The way the "manifesto" is worded does unfortunately reek of entitlement, but they do make a valid point. If you see their bullet points as rows in a product comparison table between legal movie distribution channels, most of them score badly on most of those points, whereas piracy ticks nearly all of them. (It would of course be a fairer comparison if there was a row for "is legal".)
They're making the point that legal movie distribution channels are worse products - by those criteria - than piracy. Put another way, there are other reasons for choosing to pirate a movie besides not wanting to pay for it. It's unrealistic to demand all of the things this manifesto does, but actually the sum of their demands doesn't seem like a bad ideal to aim for.
They've unfairly tipped the scales in favor of piracy though. That's why the entire thing reeks of entitlement and why no legal service satisfies their demands.
It's deliberate.
That and they provide no reasoning as to their points. They want the purchase price to not exceed the cinema price. But cinema price is dependent upon the area and theater, so it's not so easy to peg purchase to cinema.
That and why should the purchase price be pegged to the cinema price? A visit to the cinema is a one time event. A purchase entitles you to unlimited viewing. That's worth more to me.
Why should TV shows be 1/3 the price of movies? Most TV shows exceed the length of a film many times over. Yet we're supposed to pay less for more content?
They also want to dictate how movies are distributed. They want access to every movie ever made. Nothing gives you that except piracy. The cost for Netflix to do such a thing would be astronomical. And for that, these benevolent individuals are willing to bestow upon the providers of these services 3 movie tickets, or (by their other claims) the price of 3 films. Why? You have instant access to every movie ever made. Watching over 3 movies in a month using this service diminishes the price you are paying per movie. Watching a movie a day makes your movie watching habits cost 1/10 of a film using the service.
That and their filtering suggestions are stupid. Why should a third party service let you sort by IMDb ID? Why should they care what a movie's IMDb ID is?
This isn't a plea to studios to get them to change their "evil ways", it's a way for over-entitled douches to feel good about ripping people off.
If any of these were real concerns of pirates, movies out in theaters wouldn't be pirated.
The reasons you give for your disagreement with the OP are disagreements about features that the product (online movie delivery) should have: the price is too low or too high, sorting by IMDB ID is pointless. Feature disagreements are healthy. Yet you conclude with an ad hominem attack on the OP: they are immoral, they feel entitled, their concerns aren't real. Suspecting their motives (without much evidence, incidentally) doesn't justify dismissing their arguments out of hand.
If any of these were real concerns of pirates, movies out in theaters wouldn't be pirated.
Consider that "pirates" may not be a single uniform demographic.
I understand. But I'd bet that the vast majority of the signatories pirate first run movies.
They do not provide reasons. I posited several valid questions as to why would they want or demand those things. Because they do not provide reasons. They just make random demands and expect people to nod along and say "Yes, I agree."
I suspect their motives because they give no evidence or reason for their position.
Anything that can be asserted out of hand can be dismissed out of hand.
You obviously have an axe to grind, but you missed the point: the situation is such that people would choose to pirate movies even if it cost just as much as acquiring them legally. Indeed I'm guessing that there are private BitTorrent trackers which offer just that, presumably offering better seeder ratios or quality controls on content to justify the price.
I imagine if this "manifesto" were a blog post by a Silicon Valley celebrity, and it began "There's a huge opportunity being missed..." rather than "I will keep stealing your stuff until...", but had otherwise identical content, this thread would have a lot less discussion of the immorality of piracy and a lot more of how startups could disrupt existing distribution methods.
They're making the point that legal movie distribution channels are worse products - by those criteria - than piracy. Put another way, there are other reasons for choosing to pirate a movie besides not wanting to pay for it. It's unrealistic to demand all of the things this manifesto does, but actually the sum of their demands doesn't seem like a bad ideal to aim for.