Movie Industry Cries All the Way to the Bank 456
shandrew writes: "Jack Valenti, president of the Motion Picture Association of America, has reported that the year 2001 was the "greatest box office year in film history" with movie admissions reaching their highest level since 1959. Isn't this the same industry that is complaining that piracy is putting them out of business?"
Same for the music industry.. (Score:5, Insightful)
I can't exactly lay my hands on figures, but I know the same is true of the music industry - not necesessarily their best year or anything like that, but I know that they are definately not hurting from lack of revenue.
Now maybe they can cut some of the cinema prices? I couldnt help but notice that the prices keep ticking up, whilst the adverts get longer and longer..
Re:Same for the music industry.. (Score:4, Interesting)
This is my major beef with box office statistics -- they're reported in $$ instead of the number of butts in seats. That metric would hold across time. Sure, Harry Potter (as an example) made lots of money, but did more people see it than Gone With the Wind?
Re:Same for the music industry.. (Score:3, Informative)
Click "all-time leader" tab, Then "inflation adjusted list" on right.
Re:Same for the music industry.. (Score:5, Informative)
A better metric is the percentage of people who saw a particular movie in each period, out of all the people who saw any movies in that period. Basically, you take a particular movie's number of tickets sold, and divide it by all tickets sold for a given time period. This gives you a metric that holds across time, because if (for example) The Matrix has a 20% share, and Episode I has a 15% share, and Gone With the Wind has a 50% share (the numbers are made up), then it doesn't matter how many people saw the movie -- of the available movie audience, half of them saw GWTW, but only 1/5 and ~1/7 of the audience saw the other two movies (each of which have grossed more than GWTW in real dollars).
Of course, no matter how you cut it, it's an inexact science -- GWTW has had 63 years for people to view it, and The Matrix has had 3. Plus, there's no exact count kept of who saw the movie more than once, whether 1 person seeing it twice counts as much as 2 people seeing it once, etc.
Ultimately, I wish people would stop obsessing over the financial/numerical popularity of movies and instead focus on how good (or bad) the movies are -- the artistic, social, or political impact of a movie instead of its box office. Every week, hundreds of publications (newspapers, magazines) have stories about how much business each movie did, but you never see a discussion of the movie from an artistic standpoint except for the initial review -- too rarely do publications come back later and have any kind of in-depth discussion of any film.
Re:Same for the music industry.. (Score:2, Funny)
While I enjoy the free piracy of movies on the net, I don't pretend that I have a moral rigth to pirate it. I am just a greedy swine that like to get stuff for free.
Re:Same for the music industry.. (Score:3, Insightful)
Movies are meant to be viewed in a cinema. Any picture that can't live or die in that enviroment should never have been made in the first place.
No pirated video should ever pose a danger to the profitability of the cinematic release of a film. If it does, the studios are doing something fundementally wrong.
The fact that Valenti's corporate cronies can't make a profit in the cinema anymore is simply not our problem. We should not bear the burden of faulty managment in megacorp film studios.
Anyone in Broward County, Florida? (Score:3, Informative)
Monday, March 18th at 7pm, one of the Vice Presidents of the MPAA will be speaking at the main (I think?) branch of the Broward County Library with the public invited for a question/answer session.
Of course, if you listen to WLRN for any great length of time during the day, you know this
Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Same for the music industry.. (Score:2, Insightful)
Nobody said it was.
If the content providers stuck to combatting piracy, I wouldn't have a problem with them. However, they insist on adding extra baggage that takes away my "fair use" rights, and whining about piracy putting them out of business whenever anyone tries to (legally) get around it.
Re:Same for the music industry.. (Score:3, Insightful)
"Who are you? Where are you taking me? And why am I in this hand basket?"
Re:Same for the music industry.. (Score:4, Insightful)
So they should stop bothering us honest customers who rip every CD they buy to their personal hard drive which is not shared in any way. I want to be able to use my personal MP3 CD player with copies of any album i BUY, and I want to have backups in case the original CD gets damaged (it's rare, but in my 250 cd collection, at least 5 of them are damaged)
The next they'll do is to say I'm denying them the right to profit by not buying a second copy of the same CD I already have, because I have a backup.
Re:Same for the music industry.. (Score:4, Interesting)
- But people aren't stealing movies/music as much as the MPAA/RIAA claim to justify the SSSCA.
Indeed. They've never said it was putting them out of business. They claim repeatedly that piracy is costing them billions in lost revenue every year. To date, however, they have offered ZERO proof or statistics to back up their claims. They make sweeping generalizations based on anything from rumor to flawed market studies (polling 10 high school kids isn't very statistically valid) to extrapolations from what they think they should be making.This kind of theft is very hard to quantify. People aren't breaking into a warehouse and taking thousands of CDs. The contents of one (paid for) CD is distributed to hundreds or thousands of people. How much revenue does that divert from sales? Likely far less than it generates. People are much more likely to purchase CDs of the music they have heard and liked. Case in point, I never would've known Gus Gus existed if WB hadn't placed one of their music videos on the jukebox -- Believe. I've bought every CD they've produced. I've bought numerous CDs from 800.com (recently defunct) beacuse they had samples of the songs.
Basically, the MPAA and RIAA are stupid and greedy. Organized piracy (factories producing bootleg CDs and DVDs) costs them a lot of money -- and that's very proven. However, they have taken no actions at all to thwart such piracy. Instead, they harass, berate, and criminalize their actual patrons who are the very foundation of their billion dollar a year industry. They draft one stupid (useless) law ontop of another. They throw one horrible, non-compliant, hack after another at us to "combat piracy" that just makes the disks useless almost everywhere.
Re:Same for the music industry.. (Score:5, Insightful)
I attended Sen. Hollings' SSSCA hearing last week, and can tell you a few of the things that Valenti (and Hollings, who practically repeated everything Valenti said, so it was transparently obvious that the "hearing" was nothing more than a one-sided sham to drum up interest in the bill) said there. The comments were not the same as those I've seen posted in the "official" transcript of prepared texts.
Valenti said that, sure enough, piracy is costing them money. He said that only 2 out of 10 movies made actually make their money back at the box-office; the rest have to do it through video and overseas sales, merchandising, etc. Of course, he never said how many movies make their money back in toto - I suspect it's close to 10/10, or they wouldn't be making them, would they? Still, the 2/10 stat resonated with the Senators.
He said that the *average* cost of producing and releasing a movie today is $83 million. (Hint to the MPAA: if your product is so expensive it's reducing your profit... maybe you should cut expenses, instead of asking Congress to prop up your non-functional business model?) What the hell costs $83 million? Oh yeah - a few stars' mega-contracts. Boo-hoo. I wonder if you took the top 20 stars' contracts out of the financial picture (since those vastly skew the distribution of costs), what the "average" cost would be then. Probably much, *much* lower. So tell me again why I should care... And by the way, the linked article states that the average cost in 2001 was $43 million - about *half* what Valenti just testified to Congress. Talk about talking from both sides of your mouth!!
Valenti said the one "moat surrounding their castle" that prevented the movie industry from totally being taken down (!!) was that broadband wasn't widespread yet. He said it was critical to get all these new restrictions in place on the Internet and in home electronics before broadband bacame widespread. Of course, even if they did, the Internet is international, and as soon as a pirated movie makes it overseas, it will no longer be subject to our laws. It was obvious from comments during the hearing that they haven't figured this out yet.
At the same time he was decrying the impending rollout of broadband, he had the balls to claim that his industry was the very reason broadband hadn't gotten accepted yet! Valenti said that the reason people didn't want broadband was that "producers haven't made their highest quality content available" yet. He also turned around and said that the only reason why someone would want to have broadband today was if they were a pirate (!!). Quote: "You don't need broadband to do email; you can do that on a 56K modem." So to Jack Valenti, the two possible uses of a computer are email, and viewing video/audio content, which today must entail piracy since *his* content isn't legally available. The fact that *other* people might have legal content available - CNN, MSNBC, independent movie producers, amateur artists, countless Flash animations - or that there might be other bandwidth intensive applications besides wanting to watch a Disney flick pay-per-view, is something that apparently isn't even worth consideration. It's a totally Narcissistic mind-set - they're the only ones that exist in their minds.
As an extra-scary note, at the same moment Valenti was saying this, over in the House they were passing Tauzin-Dingell, which practically locked in the one thing that *is* preventing broadband rollout: the unacceptably high monthly cost, caused by monopolistic control over the network by the Baby Bells. Yet at least one of the Senators sat there and praised Valenti and the MPAA as being "critical" to the economic recovery, because they had to succeed to drive broadband rollout, to create the next round of economic growth. It all seemed utterly clueless to me.
Now for some scary "justifications". Valenti said that it was critical to the economic recovery in the US that his content be protected. He said that "intellectual property" production makes up 5% of GDP. He listed IP as including movies, music, books, and software. Right... which of those things is not like the others? :-) Guess which one also makes up more of that 5%? Last year's MPAA member revenues, according to Valenti, were $30 billion. Try adding up the US software industry's revenues from last year: start with Microsoft's ($27 billion), and work from there. Estimate an order of magnitude (MS is just one company, after all), so maybe $300 billion. One of the other speakers estimated it at $600 billion. Tell me: Which one of these is more relevant to the economic recovery? Which one needs more safeguards to make sure it succeeds? Right... so WHY ARE THEY KOWTOWING TO THE MOVIE INDUSTRY? Oh yeah - because they pay the Senators [opensecrets.org] more than we do.
There's more - I could go on at length about what was said. Valenti proclaimed the movie industry "the crown jewel of American industry", because it's the only major industry that has a trade surplus with every nation. Well, that's true, technically. However: A) given that the MPAA's member companies have a virtual monopoly on distribution to the number-one revenue market (the US), that's not terribly surprising, is it? And B) since many of the distribution companies are majority foreign owned (!!!), claiming that giving them money consitutes a US foreign trade surplus is downright disingenuous.
Watching him talk, it was all so obvious. But hey, what's a little song-and-dance to misdirect attention? Look at the pretty lights, people; don't watch the man behind the curtain taking your rights away. And frankly, I'm still not sure that they "get it" at all. Valenti said (regarding the inability of Intel or Cisco to utterly prevent copying of copyrighted materials in their devices), "I can't believe there aren't two young geeks in San Diego in a garage somewhere who can't figure out how to make this work." As if some "geek" is going to figure out how to undo the mathematics that make "Turing completeness" a reality. But then, explaining a Turing machine to one of these guys and getting any reaction other than slack-jawed disbelief is a trick that nobody seems to have figured out yet. That, friends, would be an awesome hack indeed.
Re:Same for the music industry.. (Score:5, Funny)
Has anyone told the recording industry about this?
Re:Actually (Score:2)
Well they could have made more! (Score:4, Funny)
hehe i got a bridge in brookyln i can sell ya reall cheap to
$25 for a once a year fee
$ 2 per hour of use
$ 5 for 1000 views of the bridge from the road
ok that was cruel
Re:Potential profits are important! (Score:4, Interesting)
There's the fundamental weakness of the arguement. When dealing with intellectual property the stealing doesn't cost you (the owner) anything directly. You're only losing the potential profit.
Now the problem is figuring out what that potential profit might have been. Only a small fraction of the people who downloaded your CD for free would have otherwise purchased the music. Against that you have to (or should) weigh the benefit of additional exposure - more people will hear your music and will tend to make it more popular, thus selling more CDs.
I don't think anybody really knows what the impact of all these free downloads is. It is clear that the figures the RIAA throws around are nonsense, since they count each download as a lost sale.
Re:Potential profits are important! (Score:3)
Also on the otherhand I have downloaded MP3's of an amazing artist Victor Wooden who plays BASS with bela fleck and i was so impressed with it that I went out and bought his whole collection of CD's. which would never have happened(from me) had i not heard a few of his songs first...
good enuff answer for ya?
Copying is not stealing (Score:2, Insightful)
Copying, as bad as it might be, is *not* stealing, try to get that into your minds!
When you steal something from someone, they don't have the original object anymore, you do. The poor guy from who the thing was stolen is lacking his object.
When you copy something, the guy still has got his stuff left, but you also have a *copy* of the the object. You didn't steal anything from anyone.
Now some people will start yelling: "But you stole the Programmers/Moviemakers/Artists paycheck, they don't get the money they deserve...". True. But it isn't theft. Theft would be if you broke into that artists house and stole the money he has already made from previous artistic work. Now it's not theft, but copyright infringement. Theft sounds worse and is worse, imho. The people affected will very much notice when someone steals the stuff they already have, but not as much when someone copy one of their works.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Yeah, right... (Score:2)
Well I'm sure the US Government will allow us to come up with self-regulated rules on this issue before they require by making it a law.. we should start now.
I'll charge you $400 a week for myself to watchover you, and i'll do it virtually since i'm charging such a cheap price
Re:Potential profits are important! (Score:5, Insightful)
DAMMIT DAMMIT I have lost my lottery ticket, I have lost 1 MILLION EUROS!!!
..wait..
What do you mean with "you should check first if it was the winning one"?
(Potential is exactly that, potential. What next? Suing your employer because he didn't fire you, depriving you of the possibilility of getting a better job?)
DVD zones (Score:2)
There's a reason for DVD region coding (Score:2, Informative)
Isn't the time to stop with that DVD zones?
DVD region lockout is there for a reason [slashdot.org]: it may be difficult or impossible to secure worldwide rights to a work.
He's not poor yet (Score:4, Funny)
Fat chance that Mr. Valenti's includes the box office results of that type of content in the pretty speeches he's delivering to the assembled members of the press. Could be fun to watch though: 'And we would like to specially applaud the sector of nature films for it's ever increasing sales. Oh wait, that should be: mature films.'
Re:He's not poor yet (Score:3, Interesting)
As an aside, the porn sector is hurting badly. Ten years ago, a typical porn tape would sell 40,000 copies @ $20 a copy. Today, it's 10,000 copies @ $12 a copy if you're lucky. OK, that's mostly due to internal competition and more wannabe's with a digital camcorder and a tiny... budget... but it's putting a real strain on the industry. For example, fluffers are nothing more than a fond memory now on most sets.
And now here comes filesharing. Downloading 600Mb of 320x240 feature film is a pretty lousy proposition, especially when half the time it turns out to have Cantonese subtitles on it. Even if you've downloaded it, you might still go on to pay for a licensed cinema viewing or DVD, just to get the quality. But a 5Mb money shot? Queue 'em up! And money shots are called that for a reason: the shot maketh the film.
I'm not sure whether I'm really serious about this, but I do have a lot of genuine respect for porn stars. They are talented and hard working people, and it'd be a damn shame if the industry went (heh heh) tits up because of sharing. Think about that next time you're downloading a Christy Canyons clip.
Well, The RIAA was having the same luck a year ago (Score:5, Insightful)
A year ago napster was in full swing.
Also, one thing you'll notice is that the MPAA isn't making exactly the same claims that the RIAA was. And honstly movie piracy isn't such a big deal. The quality isn't as good, and the download times are insaine. Back in the modem days it used to take me just about 20 minutes or so to d/l an mp3. But snagging a 1gig divx of a new feature film off the campus lan can take an hour, and it can take days to get off filesharing services like morphius.
Movie trading just hasn't caught on the way napster has.
What the MPAA is saying is that movie piracy is going to hurt them in the future and it's also keeping them from jumping on the digital TV, movie thing (thats why we need the SSSCA!).
You'll also note that these are box-office results, not home video rentals or DVD sales. Piracy wouldn't have any affect on that anymore then music piracy would affect concert sales.
Re:Well, The RIAA was having the same luck a year (Score:2)
What the MPAA is saying is that movie piracy is going to hurt them in the future and it's also keeping them from jumping on the digital TV, movie thing (thats why we need the SSSCA!).
I don't think movie piracy will ever really hurt the movie industry even when it does get as easy as ripping off songs. The reason is, you just cannot duplicate the movie going experience on your DVD or home computer. When LOTR comes out, I don't want to see it on my laptop- I want to see it on the big screen with a big crowd.
Sure I might want to watch it on my laptop later- but I will buy or rent the DVD with all the cool extra footage and quality. A friend of mine actually did download a copy of LOTR and he showed some of it to me- but somehow it cheapened the experience. I thought "Gee, I really want to see this in the theatre again before I see it on the small screen.
Downloading songs is completely different. You can duplicate the exact experience of listening to the CD. Or near enough where it threatens the sale of the CD.
Just my .02
They're lying. (Score:4, Funny)
Hey, lets not forget that the RIAA was bitching the same bitch and making the same kind of profits a year ago, and now. Now things couldn't be bleaker, many people are predicting the demise of the recording industry entirely.
Think of this as the last days of disco. NO real musical acts got signed during disco... and it was all performance music. Everyone thought it was great at the time, and Arista and other groups cleaned up.
Everyone loved disco. But like all fads, it got old really quick. Then they got tired of it. Then overall record sales slumped. Then they had to find real musical acts... people wanted to listen to real music instead of dance. The same analogy can be about raving. It used to be about dancing, then it became all about the drugs. Very quick.
Do you think anyone will care about Britney Spears in five years after we have been Britney bombed? Honestly, did anyone care about the superbowl ad? I personally am getting tired of her ass, bigtime. The rest of America is too.
It's limping. The proof? O-Town. That fucking boy band couldn't make it, even with 50 hours of network television to back it. See? Aren't we all just getting a little tired of Justin Timberlake? Aren't we all just a little ashamed that we know his name when we see his face?
In about a year, they'll have to look at real musicians again... whereas my little hometown of NAshville, TN will just keep chuggin' along. But even they had a country fad about 4 years ago... and yes, they whined that they were "dying" afterword. Yeah, after record breaking profits.
Give it a year, and make sure you turn off MTV so that those idiot rappers that talk about thinly veiled anal sex references to nine year olds watching MTV don't get any money... although I think that they are propped up by all of the morons out there. That is the one trend that I wish would die, grassy knoll style. Because I cannot put up with a woman flapping her ass on camera to crappy Casio SK1 sounds.
Goals and methods. (Score:4, Insightful)
Piracy is a good excuse. If they can use the 'piracy threat' to force DRM technology to be adapted, it opens the way for a pay-per-view model.
Piracy is good (Score:2)
there is a common belief that anything that is pirate is in fact of worst quality then the original one. This quality need not to be in the format (video quality, cristal sound and stuff like that), I believe that people will buy quality packing and quality extras. How many DVD rips you seen with tons of extra features, and how many came with say a poster of the movie?
even MS use piracy to enhance their monopoly, why do you think that every one is familiar with their enviroment?
Re:Piracy is good (Score:2)
Re:Piracy is good (Score:2)
Just a thought.
Re:Piracy is good (Score:2)
In other words, was the only reason you got them because they were free of charge?
If so, then your "piracy" has done no harm because the copyright owners would not have got any money from you anyway.
Re:maybe for music (Score:2)
Shure and the next thing you will see is the MPAA bombing some housing with the backup of president Bush himself.
Seriuosly you are advice is to change one word (piracy) because of what 16th century (17th or even 18th century, I'm realy not that good with history) people did, for one that is used now and is on all the media? I realy don't think it is a good idea.
The internet can't hurt box-office numbers... (Score:2)
For somebody to pirate just released movies today, that usually requires taking a video camera to the theater and capturing the footage from that. The quality of that capture process is horrid. The cool theater audio gets ruined. And getting a group of friends together to huddle around your screen is a 1-way ticket to the geek table. No matter how good the piracy of first run movies gets, it still doesn't hold a candle to going and watching the movie.
What can and will hurt the movie industry is inflexibility with pricing. There are a LOT of movies coming out lately, but my budget's having a hard time shelling out $7 for myself and $7 for my gf, only to have the movie totally suck ass. *Cough Rollerball Cough*. If theaters would lower their prices to say $4.50, then I'd likely see 2 movies per weekend, instead of like 2 movies a month. If Hollywood's producing more movies, they're going to find themselves a bit diluted. Suddenly downloading a video taped movie overnight doesn't sound so bad.
Re:The internet can't hurt box-office numbers... (Score:2)
Here, I pay $9.50 (ever rising) to watch a movie in a closet, projected on a screen the size of a bedsheet, where the soundtrack is overwhelmed by the latest Jerry Bruckheimer film in the closet next door. I have to fight over the armrest with my neighbor. And if I don't see a movie in the first three weeks, it gets replaced with some newer one-week wonder. God forbid I want something to eat or drink for less than $3, or want something other than sweet or greasy junk.
At home, I can rent a DVD for $5 or less, watch it in the peace of my living room on a comfortable couch with a number of invited friends, who know to shut up when the dialog is important. In the event anyone needs a break, or covered up the dialog with a laugh, or missed a plot point, we can pause or rewind. I can drink a glass of OJ or wine or beer, with unlimited refills. Popcorn without butter-flavored grease. If my girlfriend and I decide we'd rather make out, we can watch the movie later. If I reallly cared about the ear-shattering soundtracks, I could get a serious surround-sound system.
How can the theater compete?
Family Rated? (Score:2)
Wrong. The MPAA prevents R-rated movies from selling by rating them R! If there were no movie-rating bullshit then studios won't have to work so hard and remove quite innocent scenes to get a PG-13 rating. Get over it! Only parents should decide what their children see. Many parents are very liberal in this sense but the rating system limits the creativity of the movie producers to create.
Re:Family Rated? (Score:2)
psxndc
Re:Family Rated? (Score:2)
So they censor movies. Does that prevent youth from seeing drugs on the street? However, if you let your children be exoposed to this material and educate them, then you might ensure they don't get into trouble.
What's so wrong with a child seeing sex, drugs and obscenity in movies? The fact these things are prohibited actually lures children to try these things, and not in movies but in real life.
Is this the same industry claiming losses? No. (Score:5, Insightful)
DVD sales can be seriously hurt by P2P sharing. The MPAA has a few things they can do to prevent that, though. Loading DVD's up with features is one idea. The DVD still has value if the movie's getting downloaded, but the extras aren't. (Or am I in the minority of DVD purchasers because I care more about the bonus footage and making of scenes...?)
Another good approach would be to get a handle on why people download the movies. Are they just curious if the movie is any good? Well here's an idea, the MPAA should release an edited version of the movie, free to watch on the net. Maybe insert some ads into it or something to get some money per view. Edit out the language, and maybe cut out a few scenes. This way, somebody can watch the movie to see if it's interesting to them. Then they can go buy the DVD if it's interesting to them, or move on if it's not. If they can get ad revenue that way, then it's not wasted time for the MPAA.
Hopefully the MPAA will look at why people download movies and try to provide a profitable alternative to them, instead of trying to sue them out of existence. It works better for both sides if they take a more mature attitude about it.
Re:Is this the same industry claiming losses? No. (Score:2)
Another idea.... (Score:2)
It'd be cool if Hollywood would start releasing clever marketing 'shows' like this on the web. Give me some downloadable content to watch on my laptop while i'm flying! They could use the Internet as a powerful marketing tool, but they have to do more than use fancy Flash banner ads.
Re:Is this the same industry claiming losses? No. (Score:2)
You're exactly right. In fact, even though studios show press screenings of movies weeks before the movie opens, they ask reporters not to post their reviews until the movie actually opens. Of course, they can't force the reviewer not to print it, they just say "if you do, you won't be going to any more screenings..."
It's obvious why they do this. They don't want bad reviews sinking crappy films before the first day. A crappy film is going to have it's best take the first couple days of its opening before everyone has had a chance to hear how horrible it is. The movie studios can't say "you must wait until opening day to release your review UNLESS it's a good review" so they make you wait with all of them.
Here's an explanation [ericdsnider.com] from a reviewer I know.
Re:Is this the same industry claiming losses? No. (Score:4, Insightful)
Though I mostly agree with you I want to add a bit of insight from a different location in the world. Here in Europe (and most of the rest of the world not being Northern America), we have to wait a couple of weeks to a couple of months, before a movie that has been released in the US, is shown here in the cinemas. If it ever shows up in the cinemas at all, because many movies, even good ones, go straight to video here or never are released at all. If you download a movie during that waiting period and watch it, you generally won't go to see it in the cinema, nor rent the DVD. So here downloading movies is hurting (in a small way) the sale of cinema tickets, though in my opinion it is mostly because the studios restrict when and if we can see a particular movie.
The big record, movie and tv-companies haven't yet caught on to the fact that the world is a village and that people want to see and hear stuff when it becomes available, not when/if a company decides they can see or hear it.
Re:Is this the same industry claiming losses? No. (Score:2)
They Don't Claim to be Hurting Right Now (Score:5, Insightful)
The summary reads:
Isn't this the same industry that is complaining that piracy is putting them out of business?
I don't think so. I don't think the movie industry is claiming that piracy is putting them out of business, or even causing great harm at the moment. I think that their argument is that emerging broadband and internet technologies could soon put them out of business, if effective legislation and anti-piracy measures are not enacted.
The primary difference between the recording industry and the movie industry is that the recording people are complaining about what's happening right now, whereas the movie people are acting to prevent a "Napster for Movies" from being possible three years from now.
A pox on both their houses, of course. But I think it's wrong to suggest the movie industry is complaining about piracy ruining their profits today. It's all about what they fear will happen in the near future.
I speak only for myself (Score:5, Interesting)
So I became one with the devil one fateful day and fired up Morpheus. And on that day the worlds biggest evangelion freak was born.
I didn't play with linux for two weeks, cause I didn't want to reboot out of my win2k partion so I could keep downloading. Eventually I had the entire series all mine for free, some were fairly decent quality too.
Did I stick it to the artists who created such an animation masterpiece? Well some would say yes. Some would say they deserve to be ripped off simply for the fact that they charge so much for a three episode dvd. I'm not going to get into that. Plenty of threads covering that topic as it is.
In my case it dosen't really matter anyways. I purchesed all eight dvd's, have an almost complete collection of evangelion toys (Just need to get Unit 01). And a gorgeous Askua poster in a black frame hanging on the wall above my monitor.
Maybe my case is an exception. I never would have bought all this stuff if I never saw the crappy divxes. I relize they're is alot of freeloading on the p2p networks, but because of software like Morpheus and Gnutella I shelled out quite a bit of cash at my local Suncoast. This stuff isn't cheap!
other possible reasons? (Score:4, Insightful)
1. not all movies are block busters that people watch more than once and buy the dvd/vhs.
2. nitch movies like foriegn or art films may not make as much money in theaters. Most big theaters no longer play art films, unless they are produced and directed by famous people.
3. pirated version of "so-so" movies will have a harder time breaking even. Why spend 10+ bucks for a movie with no production value, which barely keeps you interested?
4. pirated version of popular or great movies tend to see a benefit.
5. pirating may affect movie budgets negatively and force movie makers to do more with less money.
6. pirating of movies before they are released to the public may kill any chance of it making money, let alone profit. Crap movies will be affected the most by this.
7. Pirating DVD disk image may become a bigger issue in the future, but for the most part it's professional pirating by organized criminals that are the biggest problem.
Just my opinion, but I think the movie execs just don't understand it and realize they need to change how they do things. In a lot of ways, art and foriegn films could see an increase in popularity if video on demand becomes reality. Someone might not spend 7.00 for a ticket, 3.00 for popcorn, 2.00 for a drink and 20 minutes to drive to the theater for an art film, but they might spend 3 bucks to see it at home. There are a lot of ways for the movie industry to re-invent itself and make more money. Now if only they would "think" instead of react, they could really see a whole new world of cinema.
I like watching short movies on the net, when they are good. I wouldn't spend 7 bucks on a questionable movie, but I would risk 1-2 bucks. As more people master the art of making short movies, the market will grow. Especially if hollywood continues to crank out formulaic junk.
Unbelievable (Score:2, Interesting)
It's quite telling when a bunch of chums (some smart, some dumb) look at the 24-plex' listings and all say "there's nothing worth watching". What's even more telling is that the economy is supposedly in a tight spot, yet admission prices have jumped 25% in most cinemas. Are the movies 25% better ? nahhh, they just hurt more when you realize you've just sat through 2 hours of crap that cost you 12$ (canadian). I'd much rather watch 2 hours of Family Man back-to-back for the same price, at least I'd walk out of the dark room with a fresh smile.
Piracy has very little to do with it. I think it plays on the 'value threshold' as I like to call it. Some movies might be worth seeing on a big screen, others you think "hmm nah, i'll wait for the DVD/VHS". Now if one finds a DivX of that second-grade movie, and it's relatively easy and inexpensive to obtain, then why not ? At the same time, this sends a faint monetary message to the movie industry : "we're not going to invest in movies that suck". When thousands of people start doing this, the execs will notice, they might start grasping for more legislative strings to pull, but the message will get across one way or another.
Napster as well (Score:5, Insightful)
What products continue to climb in cost each year? (Score:3, Interesting)
what else? Video games (the majority at least) have remained at about $50 since forever (though gameboy games have climbed). Hardware, just about any type, is always dropping. Magazines (for the content based argument) seem to sell for approximately what they always have. What else out there continues to climb in price year after year?
psxndc
Re:What products continue to climb in cost each ye (Score:2)
I have a copy of some thick book like Dune or Magician that was about $2.99 in 1979. Now that book is about $10.
Same book - possibly new cover art.
What a shocker (Score:2, Insightful)
Shit happens, Americans escape into fantasy. (Score:2)
One more thing that moron Valenti's wrong about. Gad. Can how can you be that full of shit and live?
Re:Shit happens, Americans escape into fantasy. (Score:2)
Let's see... (Score:3, Insightful)
In 1991, there was effectively zero movie piracy on the Internet. After all, who'd wait to download a film at 1200 to 2400 baud?
In 2001, there is admittedly quite a lot of movie piracy on the 'Net. Yet the movie Industry is still making money hand-over-fist. (And in a weak economy to boot!)
Conclusion: The movie industry is crying about how the Internet will destroy them just like they cried about how the VCR was going to destroy them and how Television was going to destroy them. I'm sure there will always be piracy on the 'Net, but if there's a movie you really want to see, you just can't replicate that movie experience with a tiny window on your computer monitor. There will be a place for the movie theatre in American life for the forseeable future, regardless of whether or not Americans can download the movies from a website.
But of course no film ever makes a profit! (Score:3, Funny)
Re:But of course no film ever makes a profit! (Score:4, Informative)
Yup, just ask the guys who wrote Forrest Gump [redballoon.net] (the novel, and the screenplay)
The movie industry is like Microsoft with concession stands.
~Philly
history repeating itself! (Score:2, Interesting)
The movie industry guys get together and decide that no actor should give interview to the satellite TV channels (people prefer to watch their actors in the TV rather coming ot the movie halls !!).
In Radio talk shows, directors call those who watch movies in VCD as doing prostitution at home !!!. The whole thing of not understanding and going along with the technology but resist till they are dragged along kicking screaming is painful
These guys copy so many techniques from Hollywood. But do not look at how the industry there went through the same process and learnt to bring the fans to the movie hall inspite of all the VCDs.
Let's not confuse things here (Score:2)
Re:Let's not confuse things here (Score:2)
This reminds me... (Score:2)
The point is, too many people rely on the government to solve their financial problems. Most people think that if they lose all their money the government will step in and get it all back. Same with corporations. If the corp is losing profits they expect the goverment to step in and give them all their profits back. How about making a better product than trying to get the government to force money out of people for you?
3% (Score:2, Informative)
Flaming hypocrites (Score:2)
"There has grown in the minds of certain groups in this country the notion that because a man or corporation has made a profit out of the public for a number of years, the government and the courts are charged with the duty of guaranteeing^W taking away from him such profit in the future, even in the face of changing circumstances and contrary to public interest. This strange doctrine is not supported by statute or common law. Neither individuals nor corporations have any right to come into court and ask that the clock of history be stopped, or turned back."
Perhaps there's another take (Score:3, Insightful)
Look at the real issue... (Score:3, Insightful)
They aren't claiming that piracy is putting them out of business, they are claiming that it has the potential to cause them more and more loss of profits with the emergence of broadband technology. Something that they have the right to be annoyed about because this happens to be America a country known for its success with the Free Enterprise system.
I'm so sick of hearing people bitch and complain because somebody charges a few bucks for a movie they spent millions to make. This isn't communism, Hollywood and everyone else that watches their movies doesn't have to support your movie habit. Just pay for the show if you want to watch it, would ya? And quit complaining that somebody is making money for his innovation. Those are all principles that this country is built on, if you don't like them, GET OUT!
Re:Look at the real issue... (Score:3, Insightful)
Woah, slow down there Mr. Balmer... I thought we were talking about the MPAA, not software.
Those are all principles that this country is built on, if you don't like them, GET OUT!
That's funny, I don't see a whole lot on the "right to profit" in our constitution... We do, however, have LAWS that are supposed to protect our fair use rights. Perhaps it was these principles you were referring to?
Telling people to "get out" of the country when they don't agree with the status quo is plain bullshit. Tell me you've never once complained about the way the Gov't is run. Bet you can't - so why don't you just LEAVE? See, Democracy is all about being able to *change* the laws to suit the times. If one doesn't like the system, it is that person's right to try to change it!
i'm gonna bring them down (Score:5, Funny)
i just spent the laugh half-hour downloading the divx version of "panic room" with 6 unexplained jumps/ black-outs, graininess, audio that sounds like it's on the inside of a washing machine, and some guy standing up in front of the handicam 30 minutes into the movie to go to the bathroom. i'm burning it on my cdrw now man!
come on over to my place, i'm showing it at 1:30 pm today on my 17 inch! the movie tends to hang in a few spots because my cdrom is a scsi, and i can't figure out which of my scsi devices down the chain is causing this periodic freezing, but no problemo! we're gonna bring down the movie industry man! you'll see!
Re:What's happening to the screens? (Score:2)
Re:What's happening to the screens? (Score:3, Informative)
Gee, that's funny. I've noticed the opposite trend. Back in high school in the early 80's (cough!), the theatres here in Richmond, VA were huge. 'Ridge Cinema' had four or five enormous screens, with sense-surround or whatever it was called. (Remember Battlestar Galactica used it...).
Now, the Virginia Center Commons theatre is like a 20-plex, but with much smaller screens. Here's my theory: Say a real blockbuster comes out. You can show it on 5 of your 20 screens and still meet demand. You can even stagger the start times to limit the wait for the customer. As interest dwindles, you can reduce the number of screens in use (freeing them up for other flix), while still offering the movie in essentially full viewing rooms.
In the case of the old, large-screen model, as interest waned you'd be wasting all that space to continue to offer the movie, and would be unable to show anything else. I think it makes a heckuva lotta sense, actually.
Re:What's happening to the screens? (Score:3, Interesting)
I don't have any more information to hand about screen sizes over time, so I can only say what I think is happening. Perhaps its a UK phenomenon *shrug*
Re:What's happening to the screens? (Score:3, Interesting)
And ticket collectors are no biggie. If you have 10x the number of screens, theaters only need to hire up to 2x as many collectors. If there are going to be long lines, so be it. They're going to wait, they already paid for their tickets, so why bother adding more collectors? Same goes for the cashiers (even if they haven't already paid, they've already put the effort to try to find parking amongst the hundreds of parking spots).
The trend I've seen are exactly like the parent post describes: a multitude of screens, with only around two or three of them being big screens with the best surround sound systems for the top movies of the week, with the rest of the screens being smaller room with mediocre (or sometimes horrible) sound systems for the lesser grossing movies of the week. More screens, but not more service. Customers are just cattle. Charge exorbetant amounts of money at the consession stands. Also, don't bother opening up the theater until 5 minutes before the first showing, and don't bother getting the soda or slushie machines working until after the first 50 customers try to order their drinks.
The movie theaters are in a sad, sad state.
Re:75 años de Copyright (Score:2, Informative)
The peculiar thing is that they are able to amortize the film in less than 1 year. So to that it comes that the right of Copyright lasts 75 years? I believe that with 5 years of Copyright they would have time to sell the film in the CINEMAS and to even sell a few DVDs to price of " opening ". But to more money they make more money want, and more case is arranged has to do the government to them.
This is actually a really good point - so I'm posting the translation as a public service.
75 years of copyright + Region-locking (Score:5, Insightful)
Listen to me: Valenti and his hord consider that DVD Region-ing is a way to prevent a film to be seen in a place in which it has not previously been played in theater.
they could schedule some 2-year period (hard-coded on the DVD, if they want) during which the DVD would only be playable in a given place, but after this period, it could be played worldwide with *no* limitations...
Re:75 years of copyright + Region-locking (Score:2, Interesting)
And thereby lies the problem. Why is a film not shown to all audiences at the same time? Why are some countries more priviledged than others? Why does a DVD come out in region 1 when the same movie hasn't been shown in a theatre in region 3?
And the answer is: Complete. Market. Domination. Have you considered that a DVD in the UK (region 2) costs about twice as much as a DVD in the US (region 1)?
Re:International copyright + Region-locking (Score:2)
That's irrelevant -- inability to secure rights in Country X merely prevents the studio from selling through outlets in Country X. It doesn't create an affirmative duty to prevent someone from buying a copy in Country Y and bringing it to Country X in his luggage (if it did, the system would require one region for each country).
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:sick (Score:2)
In case you havn't figured it out yet, people arn't payed based on how hard they work - they are payed based on how much money they make for their employers! An executive who makes $190,000 a year might not work harder than a fast food worker, but he or she does create more buissness; he or she does more for the employer. That's how wages work in our world.
Re:sick (Score:3, Informative)
In case you havn't figured it out yet, people arn't payed based on how hard they work - they are payed based on how much money they make for their employers!
In case you haven't figured it out yet, employers pay people as little as they can get away with. What's more, they'll pay some classes of employees, women and blacks for example, less money than white males unless prevented by legislation.
Anyone who's ever worked in an IT department knows that productivity varies enormously between employees and salary only incidentally reflects productivity.
If you work in technology long enough, you'll figure it out eventually.
Even More Complexity (Score:4, Insightful)
Generally there are two reasons. First, the pay for a CEO is commensurate with responsibility. Because they make decisions that guide the entire company, they get paid better, because mistakes are much more costly at this level than down on the shop floor, so companies are willing to pay quite a bit if that's what it takes to get a qualified person in the job. Second, companies don't generally keep CEOs if they feel that the CEO is the reason the company is losing money. So, in the case where a CEO stays on the job while a company racks up red ink, it's usually because (A) the company doesn't directly blame the CEO for the loss (for example, when the economy tanks), or (B) the company is buying the talent to engineer a recovery.
> Or why do civil servants get paid so well when they don't make any profit for anybody?
Civil service isn't a for-profit venture, so the "profit" isn't monetary. In public service, the goal is to maximize service levels within a budget constraint, so a civil servant who can do this well is earning the "profit" of lower costs and better (or more) service.
Virg
Re: (Score:2)
Re:sick (Score:2)
That's a huge generalization. And what's wealthy? Someone who makes double the average US income? Most IT geeks passed that during the boom a few years ago. I know I wasn't born wealthy, and I make more then the average, as do most people I know
Some guy sitting in a leather chair in a spacious office pushing paper around is not working hard. The guy who built his office is the one who worked hard.
Oh that's a poor comparison. What if that guy behind the desk started the company 50 years ago - what if it's a construction company - that built that same building. This owner risked it all - his house, his financials, everything, back then, to start that business years ago. He busted his nuts.
Is there no time where someone who's paid their dues can sit back and reap the rewards?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:sick (Score:3)
if you're making millions of dollars a year, then you should not be crying to Congress...
You raise 2 interesting questions:
1. At what point do you make so much money that you cannot reasonably expect the law to protect your property?
2. At what point do you make so little money that the laws that protect property no longer apply to you?
It is people with the least amount of property that have the most the gain from the rigourous enforcement of laws protecting property. If those laws mean they can't pirate movies, that's the price they pay so that people can't steal stuff from them.
Re:impersonators? (Score:2, Insightful)
There really isn't just one Brittney Spears. There are actually many of them. When it comes to blonde teeny-pop musicians, they are a dime a dozen.
Its just that the recording industry decided to market and sell the hell out of the particular one THEY picked.
They created the demand by promoting this one. They limited the supply by controlling the industry to prevent other blonde fake-boobed teeny pop musicians from getting exposure.
And the kids fall for it every time.
Re:They have a business to run. (Score:4, Insightful)
Rampant movie piracy in Asia means that we have to have region encoded DVD's and electronic devices that won't copy anything without going "mother may I" to the RIAA and MPAA?
Have you seen some of these pirated movies? Someone walks into a theater with a freakin' cam corder and films the film. Or, they borrow the actual film from a friend who works there and they do the transfer that way. How do ANY of the proposed DRM (Digital Rights Minimization) tools going to prevent that?
The single biggest complaint that most of us have is that there is no logic to support the laws that the industry is asking for. The last time the MPAA went this crazy against a technology it was the Video Recorder. Fortunatly, they picked on Sony and ran up against a company that was willing and able to fight. This lead to the fair-use laws and one of the largest ancillary markets for the movie industry ever. You think they'd learn from the past and look for the money making angle.
Watermarks can be stripped out... (Score:2)
The laws being passed in the USA don't matter (Score:2)
Re:They have a business to run. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:They have a business to run. (Score:2)
If Mercedes, Caterpillar, and Boeing thought they would increase their profits by selling their products in those countries at a reduced price, they would. The fact that they don't indicates they believe they'll make more money by foregoing certain sales (at reduced prices) but preventing their products from becoming commodities--which would eventually lead to worldwide lower prices.
The poster is simply saying that, in the case of DVDs, the target market is "the masses" so you have to offer a fair and attractive price. The price you choose to sell your product has to be in line with what the market values your product at. Otherwise, people won't buy your product (but may look for alternatives). This is basic capitalism.
Piracy is truly a fact of life in any intellectual property business. I'm not saying piracy is RIGHT, but it's a fact of life and a cost of doing that kind of business.
Generally, a business should price their products to maximimze profits. That means that if they've decided to sell their DVDs at $20 each they've decided that, taking into account piracy, that is the highest price they can charge. Perhaps if they sold their DVDs for $3 there would be virtually no piracy, but their total profit would actually be less due to the reduced price. So despite piracy, they've maximized their profit and in all honesty have nothing to complain about unless someone is committing highway robbery and stealing their physical product.
What they are doing when they ask for all kinds of absurd copy protection, etc. is asking the government to legislate laws that reduce their costs of doing business. That's a luxury virtually no industry is going to receive, and is akin to government-endorsed protectionism.
It is NOT the government's job to protect companies--or entire industries--from becoming obsolete.
Re:Big pictures vs Small (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Big pictures vs Small (Score:2, Funny)
Sometimes DVDs from States get here (Portugal) before the movie does (theater).
Lot's of people see it and lose interest.
Others like it, but ain't going to the cinema in two weeks to see it again.
So, they can get hit pretty bad.
They should release movies worldwide at the same time.
Re:Big pictures vs Small (Score:2)
You do however make it sound as if movie 'piracy' is considerably worse in Portugal though. Maybe the movie industry should focus more on foreign markets & pircay? (not to say that everyone does that there) But the US still lacks broadband even in some large cities (or at least some areas of large cities) & DVD's can be rented at the local video store even in the smallest towns these days... Making piracy less apealing (or at least I think so)...
Re:Big pictures vs Small (Score:2)
Also the original article (& the comment) are reffering to theatre ticket sales. piracy has little to no effect on ticket sales in the US... See the other 50+ posts sayign so below for a list of reasons...
Re:gif - png, mp3 - ogg-vorbis (Score:2)
Sorry but until there is one format, and people are told to only use the one format it is and will be a mess.
Re:What about GNU violations? (Score:2)
Hmmm, maybe there are a few people who fit both descriptions, but from what I can tell, those who actually create GPL software (i.e. those who have any right to complain bitterly about GPL violations) are not lame enough to hold those two conflicting views.
It certainly seems to me that there are two distinct groups of "free software" people: those who believe in free software for its freedom, and those who see it as basically equivalent to pirated software or download-for-no-charge software like Adobe Acrobat Reader.
(If you haven't guessed by now, I am in one of these camps and have a certain amount of contempt for the other.)
Re:What about GNU violations? (Score:2)
The flaw with their argument is... (Score:2)
Re:OT: Re:Don't forget Amélie ! (Score:2)