an effort to stop some people from accessing the same content... for free.

In response to Jimmy Wales reiterating the fact that Hollywood's own failings online are a major cause of infringement, the MPAA has hit back by saying: that's crazy! After all, the studios do Hulu and Netflix, so how can anyone complain?

Wales had used everyone's favorite example these days: the difficulty in finding a legitimate way to pay for Game of Thrones online...

Wales also argued that the entertainment industry needs to continue adjusting its business model so it offers people the content they want. Citing a personal example, Wales noted how he can’t watch HBO’s “Game of Thrones” series at home in London even though he’s willing to pay for it.

“I think that he media industry needs to say, 'Look, why don’t we sell people what they want to buy,’ and I think that will take care a huge proportion of the problem,” he said.

A smart and consumer-focused MPAA might note that they're trying their best but they realize there are still gaps and they hope to continue to improve. But, you know, that's not how the MPAA rolls. Instead, they send out spokesperson Kate Bedingfield -- who just recently joined the MPAA from the White House -- to insist that Wales was crazy for suggesting they need to make more efforts to please customers. You see, in the mind of the MPAA, as long as they've done something, they've clearly done enough.

“Our studios are constantly partnering and innovating new ways for audiences to watch the movies and TV shows they love: Hulu, HBO Go, Vudu, Crackle, UltraViolet, Epix, MUBI – and that just barely scratches the surface,” said Kate Bedingfield, a spokeswoman at the MPAA. “There are more legitimate avenues available today to watch movies and TV shows online than ever before, and our studios are continuing to innovate every day to bring audiences even more options.”

“At the end of the day, stealing shows and movies out of convenience still harms the people who work hard to make them,” Bedingfield added.

In other words, don't actually address what Wales said. Don't respond to his specific complaint. Insist that because you're doing something, even if it doesn't solve the problem he noted, you're clearly doing enough... and then revert back to talking point numero uno: oh, poor us, we're harmed! So harmed. Harmed into our best years ever at the box office... (oh wait, they leave that last part out).

Seriously, the MPAA needs to hire communications people who actually deal with consumers, rather than politically-focused ones. They seem to have absolutely zero sense of how to respond to the public on anything without making themselves look worse. The last two decades of RIAA/MPAA communications have been a long-term case study in exactly how to do everything wrong.

We have written many times about one of Hollywood's latest attempts at adapting to the modern digital age, Ultraviolet. Unfortunately for Hollywood studios, this service is not well received by people who have tried to use it. So what is someone to do with those unwanted free Ultraviolet codes that come in movie combo packs? You know, the Bluray, DVD and digital box sets that most movies come in. According to the Consumerist, one creative customer took to selling his unwanted digital copies on eBay. Unfortunately for him, eBay flagged his auction as copyright infringement and threatened his account if he listed it again.

This rightly confused him. After all, he was the legal owner of that unwanted, unused Ultraviolet redemption code. How could it be copyright infringement to sell that code to someone else, if you aren't using it? Selling or handing off that code is no different than selling or giving away the DVD copy that you would not use. Additionally, he pointed out many more eBay auctions doing the exact same thing, selling unwanted Ultraviolet codes.

What may make his case unique over the others is that he is selling a code for the recently released Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol. Since the movie has only been out for a few days now, Paramount may be working overtime to make sure that people are only buying the retail packages rather than just the digital version. Even if Paramount's end goal is to promote retail sales of the movie, flagging these sales as copyright infringement is tantamount to copyfraud.

Recently, we were talking about the horrible customer reviews that Warner's Ultraviolet DRM was getting. These customers were having such a hard time trying to justify the headache that came from complying with the requirements to watch their legally purchased movies. Warner seems to be trying to make the service worthwhile and is now bundling free digital movies with video games. If you buy Batman: Arkham City, you will also get a digital Batman movie for free. Which movie will you get? Batman Forever of course. Wait. What? If the goal of these promotions is to get people to start using the service, wouldn't you think they would try giving away a movie people would actually want to watch? As opposed to the worst Batman flick ever?

I guess the people running Warner just don't realize that customers want quality content. Sadly, when you are offering crap to customers there really isn't much you can do to polish it up. Maybe the next deal will actually be worth it. Most likely not though.

We pointed out that the early reviews of Hollywood's new UltraViolet DRM aren't particularly good, but the industry is still pushing forward with the idea. Leading the way is Warner Bros., who is trying to turn the movie-based "social network" it bought a few months ago, Flixster, into the central hub for your movies. The NY Times has an article about it, where it repeatedly claims that the strategy is all about trying to get people to "buy" movies again, rather than just rent them via Netflix of Redbox. Of course, I find this pretty funny, because nothing about UltraViolet is about actually "buying" anything. You're still renting -- and if things ever went to court over, say, your first sale rights to resell a movie you "purchased" using UltraViolet, you can bet that Warner Bros. would be first in line to claim that the license shows you're merely renting the movie, and not buying it. It's just that you're renting it on an open-ended timeline, basically until the studios bail on UltraViolet and shut down the servers.

Rob Pegoraro, in commenting on the article, notes that oddly, the article doesn't even mention DRM in talking about why people don't want to buy from the studios or the fact that it's still much more convenient to get the content by unauthorized means. But that concept still hasn't reached the brain trust at Warner Bros., who seems to insist that as long as you can access the movies you "bought" from anywhere, people will prefer that to file sharing. While it's great that they're at least trying to add benefits, to make it more valuable and worth paying for, the whole thing smacks of someone's father trying to "act cool" for his kids' friends. Warner Bros. still doesn't seem to understand why people like things like Netflix: the convenience. Everything about Ultraviolet sounds inconvenient, and that hardly makes anyone want to "buy."

Remember UltraViolet? This was Hollywood's plan for a new, kinder, gentler DRM for movies that would try to provide some additional features. Or, rather, it would (oh so generously) grant you back just a few rights that anyone could get with an unauthorized version of a file... and you were supposed to thank them for this. As we noted at the time, what consumer problem does UltraViolet actually solve? The answer is absolutely none. It only attempts (and fails) to solve a perceived studio problem. Meaning that it was destined to piss off customers.

And that's exactly what's happening.

Jeff Malfant points us to an amusingly satirical Wired article, pretending to be from the studios' vantage point about UltraViolet:

UltraViolet will make purchasing a movie only slightly more of a pain in the ass than searching BitTorrent. Driving to a local video store and buying a copy on DVD or Blu-ray should only take about a half-hour more than downloading it, and I want to assure you that the legitimate copy will contain all the ads, auto-loading trailers and overproduced menu screens that even the pirates can’t figure out how to include.

Once you’ve bought it, all you’ll have to do is take the time to register it and give us whatever information we decide we need. We know pirates don’t have to do that, but we think you’ll find it fun. It’s sort of like Facebook, only instead of friends and family, you have a humongous powerful group of international corporations hanging on your every datum.

Once you’ve signed in, that’s when the fun begins. You see, the movies you paid for with your own money will be stored for you in your “locker.” Just like the lockers you use at school or the gym, they’ll be convenient, somewhat secure, they won’t actually belong to you and we can do anything we want with anything in them.

Let the pirates have their boring old “hard drives” and “networked media servers.” With UltraViolet, you’ve got a locker!

But even more telling, as sent in by Keith, are some of the user reviews popping up on Amazon that appear to totally slam UltraViolet as ridiculous and annoying:

This review does not relate to the movie, but it is focused on the ridiculous process to download the digital copy. After creating accounts for both Flixster and Ultraviolet, linking the accounts, enabling WB to view my personal information, the system hangs and doesn't download the movie. I contacted Ultraviolet first with the issues and error messages. After a day, I was told this is not an Ultraviolet issue, but a Flixster problem. I then contacted Flixster. They responded by sending me to the FAQ. To date, I have not gotten a proper response from Flixster on the error messages. I plan on canceling both accounts and will NEVER buy another DVD tied to Ultraviolet. This is a complete rip off and WB should be ashamed of this dreadful service. Please do yourself a favor and don't buy the movie with the digital copy. If you want a digital version, just got to iTunes.

And another:

First off I really liked the movie, if I was just rating the movie, it would probably be 3 1/2 stars, however, I have spent 4 days now trying to get this so called "digital copy". I knew what Ultraviolet was, and I thought it had promise to be used to stream to any device not locked to just one service (itunes), but it doesn't work. First off you have to sign into 4 different services to even get this stuff to maybe work, [...] some ultraviolet site and to "manage" your collection flixster collections...when in trying to link all of these useless accounts I can no longer access the movie to stream. So I am left with a product that does not work and customer service is a joke. I have been bounced around from site to site and from rep to rep who keep telling me to do the same thing over and over again, no matter how many times I tell them what has happened and what the issue is.

This flixster ultraviolet "suckloution" is the worst ever, you are better off ripping the DVD...

And another:

Warner Brothers has really pulled a fast one with this 3D edition that was supposed to include everything with this "UltraViolet" digital copy. It's NOT a digital copy, but rather an authorization to access a streaming video of the original cut of the movie online. This is NOT the package I pre-ordered! When I saw the commercials for the "UltraViolet" digital copy, I thought there would be some special feature-- I never dreamed that special feature would be WB promising me a digital copy that I couldn't use in iTunes EVEN THOUGH EVERY OTHER DIGITAL COPY OF A MOVIE DOES. The digital copy you do get (IF you can get the website to work!) has to be played on some kind of Adobe player THAT WILL NOT PLAY THE FILE. So you're stuck with their online streaming swill even though you were promised a digital copy.

And there are plenty more along those lines. When will the industry finally realize that DRM doesn't help anyone?

Earlier this year, we wrote about how many in the entertainment industry were betting on DECE -- or Digital Entertainment Content Ecosystem. Basically, it's yet another type of DRM that is so kind as to give you back certain fair use rights, to let you play the same content on multiple devices. While Disney and Apple are holdouts (Disney has its own version called "Keychest" -- and Apple is, well, Apple), much of the rest of the entertainment and tech industries are lining up behind this solution, which is supposed to finally start hitting the market this fall, under the ridiculous new name: UltraViolet.

While I think it's great that the industry is finally realizing that locking content to a single device is something of a non-starter, I'm still trying to figure out what consumer problem this solves. Allowing content on multiples devices could already be done -- just without DRM. So this isn't adding any value to consumers. Just to the industry that, falsely, still thinks it needs some kind of DRM.