Hollywood Keeps Breaking Box Office Records… While Still Insisting That The Internet Is Killing Movies
from the because-if-the-story-sounds-good,-why-bother-with-the-facts dept
Hollywood is still 100% focused on trying to blame the internet for any of its woes, mostly with bogus attacks on internet companies it doesn’t like. And yet… it seems to keep on setting box office records. The latest is that Universal Pictures has broken a new record in bringing in $2 billion in box office revenue faster than any other studio in history, pushed over the top by the successful opening weekend of “Straight Outta Compton” (a movie that seems to have some big fans in Silicon Valley).
Thanks to the overperformance of N.W.A biopic ?Straight Outta Compton,? Universal Pictures is tracking to cross the $2 billion mark at the domestic box office on Saturday, setting a new speed record in doing so.
Universal?s historic climb will break Warner Bros.? previous record of reaching $2 billion by December 25, 2009. The studio is also extremely likely to break the record for all-time domestic box office high, which was set by WB in 2009 with $2.1 billion.
That does not sound like an industry that is having a problem getting people into the theaters, even if the movies are available via infringement. But, people will argue, these services are actually harming the “home video” revenue stream. But that’s questionable as well. First off, it was Hollywood that angrily fought against ever allowing a home video market in the first place (remember that?). And, more to the point, we’ve seen over and over again that when the industry actually adapts and offers content in a reasonable format at a reasonable fee, people will pay at home, just like they do in theaters.
But, of course, due to continued Hollywood confusion and jealousy, it’s still holding back lots of movies from Netflix streaming — one successful service that has shown that it’s totally possible to “compete” with infringing content.
So, again, it’s confusing as to what Hollywood’s real complaint is. It’s shown that if it makes good films, people will go out to the theaters to see them, rather than just watch them online. And if it offers them in a reasonable manner for a reasonable price online, people will pay for that as well. And yet, it doesn’t do a very good job of this and then blames the internet for its own failures to adapt. Seems like a weird strategy. If I were an investor in those companies, I’d wonder why they’ve spent the better part of two decades so focused on “stopping piracy” rather than doing a better job delivering what the public wants.
Filed Under: adapting, box office, business models, hollywood, internet, movies, records
Companies: netflix, universal pictures
Comments on “Hollywood Keeps Breaking Box Office Records… While Still Insisting That The Internet Is Killing Movies”
But if it wasn't for piracy
It would be like 20 billion per year!
Re: But if it wasn't for piracy
You mean 20 billion per movie I guess.
Some 7 billion people on the planet each going to the cinema and the studio ends up with some $3 per person…
Copyright Math!
Re: Re: But if it wasn't for piracy
forgot the link:
Rob Reid: The $8 billion iPod
https://youtu.be/GZadCj8O1-0
Re: Re: Re: Damage calculations
Now to calculate damages correctly, we can apply several models.
Suppose somebody has put a song illegally onto the internet, and some other people might have downloaded it.
a) We calculate damages from the actual amount of people who downloaded it, and multiply it with the sales price. Yes, the people who had downloaded it might also put it onto the internet illegally, but then these people violate copyright, and not that somebody that put it initially there. So these need to be sued separately. This has a further problem that it’s very hard to quantify if using peer2peer technology, but we could divide the outgoing peer2peer traffic of the file by the size of it, and get a number. Probably something like 20, multiplied by $1.
b) We deem the first person to put it up illegally to be responsible for all the infringement that might arise further down. Since we don’t sue everyone else, we don’t have any numbers who might have re-published it, and whether they’ve even republished it. With peer2peer, we can at least assume they’ve republished it illegally. So we could take the above figure and assume that everyone republished it 20 times. So this would end up at something around $400 for the above example. Now, since bandwidth is finite, sharing multiple songs and other materials would probably lead to smaller amounts of the work being sent out illegally, so a whole album might be sent out only 5 times at all, so this still wouldn’t amount to a lot, maybe 5x5x$12 = $300 for the above example.
Obviously, it’s rather difficult to even get exact traffic stats, and they also could be inflated artificially by the rights holder himself, this is probably not the right way to do it.
We could instead base the whole damages upon something else:
c) The amount of people that could have bought the song, if it hadn’t been made available illegally. As it happens, the number is 0. Because those people spent their money somewhere else in the economy: The bought coffee, computer games, went to the movies, etc. So that’s not really a good number, and we can’t discern people who didn’t buy the song but a cup of coffee instead, from the people who didn’t buy it because they bought a weeks food instead.
d) The amount of people who would have bought it, if it hadn’t been made available illegally. This is more interesting, but also hard to figure out. Obviously all fans would have bought it. You might get a ballpark figure of how many there are from homepages, social media and concerts. But it will probably be lower than the amount of songs already sold. You might use past sales, but then, you already have illegal copies in there, so these will be less than the possible amount. Probably the only way to find out is a survey and do statistics. Just ask a random set of people, worldwide, and ask them if they already bought, or would buy the song for $1. Which would be a huge effort.
But there still might be another way: Statistics on economy and spending.
e) Since the money not spent on paying for the song, the money was spent on something else. That “something else” is totally uninteresting if it’s food or housing or other necessities. It’s only interesting if money was spent on entertainment, and the amount happens to be known for a lot of countries. From this we can actually figure out the percentages for the different kinds of entertainment (in the US it’s around $1000 a year for audio, but including equipment), so we need the number spent for audio recordings alone. If we divide that number by the average total amount of audio recordings acquired within a year (from sources published legally and illegaly both, as well as free/open content/commons/public domain; probably needs a survey), this will give us a price somebody will actually pay for a song. (And now I’ve gotten lost on the damages part, but that price is in itself interesting, because it’s the price you want to sell your songs at).
Ah yes, we need to know what percentage of the population, on average, has a certain song. This will be rather low. Multiply that with the population times the price somebody will pay, you’ve got your damages.
Needed for (e) are surveys on the amount of songs acquired in a year, on average; and on the chance a song has to be among them, on average. But this actually sounds doable, at least in certain countries.
Why not make a movie about it?
If film piracy is such a big deal, why don’t they make a movie about it? They make movies about all sorts of other bad things.
If I google ‘movies about *’, I get a big black box up the top of the search results saying ‘Movies frequently mentioned on the web’:
‘Movies about terrorism’? Munich > United 93 > Iron Man > The Path to 9/11 > The Siege > Zero Dark Thirty > The Kingdom > True Lies > etc…
‘Movies about human trafficking’? Human Trafficking > Taken > Call + Response > Trade > The Whistleblower > Eden > Trading Women > Redlight > etc…
‘Movies about nuclear war’? The Day After > Threads > Dr. Strangelove > The War Game > Wargames > On the Beach > Failsafe > Testament > etc…
‘Movies about film piracy’?…nope, no black bar at the top of the search results.
…Actually, I don’t know if there’s ANY films about movie piracy, black bar up the top of google searches or not. Or music piracy. Or ebook piracy. Or game piracy. Or anything digital piracy-ish.
Maybe it’s about time that we had a blockbuster that covers this very subject.
Re: Why not make a movie about it?
In early drafts of Back To The Future, Marty McFly was a video pirate. David Cronenberg’s classic Videodrome also deals with the subject somewhat, though that’s hardly a Hollywood production.
I can’t think of any movies directly about the subject, however. Good old fashioned piracy on the high seas, plenty, but nothing to do with the subject at hand.
Re: Re: Why not make a movie about it?
I can’t think of any movies directly about [video piracy], however. Good old fashioned piracy on the high seas, plenty, but nothing to do with the subject at hand.
How about both, from this segment of 1987’s ‘Amazon Women on the Moon’ — https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=7I5dVBezF9k
Re: Why not make a movie about it?
Do documentaries count as movies to you? Because TPB AFK was definitely about piracy.
Re: Re: Why not make a movie about it?
Last I checked, documentaries were movies.
Not made by Hollywood though.
Re: Re: Why not make a movie about it?
There’s also Alex Winter’s documentary Downloaded from a few years ago. But, few fictional movies dealing with the subject and certainly nothing from Hollywood, which I think was the point.
Anyway, I’m sure that if they did produce such a thing, it would have the same level of honesty and technical accuracy as their laughable propaganda videos, or pretty much anything dealing with hacking or the internet.
Understandable
Just look at those poor Hollywood stars. Starving in their small houses with their tiny gardens.
Even stars like Johnny Depp can’t afford a real privat island anymore, just some small island for $4m in Greece where he has to put aside some part of the beach for the public.
Can you imagine? People who download your movie because they can’t afford it share a beach with you? That must be torture!
I feel really sorry for those poor poor Hollywood people.
“Universal Pictures has broken a new record in bringing in $2 billion in box office revenue”
Although it’s stated in the quoted text, it’s worth emphasising that this is *domestic* revenue. Internationally, Jurassic World alone has taken $1.6 billion. Now, distribution and other factors might mean that a lot of that money is not going directly back to Universal, but the real figure is undoubtedly much higher than the domestic figure.
Re: Re:
What’s even more strange, is that using Hollywood accounting, these blockbusters never make a profit!
Re: Re: Re:
That’s not Hollywood accounting only but basic accounting.
Create a company that produces a thing, another company charges fees for that thing and the first company never makes profit.
That is not a bug, that is a feature of accounting.
Re: Re:
Distribution? Is Hollywood still sending out celluloid canisters when having an intern Dropbox the digital file to theatres would be so much more sensible. Aren’t theatres already just digital projection houses anyways? Better yet, let the consumer download it….
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Todays movies are shipped on ridiculoused DRMed hard drive. None of it passes through the internet.
Re: Re: Re:
Digital distribution is still distribution. Costs and inefficiencies nowadays will have other reason than the cost of the “print”, but you can bet your ass they still appear on their balance sheets.
“Better yet, let the consumer download it….”
Lots of people would happily pay if this were allowed. If they can’t make it to the theatre and they’re not allowed, many still do. Hence the article.
But…but…think of all the money stolen by Ubisoft!
The real complaint
The real complaint is that they do not have ultimate power over all they can see. As long as anybody else has any (perceived) benefit that they do not receive money for, the world is wrong.
This is the basic outlook of `supranational’ corporations (and the film studios are among them).
Re: The real failure is the social enginering of what we are allowed to see
I have a friend that owns a hundred acres of peach trees.
He told me ‘if I ever shipped a load of ripe peaches, they would be the last I would ever sell’.
Shelf-life dictates what we get to buy.
AND
My Godfather directed more than 140 films. Because the ‘Studios’ confiscated almost all of his work through ‘copyright’, almost no one will ever see but a few westerns.
7 Women?
Sergeant Rutledge?
Cheyenne Autumn?
The Horse Soldiers?
Gideon of Scotland Yard?
The Rising of the Moon?
Mogambo?
The Sun Shines Bright?
3 Godfathers?
The Fugitive?
December 7th?
The Battle of Midway?
The World Moves On?
Sex Hygiene (Academe Award)
Judge Priest?
The Informer?
Flesh?
The Grapes of Wrath?
The Hurricane?
Napoleon’s Barber?
Fortunately, the first film that John Wayne produced ‘The Angel And The Bad Man’ slipped away from Hollywood’s censers
Re: Re: The real failure is the social enginering of what we are allowed to see
I’ve seen about a third of those, so they’re not exactly lost.
Are they still cheating with their taxes?
Also releated, did that pedowood thing stopped or they still have the casting couch for little girls?
These people are insane, why do you expect them to be reasonable?
I just recently set up a home theater in my house. All the pleasure of the big screen with none of the annoying other people. I never have to go to the theater again.
And it’s 100% legal.
To the MPAA:
Piracy doesn’t kill your revenue – not watching your movies kills your revenue.
And yet, despite me not pirating the damn things you chalk your imaginary, box office-breaking “losses” up to piracy and demand laws on each and every device that I own, each and every brand I walk past on the street and every time someone celebrates their birthday.
Gee, can’t imagine why the average man on the street doesn’t care about copyright…
Re: To the MPAA:
Piracy doesn’t kill your revenue – not watching your movies kills your revenue.
No. “not paying for your movies kills your revenue”. It doesn’t matter whether I don’t buy the blueray or don’t go to a theatre, or don’t pay for a download. It’s all the same. Whether I’m still watching the movie, or a different movie, or read a book, doesn’t matter at all.
Or to put it differently: You only get revenue from me, if you get me to pay for your movie. This means:
– Offer something I like
– At a point in time I like
– To a price I’m willing to pay
– Without mistreating me (like: searching me for cameras, or putting DRM onto your products etc.)
It’s simple. http://www.gog.com/ can do it for computer games, you could do it for movies just as easy.
Re: Re: To the MPAA:
No. “not paying for your movies kills your revenue”. It doesn’t matter whether I don’t buy the blueray or don’t go to a theatre, or don’t pay for a download.
The studios are actually better off if you watch it without paying – even illegally – than if you don’t watch it at all. Though you’ll never hear them admit that.
Please
Two billion? If it weren’t for the filthy pirates, that would have been two trillion. Per day. For each movie.
Don’t you see, piracy has been responsible for single-handedly removing trillions of dollars from the global economy on a monthly basis. Every single person on earth would be rolling in wealth were it not for piracy and the devastating effects it has on the economy!
/poe
I just wish they would make a movie that was worth the damn bandwidth to actually steal. All my torrents are crap… Come to think of it, if they started making movies worth a shit, instead of the 8th remake of some dumb ass superhero move, I might actually consider it worth more than just my bandwidth and go see it in the fucking theater…
Re: Re:
This is probably the weakest argument anyone can have on this subject. If you honestly don’t enjoy any of the movies you’re pirating, why bother? Find non-Hollywood, non-blockbuster movies to watch, or find another entertainment medium that you do actually enjoy. Hollywood aren’t going to change their output based on the opinions of people who aren’t their customers, while you’re giving them ammunition to make worse products for those of us who do pay.
Re: Re: Re:
LOL. Don’t fall off that horse guys, its a long way to the ground. I was making fun of the pirates and the movie studios at the same time… I see my sarcasm was completely missed.
Re: Re: Re: Re:
“I see my sarcasm was completely missed.”
Poe’s Law. There are people who really do think like that. The rest of us are just tired of them being held up as the reason for forcing DRM, region restrictions, high prices, fragmented marketplaces, etc. onto people who don’t, especially when there’s enough of the latter to bring them record profits to begin with.
Re: Re: Re:2 Re:
Yeah, I suppose there are people out there that think like that. In my mind, it shouldn’t matter. The solution seems so simple to the people on the outside looking in….. it’s quite frustrating to be honest.
These “Pirates” are begging to be turned into customers. Look past the “I want it for free” mentality, and look at the underlying issues. The pot of gold is right in front of them and they are too stupid, stubborn, and short sighted to see it.
I used to torrent games… My problem was never money, it was the platform. I would scratch my disks and poof, had to drop another 50 bucks. Steam came along, saw the need, and I’ve never looked back. I can’t tell you when the last time I pirated a game, and it’s not because I’m afraid of getting caught or anything the game studio’s did with warnings or threats, it’s because the need to do so is gone.
Re: Re:
If the movies are rubbish, then stop downloading them. Spend your time and money on better stuff, and forget them and their crap movies.
Re: Re: Re:
I’m a gamer, I could give a fuck about stupid movies, I make my own.. I was making fun of pirates and the studios both, apparently I should have added a /s tag.
Re: Re:
My point was; If the studios really want to destroy piracy they need to stop fighting the pirates. Either service the pirates in a way in which they will willingly become customers using a unique and awesome movie experience or with a platform (Steam for example) that makes it easy, affordable, and fun. Either do that, or shut the fuck up with the complaining… this whole “We can stuff the Genie back into the bottle if we scare/attack the pirates” is just stupid, and makes about as much since as my first post.
Re: Re: Re:
Either service the pirates in a way in which they will willingly become customers using a unique and awesome movie experience or with a platform (Steam for example) that makes it easy, affordable, and fun.
The frustrating thing is, there’s already such a platform: Netflix. The problem (from the studio perspective) is that they don’t control it. (yes I know there are others)
Re: Re: Re: Re:
They don’t need to control it, they just need to control how much money they make from it.
Re: Re: Re:2 Re:
I’m not sure that’s true. They could make more money than they are now by giving up some control, but they’re not doing that. Either they don’t realize this, or they’re not willing to make that tradeoff. I think it’s the latter.
Re: Re: Re:3 Re:
They don’t need to control Netflix because licensing a movie to Netflix isn’t giving up control. What they can’t control is what Netflix pays. Obviously, Netflix isn’t a company that just rolls over and gives them whatever they want. They actually have to deal on price and it’s not worth it to them – except for a lot of stuff they feel isn’t worth bargaining over.
non-sequitur concept
There’s no such thing as “enough money” – that’s basic corporate governance. The question is, do the expenditures to stop “piracy” exceed the losses from that activity? If we can demonstrate the program costs, including campaign contributions, exceed the losses – maybe the stockholders will make them stop.
Re: non-sequitur concept
The problem is that the losses from piracy are not realistically quantifiable, nor are losses from their business models (e.g. windowing).
For example, if a person pirates a movie, there’s no way to know what their action would have been had the pirated copy not been available. Would they have gone to the cinema to see it? Would they have waited for the DVD release? Would they have waited for it to be on Netflix or in a $5 bargain bin, or simply borrowed a copy from a friend? There’s no way to really quantify that, just as there’s no way to quantify how many people did pirate but then ended up spending money afterwards anyway (e.g. someone who couldn’t make it to the cinema but then pre-orders the Blu – I know at least 2 people who did this with Mad Max: Fury Road).
There’s a lot of factors involved, and unless you make the most obvious but clearly incorrect assumptions (e.g., the oft-debunked “every download is a lost sale at full retail price”), you can’t show solid figures on what’s been “lost”. Thus, the argument continues because any lost revenue, real or imagined, automatically because about piracy rather than bad product, bad advertising, unavailability of product due to windowing, etc. The shareholders are being told “our movie tanked because of piracy” not “we released a terrible movie on the same day our rivals released the best reviewed blockbuster of the year” or “our rules state we have to make people in country X wait 6 months for no apparent reason and people had already seen it by then”.
Remake VS Original
Why Pay more for something you can get for pennies.
why has “Stranger in a strange land” never been on film?
it’s a 50’s book that started the 60’s sexual revolution.
it’s also a great story.
Re: Remake VS Original
I can only imagine how horrible that film would be.
See: “Starship Troopers” (1997)
Re: Re: Remake VS Original
Starship Troopers is an awesome movie. I watch it about once every two years. It had scarce to do with the source material, but it was still so bad it was good.
I’d prefer to see the Moon is a Harsh Mistress as a movie though.
Re: Re: Remake VS Original
“Starship Troopers” may not be a great adaptation of the book, but it’s a pretty great movie – which is much more important than being a great adaptation of a book,
Re: Re: Remake VS Original
I dunno, I like that movie. I don’t really think of it as an adaptation of the book, but an independent work that is loosely based on the book.
Re: Re: Re: Remake VS Original
I love Starship Troopers, but I’ve never read the book. As a fan of Verhoeven’s style, I can enjoy the broad satire and intentional ridiculousness, though I can appreciate why fans of the apparently more straightforward book would be disappointed.
Warning before movies
I saw a movie on DVD a few days ago. It had the warning “piracy is not a victimless crime” (I might have gotten the exact wording slightly off). I actually agreed with that warning, though for an entirely different reason: Hollywood assumes that it isn’t victimless and is therefore a crime, whereas from what I’ve seen, it is victimless and therefore shouldn’t be a crime.
Re: Warning before movies
If we’re going to have a Piracy warning at the start of movies, how about requiring a Hollywood Accounting at the start of movies so that audiences can know that little to none of the vast amounts of money they are paying are going to some of the people who deserve a bigger cut of it.
Re: Warning before movies
I saw a movie about 15 years ago. it was ok.
Re: Warning before movies
Piracy is actually a crime:
“Any illegal acts of violence or detention, or any act of depredation, committed for private ends by the crew or the passengers of a private ship or a private aircraft, and directed on the high seas, against another ship or aircraft, or against persons or property on board such ship or aircraft (or) against a ship, aircraft, persons or property in a place outside the jurisdiction of any state”
However, copyright infringement is not; it’s civil law, not criminal law (except in some countries where real criminals wrote the law).
Re: Re: Warning before movies
However, copyright infringement is not; it’s civil law, not criminal law (except in some countries where real criminals wrote the law).
Such as the US I suppose (some copyright infringement in the US is criminal).
One factor inflation, ticket prices go up so,
a film can break records and make millions cos a a movie ticket is 10 dollars vs 5 dollars in the 80s .
many movies are released in a few theatres they make money
from netflix,dvd sales , amazon ,itunes downloads .
This is about control ,the mpaa and riaa will bring in any laws they can sopa ,etc even if it breaks the web .
Many american services vod, streaming channels are not avaidable outside america .
many people prefer watching films on a large tv at home ,subscribe to netflix or watch on bbc or sky tv europe,
satellite tv.
They have given up renting or buying dvd,s .
Its alot cheaper to subscribe to netflix or a movie channel than buy dozens of dvds .
Re: Re:
“One factor inflation, ticket prices go up so, a film can break records and make millions cos a a movie ticket is 10 dollars vs 5 dollars in the 80s .”
So? By definition in that case, they’ve increased their revenue even if they’re doing so from a smaller number of ticket sales. In fact, this is by design, as one of the reasons for pushing things like 3D and digital projection is to allow them to charge more money for a lower long term overhead – even as many audience members feel they get a lower quality product as a result.
The amount by which a ticket price has risen can be overstated (see http://www.boxofficemojo.com/yearly/) – it’s certainly more than the 80s, but so is everything. Also, attendance is down compared to a peak in the early 2000s, but there’s actually more tickets being sold than in the 80s. On top of that, there’s more movies to watch in theatres. OK, there may be a lot of short run and limited releases included in that, but most of those films are using it as a marketing tactic rather than trying to break even on cinema tickets alone. That’s not a bad thing.
“They have given up renting or buying dvd,s .
Its alot cheaper to subscribe to netflix or a movie channel than buy dozens of dvds”
Now, here you have an actual point, but as you note, it’s got nothing to do with piracy. There was a time where it could be almost as cheap to buy a new release DVD as it would be to rent a couple of times, especially when late fees, large store using them as loss leaders and other factors were considered. But today, most general audiences have realised they don’t watch them enough to justify the prices after all, especially when there’s Netflix and other services around. They’re also lost a part of the market like myself, film fans who love to see documentaries, commentaries, etc. but got tired of being double and triple dipped. I tend to restrict myself to carefully considered purchases rather than buying a bunch of discs at once that lose resale value immediately and may take me a while to even watch.
Re: Re: Re:
…ticket price has risen…attendance is down…there’s actually more tickets being sold…
And that’s my pet peeve with all such ‘best selling movie’ lists: what’s the measuring metric?
Here’s a good example: I’m old enough to remember when Star Wars (now known as Episode 4: A New Hope) came out. Only one theater in the whole county showed it; only 6 in the whole state. When The Empire Strikes Back came out the same pattern repeated: 1 theater in my county (the same one in fact), 6 in the state. Then Return Of The Jedi came out and guess what: 20 theaters in my county showed it; I don’t know how many in the state but it was certainly a lot more than 6. So naturally the headlines the next week: Return Of The Jedi’s gross stomps everybody, including it’s 2 predecessors. DUH! 20 theaters showing the same movie will produce a bigger gross than 1 theater.
Price of tickets? Yep that’s changed. Gone With The Wind and Ben Hur were successful presentations in their day but rarely show up on any current list without price factoring.
Number of available screens and seats? That’s changed, too. Today there might be more screens and seats, but that’s because most theaters today are ‘multiplex’ theaters. It’s rare today to find a theater with only one screen and drive-in theaters are all but extinct. So number of tickets sold is not always a good metric: a movie being shown on 100 screens might sell more tickets than a movie being shown on 1000 screens.
Re: Re: Re: Re:
“And that’s my pet peeve with all such ‘best selling movie’ lists: what’s the measuring metric?”
Depend on the one you look at.
http://www.boxofficemojo.com/alltime/
On that page, there’s domestic (purely box office grosses in the US), international (grosses worldwide) and adjusted for inflation (essentially ticket sales, I believe, although this does appear to be domestic only).
According to the latter, Gone With The Wind has remained #1 forever. The first two, of course, will always have newer blockbusters higher in the charts as ticket prices are higher.
There’s always imbalances. The adjusted chart tends to include re-releases, for example.
I’m not sure which metric you’d prefer, but I think every metric is flawed – that’s why I try look look at several.
Solutions to Record Breaking motion pictures
Dear RIAA: Convert the music on those records into convenient, downloadable mp3 format, and you won’t have to worry about the MPAA’s motion pictures breaking records.
I’m not sure what can be done about the other kind of record breaking motion pictures. Specifically, the kind of motion pictures that are so bad that you are enraged at how much you paid to see an overhyped movie, and resort to breaking records to express your frustration.
Finally, if we are talking about movies bringing in money which exceeds that of past box office receipts, then someone should be screaming about Hollywood Accounting.
Is making movies profitable yet? They keep claiming that it isn’t. Perhaps they should stop making movies.
The "doomed dinosaurs" in Hollywood are actually STILL doing well, eh? Then YOU have been wrong about them fading!
“So, again, it’s confusing as to what Hollywood’s real complaint is.” — Only to YOU. Hollywood doesn’t like people stealing its content, especially not freely distributed to hundreds or thousands, and even less if “monetized” by greasy grifters. Movies are funded on the premise of being exciting enough to get numbers of viewers high enough to turn the profit corner. Piracy can prevent that. (Don’t argue, since stated you’re confused.)
“It’s shown that if it makes good films, people will go out to the theaters to see them, rather than just watch them online.” — Ha, ha. “Good films”!? Only to you kids steeped in violence and ‘splosions. Let’s stick to “attractive” as neutral adjective. But anyway, people have been watching movies for over a hundred years, and their drawing power comes as revelation to YOU?
“And if it offers them in a reasonable manner for a reasonable price online, people will pay for that as well.” — First, online has really only been possible for last ten years, depending on location. 2nd, this too is a revelation? 3rd, PAYING HAS ALWAYS BEEN THE ESSENTIAL POINT. 4th, This is only possible after hammered piracy down to “reasonable” levels.
“And yet, it doesn’t do a very good job of this and then blames the internet for its own failures to adapt.” — No business can “adapt” to theft, so RIGHTLY BLAME PIRATES. Widespread piracy prevents confidence to make huge investments in either production or distribution. — Pirates do a good job at stealing, then blame the industry for worrying about their thefts!
Yet another piece in which a few simple reversals put matters right. That’s because Masnick switched and blithely claims as obvious what he’s previously denied.
Re: The
Wow! This is brilliant! “PAYING HAS ALWAYS BEEN THE ESSENTIAL POINT.”
Re: The "doomed dinosaurs" in Hollywood are actually STILL doing well, eh? Then YOU have been wrong about them fading!
So what you saying is, Like ice harvesting, producing hollywood entertainment is no longer a viable industry. They should just go away like the ice harvesters and everyone will be happy.
Re: Re: The "doomed dinosaurs" in Hollywood are actually STILL doing well, eh? Then YOU have been wrong about them fading!
I liked that movie, though. And actually bought it. /s
Re: The "doomed dinosaurs" in Hollywood are actually STILL doing well, eh? Then YOU have been wrong about them fading!
“No business can “adapt” to theft, so RIGHTLY BLAME PIRATES.”
The above statement is why you’ll be playing whack a mole until the end of time. You would rather call your customer base thief’s and assign blame, than address the underlying issues regarding why they do what they do in the first place. It’s like thinking that building more prisons will solve our overpopulated prison problem.
Forest for the tree’s you tool.
Re: Re: @ "call your customer base thief's and assign blame,"
PIRATES ARE NOT CUSTOMERS. Sheesh.
And learn how to spell “thieves”. You make pirates look stupid besides criminal.
Re: Re: Re: @ "call your customer base thief's and assign blame,"
“PIRATES ARE NOT CUSTOMERS.”
Well, they never will be if you refuse to actually address the reason why they’re pirating. No, “it’s available” is not the primary reason nor is “it’s free”.
“You make pirates look stupid besides criminal.”
Whereas you make the studios look desperate. If this is the best quality shill they can get, they’re never going to get the message across.
As ever, I’ll be over here >>> legally paying for content despite your industry’s best attempts to stop me. It just won’t necessarily be MPAA provided content.
Re: Re: Re: @ "call your customer base thief's and assign blame,"
With that kind of attitude, why would even non-pirates want to be your customers?
Re: Re: Re: @ "call your customer base thief's and assign blame,"
“PIRATES ARE NOT CUSTOMERS”
…he says while blindly ignoring multiple studies that show that pirates are in fact damn good customers.
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“Wrong about them fading”
“No business can adapt to theft”
Make up your damn mind! Are they fading or not? Are they adapting or not?
It’s like you copyright fanboys were born with your heads stuck up your ass.
Enjoy your DMCA vote chucklefuck!
Re: The "doomed dinosaurs" in Hollywood are actually STILL doing well, eh? Then YOU have been wrong about them fading!
“The “doomed dinosaurs” in Hollywood are actually STILL doing well, eh? Then YOU have been wrong about them fading!”
Ah, I see the problem. You’re addressing the fictional strawman reality you set up in your own head where the people here have been saying such things, and where the people discussing them are “pirates”.
In fact, in the real world, it’s the MPAA who have been whining about dropping profits and falling revenue while the paying customers here have been trying to suggest ways in which they can increase their revenue and expand their market. We just prefer it be without trying to destroy the internet, reduce their content’s value, attack said paying customers or any of the other things you’ve been supporting. Especially where there are demonstrable areas where poor product and poor word of mouth have lowered profits (the recent Fantastic Four reboot), while there are plenty of examples of piracy being reduced simply by having decent legal options available. What form these taken have changed massively over the years, so it seems a little strange that you oppose any improvement to what’s being offered.
Oh, and a quick style suggestion – if you left out the outright lies, personal attacks and other meandering rubbish that you included here, not only would have saved about 2/3rds of your typing, but you’d have avoided giving the impression that you’re an obsessed child. That would get you taken seriously instead of mocked.
I hope that clears things up!
Re: The "doomed dinosaurs" in Hollywood are actually STILL doing well, eh? Then YOU have been wrong about them fading!
More pigeon english from your fevered brain.
Re: The "doomed dinosaurs" in Hollywood are actually STILL doing well, eh? Then YOU have been wrong about them fading!
I’m sorry no one can hear you bitching over the sound of all the money Hollywood is making.
Re: The "doomed dinosaurs" in Hollywood are actually STILL doing well, eh? Then YOU have been wrong about them fading!
I noticed today you didn’t use the term “pirate-fanboy” – did you forget, or turn 13?
Hollywood isn’t the only one impacted by piracy, but they make a good whipping boy for you don’t they?
You’re deluded if you don’t believe that content theft doesn’t negatively impact musicians, filmmakers, authors, etc.
You justify piracy at every turn and it’s growing old. It’s just stealing.
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The accounting practices of the studios, labels and publishers is just legalised stealing from those who do the actual creation.
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For all the “stealing” you allege is happening Hollywood is somehow magically making more money. Any stealing is not going to magically make more of what’s being supposedly taken away.
Just because you’re not getting extra kickbacks from these profits doesn’t mean it’s the fault of the paying customer (or the person who chooses to do without), no matter how much you’d like it to be.
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But they have to compensate for all the piracy by making the films so much better than they used to be.
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Don’t forget corn farmers, “Mitch.”
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Ah that old chestnut, infringement= stealing. If I had a nickel for every time that’s been debunked…..
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You’re deluded if you think these articles justify piracy and/or there aren’t hundreds of articles here about issues that affect those other industries – most of which discuss ways to make piracy irrelevant (or at least as irrelevant as it was before the internet, despite you people trying to pretend it wasn’t an issue before Napster).
“It’s just stealing.”
No, it’s not, no matter many times you people try to redefine the words. If you can’t understand the very real, very pertinent reason why there are fundamental differences, then you’re arguing a strawman.
The latest is that Universal Pictures has broken a new record in bringing in $2 billion in box office revenue faster than any other studio in history […]
And if it wasn’t for the IRS, it would be $20 billion.
just make sure to celebrate this great success and conform
How dare those people in Hollywood make money. Making billions is something only the advertising companies of Silicon Valley are supposed to do.
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Well, those silcon valley peeps do have a better market place.
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How dare those people in Hollywood make money. Making billions is something only the advertising companies of Silicon Valley are supposed to do.
I’m all for them making money. I just don’t see why they feel the need to call customers and fans theives, hack away at the first amendment and try to block innovation in the process.
Do you?
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I think you’re confounding your “they”s Mike. Who is they? What is Hollywood?.
We all know the MPAA takes a strong dislike to piracy, but this isn’t the MPAA, it’s one studio, not even the largest, and it’s not “hollywood”.
Get your bogeymen in order, it’s getting tiring reading you. (though it’s like a train crash – you can’t turn away)
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Universal is a member of the MPAA. And yes… please stop reading.
Re: Re: Re:2 Re:
“Universal is a member of the MPAA.” duh, you think I don’t know that.
Being a part of something doesn’t make you “it”
Re: Re: Re:3 Re:
The MPAA is an organisation that represents the interests of its 6 members, which includes Universal. They have been a member since it was founded, and as far as I’m aware there’s no major internal disagreements of imbalance of power between the different members (though I’m sure there may be some, and I’d be fascinated if you have documentation of such).
Why would you believe the MPAA isn’t directly representing Universal’s interests as they see them? They must surely agree, especially since there’s so few other members being represented. Why would they remain if they didn’t agree?
I’m sure we can point to direct actions taken by Universal that are just as dangerous and counter-productive if you prefer, but I’m equally sure you’ll find some way to wave those away as ever.
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This is rich. Your original post cited Hollywood, and now you’re trying to make it not about them? You copyright fanboys will squirm, squirm, squirm your way out of anything, won’t you?
Re: Re: anerchy of change
An old friend (met her on the first Star Wars) worked in Hollywood, taught ‘film’ on a university level, than tossed in the preverbal towel & left this thieving town.
She just sold her mom & pop company for 1.5 bil.
Same audience, new business model.
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Um, I think the guy was being sarcastic, Mike.
Re: Re: Re: Re:
Um, I think the guy was being sarcastic, Mike.
He’s not. Trust me. I know. He’s completely serious. Same person who comments on all our copyright related stories, saying similar things.
Re: Re: Re:2 Re:
Well, the way he said what he did, he didn’t come off as serious to me at all, and I have a faulty sarcasm detector because I’m Autistic.
Re: Re: Re:3 Re:
Nah, don’t blame yourself, some of the people that post here are basically walking examples of Poe’s law. It can be incredibly difficult sometimes telling the difference between a legitimate post and one mocking them by trying to come across as crazy as possible.
When you’ve got people that off the rails, it can be all too easy to think, “No, they can’t be serious, that’s got to be a joke or sarcasm, right?”
Re: Re: Re:4 Re:
I wasn’t blaming myself, I was stating the fact that I sometimes have trouble spotting sarcasm whilst never mistaking seriousness for obvious sarcasm unless someone says something serious in a sarcastic tone, which is what Mike is claiming someone did.
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“How dare those people in Hollywood make money.”
Reading comprehension fail. Again.
Your question, if you’d actually read and understood the article, should be “How dare they claim year after year that piracy is killing the movie industry, while revenues increase year after year”.
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And someone else misses the obvious sarcasm. XD
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And someone else misses the obvious sarcasm. XD
It is a sarcastic restatement of his perception of what Mike wrote. He is claiming that this article promotes the idea that Hollywood studios should not be allowed to make any money, and he’s mocking that (fictional) idea. He’s constructed a nice little straw man, and is using sarcasm to attack it. JMT’s post was an attempt to explain what the article is actually saying.
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Fun fact: this is not a zero sum game, and there’s no reason both side can’t profit simultaneously. Apart from the studios’ constant attempts to make the technology (and thus their own products) less useful and valuable, of course.
But, we’ve been here before. Once Valenti stopped raving about the Boston Strangler and the industry embraced home video technology, both sides benefited massively. We’re just waiting for the raving and drooling to stop this time.
“M..muh six gorillion dollahs”
What Hollywood really wants...
For all I can understand, the answer is “control”.
They want the money of course, but they mostly want control because it makes things easier for them.
Control means they can decide who watches what, for how long and how much… This way they have an easier way making trends and directing the public away from a variety of offers into a few box office titles. It allows a smaller offer to provide a much higher ROI.
They don’t want to provide the public what it wants. They want the public to buy what they offer. Once again, their goal is definitely not “To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts” as written in the US Constitution… but to restrain it for their own profit.
So the idea is that they want to freeze the world into their “tried and proved” business model from the past 20-30 years.
That seems to be the logical conclusion coming from giving them a dictatorial power over individual pieces of our culture.
Re: What Hollywood really wants...
Agreed. Hollywood is, in fact, the Matrix. And it’s time we all woke up.
Much like Hollywood’s beloved movie and music flacks like the MPAA and RIAA love to scream how the sky is falling and tons of people in their industries are on the verge of being jobless or already jobless, the statistics prove other wise.
So it would safe to assume that much like Disney, the MPAA & RIAA like the world of make believe too.
daaaammmmnnnn!!!!!!
I don’t know how they dare claim that piracy is hurting them and, as said in the story, they fought against home entertainment with everything they had spending millions in bribes to various people and organisations, luckily for them it failed and they were forced to create a new revenue stream that brought them in new untold trillions over the years.
Now that the internet has freed media and made it, for a change, more beneficial to the consumer they cry piracy and theft.
This is like someone who steals your car suing you because you took it back.
I don’t care what happens to them as i will get the content i want however i want it but one thing that is pissing me off is that they refuse to allow netfix full access to their library, and that is only so they can create multiple websites demanding multiple payments for basically the same content with a few additions or subtractions, this is called fraud and the government should be stopping this right now.
They only make shit movies.
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Not true, but that’s beside ths issue.
Wait, I just figured out the true reason behind Hollywood accounting; Home Filming is Killing Movies. 😉
Industry losses in movies, books, music, etc. (I don’t play video games so I’m only going to assume the same of that field) are due to the industry pushing crap. The problem is that the amateurs aren’t producing anything of merit either. YouTube shows are as twee and insufferable as anything Nickelodeon or Disney churn out, because all three are targeted to the teen market which has always gobbled up crap like, well, kids gobble up candy.
Don’t even get me started on the glut of bodice rippers and sh!tty first drafts being spewed out in the Amazon self-publishing slush pile either. I’m going to have to give the major houses the edge on this one: Amazon doesn’t have a Picoult or a Grisham. It has Fifty Shades, and fifty million other wannabe Fifty Shades, not to mention fan fiction and the bizarre sign of the apocalypse that is “dinosaur erotica.” The gatekeepers may have let Twilight slip through (and did eventually pick up Fifty Shades), but there’s no way they’d hand over a contract to whatever attention-seeking hack wrote “Taken By the T-Rex” or any of those obsessive stalker novels about Rob Gronkowski.
As for television, well, TV has always been called the idiot box and for good reason. Occasionally you’ll get a MASH or a Seinfeld out of the mix, but for the most part it’s always been one-season wonders and inane ratings stunts. The franchise series is relatively new; yes, there was Maude, but you didn’t have 5 Law & Orders and a dozen CSIs and NCISes and other alphabet soup shows where a spinoff is spawned just by plunking a push pin into a spot on the map. What does Netflix have? Art-house women’s prison porn and a show about Kevin Spacey as a better president than anyone in the 2016 clown car could ever be. The rest is reality garbage and game shows.
So I don’t think it’s necessarily piracy that’s killing the industry so much as an industry that’s run out of ideas, both in the major studio (or publisher) machine and the DIY circuit. The core problem is that the public just isn’t very imaginative and nobody can exactly pinpoint what’s “good,” though we certainly have more than an idea of what’s awful. But BitTorrent has nothing to do with the fact that nobody with two brain cells to put together wants to fork over cash for Adam Sandler’s latest nonsense or for anything coming out of Amazon’s incoherent monkey room.
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I see where you’re going here, although it is the same boring “stop liking what I don’t like!” that too often crops up during these discussions.
This should be no surprise – Hollywood is primarily run by people with no interest in the art. They’re there to make money, and make “safe” investments. That means middle of the road, populist, inoffensive, generic. Sure, some break the mould, but this is the way Hollywood and every other mass market medium is run.
If their current trends don’t satisfy you, but they make a huge amount of money, then the current top 10 isn’t made for you. Look elsewhere, there’s great cinema being produced all the time. The same goes for any other medium – and it always has.
“he problem is that the amateurs aren’t producing anything of merit either. YouTube shows are as twee and insufferable as anything Nickelodeon or Disney churn out, because all three are targeted to the teen market”
You clearly watch different videos to me. Might I suggest not looking at the ones produced for a teen market?
“I’m going to have to give the major houses the edge on this one: Amazon doesn’t have a Picoult or a Grisham. It has Fifty Shades, and fifty million other wannabe Fifty Shades”
Erm, I’m not sure where the hell you were going with this one. Although they do have a publishing arm, they didn’t publish Fifty Shades. Being primarily a retailer, they most assuredly do have Picoult (and Grisham – a strange choice of an example for someone railing against generic populist fiction), among many thousands of other authors, ranging from the greatest literature ever written to trashy crap. This, again, is how things have always been, apart from the current ease of self-publishing potentially increasing the numbers.
“Occasionally you’ll get a MASH or a Seinfeld out of the mix, but for the most part it’s always been one-season wonders and inane ratings stunts.”
If it’s “always” been this way, what’s your sudden issue with it now?
“What does Netflix have? Art-house women’s prison porn and a show about Kevin Spacey as a better president than anyone in the 2016 clown car could ever be.”
Sure, if you want to cherry pick 2 things they produced out of a much larger selection, and a massive selection of available pre-existing content larger then you could ever watch. You don’t have to watch those things if you don’t like them.
“The rest is reality garbage and game shows.”
It’s also The Wire, Breaking Bad, Sons Of Anarchy, Justified, Louie, Silicon Valley, Hannibal, The Killing, True Detective, to name a few off the top of my head. Thanks to Netflix and similar services, I can’t remember the last time I was subjected to a reality, soap or game show. Because I choose not to.
“the fact that nobody with two brain cells to put together wants to fork over cash for Adam Sandler’s latest nonsense”
the fact that nobody with two brain cells to put together wants to fork over cash for Jerry Lewis’s latest nonsense
the fact that nobody with two brain cells to put together wants to fork over cash for the Three Stooges’s latest nonsense
You’re not only stuck on repeat, you’re repeating stuff from many decades ago… There’s plenty out there if you dislike that particular actor. If his films are successful despite your distaste for him, watch something else.
“anything coming out of Amazon’s incoherent monkey room”
What, specifically, do you have against this particular retailer? Why are you expecting a “coherent” set of offerings from a store who don’t produce 99% of the things they sell?
You have a funny way of looking at math
Big blockbusters still make money. What has indeed been decimated is smaller films, which depended on home video, and that is a sad loss.
The wealth of adult oriented but still reasonably budgeted fare, like the many classic thrillers of the 1990s ,have now been killed off by piracy. Now we have gigantic comic book films and no-money indies. These indies have budgets so small there isn’t even an economically feasible way to spend much time refining the script – not unless you have rich parents.
Speaking of feature scriptwriting, that entire trade has been decimated. it doesn’t take many writers to work on the small handful of studio films that are released now that home video has been largely eaten by pirates. and writing for indies is not a real paying job.
There is no way to measure how many wonderful films would now be part of cultural history, but are not, because of piracy.
Netflix pays crappy amounts fo money for features, and that;s the simple reason why Hollywood does not want to sell to them. And.. Once your film is on Netflix, it is worth about $0 everywhere else.
Please learn something about our business before commenting on it so “knowingly”.
Re: You have a funny way of looking at math
Big blockbusters still make money. What has indeed been decimated is smaller films, which depended on home video, and that is a sad loss.
The wealth of adult oriented but still reasonably budgeted fare, like the many classic thrillers of the 1990s ,have now been killed off by piracy. Now we have gigantic comic book films and no-money indies. These indies have budgets so small there isn’t even an economically feasible way to spend much time refining the script – not unless you have rich parents.
If this were true, we’d be seeing a corresponding decline in movie releases — but we’re not. In fact, year by year the number of movies released goes up. 2015 was a huge leap from 2014, with well over 2000 films released, according to Nash Information Services.
There is no way to measure how many wonderful films would now be part of cultural history, but are not, because of piracy.
Why do you blame piracy? Again, the numbers show that the most pirated films are also the most successful films, suggesting that piracy isn’t necessarily harming films. Meanwhile, services like Netflix have shown that people are absolutely willing to pay for movies. And things like Kickstarter are funding more and more films outside of the old studio system.
The market has changed in that the big studios no longer control all the gates, but there are a wealth of new films out there.
Please learn something about our business before commenting on it so “knowingly”.
I might suggest the same for you. Thanks for commenting, though.