Slashdot Log In
WB Took Pains To "Delay" Pirating of Dark Knight
Posted by
CmdrTaco
on Mon Jul 28, 2008 09:01 AM
from the something-to-think-about dept.
from the something-to-think-about dept.
Jay writes "The L.A. Times is reporting on a new studio tactic — not to prevent piracy, but to delay it, as was the case with special tactics used with Dark Knight. 'Warner Bros. executives said the extra vigilance paid off, helping to prevent camcorded copies of the reported $180-million film from reaching Internet file-sharing sites for about 38 hours. Although that doesn't sound like much progress, it was enough time to keep bootleg DVDs off the streets as the film racked up a record-breaking $158.4 million on opening weekend. The movie has now taken in more than $300 million. The success of an anti-piracy campaign is measured in the number of hours it buys before the digital dam breaks.'" You know what else helps to have a big opening weekend? Making a good movie.
Related Stories
This discussion has been archived.
No new comments can be posted.
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
Full
Abbreviated
Hidden
Loading... please wait.
well... (Score:5, Insightful)
From the article: (Score:5, Funny)
"If the movie's a stiff, and word gets out too early that it's a stiff, it's devastating to the business model," Garland said.
here come the tears...
Parent
Re:From the article: (Score:5, Funny)
Wow...I never though of it this way.
What if...What if everything could be like that?
Tell me more about this "only do things that you really want to do" philosophy....It sounds revolutionary...
Parent
Re:From the article: (Score:5, Funny)
Perhaps you would like to subscribe to Machtyn's newsletter?
Parent
Re:well... (Score:5, Insightful)
I still remember the time when people would wait for movie critics to give their opinion on a movie before they went to see it. I also remember not wasting money on movies that received bad reviews.
Parent
Re:well... (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Re:well... (Score:5, Insightful)
"They" are business people, and probably negligent in their jobs if they didn't focus on box-office sales as a metric
No, "they" are thieves who are out to con you out of your hard earned money, no better than someone who "seals" your driveway with black paint, or a "drug dealer" who sells oregano.
If they were truly buisinesspeople they would make the best product possible and sell it on their merits, like businesspeople used to do. There have always been thieves in the business world, but it seems that these days thieves vastly outnumber the honest businesspeople.
Dislcaimer - I haven't seen the movie. Maybe it is a good movie, but if these people are worried that it sucks and want to keep its percieved suckage out of your mind, the people who are selling it (not necessarily the people who made it) are thieves, not honest businessmen.
When did stealing from your customers become ethical and normal, anyway?
Parent
Re:well... (Score:5, Insightful)
Market success is what has always driven business people.
Yes, but business people don't fool themselves into thinking market success == good product. No, they are quite well aware that they are often trying to achieve market success with an inferior product. They are well aware that they are essentially tricking people into buying it. If they weren't aware, they wouldn't be able to work around the product's flaws with marketing.
The point is that the business people are driven by money, and they are well aware of the obvious fact that making money doesn't necessarily mean making the best product by any metric. It means making money. That's all.
Only completely credulous consumers, the kind that thinks the quality of an OS is proven by number of installations, actually believe this is a good metric of quality. The business men selling it know that it isn't, but "quality" isn't something they care about other than the extent to which it affects sales. And hey if advertising can increase the apparent quality of the item to cover the gap, then that's just fine.
Would you suggest that a product which is garbage but has a good advertising campaign is actually a better product? Because the advertising drove the sales, and you're saying market success == best product, so this is a natural consequence of that line of thinking.
There is simply no better criteria known today -- the only alternative is having some sort of committee, that would review products (from toothpicks to movies) and decide, whether or not to let them be sold. I assure you, that system would suck much more...
Only because of that "decide whether or not to let them be sold" nonsense.
If more people actually read independent reviews of products, and used that to decide whether or not to buy a product, then yes this system would be much better. Because schlock that only gets sold because some marketing department came up with a clever way of making the product not look like crap would be less successful.
Parent
Re:well... (Score:5, Insightful)
Would you suggest that a product which is garbage but has a good advertising campaign is actually a better product?
While on it's face this seems to beg the answer no, there are times when the correct answer is yes. For example:
If I make a drug that saves the lives of all cancer patients, 100% success rate, but can't market my way out of a box, I save no one.
If Joe makes a drug that only saves half the people, but he can market like no one else, he saves millions of lives - and makes enough money to buy my product, and market it as well.
Creating the great product is only half the work - matching up products with customers is a lot harder than people think. When I am evaluating a new business venture, the first question I ask is "how will you get customers?"
Parent
Re:well... (Score:5, Insightful)
I still remember the time when people would wait for movie critics to give their opinion on a movie before they went to see it.
Which is why movie critics get advance screenings and then their (favourable) opinion gets blasted all over the mediasphere as part of the advertising campaign.
I also remember not wasting money on movies that received bad reviews.
Nowadays people won't even waste bandwidth on movies that receive bad reviews and this trend disturbs the studios greatly, since it shows that nobody wants to watch some of their crap, even when it is free.
Parent
Re:well... (Score:5, Funny)
I may or may not get alot off USENET. I may or may not have an unlimited account because the 50 gig a month account just wasn't cutting it. I may or may not have gotten "The Love Guru" because I may or may not actually "try" and watch anything. So a few weeks ago, I may or may not have been in my living room, folding/sorting socks with the Love Guru on in the background. It may or may not have been so bad that I actually stopped it so I could concentrate on folding my socks.
A hypothetically free DVD quality version of a new supposed Hollywood movie, in the air conditioned comfort of my alleged home was theortically so bad that I may or may not have turned it off so I could focus on sorting socks.
Oh, and Sock monster 5, Me 0.
Parent
How do you know what a good movie? (Score:5, Insightful)
The great irony of this, is that everyone on the board thinks that the studio can just arbitrarily make a good movie button.
"well, just make a good movie", betrays a total lack of understanding for the arts.
No one really knows a canned formula for making a good movie. A studio can do everything that it thinks will make a movie, best writers, best directors, best actors, and that doesn't guarantee a good picture at all. If you had 100 guys in a room, each of which with their own ideas, how do you know which of those is going to make a movie that will gross 300 million dollars? Clearly, if it was so easy to make a hit movie, then, don't you think they would do it. And, even if they did have a formula to make hit movies, half of the people on this board would be complaining that movies are formulaic.
Parent
Re:How do you know what a good movie? (Score:5, Insightful)
There may not be a canned formula for making a good movie, but there sure is a number of well known formulas for making *bad* ones. I think that when most people say "make a good movie" they really mean "don't deliberately make a crappy one." There will always be stinkers, but they should be *creative* stinkers at least.
Parent
Re:How do you know what a good movie? (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:How do you know what a good movie? (Score:5, Funny)
I'll tell you what. If a movie producer gives me their planned list for the director and the actors and a copy of the screenplay, I'll turn that around in 1 day and tell you if your film will suck or not.
Now, after a few years of me depriving Uwe Boll, SNL spinoff actor, and a few Wayans brothers of their livelyhood, eventually I'll reach a point where I won't immediately recognize the crap. At that point, I may be out of a job, but the films will be better.
So there isn't some 'hit-movie' button, but there certainly should be a lever to flush the crap.
Parent
Re:How do you know what a good movie? (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:well... (Score:5, Interesting)
"If the movie's a stiff, and word gets out too early that it's a stiff, it's devastating to the business model," Garland said."
Let's be fair... those words did not come from the studio, they came from the CEO of a biz that "monitors" file sharing networks--my guess is that no studio would publicly agree with that particular sentiment.
As Morty Seinfeld once said, "You know what sells clothes? Cheap fabric and dark lighting."
You know that sell movies? Dead leading actors and professional film critics on your pay roll.
Parent
Re:well... (Score:5, Insightful)
Not fair.
I'd venture to say that you haven't seen The Dark Knight. Judging from the media hype, I thought that it's all because Ledger's help too.
However, having seen the movie, I can safely say that Heath Ledger outshines everyone else in the movie. Maybe they (the producers) have altered the music or the editing or whatever, but the movie seems to be about the Joker rather than about Batman.
Health's Joker puts Nicholson's (and Burton's) version to shame and it deserves all the accolade. It's an intense, scary character.
Parent
Not The Same People (Score:5, Insightful)
The people who put up their $150+ million to set the box-office record for the "Dark Knight" are not the same people who would be watching bad camcorder videos. The latter don't mind waiting an extra 38 hours, and certainly do mind $12/ticket.
Every download or bootleg DVD != movie ticket.
Maybe if the movie and music executives finally understand that the pirates are not potential customers, they'll focus on improving the satisfaction of actual customers, and thus earn more money. Instead, they are beating a horse that's not only already dead, but is rather decayed at this point.
Parent
Re:Not The Same People (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Not The Same People (Score:5, Insightful)
And then you have the people like me, who don't want to see it in a theater full of food-crunching, seat-kicking morons. I could probably download a cam of it, but I don't have any interest in that either.
I'll wait till the blu-ray release and watch it at home (rental, because HD/blu-rays are just way overpriced)
Of course if I could watch it at home the same day as theatrical release the studio would likely have a better shot at making more money off me. I bet they'd make a lot more off of simultaneous releases than me just renting it at blockbuster in 3 months.
Parent
Re:Not The Same People (Score:5, Interesting)
On the other hand, going to see smaller, less mainstream movies can be particularly wonderful. In the most extreme example, my ex and I had the cinema to ourselves when we went to see Secretary; but I've managed to see a fair few films with so few other people in the cinema that it really does repay the investment.
On the other hand, only one person needs to decide to relate their thoughts on the film and everything else to their friend on the other end of a cellphone to spoil it for everyone. It should be legal to shoot those people where they sit, frankly.
(With a crossbow, of course, to avoid further disruption. Or a bow and arrow. Maybe even slit their throat or garotte them.)
Parent
Re:well... (Score:5, Informative)
"If Coca-Cola accidentally created 100 million cans of faulty Coke, you know for sure the entire 100 million cans would be dropped in the Atlantic or Pacific Ocean, without a second thought and irrespective of what that did to the year's profits. What do we do with a crappy movie? We double its advertising budget and hope for a big opening weekend. What have we done for the audience as they walk out of the cinema? We've alienated them. We've sold audiences a piece of junk; we just took twelve dollars away from a couple and we think we've done ourselves no long-term damage." -- David Puttnam, GQ magazine, April 1987
Good thing Dark Knight was worth the money. Best movie I've seen in quite a while!
Parent
Preserving our rights (Score:5, Informative)
Here in Spain what you call piracy is LEGAL if you don't earn money with it. And so it was on your countries not so long ago. We just preserved our rights.
Re:Preserving our rights (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't think copying films or other media and redistributing them--even for free--has every been legal in the US. It's still legal to make personal copies, or make copies in an educational setting, but I think it would be pretty hard to argue that you have a "right" to copy and redistribute films for free.
Parent
Re:Preserving our rights (Score:5, Funny)
Shhh, Europeans know everything. Bow down before their mighty wisdom.
Parent
Immigration? (Score:5, Funny)
Here in Spain
Does Spain offer asylum for refugees from the U.S. copyright regime?
Parent
Hey WB! (Score:5, Funny)
Why so serious??
Re:Hey WB! (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Honestly, now... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Honestly, now... (Score:5, Funny)
Hehehe. I know what you mean. I can suspend my disbelief long enough to imagine a guy in a bat costume flying and swinging around a darkened city fighting the forces of evil, but I can't figure out how a 38 hour delay makes any sort of dent in stopping piracy.
Parent
Re:Honestly, now... (Score:5, Informative)
It's a pretty well known tactic for games. (Basically, making the copy protection tedious to crack rather than simply hard.)
Big budget games make the bulk of their sales during the first month, so if you can avoid getting cracked while the hype is still going, it can have a big impact.
So, my point here is, that this is not without precedent, and I'm sure it has some kind of impact on movies too.
Parent
Re:Honestly, now... (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, I was all excited to see bootlegged batman on my TV on opening day, all fuzzy and jumpy recorded an hour prior. In fact I camped out the night before at my local bootlegger. Imagine my dissapointment when he didn't get so much as a spanish version.
After I heard it would be 37 hours I was like "no way am I going to wait THAT long" and promptly bought tickets. Because you know, if I'm going to watch a shitty bootleg of a movie, I'm going to do it in the first day of the movie's release.
Parent
Re:Honestly, now... (Score:5, Informative)
You're probably, unfortunately, on to something here.
Besides, if you're willing to pony up the cost of a crappy camcorded DVD/VCD of a Huge Action Movie, instead of the $10 to see it on the big screen with professional surround-sound... well, you probably wouldn't have gone to see the movie anyway.
Parent
Re:Honestly, now... (Score:5, Funny)
The congressmen can't be that stupid right?
Parent
Re:Honestly, now... (Score:5, Insightful)
your definition is fucked then. The camcorder version is most definitely piracy. Just because you went and saw a movie in the theatre does not mean you get a copy for your home.
Look I am a huge downloader of music and movies but I am not gonna lie to myself and say I have done nothing wrong. Honestly I just don't care.
Parent
What about after the pirated copies were out? (Score:5, Insightful)
So, they credit those 38 hours for the record-breaking $158.4 million they made on opening weekend, but they've made another $150 million since the pirated copies have been available (according to the article). So, the pirated copies becoming available didn't seem to have much of an affect, did it?
Re:What about after the pirated copies were out? (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, as they said in TFA, preventing copies from reaching out is mostly helpfull when you have a dud in your hands. If the movie's bad, and people learn it before the weekend, the opening event will be very bad and you lose tons of money. If they don't know about it yet, they'll all go to the theater and get ripped off...
Parent
Re:What about after the pirated copies were out? (Score:5, Insightful)
Considering that TDK broke the 2nd Week record [the-numbers.com], I'd say that it pretty much shoots down that "piracy kills sales" theory.
Another thing. I saw a Pirate version of TDK after seeing it the first day. I can say without any doubt that the Pirate version ruins this movie. If you watched this movie pirated, you'll probably think it sucks. It just doesn't work the same as it does in the theater, since they use detailed shots and surround sound extensively to build up tension and effect, especially in the shock moments of the film. Basically, this movie deserves your money, so do yourself a favor and watch it in a Theater.
Parent
Cams (Score:5, Insightful)
Does anyone really download Cam copies of movies these days? Especially for dark, special effect-filled, high motion movies like Dark Knight where most Cams are basically unwatchable.
I'd be surprised if Cam copies had *any* actual impact on movie ticket revenues; I know if I was so desperate to see a movie that I couldn't wait for the DVD release (Or DVD rip), I'd pay the £6 to watch it in the cinema in decent quality on a big screen.
Re:Cams (Score:5, Insightful)
If you're curious about a new movie but don't care about it enough to pay for a ticket... why not watch a cam rip?
Of course most people want to see Batman in person and not a cam rip, but for less anticipated movies (and less special effects movies) the eye candy is not that important.
Like let's say a new movie like "Sex and the City" is out, and you're half interested for whatever reason, but you would never pay $9 for a ticket to see it. Obviously, nobody sees that movie for the graphics, right? You load up Bittorrent, download the cam rip, and watch it without leaving your house. The bonus is that nobody has to know you wanted to see it. Or maybe there's a girlfriend involved who wanted to see it, and you only watch it with her because it's in the privacy of your home, and save $18 then.
I'm just throwing out scenarios here, but there are plenty of reasons to watch cam rips. Maybe you're poor, or don't have a HD home theater, or whatever.
Parent
And another thing (Score:5, Funny)
You know what helps to prevent piracy?
Making a really terrible movie.
There are people out there who will track you down, smear you with honey and stake you out on top of an ant hill if you catch you distributing copies of "Alone in the Dark" or "BloodRayne". It's how the community polices itself.
Double dare (Score:5, Insightful)
This is a double dare for the pirates to break the 38 hour record next time. What a useless tactic.
This is priceless:
"If the movie's a stiff, and word gets out too early that it's a stiff, it's devastating to the business model," Garland said."
In another words, if we can keep the movie audience quiet for several days, we will rip off enough people to cover our costs and make some extra dough.
Der... (Score:5, Interesting)
You know what else helps (Score:5, Insightful)
have a big opening weekend? Making a good movie. ... or getting your star killed.
Also:
(from Wikipedia):
Warner Bros. created a viral marketing campaign for The Dark Knight, developing promotional websites and trailers highlighting screenshots of Heath Ledger as the Joker. After Ledger's death in January 2008, however, the studio refocused its promotional campaign.[3][4] The film was released on July 16, 2008 in Australia, on July 18, 2008 in North America, and on July 24, 2008 in the United Kingdom. Prior to its box office debut in North America, record numbers of advance tickets were sold for The Dark Knight. The film has broken multiple box office records, and achieved an overall approval rating of 95% on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes.
That's called good ol' fashioned marketing.
Uh, people *like* seeing movies in theatres ... (Score:5, Informative)
I'm unwilling to pay box office prices for crappo movies - I often watch bootlegs instead.
When movies are supposed to be good, however, I'm happy to give the theatre way too much money for tickets, popcorn, etc. I love going to movies and all of my fellow "pirates" do too.
I drove 40 minutes and waited in line for over an hour to see The Dark Knight at an IMAX theatre ... and it was *AWESOME*
I was happy to pay for WALL-E too.
Keep making movies that *DON'T SUCK* and people will pay to see them ... keep making pieces of sh*t and people will download them or wait for DVD.
All of the movies that I've watched bootlegs for ... either: ... I simply wouldn't have watched it, had the bootleg not existed ... *maybe* I would pay to rent the DVD
1) the movie rocked, so I went to see it in the theatre after watching the bootleg
2) the movie sucked
^ all hypothetical, ofcourse ... i've never _actually_ seen one of these so-called 'bootlegs' ...
le sigh (Score:5, Informative)
Cam: recorded with a camcorder with indirect audio (using the camcorder's built in mic)
Telesync (TS): recorded with a camcorder (although TS's are often recorded with a higher quality camera) with direct audio (audio typically from a headphone jack for the hard of hearing)
Telecine (TC): A telecine machine copies the film digitally from the reels. Sound and video should be very good, but these are fairly uncommon (expensive machines)
Screener: A DVD or VHS copy sent to various places for promotional use. Many times they have timers and/or serials numbers. Quality varies, but DVD screeners should be excellent if the person ripping it isn't an idiot.
R5: Usually made with a telecine machine from an analog source. Unlike a TC the digitization is performed by the studio itself with very professional (and expensive) equipment. The purpose is to beat the pirates to the market in 3rd world-ish areas (Russia, Africa, etc).
Why not stop camming? (Score:5, Interesting)
Anglophone? (Score:5, Insightful)
Update your business model and do world-wide releases.
A simultaneous release would work in the United States, two-thirds of Canada, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia, and New Zealand. (Ever notice that the major anglophone countries tend to come in pairs?) But other countries have other languages, and it takes time to line up quality voice actors for a dub job that isn't complete feces.
Parent
Re:You know what else? (Score:5, Funny)
This concludes the FOX News Commentary on this article. Next up: Barack Obama, secret muslim, or just a terrorist?
Parent