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?"
scapegoat (Score:5, Insightful)
the "ravages of online piracy" excuse is for years when they knowingly put out complete garbage and don't want to own up to it.
Re:scapegoat (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:scapegoat (Score:5, Funny)
I wish I was in a position to organize just such a screw-up. Just swap the press releases...
No, wait, I don't condone such underhanded tactics. May as well be blunt and honest. Where's my cluebat?
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Such as? Youtube family/idiot shorts? No thanks.
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Not to mention "the ravages" speech is for the press and legislators, the "zomg we did well this year" is for shareholders and equity firms :)
Just like how when you meet with your boss to discuss your year end bonus, "we've had a tough year, changing marketplace, etc." But when the CEO addresses shareholders, "pie in the sky!"
Re:scapegoat (Score:4, Insightful)
the "ravages of online piracy" excuse is for years when they knowingly put out complete garbage and don't want to own up to it.
No... you see, all this anti-piracy legislation and activism seems to be getting Results.
Therefore, they will do more in the same vein.
Re:scapegoat (Score:4, Insightful)
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?
Re:scapegoat (Score:4, Insightful)
Or, to look at it yet another way, you're inferring cause and effect, Mr. Glickman.
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Re:scapegoat (Score:5, Informative)
They've been crying for years that camcorded copies are reducing box-office take.
Seriously, if you're gonna post complete and utter bullshit, you should make sure that it's not to an audience that knows it's complete and utter bullshit.
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If you're going to post made-up bullshit, you should at least try finding websites with the same bullshit to reference.
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Camcorder piracy can drive out legitimate jobs of theater owners, ...
I think that pretty much supports the grand parents claim.
The first article didn't seem to contain any specific claims from MPAA at all. And neither did the last link, although its source is the following MPAA document that does contain a relevant quote.
http://www.mpaa.org/leksummaryMPA%20revised.pdf [mpaa.org]
Piracy cost the worldwide motion picture industry an estimated $18.2 billion in 2005. This ...
includes producers, distributors, theaters,
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.
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This information is available although you may have to dig to find it. Movie attendance at the theatre is declining and has been for years. And that is only half the story. With overall population numbers increasing, and absolute numbers of moviegoers decreasing, the percentage of people as a total of the population going to the movies is even lower. Market share is decreasing; people are spending their
Re:scapegoat (Score:5, Informative)
Funny. Those guys have already been paid by the time the movie is released. The execs, however, are the ones that stand to make money by the continual sales of completed works.
That is beside the point, however. The DVD industry has an 'open your mouth and close your eyes' business model. You cannot take a movie back if it sucks. So long as that is the case, there'll always be a 'market' for piracy. They're attempting to fight it by making that demand even stronger.
I work in Hollywood and frankly piracy isn't on my list of job-related fears at all. The execs pissing off audiences, however....
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Yep, and the execs will figuratively give everyone else the finger [wikipedia.org] if asked to uphold the letter of the contracts.
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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***
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* 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 t
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This isn't really true. There are lots of, for lack of a better term, grunts that are needed to make a movie, and they're not paid above norm. For every one guy you get making oodles of cash there are probably 20 people making just enough to get by in Los Angeles.
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And everybody but the execs get screwed regardless.
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If that's really what you think this is about then you really have absolutely no grasp of the situation at all. You basically did the equivalent
You're looking at it wrong. (Score:5, Insightful)
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You know that the first year the recording industry sees a decent increase in sales, instead of saying that their embrace of DRM-free digital downloads was responsible, they will say that their massive crackdown on pirates (arr!) was responsible, and that to further continue the increasing sales, they need to crack down more.
Re:You're looking at it wrong. (Score:5, Funny)
I'm listening to Leonard Cohen as I read your comment, and he just informed me that The poor stay poor, the rich get rich. Thats how it goes. Everybody knows.
Prophetic, that man.
Re:You're looking at it wrong. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:You're looking at it wrong. (Score:4, Informative)
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.
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Yes, this is what the piracy movement often talk about.
There has never been such a demand for music as there is now, due to easy sharing. Hear something good and you can instantly send it to your friends. The problem is that it's impossible to get it in a format that we want and can use. We have crippled and compressed mp3. I want high quality patent-free formats. The only way I can get it without buying a physical product and later just throw it away is to either listen to free music (more and more common
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Dream World (Score:5, Funny)
Box office? (Score:3, Interesting)
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(Seriously, though, box office means theater viewers. It's about the most clear and unambiguous term in the industry.)
Box office sales (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Box office sales (Score:5, Insightful)
Well I don't know where you get your downloaded movies, but I can get 720p movies compressed with H.264 accompanied by Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound and enjoy it on my rather nice home theatre system viewed on my 60" Sony HD television set. Oh, and I can watch it on my schedule and serve whatever refreshments suit my own fancy. If I want chicken tika masala, by god I'll have it! And I'll wash it down with a crisp lager, thankyouverymuch.
tikka masala for one (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Box office sales (Score:5, Insightful)
Makes more sense in Australia (Score:4, Funny)
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Much better than my 17" combi tv/dvd thing.
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Well I don't know where you get your downloaded movies, but I can get 720p movies compressed with H.264 accompanied by Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound and enjoy it on my rather nice home theatre system viewed on my 60" Sony HD television set. Oh, and I can watch it on my schedule and serve whatever refreshments suit my own fancy. If I want chicken tika masala, by god I'll have it! And I'll wash it down with a crisp lager, thankyouverymuch.
And if I want crack and hookers to complement my fine pirated film, then so be it! In fact, forget the film..
Pointless argument (Score:3, Interesting)
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Re:Pointless argument (Score:4, Informative)
Counterfeiting is truly theft, as each single counterfeit copy takes a sale away from a genuine firm. The other is not theft, but IP infringement, which is not considered a criminal offense in most countries (although there are a lot of deep pockets wanting to change that.)
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.
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Re:Pointless argument (Score:5, Informative)
Actually, a joint study by Harvard and University of North Carolina (CNET news story here [com.com], pdf link to original study available from the article) suggests that filesharing has almost zero effect on CD sales. Admittedly it is a few of years old now (March 2004) and is by no means exhaustive; however, the conclusions are still relevant and suggest that there are greater influences on music sales than piracy (despite what the RIAA would like us to believe).
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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 s
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$19.99 for a movie I'll see once.
vs
5 hours of downloading the picture (plus maintaining my ratio... plus occasionally bad movies... plus acceptable but lower resolution than a DVD with occasional embarrassing block glitches).
Hmmm. The download wins.
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$4.99 for a movie I'll see once.
vs
5 hours of downloading the picture (plus maintaining my ratio... plus occasionally bad movies... plus acceptable but lower resolution than a DVD with occasional embarrassing block glitches).
Hmmm. I'll buy
Damn those pirates! (Score:5, Insightful)
Seriously, people. The three driving emotions for people are greed, fear and greed. And the more you have, the bigger your greed gets. You have 5 percent increase (when everyone else is struggling to stay in business or have any kind of profit at all)? Doesn't mean jack, you want 6. You want 7. You want 10. And you could have 10 percent more income if it wasn't for all those who copy the content. It would be 15 if you could force people to throw away their VHS tapes. Hell, it could be 30 percent if you could force them to throw away DVDs!
It could be 50 percent if you could make those BluRays die after playing them 10 times. It could be 100 percent if you can make them so they die right after playing the movie once! It could be 200 percent when they couldn't play the movie at all... erh...
Well, if they still buy it that is.
And that's what this is about. The studios want more. They are not satisfied by having more than everyone else, they're not satisfied with having the best year of their existance, they're not satisfied with making a plus when the economy as a whole is struggling to avoid that big bad word that starts with an r and ends in cession. they want to have more than they already have. And they see some way to make more (i.e. crack down on those that copy), so they try to get rid of them. If they found a way to make you pay for every time you watch that movie, they would gladly do so.
And I'm fairly sure the next generation of players will have some sort of internet connection that enforces something like that.
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No, not for people. Only for those who worship the almighty dollar. Yes, there are a few at slashdot. But for most people the three driving emotions are fear, despair, and desperation. We are fearful, despairing, and desparate because of the selfish greedheads we produce the wealth for.
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I want more than I already have..it's ca
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A person may have worked very hard on the song, but the organization worked very hard to screw them over. Artists aren't kids, but they aren't lawyers either. Artists (especially new ones) are taken advantage of more times than not in the contracts.
Also note that music and movies are part of our culture. We want to participate in the culture, but only when we feel t
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Now you are just trolling. Slashdot is paid for by the advertisements. If there was a paid section and I had an account that I had gotten for free (1 person paid and gave it to all of his friends) then, I would be a leech.
"A person may have worked very hard on the song, but the organization worked very hard to screw them over. Artists aren't kids, but they aren't law
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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.
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Now we wait and watch. . .
-FL
Re:It's the kiss of death (Score:4, Informative)
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A lot of people are still content with their "old fashioned" DVD collection, and don't feel like paying the premium for a BD player yet. Blu-ray players are still relatively pricy compared to DVD players, so a number of people are going to just wait and see, as for now the quality on a DVD is good enough.
Once Blu-ray
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Blu-ray IS a digital video disk. It's just one with a higher capacity that allows a higher resolution. It contains the same movies and the studios make the same (more?) profit from them.
The technology doesn't matter any more than the box your hammer comes in matters. The Blu-Ray DVD is just a container for what the industry is selling.
Big surprise (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Big surprise (Score:5, Funny)
I'm being facetious, of course; Iron Man's only been around for 45 years.
They don't have profit, do they? (Score:5, Interesting)
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"But it if wasn't for piracy... (Score:2, Funny)
Yeah, or.... (Score:4, Insightful)
How many of the 20 top grossing movies of 2007 were not adaptations, remakes, or franchise installments? How many actually involved original creative development?
For that matter, how many were over-hyped drivel titled "[adjective] Movie" or starring Will Ferrell?
Hollywood is out of ideas. Period.
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For that matter, how many were over-hyped drivel titled "[adjective] Movie" or starring Will Ferrell?
Hollywood is out of ideas. Period.
Not that I necessarily disagree with you, but what does that have to do with "good stories, well told?" I mean, Walt Disney spent his entire career doing that in theaters and he seems to have a pretty good reputatio
It's the movies! (Score:2, Insightful)
When will they learn? It's the movies, stupid! Hollywood had an excellent year because the movies were better. They had decent blockbusters, and for quality movies we had the best year (IMHO) in over a decade. You had a ton of mainstream movies like Transformers, Spider-Man 3, Shrek 3, Pirates 3, Harry Potter, Bourne 3, etc. You had incredible smaller films like No Country for Old Men, There Will Be Blood, Jesse James, Before the Devil Knows You're Dead, Michael Clayton, 4 Months 3 Weeks 2 Days, etc.
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Concert Sales Aren't Tanking Either (Score:5, Insightful)
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I want people to make good movies, not movies that are designed to only be viewable on a theater screen to prevent rampant piracy.
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you can't beat the rush when the crowd gets behind you... I play Bass... I just love it when the audience are enjoying themselves...
Oh... (Score:3, Funny)
Income break-up:
- Cinema licenses: 5%
- TV licenses: 25%
- DVD sales: 10%
- Litigation: 60%
Y'all don't understand... (Score:2)
No one with a brain would dispute that "piracy" has some negative effect on their bottom line. The context is "how much of an effect" and "how does that relate proportionally to overall profits?" The MPAA would have you believe that online file sharing is putting the industry at death's door -- hardly. Similarly, the oil industry will tell you that they cannot moderate pump prices a bit to help out the middle class and the overall economy even though every year brings them ever increasing record-setting pro
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"Of course, individuals fall into that same trap. If you make $25,000 a year, you want $50K. If you make $100K, you want $200K."
I can agree that wanting 200k when one makes 100K could well be greed. However, I think wanting 50k rather than 25 is likely more about attaining a decent standard of living than about trying to swaddle oneself in luxury. In some places, the difference between 25K and 50K is the difference betwe
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Amazing... (Score:2)
No profit from me! (Score:2)
They should declare "mission accomplished" (Score:2)
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
False dichotomy (Score:2)
Not saying that that's the case, just that as usual things are nowhere near as black and white as some people try to paint them.
strike (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
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Or perhaps it's merely good business in the midst of the borderline-retarded masses. Hell, Norbit made around $159m in the theater with an additional $42m in DVD sales. Why put forth the effort to make a great movie when you can heap steaming piles of shit into a movie theater and make tons of cash?
Oh and on a side-note, it's one thing to get duped into seeing a shitty movie in the theater.
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Except this isn't shoplifting so much as buying the cheap Chinese ripoff version.
You see, shoplifting actually removes the item from the store. No matter how bad piracy gets, if the original item has any value, there's still a chance to sell it.
It's a good point, but you need a better analogy.
Re:Get a fucking job! (Score:5, Insightful)
I hate parasites like you that refuse to pay for what they use.
(Same AC)
You must really hate yourself, for you don't appear to be a subscriber here on /.
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I'll always be able to make my own music and who really needs movies when you have music and friends?
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You want her to stop pirating? Pay her better. Pass some minimum wage laws that will actually allow a family to survive.
People like you make me sick.
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Maybe