MPAA Touts Record Year For Hollywood 187
proudhawk writes "A blog posting in p2pnet today catches MPAA boss Dan Glickman at the ShoWest convention in Las Vegas crowing about Hollywood's profitable year: 'Today, we stand on a new mountaintop, and I have to say: I like the view... We had about 5 percent growth in both the domestic and worldwide box office, all-time highs on both fronts reminding us once again that good stories well told always find a place in our hearts, our lives and our local theaters.' What ever happened to the ravages of online piracy?"
Box office? (Score:3, Interesting)
Pointless argument (Score:3, Interesting)
Are they really that evil? (Score:1, Interesting)
Seems to me the MPAA is a bit more proactive in their tactics, in that they're trying to raise awareness about piracy instead of lashing out at random civilians with lawsuits like the RIAA does. Letters to ISPs saying "cut it out" seem to be the standard MO.
On the other hand they're extremely harsh with people selling bootleg DVDs, their main concern seems to be stopping mass distribution of pirated disks particularly while movies are in the theater (or before they even make it there.)
Not saying they don't do some things that are questionable, but they do seem to be making the transition with a little more grace... I don't feel the outrage against them that I do the RIAA. They're more annoying than evil in their tactics.
It's the kiss of death (Score:5, Interesting)
Fifteen years before that, the RIAA leaders touted their "record year" for album sales, and CDs immediately supplanted records in 1988 and never looked back.
And thirty years ago in 1978 when Tomita released the final quad 8-track tape, the industry said it was "on track" for the best year ever as it instead saw the multi-track format slip into oblivion.
So when the MPAA touts a shiny year for DVDs, Blu-Ray is probably poised to make them eat their words.
Fragmented markets cause pircay (Score:5, Interesting)
That's partly true I think but the drive in Piracy would be more due to the way the studios try to fragment their markets in different regions, to maximise their own profits.
The internet has made the planet a truly global community and they have to relase globally, not try to stagger around the planet with Theatrical releases/DVD Releases and even different dates for TV premiere's.
In Australia we still cannot get video/TV on iTunes because of this or get access to other such online content because its all being restricted, so many people resort to pirace to see what they want and not wait 3-6 months(Up to a year some times) later.
Like the music industry the movie industry will only end up hurting itself by trying to contain online content rather then let it flourish in an open market, the more they put online for fair prices the more people will pay. Just take phone ring tones as an example of how people are willing to spend money on absolute crap. If more people could get movies at those prices they would be making huge sales.
They don't have profit, do they? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:You're looking at it wrong. (Score:5, Interesting)
Which, you would think, would tend to show not only that the MPAA's anti-piracy tactics are working, but that there isn't really a correlation (positive or negative) between piracy and MPAA profits.
Re:tikka masala for one (Score:1, Interesting)
Oh, when having a date, home theatres have other advantages over movie theatres . They're usually quite close to the bedroom, and in some cases the couch is as far as one gets. Once started, the movie doesn't matter the slightest, nor the quality of the home theatre....
I'm not saying you cannot do this in the last row of a movie theatre, but you're most certainly going to annoy the other moviegoers with all the moaning and panting.
Re:scapegoat (Score:4, Interesting)
To look at it another way, if takings were down because the content was rubbish, why is it that profits for the thing that can't be pirated have increased and the profits for the thing that can be pirated are down?
Keeping up with Inflation? (Score:3, Interesting)
Not sure about the ravages of online piracy, but inflation in the US [inflationdata.com] was about 3% last year, and the projections for current US inflation put it at about 4.6%. I'm not sure if their growth estimate takes the increase in CPI into account. Mayhaps someone with a more global view on inflation rates could chime in and give us an adjusted Hollywood growth rate?
Reid
Re:Pointless argument (Score:3, Interesting)
My hypothesis is that the reason radio sucks so much today is the best artists are going independant, realizing that they have no use, let alone need, for a major label contract. The internet and affordable recording and duplication have made the 20th century record label obsolete, yet the labels still offer the same shitty contracts to artists.
Why would any artist worth his salt today sign away copyright to all his songs, unless either his work sucked or he was incredibly stupid?
-mcgrew [slashdot.org]
Re:scapegoat (Score:4, Interesting)
Seems like a 5% increase is at about the same rate or lower than inflation.
Wake me up again when they report NUMBERS OF TICKETS SOLD as the metric vs. the amount of money collected. That would be a better measure showing if they actually increased viewership or not.
Re:scapegoat (Score:3, Interesting)
a) compensation levels in hollywood are way above norm.
b) most pirated material would not have been purchased at anywhere near retail prices*
c) a lot of piracy leads to sales that would not have otherwise occured**
d) there are many, many, many forms of entertainment competing for our entertainment time and money***
---
* Filling an ipod at retail- $10,000. This just isn't going to happen. That's after taxes. So that's like taking a $20k cut in pay after taxes. JUST to fill the ipod.
** I was given a pirated band CD. I'd never heard of the band. Now i own one of their CD's, have gone to four of their concerts, and bought two of their T-Shirts from their web site.
*** And most of us will spend most of our time on the cheapest entertainment.
Ravaging (Score:3, Interesting)
Going to the movies is an event. People will go even when they have access to downloaded versions because the movie itself is not the whole of the event.
Concerts are also an event, but are far more expensive, more rare and almost invariably less convenient than going to the movies. Plus, a concert is almost never exactly what an album is in content, whereas a movie is. Having seen a movie in a theater, and given the much greater size (ie. download time and storage requirement) fewer are likely to then download it. Even if they've been to a concert, people are more likely to download a studio album with some similar material.
TFA was not about DVD and other pay-per-content venues. However, the statements probably hold for those too, because the margin on DVDs etc. is much less as well as downloads being less frequent. The "loss" the MPAA would hypothesize would be far less a proportion of the gross.
Note that the MPAA et al. would still report a loss even if the opposite effect (increased sales due to downloading) holds, as has been hypothesized. I'm not confident the data collection and analysis supports that hypothesis, although neither would it support an MPAA report of loss. MPAA has to report loss regardless, as failure to do so would mean not supporting claims of copyright violation. Doing that not only means loss of any relevant piracy lawsuits, but also potentially loss of the copyright involved. Failure to protect them can result in loss of them. That point explains the variance between the claims and actions of MPAA/RIAA etc. and any hard data, or lack thereof, supporting any "loss" or the opposite. Claims of loss are almost invariably just that -- claims. They are usually arbitrary and grossly inflated guesstimates. That improves the chances in lawsuits.