MPAA Fears Economic Downturn Will Boost Piracy
Written by Ernesto on December 15, 2008Following the banks and the car companies, the movie industry might be the next to be hit by the economic downturn. No bail-out plan has been suggested as of yet, but MPAA chairman Dan Glickman is worried that piracy will grow to a new high during the current financial crisis - and he might just have a point there.
If everything the MPAA said was true actually turned out to be true, the movie industry would have been bankrupt years ago. In 2005 the organization funded a study which claimed that in the US alone, over $6 billion was lost to MPAA members due to piracy. However, the figures and data behind those claims have never been publicly released, and it later became apparent that they were not completely accurate.
In fact, earlier this year the MPAA had to release a statement saying ‘they made a mistake’ in the figures. Nevertheless, the $6 billion figure in question has been quoted a lot, with MPAA chairman Dan Glickman still using it in almost every public talk, to convince his listeners of the seriousness of the ‘piracy’ issue. According to the MPAA there is more bad weather ahead, as it is now worried that piracy might flourish in the current financial climate.
“If you look at the situation, the current economic crisis makes this problem much more serious than before,” Glickman said recently at a forum, adding, “If we don’t protect IPR (intellectual property rights), our economic losses will be far worse.” The MPAA will of course leave no excuse unused to justify its anti-piracy measures, nothing new there. Although there are no studies that show how illegal downloads actually affect sales at the box office, there has been a significant bump in the number of BitTorrent users recently.
One should always be cautious to interpret these two events as having a causal relationship. However, after several months of relatively slow growth, BitTorrent sites have seen a dramatic increase in visitor numbers this fall. Since September, the number of peers tracked by The Pirate Bay has nearly doubled from 14 million in early September, to 25 million now. Other BitTorrent sites such as Mininova, Torrentz and BTjunkie report an increase in downloads, searches and web traffic, ranging from 25 to 50 percent over the same time frame.
This increase, even if it is directly related to the economic downturn, is not necessarily linked with a drop in box office grosses or DVD sales. ‘The Dark Knight’, which is the most downloaded movie on BitTorrent in 2008 sold millions of DVDs, and grossed a record breaking billion dollars in cinemas worldwide. That does not really sound like a ‘bad year’ to us.
Previously: Top 10 Most Pirated Movies on BitTorrent
Next: UK TV/Film Stars Urge ISPs to Stop Piracy
70 Responses
The answer seems to be that they should reduce the price of DVDs so that people can still afford to buy them…
The key point is if bit torrent was fully used by the MPAA as a distribution channel, and the money paid directly to the content producers (ie product placement) the economic loss would be non existent. The only reason the numbers are as high as they claim is because they include competitive distribution methodologies (theater, DVD, TV) in the revenue totals.
It is insane to include income eliminated from fair market competition in “losses” genrated by piracy.
+1 to #1
Maybe they should finally embrace BT and they would make lots of Money from Ads and all
ALL AUSTRALIANS: DECEMBER 13 SYDNEY AND MELBOURNE PROTEST AGAINST PUNK PRIME SPINSTER FILTERING
good work lol
Australian Sex Party FTW!!
Viva la Pirat’ Byran
none new here people they say this so they can lobby in some new laws when the new president comes in every year no matter how good they do they allways cry about piracy.
It’s over 6 billlllion!
#1 got it bang on.
Just another excuse and way to make a statement to get “their word out there”.
Next its going to be: studies have shown other than a spike in births reported the full moon also usually shows a spike in piracy.
Just plain silly, now that they have a scapegoat in “piracy” they are banging it as hard as possible and as often as possible to use it to pass harsher and tougher laws.. like whats already there is not overly severe already.
Greedy pigs.
The “Economic Downturn” should have learned them a lesson.
Dont put your money into black holes ! RIAA your are wasting money !
Uh, MeepMeep, this is the MPAA we’re talking about here, and yes I do agree with people saying the price of DVDs should be cheaper. The Dark Knight is selling like hotcakes for being the most pirated movie ever, so it proves that people just want good movies, piracy or not, if it’s good people will buy it.
Don’t worry MPAA. I’ll download as much as I can.
the answer is even simpler than that. the mpaa should be done away with; or real institutions should stop listening to the ramblings of a group of lobbyist idiots with _no_ real discernible power.
the only reason why the mpaa can do anything is because they pay for the privilege. it’s a corrupt organization akin to the mafia.
but, for some reason, they can talk their way into getting what they want.
Certainly hope it does.
Glickman’s crying the blues? Give me a break. Historically speaking, hard economic times have ALWAYS boosted movie revenues.
For Glickman to be pointing the FUD finger at filesharing while the MPAA reaps record profits- that pretty much defines evil.
That’s like Cheney evil.
“Every download is a lost customer.”
That’s how they’ve always interpret things, and why would it change?
@16 Facists only realise the light at death
and #24 is crazy
Although it makes no difference since I dont buy there crap anyway, Im sick and tired of every stupid f*cking company putting the load on the worker or customer. Oh prices went up, that means we gotta FIRE people or raise our price or do this or do that..
F*CK YOU.
You better believe im gonna take the heat right back to the company, because everything falls on the WORKING man, while the executives still live there life of luxury.
I work very hard, yet my life isnt cushy like these cigar smoking fat cats, and you better believe il pirate on that reason alone, forget about the other million reasons i have.
@14 Aiming your comments at a post yet to come?
Scary!
WHAT?
Oh sorry Glickman.. i cant hear you over all the downloading im doing..
i think that piracy is a great thing expecially for a 16 year old like me who has neither the facilitys or the money to buy films. the MPAA are basically saying i cant enjoy all the films i have every right to watch. take off the film rating system if u wanna cut piracy, saying a film cant be viewed by people a certain age is bollocks.
aiel8.. although i like to think in the same sorta way.. in this case your just flat out wrong.
Lets just pretend the ratings are perfect (as far as content), just so thats not part of the argument.
I fully understand that for 16 you may be way above your age group, i sure was.. but just think of all the morons out there that are not.. the rating system is to protect against underage retards playing video games there not ready for maturity wise.
But you do have a point in the sense that there age thing doesnt make alot of sense these days.. for example when your 18 you can do EVERYTHING but drink.. how does that make sense.
@20 aiel8
yeah true! age restrictions were the reason i got into piracy in the first place. i had never even though about downloading stuff because it was like a far away world i only knew from magazines. but couldn’t buy all the great stuff because of age restrictions (and where i live at there’s also heavy censorship so even if i asked a friend to buy it for me i wouldn’t get the real thing) then i though ”hey that other guy i know is always downloading … can’t be that hard” so i asked him and it was really friggin easy so i kept doing it. well some way along the road you give up that ”only for getting stuff i couldn’t get otherwise” mentality and now i’m old enough and got enough money to buy most stuff but i still keep pirating because it’s just too awesome in every aspect. better quality, _everything_ always available in minutes etc. industry is never gonna be able to offer that great service.
#1 had a great point.
I’d also say that of course it would, if they don’t do as #1 suggests.
To be honest, though, I hope that they DON’T, and then burn and crash under the failure of their own pitiful construction. Maybe they’ll stop wasting money on pursuing bad ‘infringement’ cases.
The real problem are those jerks who sell ripped DVDs on streets. Those are the ones that are absolutely making a profit off of the pirated content.
I always thought it was interesting. Many counterfeit DVD and product sales are much cheaper, but the ones who produce the counterfeits wouldn’t be doing it if there wasn’t a business interest in it. Sure, they don’t have to pay the content creators, but they still pay the physical distribution costs, and in big releases like big name games and movies, the offset there is negligible as far as what the end-product sales price should be.
I’ll be crying for the MPAA when they’re struggling to make payments on a dinky little home and support their family on a less than 50k a year income. It’s not going to happen, until they’re put out of their mob business.
Glickman is full of it. Anyone with a brain knows economic crisis’s(sp?) cause folks to flock to the theater.
As usual, his math does not add up.
J.
@above their is a difference between file sharing and piracy.
Your doing it wrong.
@aiel8 I was in the same boat when I was younger. Napster had just been phased out to morpheus/k-lite/whatever the first Jackass movie came out and I was like ah fuck I was a couple months from turning 19 and they wouldn’t let me buy a ticket to see it. So I bought my ticket through a machine went to go through the doors and cops were waiting to bust kids trying to get in. Me being the younger looking male I got stopped and they refused to let me in despite my drivers license proving I was turning 19 within a couple months.
…Then I went home downloaded it and had a good chuckle.
Why does torrentfreak report about this but not the fact that BitTorrent, Inc. having to return 10 of 17MM from VC’s???
It’s almost like torrentfreak filters most BitTorrent, Inc. content? Are you guys in bed?
@26
1. because a lot of others reported it already before us.
2. because we’re not THAT interested in the business side of BitTorrent
3. because we can still download uTorrent…
@21 Dec 15, 2008 at 21:21 by uhh
I think that aiel8 meant something like individual choice, that although some things may not be appropriate for someone to watch, that it is for one’s own discretion whether to see it or not, based on one’s own opinion whether it is appropriate for one’s own self, etc.
@20 Dec 15, 2008 at 21:11 by aiel8
Upon thinking about this idea, I think that it would be impossible for the MPAA to do whether or not the idea is good.
Roze
“MPAA chairman Dan Glickman is worried that piracy will grow to a new high during the current financial crisis”
…correction…It’s already growing…about 7% per year…
Oh how my heart bleeds for the movie studios. They are one of few fairly recession proof industries.
they fear so many things…. who cares?
People cant afford to pay their mortgages and other debts they’ve been suckered into and the MPAA are boo hooing about piracy, still. Priorities for feck sake. DIAF.
Just because the Dark Knight has made a billion dollars worldwide does not mean piracy hasn’t had an averse effect.
And unless you advocate some form of socialism, it is not your place to tell anyone they’ve earned enough money as that same sentiment could then be applied to you. If you can afford an internet connection for instance, someone, somewhere thinks YOU make too much money.
Sounds to me that the problem is that the mpaa make stuff. Now if their was a movie made about anything, and if it was a good one and was made by the mpaa then I wouldnt buy it. Now if that movie was made by bobs movie production company then I might buy it. However I have to be able to buy it in a way, shape and form that is usefull e.g. 1 and 0s on a pc. Has to have no DRM and I have to be able to buy it at the age of 15 because im 15. It has to not be censored. And it has to be really cheap. I mean a few dollars. I mean its a movie, I will probably only watch it once, And it only gives me like 1 and a half hours of entertainment. But a pc game can give me hours and hours of fun. So it has to be worth a fraction of a pc game. Anyway all the movies, pc games are to violent thyus rated to high for me to buy. So fuck the media. The media don’t hgive a shit about me, if they did they would fight for my right to do what I want, Buy what I want and watch what I want. So as long as they say shit about piracy and do nothing about censorship then they can get fucked for all i care. They are lazy good for nothing middlemen. As soon as the mpaa is gone the better. We can make movies without mpaa and its members/friends. I would invest in a movie. Lol dark knight almost brought in 10x the money invested and thats within a year of its release. Fro,m box office only. Hell most movies make more back than was put in from box office sales alone. If you then take in merchandising, dvds, videogames, promotional stuff inside the movie, etc etc over 4 years you get insane returns. I would co sponser a movie wuitha bazillion over people. Lol put in $1000 get out $1500 :D within a year. SWeet is all I can say. But with the dark knight it would have been like $10,000 for my $1,000. Thats good money. That shure beats 10% bank intrest which is alot more than the bank would actually give me. 1000% interest is fucked up. Theyre lucky bustards and should stfu. If I had $1000 to start up with, and got 1000% interest a year then I would be loaded pretty fast, after 9 years I would have a trillion dollars. So they should be quiet about it. Instead off drawing attention to how profitable it is.
Glickman so conncerned about loss? poor bastard will have to suffice living in 10 diffirent mansions than 30. Give me a break!He should be paid One Dollar a month salary for his greed.
$25 for a new dvd release here in Canada is a joke (not including taxes yet). If they were like $10 then they would definitely sell more. Also when they pump out shit like the new Punisher War Zone movie that i paid $8 to see then they wonder why people download cams lol.
#15 you sound like the typical fifteen year old idiot who thinks he’s got the whole world figured out. and your quote:
“Hell most movies make more back than was put in from box office sales alone.”
is flat out BS. the polar opposite of reality.
the best/worst thing about the internet is it gives everyone a voice. i sometimes miss the days when dumb ass fifteen year olds didn’t have such a convenient soapbox to stand on.
and #36, punisher war zone has a 22% rating on rotten tomatoes so don’t blame anybody else for your lack of due diligence as a consumer.
@34 : Jacob SHUT THE FUCK UP you fucking retard.
1. The MPAA does not make movies they represent parties that do.
2. The MPAA is against ratings because it limits their members ability to attract viewers. It’s your government that’s responsible.
3. You still doenload PC games you fucking moron.
4. No companie gives a shit about you enough to “fight for what you want”.
5. Most movies do not make back their costs from boix office sales alone.
6. Many movies do not even make back costs henc making them an extremely risky investment. Like a retard your suing the example of The Dark Kniught to prove this when over 1000 other movies were released in the USA alone this year.
7. You obviosuly know jack shit about ways to invest money. And the relationship between risk and return.
Shut up … please. You sound retarded.
I don’t care
Only way to make movie tickets & dvds cheaper is to get the mpaa out of the picture. Its their cut that makes movies expensive & for what, protecting intellectual property rights…what a load of crap. We all know that its available on BT without the excessive charges so pointless having them there.
Pay a cheaper price which would be direct to the artist without all the excesses the mpaa puts on top for their FUD that they brainwash the artists & consumer with.
Only thing the mpaa is protecting is how much they get paid.
So if people dont have money to buy the crap movie studios make it means they immediately turn to piracy? What a load of crap like allways. The people that buy media will allways buy media, i doubt they will turn to piracy if they run out of money. Everything these days is caused by piracy or leads to piracy if you believe the crap MPAA says. If there was a terrorit attack in the US, MPAA would probaply say that it was because of piracy and use it to get even more idiotic laws passed that protect their money.
Make good movies to make money, its that simple.
i downloaded the dark knight dvd screener from BT months ago, and this weekend just gone, i bought 3 copies of the dvd, one for me, 2 for xmas presents
why? cause its a damn good movie and i want to give them money to keep churning out good movies!
i pirated tropic thunder, why? cause it was a heap of sh!t
yeah, i probably cost the cinema’s $30 by watching it 6 times at home rather than going to cinema’s, but i can assure you, i wouldnt have gone to see it 6 more times, maybe once at most…
ill buy the dvd of a good movie cause im happy to have it sitting in my dvd cabinet, and im happy to support quality films
ill download a crappy movie because, well, its crappy and i dont want to show support for crap movies
Anonymous: “Just because the Dark Knight has made a billion dollars worldwide does not mean piracy hasn’t had an averse effect.”
Actually, yes - it does mean piracy hasn’t had an adverse effect on the box-office if a movie can come out and gross a billion dollars at a time when a recordbreaking number of people fileshare.
So long, and thanks for playing.
Anonymous: “And unless you advocate some form of socialism, it is not your place to tell anyone they’ve earned enough money as that same sentiment could then be applied to you.
Hahahah. For your information, I do advocate some form of socialism. Can you say, mandatory wealth cap?
Oh, but you’re right. It would come back to haunt me when I rise to superstardom and make ONE BILLION DOLLARS, only to be told that ONE BILLION DOLLARS is enough.
Then how ever would I afford my solid gold castle on a manmade island the size of China floating somewhere just off the Bahamas, complete with pure diamond toilets, and bathroom tissue made out of thousand dollar bills?
Anonymous: “If you can afford an internet connection for instance, someone, somewhere thinks YOU make too much money.”
Considering that if I stopped paying my ISP it would result in savings of less than $1 extra dollar a day, there’s a word for anybody anywhere that thinks I’m making too much money if I can afford an Internet connection.
That word is “dipshit”.
It’s Simple kill the batman ummm im sorry im mean kill the MPAA :D
HA HA HA
movie industry bail out plan ? REJECT
I think someone wants some bailout money for christmas.
The MPAA have been fighting a long battle with the Torrent affiliates for a long time know where is the victory?
Where is the MPAA success?
Who ends up paying for this parasite, yes the professional contebt creator.
Have the MPAA served as a custodian for content, no.
Do creators earn good money alongside file sharers, yes Darknight is a classic example of try before you buy.
Filesharers like content, real content none of this….lets choose any old famous actor to market our shit, but real actors real content=real returns. Only the MPAA will not champion those words because those words will put them out of business.
“The key point is if bit torrent was fully used by the MPAA as a distribution channel, and the money paid directly to the content producers (ie product placement) the economic loss would be non existent. The only reason the numbers are as high as they claim is because they include competitive distribution methodologies (theater, DVD, TV) in the revenue totals.
It is insane to include income eliminated from fair market competition in “losses” genrated by piracy.”
Great post no. 2. QFT
Here is an idea on how hollywood can save some money and lower ticket and DVD prices… Pay your over paid actors less.. Hmm might be a good idea! When it comes to either sports or entertainment they should feel luck for what they make.
They say we get what we pay for? So when are we going to start geting it.
@ Happy,
Yeah….Gimmee, Gimmee, Gimmee.
I want it NOW.
@49 - Thank god attaining success as an actor is really easy! Thus, absolutely no monetary incentive is needed in order for people to work harder toward being well-accepted and thus entertaining people. After all, 99% of actors aren’t absolute shit…
Oh, wait.
52 Dec 16, 2008 at 19:08 by Amonynous
As if that 1% of super-rich actors will get any incentive from money.
Also, as if people as if people won’t get any incentive from a chance of success and being famous, either through innate abilities or through improvement, &c.
Roze
Heck yeah, Why run out and pay for a DVD when you can download the movie for FREE! Duh!
jess
100 years ago when movies were not so common stage actors were paid same as normal professions.
How come now actors get paid millions and I being a Post Grad only get paid a pittance?
Go Piracy !!!The only solution.
There is no reason these MF making 1000-2000 times the money I make.
Go Piracy !!!The only solution.
a 100 years ago, the competition was rural not worldwide.
and a very small percentage of actors get paid a lot more than you because it’s a helluva lot harder to become a successful actor than it is to be a “post grad”.
lol
but go ahead, continue to feel sorry for yourself and bleat and blather your justifications for not being more successful. wave that loser flag high…
Here’s an idea that they’ll never listen to - put the latest new releases on streaming video and for a few bucks, a person can rent (a la iTunes) or stream them. People would be more willing to part with 3 bucks than they would 10 bucks + popcorn, soda, etc. at the theater and the money could go directly to the MPAA and the content makers. Obviously watching a film on your computer is not comparable to seeing it big-screen, so when the economy gets better and people start making more expendable cash, they can go back to the thaters for the best experience.
But then, what do I know? I’m only an internet user, age 18-34, on SSI who can’t afford to go to lots of big movies (and morally cannot due to the Cinemark boycott, though that’s not the MPAA’s fault, obviously). You know, only their target demographic.
What they need to fear is all the trash movies that the push out into the world. Maybe massive money sink holes is what they should be concerned aboot.
a hundred years ago, competition for actors was rural not worldwide.
and the reason a very, very, small group of actors are paid a lot more than you is because it’s a helluva lot harder to become a successful actor than it is to become just another “post grad”.
the fact that you have an educational degree from somewhere while still holding firm to such silly, uneducated opinions further discredits the value of being a graduate.
no the ecomonic DOWNTURN IS CAUSED BY THE MPAA shoudl be the heading sucking billions out of the economy so long has perpetuated the problems , and now what YOU want to raise prices, raise levies on net accoutns and when that revenue doesn’t come what then , cameras and audio recording devices in our homes and in our heads , YA screw thiscrap.
the fact is that if you try and sell a 30$ cdr of music or 40$ DVDR of COURSE there will be piracy when can get a blank disc for ONE DOLLAR
thats how GOD DMAN GREEDY THEY ARE.
if milk had the same market up fgarmers fields woudl be armed camps with a carton of milk going for 80$ i’ll bet the invasions of farms would begin and mass piracy would occur.
in a market driven economy poeople look for the best most convient deal.
When you get so greedy that people unethically get copyrighted material aka vis a vi piracy and p2p then you ahve created the problem when you PAY ARNOLD 20 million per film.
People on low incomes (like students) are more likely to pirate than others. They needed an expensive survey to tell them that?
@5 Lucky for us, Obama isn’t some know-nothing push over like the past old timer presidents have been. They aren’t going to have such an easy time confusing him with pointless, incorrect facts and figures.
Oh and you know why the Dark Knight did so well…it was actually good. If you churn out crap, you get crap sales. Focus on QUALITY not quantity. I’m surprised the MPAA (and the RIAA too) haven’t figured this out yet.
Damn right there’s gunna be more piracy.
“$19.99 for a DVD? Ya’ll must be crazy!”
@61
Stop talking outta your ass.
Torrents Rule. Hey, to make some very good money online, check out
www dot thespidersystem dot ws
The better solution to follow is of the Greek practice: Inside newspapers !
http://zliangas.blogspot.com/2008/11/media-publication-offers-good-solution.html
I hope the MPAA goes bankrupt. They put out propagandic movies, movies that are of terrible quality, music that PRODUCERS want, not the public, and acts that have no talent. They deserve to fail.
FAIL MPAA FAIL MPAA FAIL HOLLYWOOD
They obviously want to use this crisis to impose more measures on the american people, taking away liberties and all.
@14: I don’t see where they get that. I’ve downloaded a few films I’ve previously bought and vice versa, so no customer lost there.
But I often would not have seen it had I not downloaded it. These guys are total idiots.
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