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Piracy Isn’t Killing The Movie Industry, Greed Is

At the box-office the major movie studios are raking in record profits, but their continuing refusal to widely adopt online business opportunities are hindering progress. According to the head of the Blockbuster video chain, the movie industry’s greed is to blame for holding back innovation.

First off, we have to make it clear that the major movie studios are doing great at the box-office, despite movie piracy riding at an all-time high. Other parts of the movie industry, such as video rental outlets, do seem to struggle and they have the studios to thank for this, not piracy.

In January of this year Warner Bros. announced that new DVDs will not be available at online rental outlet Netflix for the first month after they are released in stores. Warner Bros. hoped that this would increase DVD sales. However, the most likely side effect is an increase in piracy and a loss of income to Netflix.

It is a step back in a time where consumers are screaming for on-demand access and the flexibility to choose the option they want for their video consumption. The studios are clearly skeptical of all these ‘new’ technologies and are frantically adding restrictions to maximize their revenues, ignoring all market signals.

The greed of the music studios hasn’t gone unnoticed by Paul Uniacke, head of the Video Ezy and Blockbuster video rental chains. “Studio greed is what’s holding back video-on-demand,” he said in response to the studios demands to pay huge sums of money upfront if they want to offer on-demand streams.

blockbuster

“Movie studios are still as arrogant as the music moguls were before digital downloads and piracy destroyed them. The only thing that’s protecting the movie studios (from more widespread illegal downloading) now is file size,” Uniacke added.

Much like the big music labels, the studios are trying to control how people consume media to an extent where it becomes impossible for innovative retailers to offer a product that can compete with piracy. By this process they are killing their own business and that of many retailers, while blaming piracy for the damages.

Consumers demand convenience, availability and a high quality product for a fair price. Still, the decisions of the music labels and movie studios are mostly heading in the opposite direction as they cling to their old business of trying to safeguard their monopolies.

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  • worpre

    I like to watch movies at my own time. away from rhe crowd

  • mvegetto

    How much money is being spent on all this shit, the whole world needs to know!!! When is someone going to step up. Damn those people who are afraid to change!

  • Anonymous

    I demand the following from the movie industry:

    1. 1080p quality downloads available on theatrical release day.
    2. Absolutely no DRM.
    3. High speeds and accessibility.

    Until these demands for content delivery are met, I will continue pirating.

  • http://www.eZee.se www.eZee.se

    “Piracy Isn’t Killing The Movie Industry, Greed Is”

    In other news:
    water is wet

    The sky is blue

    50% of all heterosexual married couples are male
    and the other 50% are female

    Steve Jobs is still a douche and Bill Gates still a rogue

    Filesharing is here to stay.

  • bleh

    What they’re gonna do if they “try” this way of doing things, they’re gonna be giving us crappy 700 MB rips or less full of DRM and advertisement, and then blame it on piracy that this system doesn’t work.

  • Anonymous

    Great article! If studios think that delaying me the opportunity to rent a video by a month will phase me, they have another thing coming. I don’t care about another month of wait time.

    If I’ve waited as long as I had why would I care about another month? There’s a ton of other media out there, I can always Netflix/Redbox it.

    Besides most movies that come out now are pure crap anyways. I’m not absolutely dying to see anything on DVD and unless it’s an amazing movie I’m not buying the DVD for some absurd cost to watch it once.

    Idiots who run these companies.

  • Splendor

    It’s not just greed, here’s one more reason that’s killing the industry: http://i.imgur.com/GxzeV.jpg

  • Huggybaby

    haha good one Splendor. :)

  • DeltaPan

    Good on ya, Blockbuster.

    Tell ‘em how it is, not how the corporates assert in order to try and con governments into hardline legistlations.

    Greed and sociopathic power hungry lies and primary motivations.

    Peace.

  • Sandie

    Splendor that pretty much summed it up! Thank you.

  • Piracy is killing the movie Industry

    Oscar buzz also seems to have compelled pirates to check out “Locker,” which jumped to the fourth most-pirated film last week. In our look at Oscar film piracy, we missed an interesting fact about the movie: “Locker” first leaked onto the Internet more than five months before its U.S. release date.

    Here’s the entire Top 10 list of most-pirated movies on BitTorrent, according to TorrentFreak:
    This is on a TF friendly site
    Hurt Locker only made $1m
    5 months before release, it was Pirated, I wonder why no-one went to watch it? mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
    Got plenty of BAFTAs
    Could it be Pirating so early meant no-one went, no of course not, must have been b/c it was “Sh! t t y
    (it’s not)

  • Anonymous

    ROFL very good one Splendor

  • Demfan

    Ha ha ha! that’s a good one Splendor!

  • Terminator

    @Splendor
    There is an article for that pic in Freakbits

  • Splendor

    @Terminator
    Thanks! That’s where I found it in the first place, but I couldn’t remember the name of that site.

    Here is a direct link to the article
    http://freakbits.com/pirate-bay-reveals-secret-science-project-0219

  • Splendor
  • Rboy

    I Want to know who buys CD’s and DVD’s anymore. Seriously, why do stores even waste space on them? None of my kids would ever buy a CD you can’t stick a cd into an MP3 Player. Why bother to buy when it is much easier to download an mp3 or get from a friend like teenagers have always done.

    Why would someone want to fill their house with worthless plastic that get’s scratched easy? Unless you plan to be a cable company what do you need a bunch of movies for, especially ones you have already seen. Ok after my small kid has watched the flick the obligatory 33.5 times he finally tires of it and it collects dust forever.

    The point is the day of plastic is coming to an end. Digital is where it is at. Studios are also going to have face the fact that in digital form media is only worth commodity pricing. Since the value of digital is only the time it entertains. A digital version of a cd does not have the same value as a CD or physical media had. Face it a pristine digital copy of anything will never be a collectible.

    Until the industry fills the consumer market for digital pirates will period no matter how they fight it.

  • Anonymous

    The movie industry seems to forget that there is currently no equivalent to seeing a movie in a theater.
    As bandwidth availability increases, the DVD is going to go the way of the VHS.

    Movie producers (and game producers and music producers) need to focus on delivering quality content that people want to pay money for, instead of getting all worked up when their latest release didn’t buy them a new private island.

  • duane

    @10

    Get your facts straight. Firstly, it’s called “The hurt locker”. Plain “Locker” doesn’t sound very exciting.

    It was made and marketed on a $10m budget. It has so far grossed $15m from cinemas and $10m from DVD sales — not bad considering it’s competing against Avatar, the most expensive (>$500m), highest grossing film of all time (>$1bn).

  • bubrub

    afraid of change what you mean aload of people expecting films and games for free

  • Dimagus

    “Limited Release” movies are synonymous with screwing over 99% of the audience.

    Lengthy period of delay between the theatrical run and release on video only persuade the average person to download a screener rip.

    Staggered regional releases punish any market not in the 1st release area. Restricting streaming sites to locale has the same deal. If the US can get it weeks or months before Canada, where do you think Canada is going to get the content?

    If the content is available, people will get it. If the industry is not the first one there, they are the last one on the shortbus.

  • Anonymous

    I think it is fairly simple. If you truly want to screw the MPAA over etc etc and all the bad guys, and the system and the nazis, and communists. capitalists, etc you should really stop to watching their products. Be it pirated, rented, bought or at a theater. If demand of their products decrases they will look for alternative business methods. Since they are not decreasing they could give a rats a** about what 7 or 8 million people that use p2p think.

    Its pure hypocrisy, i wont buy your sh*t, but I will download it! Just to piss you off! And prove how post-modern I am.

    Oh and 1080p releases on the release day? Why not a 20k livestream of the movie being shot and edited and the dvd packed and getting dust at the store?

  • Joe

    I demand a 20k livefeed totally drm free of the movie being shot and edited! I’m a paying costumer, and i’ll pay a full 5 bucks for it!

  • yogi

    Good one splendor – I hate that crap.

    nothing is more annoying than sitting through those warnings and commercials five years after you bought the DVD – it’s just insane.

  • ohabu

    I want:
    Movie availability the second it leaves the major cinemaes.
    Availability everywhere.
    New episodes of tv-shows at the same time all over the world.

    This will only lead to less rentals and more pirate bay.

    I do wish we had a red box in Norway:)

  • neostyles

    So is wanting to profit off of every copy of your work sold/used/etc greedy? That’s like saying someone is greedy if they expect to get paid for all the hours they work instead of just half. At some point, people seem to have decided that it is okay is half the people steal a movie as long as the movie earns a certain amount from the people that didn’t. If you were in their place, would you be satisfied with only part of your rightful profits? Would you be happy if you earned 30 million if you deserved to earn, say, 40 million? I know this sounds like a lot of money which is why people are inclined to go “okay, thats enough money for them to make”, but people deserve as much profit as their work is successful. Piracy is communist in this regard, because it marginalizes the accomplishments of the creators and presumes that everyone should profit equally, regardless of their relative success. Anyone who thinks they have the right to tell someone else how much money is “enough” to make off of their own work is completely selfish.

    Furthermore, profits don’t actually tell you that much because movies cost much more than they used to.

    Until the industry fills the consumer market for digital pirates will period no matter how they fight it.

    This same old claim has been blindly churned out time and time again. If pirates actually opened their eyes, they would realize that there are many legal alternatives for digital movies. Ever heard of itunes? XBOX Live?

    Furthermore, piracy’s attempt at changing the system is collapsing as we speak. Every week, new sites are being shut down and new people are being brought to court. The system is finally waking up and taking action against those who defraud it. Pirates should have realized long ago that there attempts at extortion and anarchy would fail.

    The point is the day of plastic is coming to an end. Digital is where it is at. Studios are also going to have face the fact that in digital form media is only worth commodity pricing. Since the value of digital is only the time it entertains. A digital version of a cd does not have the same value as a CD or physical media had. Face it a pristine digital copy of anything will never be a collectible.

    Again, there are plenty of legal places to get music. Over a dozen at this point. Having legal digital distribution hasn’t been an issue for nearly a decade. The REAL problem is that pirates are determined to to get everything for free and rip off everyone they can.

    It’s not just greed, here’s one more reason that’s killing the industry: http://i.imgur.com/GxzeV.jpg

    I also don’t like having to stop at red lights. Does this mean that I can simply run them whenever I feel like it? Again, this extortion? “I don’t like paying for it or something else is inconvient, so that makes it okay if I steal it.”

    The movie isn’t forcing you to watch the ads/previews either. Claiming that you can steal something for the sake of taking two seconds to skip the ads is just unbelievably lazy. Itunes movies also don’t come with most of these ads either. If you were actually looking to get things through distrobution and not just get everything for free (yes, you have to pay for digital distrobuition too), you would have embraced services like itunes.

    [quote]1. 1080p quality downloads available on theatrical release day.
    2. Absolutely no DRM.
    3. High speeds and accessibility.

    Until these demands for content delivery are met, I will continue pirating.[/quote]
    That is extortion and it’s a crime. Are you so naive that you think that this will stop people from pirating or force them to concede to your demands? If they put no DRM on their movies and release it on the same day as the theatrical release, doesn’t that just make it easier for people to steal their movies? This will just encourage piracy, you idiot. Why would they want to make things even worse for themselves? Atleast with the DVD release comming after the theatrical release, they give people some incentive to PAY MONEY for the movie by seeing it in theaters.

    All this is is a culture of people who think they can take everything they want without giving anything back. Ignoring the creators is completely absurd, from an economic standoint.

  • duane

    Of course it’s greed. Pure, old-fashioned greed.

    The fact that copyrights have been extended from 14 years to 140 (!) years should have been a good indicator of that.

    Culture is locked up *forever*, and a bunch of companies demand a toll for people to access it. No small toll either — they’re raking in billions.

    That’s why these companies *need* to be destroyed before the world can move on. I wish the Pirate Parties around the world can organise us and make that happen in our lifetimes.

  • Rekrul

    If the studios offered DRM-free digital copies in good quality, people would pay. Not everyone of course, but more than are paying now, which is none. People pay for music even though they can get it for free illegally, there’s no reason to think that the same wouldn’t work for movies.

    This is the digital age, there’s no technological reason why a studio couldn’t digitize and offer its entire library for sale online. All the movies that aren’t considered worth releasing on DVD could be converted to digital copies for next to nothing and then sold online. The only thing preventing this is the copyright mess that the studios have helped create. Porbably half the movies in their library can’t be released without extensive negotiation and/or alteration to straighten out all the copyrights associated with them. There are films that will probably be lost forever, simply because of copyrights.

  • Ninja

    MAFIAA, you are doing it wrong. And hurting jobs on rental business while you are at it. Congratulations on being an epic fail.

    @ 6 Feb 22, 2010 at 20:28 by Splendor: that image pretty much explains all the pain legit customers go through. And I rofl`d.

  • In Full Agreement

    @ 16

    You are absolutely right. For my kids, I bought a lot of Disney VHS tapes, then my VCR broke and since that platform was obsolete, I bought almost all of Disney’s animated classics on DVD. Now most of them have become scratched and unusable…LIKE HELL was I going to buy them a 3rd time! I now have them saved on my HD. (Plus Disney likes to release movies for sale for a limited time and then take them off the market for years before re-releasing them.)

    @ 20

    You have made a valid point. I always wonder why they won’t open a movie on the same day, worldwide…then the movie industry has the audacity to complain of pirating when they have created these circumstances.

  • Here we go again

    @ 26

    Welcome back neostyles (or is that Reasoned Mind). It has been so quiet this past week without you. Did you enjoy your time off? Anyway…

    Let the flamming begin!!!
    (just kidding, but you know it is going to happen)

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  • antifeature

    Nothing quite creates a need for piracy like good old arbitrary restrictions.

  • Michael

    Have to say that TorrentFreak consistently misses the bull’s eye. The output of “studios” compared to overall movie production is very small. In the real world, were film-makers have to raise very large amounts of cash to make movies, a green light requires a lot of people agreeing to invest or buy the film. Amongst the people that make films happen are the sales agencies. They try and get people to forward some cash against rights. They are the ones that control the first level of income. They have traditionally been against assigning online rights because… these rights don’t generate money and actually compete with companies that do generate money. Why don’t online rights generate money? Because people don’t seem to pay to watch films online. And why would that be? Because they can get them for “free” on torrents?

    To prime the pump, you do have to inject a little liquid in the system, boys.

  • Darkknight145

    I actually buy DVD’s as a backup for my downloaded movies ;)

  • duane

    @32

    I’m in the UK and no-one has tried to sell me movies online. When a Spotify for movies comes along, THEN get on your high horse and preach.

    There’s no viable movie outlet on the internet other than torrents, and that’s simply why people use torrents.

  • RIAAtarded

    Always surprises me the entertainment industries aversion to change. There aren’t to many industries that you can ignore your customers totally. There are alternative distribution method. Just the fact you want to squash them goes to show they’re viable. In the end it is their lose. Both customers and image.

  • AntiHero

    I wonder if the americans have thought about producing good movies, instead of the same old recycled bullshit as before.

    “let’s take this classic movie, stick johnny depp in it and hope it sells”

    I want whatever kind of drugs they’re smoking.

  • Piracy is killing the movie Industry

    C’mon then AntiHero

    Where’s your totally original scrpit?

    Movie, not Java.

    No?

    How about a novel, totally new never seen before idea, and then market it to raise the necessary finance?

    You’re gonna need ohhh say $200 to $ 300 mil on just your unique idea.

    It’ll obviously sell, it’s unique after all, except, unless, all those selfish Pirates torrent it

    Whoops there goes your house.

    If they’re all “Sh!t” don’t dload them.

    Who puts a gun to anybody’s head and says either
    “You must see this at the theatre or buy legally on DVD”

    OR

    “You must pirate this film, even though it’s sh!t”

    Exactly

    No-one

  • The rental places aren’t so great either.

    Last time I tried to set up an account with a video rental place, right after I turned 18, they told me no dice without a credit card.

    Then I went a pirated stuff for a few years.

    Then a couple weeks ago I went into a Blockbuster to attempt the same, and the girl at the register asked me to leave my bag at the counter. So I told her “no, and for the record if I wanted free movies I’d get them off the net” and left.

    So yeah.

  • Sama

    Hah, I actually want ther movie indusgtry to continue, I want them to keep on digging a deeper and deeper hole, till finally it collapses on them, and they get buried in their own grave. I am waiting for this to happen, and I don’t want them to innovate so that the innevitable happens another 10 years down the road. It’s time for fresh faces to step up and take on responsibilities.

  • Anonymous

    actually the hurt locker sux hard, thank god i didnt have to pay for wasting 2 hrs of my life..

  • Beebies

    You cannot make a movie that everyone thinks is “good” – this maybe possible if the world was on homogenous culture where everyone lived doing the same things an having the same experiences.

    For TF to write an article about the “big 5″ studios misses the point. Piracy is reducing profits for these entities, thats is just common sense, however they are responsible for a small portion of films released and that become popular – look at the Academy awards for evidence of this.

    Independent film makers have must find investors. Investors generally couldn’t give a shit what gets made, they just want a return on their monies by definition. As profits go down on the films that even make a profit and get a release due to piracy, which is rather few in the overall picture anyway (it’s an extremely risky business even without piracy), other investments become increasingly attractive to high risk inverstors which means less independent films are able to be made as they are unable to be funded anymore.

    A couple of examaples of this effect: The Hurt Locker made 15 million dollars (gross) to date despite winning multiple Academy Awards.

    Steven Soderburghs Che duology really only had a chance art making a profit in South America, which it was pitched at. It made almost nothing, complete loss and Soderburgh has commented that he doubts he will make niche independent films like this again – the payoff just isn’t worth it when the whole market pirates your product. So he’ll be sticking to generic blockbusters which have a wide appeal and are hence more likely to bring in the non-pirating viewers, generally familys who still enjoy a night at the flicks.

    It annoys me when pirates refuse to acknowledge that this is what is happening and bring up the most profitable sector of the industry as an example of “piracy is not hurting the industry” – it’s fine not to care, fair enough, but you guys make the effort to say “well look at the money they’re making” when that isn’t a true reflection of what is happening. It seems you pick part of the story that supports (or rather makes it sees as though you’re having no effect) piracy but totally ignore the other part of the industry that is responsible for more content.

  • Lynge

    A movie that costs 1000 $ to make arent worth the same as a movie that costs 500.000.000 $.. And yet it is somehow.

    Alot of the times i use P2P is because i want to watch a movie NOW… Not tomorrow not in 6 months when its released in my country… Tbh if i went to the cinema and did watch a movie and got a “ticket” so i could watch it again at home online… Well that would motivate me alot more.

    + The fact that i need to get plastic with me home is just irritating… Only reason its this way, is to sell Dvd/blueray players = more dollars down the pocket.

    Give me movies i can download (NOT RENT) for the same price as going to the cinema then we are on the right track.

    + ofc ppl buy music like never before after its released online… ´Why is the ” OHH NOO DOOMSDAY ” theory when its about movies ?

    Yes i can actualy easily afford to buy the movies.. but i cant, hell Hurtlocker werent released here before 4 months after i could download a dvdrip. This goes with alot of movies…

    And then the GF situation. My GF dont realy like being around alot of ppl = ofc we go to the cinama and watch romantic movies then right ? We used tons of money renting movies online through our TV (got some fancy box). But again its almost years after they are released in the US that we get em.

  • Anonymous

    Greed is the mother of all fuckups!

    Just ask the GFC!

  • Anonymous

    I heard James Cameron was smoking dope when he co wrote avatar.

  • Anonymous

    Greed is the mother of all that is wrong with modern civilization.

    Just ask the GFC and people who are affected.

  • abolish copyright now

    when a movie is converted into information noone should have the right to control or restrict the access and usage of the movie.

    a movie which exists as information has no ownership and cannot be stolen.

    it is wrong to deceive society into thinking movies in the form of information should be paid for to access and to use.

  • Rabbit80

    To be fair, the movie industry attracts more money from me than the music industry. I buy DVDs occasionally for the additional content – the extra scenes, deleted scenes and any other bonus material they may include. There are also reasons to go to the cinema – 3d movies being a prime example. The funny thing is – if DVDs cost a third of the amount I would probably spend 5 or 6 times the amount.

  • duane

    @40

    Shawshank redemption had a $25m budget. It grossed only $28m, even though it was nominated for multiple Oscars. That’s in 1994, so you can’t blame online piracy. Not unlikely that other movies will also pass unnoticed at first, because a megalith like Avatar (or Forrest Gump) is overshadowing them.

    Piracy is hurting movie studios. Why? People get to try before they buy — if something sucks, people will NOT be duped into paying for it up front.

    Independent films are NOT being hurt. Why? Finding $10m isn’t as difficult as raising $300m for a blockbuster. Even if all the movie companies in the world go bust, independent films will still get made because they are *independent* by definition.

    Piracy is good. It’s good because it DOES give the small guys a chance, because it lets people gain access to culture they would otherwise be deprived of (for those who couldn’t afford it, but are also human beings), and because it’s fairer to get a chance to try before you buy.

    Now stop trolling because it really is annoying. You are an annoying person.

  • It’s Not me, It’s YOU

    If your GF can’t go to the cinema, cause other ppl are there, then it’s time to get a new Girlfriend

  • Chinny

    “when a movie is converted into information noone should have the right to control or restrict the access and usage of the movie.

    a movie which exists as information has no ownership and cannot be stolen.”

    You have NFI of what infomation means. I suggest you go and do a little work on infomation ethics and law and then come back here.

    Using thge word “infomation” is so broad that it applies to everything noob.

  • It’s Not me, It’s YOU

    Good post Beebies, but unfortunately the trolls are gonna
    say
    “Steven Soderburgh’s Che duology made no money cause it was S h ! t”

    I can hear them typing it now.

    You are totally right, this anarchic behaviour is gonna kill movies esp Indie/Art House cinema, despite the propoganda promulgated on here by the trolls

    BUT they demand no DRM, @ 1Mb dl speeds in 1080p for ohh 5$s and then they’ll still pirate it cause
    a- IT’s FREE
    b=THEY CAN

  • duane

    @49

    Who are you calling trolls, you giant, malfunctioning testicle? You shouldn’t allowed near other people just for being as dumb as you are.

    I’ll let Wikipedia do the work:
    “In Internet slang, a troll is someone who posts inflammatory, extraneous, or off-topic messages in an online community, such as an online discussion forum, chat room or blog, with the primary intent of provoking other users into an emotional response or of otherwise disrupting normal on-topic discussion.”

    So, if there’s any trolls on here, YOU ARE THEM. Get lost.

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  • Moviebake

    Really interesting look at the whole situation, especially seeing how big business is just shooting itself in the foot on this one. If they ever want to tackle this problem they need to understand that the business models of the past cannot feasibly apply to the digital revolution.

    Spreading the story overview at: http://moviebake.com/uncategorized/blockbuster-having-trouble-expanding-its-business-model/

  • van

    unitedzone.info for all the manchester united matches,chit-chat.

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  • Captain_Dart

    @49

    Epic fail!!!!

  • SEEDplease

    Watching most commercial DVDs is a horrifying, traumatic experience.
    First, you are FORCED to watch a parade of “previews”, whether you want to or not. You can’t fast-forward or otherwise skip any previews because the DVD has code to disable your player’s fast-foward or skip keys; you have to sit there and wait until the commercials/previews are done playing (which can take a long time).
    Then, you are forced to watch the warnings and threats of the MAFIAA/FBI, telling you that you’ll go to jail for so much as exhibiting the movie outside your home (this is in case you missed the warnings and threats printed on the DVD box!)
    All this annoyance is proof of the stupidity and paranoia on the part of the studios. One solution that worked for me personally was to rip all the movies from my own DVDs in order to watch them in peace.

  • Taylor

    I’m okay with waiting for a movie to come out in theaters and then a few months later to the public. The studios do want to earn money and the theaters are a great supply, plus there will always be people who buy the DVD. I’d prefer to buy/rent through a digital means for conveanice. However nothing of quality is ever on par with its DVD release date, Netflix always seems to be a little behind, iTunes won’t play on a TV without a $300 Apple TV, and the rental service offered by our cable provider (Rogers) is pure shit; its expensive, poor quality, slow and is always behind. Digital offers major advantages over DVD, the media doesn’t get worn down from constant use (hard drives do die I know), I don’t have to go to the rental store. I’m aware that streaming will always be a little slow as it takes a lot of bandwidth and heavy usage could hinder performance but I’d be fine with deciding on a movie at 4:00 and then have it available to watch that night. In a better world a DVD and a digital release would be available on the same day for a much cheaper price. Until then piracy is the way to go. Theres no DRM so I can watch MY MOVIE on any device for an infinite amount of times, and if I choose can make a backup in case my HDD dies. High quality is available the day a DVD is released and is also free. Movie studios need to change, they’re the dinosaur of the media.

  • Beebies

    “You are totally right, this anarchic behaviour is gonna kill movies esp Indie/Art House cinema, despite the propoganda promulgated on here by the trolls”

    Well, um, yeah – as pointed out you do seem to have the definition of troll confused with something else but anyways…

    I certainly wouldn’t agree that the movie industry is going to die due to piracy, at least not in the forseeable future anyhow – however, as I implied, you can expect less niche films and less “adult” films. By adult I mean complex plots or “off the beaten track” genres that often don’t appeal to as many people as films the Big 5 put out. Don’t get me wrong, often I don’t like these types of films, I used “adult” as I couldn’t think of another word to use.

    This will (continue to) happen purely for the reasons I described above: piracy means lost sales which means less returns which means there’s a greater risk of losing money on the production (this was common before piracy but piracy just increases the risks) – which means investors are less and less likely to offer money.

    Same thing is happening in video gaming BTW.

    Also I have been a pirate for the last 10 years – part of the problem as it were, I’m not trying to cast aspersions that I’m morally better. The line that the MPAA & Co. push that every copyright infringement is a lost sale is clearly garbage – however that still doesn’t means that piracy isn’t taking money away from artists and crew tho with tangible effects like making it difficult or outright impossible to make fresh, non-generic (and therefore financially risky) films.

    However, as often happens on this site – articles and comments, the article cherry picks situations and figures to ridicule the industries concern regarding copyright infringement (or support copyright infringment and ignores the other situations/figures that indicate otherwise.

    Example: Saying “The Dark Knight and Avatar were the highest grossing films of all time and they made $xxx,xxx,xxx … therefore the industry is making more than it ever has” is clearly a load of rubbish. You know – there were more than 1000 other feature films made in 2008 in the US alone.

    As I said, if you don’t care – great, good for you, I don’t really either – but articles and commenters here go out of their way to justify copyright infringment based on cheery picked figures and situations… Eg. this article.

    Don’t kid yourselves basically.

  • Air Head

    @54 “and the rental service offered by our cable provider (Rogers) is pure shit;”

    You got that right! I once was a Rogers customer but no more.

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  • Drew

    If the movie industry had any sense, instead of trying to sue ISPs (as they recently tried and failed to do here in Australia, they’d be making deals with them.

    Imagine, you sign up with X-brand ISP and for only a few dollars extra every month, you get full streaming access to the latest theatrical releases. You no longer need to download pirated movies, because you’re paying for the content in your monthly sub, and, because downloading this content doesn’t count towards your monthly download limit, it’s actually disincentive to get the pirated stuff.

    Participating ISPs would have an extra selling point and the movie companies would have a steady stream of income (and because they can track what you’re watching and let you rate the content they can put some of that money back into developing scripts and stories that appeal to this audience segment).

    I pay 40AUD per month for 20gb of data, and there are better deals coming up all the time. I’d be tempted to pay another 10 a month for new-release movie content, if it meant the product was always high-quality (no dodgy torrents).

    I’d be even more tempted if most movies these days were any good. Seriously, I still go to the rental store a couple of times a month and the quality of the new releases makes me shudder.

  • Anonymous

    @26

    warning troll detected, i didnt bother to read it either because its just the same crap you spout every single time. so get out.

  • Patrick

    While BO set a record in 09, that isn’t the studios primary income and they don’t get half of the gross at the door. They get nothing else from theatrical but market recognition, which obviously works or people wouldn’t bother stealing. The rental market is now RedBox, and no studio is growing based on dollar rentals.
    They aren’t nimble or quick and nobody has shown a model that will generate income anywhere near even cable window levels.
    Pirates aren’t the average user and yet do represent a potential market that is being ignored.
    They certainly have enough materil in their vaults to run expirements to figure it out.
    What if they sold you a 1080P download with your name embeded, and if it showed up anywhere but in your fair use, they could prosecute you?
    Would you even buy a movie that you could steal with the same delivery as a torret?

  • ME!

    People downloading does not lose them money, 99% of the people who download wouldn’t have bought it anyways. As for DRM i know one guy who bought a game got fed up with the drm limitations so just put it on the shelve and got a pirated copy to use instead.. now he refuses to buy anything that has drm in it.. The industry is hurting it self.

    If the movie is good enough i will buy it, but most people dont wan’t to waste money on average stuff.

  • Bisby

    I’m sorry but that is a load of crap – are you trying to say that 99% of people download material they don’t even want in the first place? Please. If people download it they want it and if they couldn’t pirate some films they would pay to see at least a portion of those films.

    Not too mention that that statement goes against evidence provided in articles on TorrentFreak anyway LOL.

    “If the movie is good enough i will buy it, but most people dont wan’t to waste money on average stuff.”

    Oh so you’re one of the mystical 1% you just made up… OK then?

  • duane

    Beebies, the assertion that Piracy is hurting independents is not necessarily true, and it’s definitely not obvious.

    Independent films are less likely to be pirated than blockbusters. They just have a smaller audience just because they have a smaller marketing budget and because they appeal to a niche market.

  • Andy

    well Voddler promises to be the Spotify to movies. Still only available in Scandinavia, but will in 2010 spread to most of Europe and probably US too.

  • Jason

    This complaining about the trailers and warnings is ridiculous. For one, barely ANY discs have more than a minute’s worth of unskippable material. Two… WHO CARES? Are we really so bloody A.D.D. that we can’t wait five freakin’ minutes?

    These are pure excuses for people who want something for nothing.

  • Al

    You all seem to be missing the point. It is his own personal greed that is driving his comments, he just wants in on the action so he can make more money.

  • duane

    @68 You bought and paid for a DVD, you expect it not to have ads on. You do know that they make more money by selling you ads, right? And it’s at the expense of your own time.

    @69 His greed? The content companies have a monopoly on movies and he doesn’t have a fighting chance of running his own business without them butting in. No, it’s THEIR greed. Possibly yours too, by the sound of it.

  • Michael

    @49 Duane: “Independent films are NOT being hurt. Why? Finding $10m isn’t as difficult as raising $300m for a blockbuster.”

    Sounds logical, but it’s not working like that. You’re venturing into a discussion about movie finances. Hope you have some experience to back up the talk.

    “Even if all the movie companies in the world go bust, independent films will still get made because they are *independent* by definition.”

    Sure, and we’ll have generations of films shot in the dark with a handheld camera.

    PS: movie outlet http://www.theauteurs.com

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  • Heffalump

    The reason movies cost Millions of dollars is because everyone in the movie industry pay themselves way too much!!!

  • Alb

    Ok, that is evil.
    Everythings is ruined when it reach the masses, P2P to.

  • antiantipiracy.blogspot

    It’s sad how poor people are being ignored. It’s like they’re not existing, or they’re not humans.

  • Jim

    Meh.. I see people demanding a little too much from the industry..

    I mean I totally agree with the article and everything.. but I think that demanding specific things is a little too petty.

    The fact is that the industry does anything it can do EXCEPT try.. try to do ANYTHING for its customer.. so its not about specifics.. its about DO F*CKING SOMETHING.. OTHER THAN KEEP TRYING TO RAPE PEOPLE FOR THEIR MONEY.

  • Surys

    Neostyles.. if the artists (I’m assuming you refer to the poor struggling “musicians”?) worked the same hours regular people do (by going on tour, etc.) then your comparison would be appropriate… and if that were the case, piracy would do nothing to diminish profits from that regular work, they would just promote that persons work.

    But we’re talking about people who spew out some cookie-cutter crap, tweaked by software that makes audio appealing to humans based on algorithms, banging an album together with as little as 200 hours of work involved and expecting to have an income from it equal to several years of REAL labour.- There are exceptions but much of the industry is lazy, greedy and expects to make millions from 1% of the work that most people do just to pay off a modest mortgage.

    Lazyness and greed are the problem.

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  • im troll

    The people who makes these movies (or music), atleast those succesfull enough to merit high-seeded torrents, make millions of dollars.

    The entire industry needs to pull its head out of its ass and realize THEY DON’T DESERVE THAT MUCH. I work 60 hours a week and make like 30,000 a year. Now this isn’t a bitter man’s personal story or anything — it’s just become painfully obvious that we are paying too much to these people. You like making movies or music? Good for you, here’s 300,000 a year you to generate in online sales. now stfu.

  • Cujo

    the movie industry should start thier own tracker ,, with a small fee ta get the torrent file (fees could differ depending on wether it’s a new release or otherwise) and make a fortune ;)

  • Trixx

    @26 “I also don’t like having to stop at red lights. Does this mean that I can simply run them whenever I feel like it?”

    LOL, I live in a state that has the most red light runners of all time!! they will not stop at red lights, i don’t see people stopping their sharing of movies they find, borrow, pass on..

    I think they are greedy, just like pro ball athletes and coaches are highly over paid..

    i’m also disapointed that they rmake old ideas to fit modern times, it’s sad, and politically incorrect. i’m not trying to play the rasist card, but a black Dorthy in the latest wizard of oz? A Female Starbuck? I almost feel as if these movies are turning into raciest themes.. Hey, bring back SAMBO… i loved that story.

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  • Anonymous

    “But we’re talking about people who spew out some cookie-cutter crap, tweaked by software that makes audio appealing to humans based on algorithms, banging an album together with as little as 200 hours of work involved and expecting to have an income from it equal to several years of REAL labour.- There are exceptions but much of the industry is lazy, greedy and expects to make millions from 1% of the work that most people do just to pay off a modest mortgage.”

    Oh I’m sorry you appear to be inder the impression that people get paid for doing nothing – yep, businesses just pay people for doing sweet FA. Back in the real world and out of your imagination it doesn’t work that way which you’d know if you worked and didnt live offf your parents. Your own statements are retarded: just why the hell are you not making this kind of money and what is stopping you… oh wait, years of hard work and experience are required. But according to you it’s just easy street with no work involved – So WHY aren’t you doing it then? as you seem to think… like anybody could – how dumb are you not doing it?

    Where did the 200 hours work figure come from? Why aren’t you taking this incredible easy, according to you, option of making music using “algoprithms” and retiring exactly – wierd how it’s so easy in your imagination and yet you aren’t doing it isn’t it? Oh wait, you can’t do it can you because it takes years of practice and experience in almost all types of work and for the parts that don’t it still requires hard work or rare skills that most people don’t have.

    But of course, in the naive world that is your imagination anyone can do it with a small amount of effort LOL. Yet, amazingly, very few people make it despite it being so easy. Why don’t you give it a shot and retire instead of whinging about how unfair it is?

    Seriously, the level of naivety and wild fantasies having no resemblance to the real world in order to justify file sharing on this site is just jaw dropping sometimes.

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  • zendragon

    I don’t expect a FREE copy of a movie on theatrical release day. Heck I dont even expect to see those movies on dvd or the internet until they are done with their theater runs. I know the quality of any pirated releases is probably going to suck until a release hits DVD, so I dont even bother. Where I start to get angry is when I have absolutely no option otherwise. I just want to watch a movie in the privacy of my own home, and dont want to spend 20 bucks for a DVD cause I only want to watch it once. Why cant I just pay, say 1.99 to watch a movie once online and be done with it? They are still making money off me. Why are our choices so limited when there is actually no good reason for them not to offer these services? Netflix is a GREAT start, but they don’t get any new releases for streaming because the studios don’t understand what people want. They need to realize that the overwhelming support for these types of mediums would more than make up for the slight loss in profit of an individual unit. Please wake up!

  • Mackintire

    I would strongly suggest the following from the movie industry:

    1. 1080p quality downloads available on theatrical release day.
    2. Transparent DRM for streaming movies. Non-intrusive DRM for hard media.
    3. Price matching quality.

    Single Layer DVD or 320P stream for $
    Dual Layer DVD or 480P stream for $$
    Heavily Compresses HD stream $$+
    Blu-Ray or 1080p stream for $$$

  • TrustAvidity

    @26/Neostyles

    I don’t believe in pirating any moreso than you do but there is quite a bit of flawed logic in your comment. First of all, your reply to Splendor who posted “http://i.imgur.com/GxzeV.jpg” You’re right in the fact that “not wanting to stop at red lights” gives you the right to drive through them, but people are saying that it doesn’t make sense that paying customers have to deal with that crap when they are PAYING for the movie in the first place. You may say then go digital, hey no commercials. But also a crap-load of DRM. Again that isn’t an excuse to pirating but it also exposes your arguments for it. If you put price aside (free or otherwise) digital distribution is next to ridiculous. People download because they can watch what they get on any device they want in any format they want which is how it should be when you pay for it. Digital distribution is charging people for restrictions. They punish honest customers in search of pirates.

    People should rightfully pay for the content they want but paying for it should entitle them to extra privileges, not less. Game developers are requiring internet connections to play and restricting the number of installations, dvds are loaded with marketing, online media is bogged down with digital restrictions, portable devices remain a link to their manufacturer allowing them to digitally remove features the customers legitimately paid for. I agree people should not pirate media, but people should also OWN their media. Not pay for access to it.

  • Bucket monkey

    It’s stories like this that make me want to eat mangos and play nintendo until my feet bleed.

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  • graffiti97

    The movie and music industry are going to die.

    This is how it works: When you have an industry with high investments and high profits, the top dogs in that industry tend to make millions.

    When the circumstances change, it is nearly impossible for that industry to change into a low investment, commodity price business model. Too many people would need to start working for $90k instead of millions.

    So they sue, lobby, cheat or whatever trying to avoid the unavoidable: the change of of the business model.

    This spells a slow death of big music/movie, big stars like Tom Cruise and movies like the remake of the sequel of Spiderman.

    It will also give a chance to the small budget niche movies based on an original idea. Sure, we will see a lot of badly shot stupid crap, but it will clear up with time and settle with good stories, cheap, ingenious special effects and no superstars (I am an optimist).

    I am looking forward to that time. Until then, I watch very few movies (mostly old ones).

  • Haysoos

    Consumers demand too much. There is a compromise, the consumer wants adecent product and the companies want to make money. Right now both groups are sitting on the most extreme, rediculous ends of the spectrum blaming the other side for being to selfish as the reason they are being so rediculous. It’s a self-sustaining circle jerk arguement on both sides, all the stupid pirates are the exact same level of greedy and childish as the industry execs, so I hope both sides hurt each other mercilessly. I hope the execs lose property and moeny, whle the pirates are forced to pay over the top damages like 1.5 million dollars or get locked up for 40 years. Why do I have a great big middle finger up to both sides? Because both sides are stupid little children with absolutely no sense of morality, both sides deserve all the negativity they are bringing on themselves.

    Its all so stupid on both sides.

  • Not from britain

    I don’t even download movies anymore but I will give Amazon 99c for a specific song. I wish I could be like one of these whiners and say it was for ethical reasons but I simply haven’t seen anything worth watching (Movie Exec.-> “movies are suppose to have story lines and character progression?, wait what? Math is hard.”).

    I remember reading in some book or maybe it was a movie I pirated, about Great Britain telling Americans to do the right thing and pay taxes on tea. You know, just bend over, shut up, and do the right thing. Of course if we did do the right thing back then we wouldn’t be having this discussion in the first place. Go Britain!

    To the trolls: Most normal Americans don’t like to be taken advantage of when there is clearly a better way of doing things.

  • Disabled!

    I’m disabled man and there are only 2 fuckin seats in the cinema which are in a crap location an are usually filled by someone else. How the hell am I supposed to enjoy films at the cinema in those conditions! They can get fucked if the think I’m payin £10-20 for a film I’ll only watch once every few years too, and it’s on the box by then. Fuck them all!

  • John

    Good article

  • DarthVain

    When you business model is basically:

    Do NOT provide what your customers want. Force them to obey, for better profit margins.

    Can you really be all that surprised when your “customers” find other means to get what they want?

  • HD nerd.

    Don’t get me wrong, since I love free movies as much as the next guy. But you have to see a movie on Blu-ray in full 1080p HD, with the right home theatre rig to really appreciate the purchase. It’s a pretty nasty startup cost though. I’m also a HD nerd. Unfortunately the stuff you get online isnt always that great quality, so it can look pretty bad on your bigscreen. :P

  • Thaim Letches

    I don’t advocate piracy and I am one of those people who still waste money on DVDs and CDs. I don’t believe in digital only delivery because I don’t trust hardware, having watch several hard drives fail. Sure, I can back the data up but if I’m going to do that then I might as well by the original ‘plastic’ media release and be done with it.

    But the movie studios will eventually hang themselves with their greed. As is, my movie consumption has decreased due to the limited availability on Netflix insta-play and my own laziness. Blocking new releases for thirty days isn’t going to force me to buy a movie, it is going to force me not to rent it immediately and probably catch it when it airs on TV as I’m likely to forget about it after than initial release to video.

    So stop complaining about your product being devalued. Prices for digital content are already too high. If you offered me the ability to re-acquire the file should something happen to the original, then maybe I’d consider paying more. As it stands, should your machine die a hideous death, it is all gone unless you wasted the time and resources to backup to something more permanent. And correct me if I’m wrong, but insurance doesn’t cover the theft of your digital library as they do your physical library?

  • Jef

    Some people refuse to accept the fact that the world is changing, and will fight it to their grave!

  • epochme

    i preview and if i like the product i add it to my collection , and if i really like it {movie} i go see it in a theater , like avatar 3 d , well worth the 10 bucks

  • anotherboringblog

    I totally agree. The movie industry doesn’t get it. http://anotherboringblog.com/2010/02/22/the-movie-industry-just-doesnt-get-it/

  • Whypirate

    I don’t have anything particularly against the people who pirate movies (10.50 or more at a theater is ridiculous), but I usually just buy the DVDs used either online or through local video rental stores. I can usually pick up 4 or 5 moves for 20$, which is dirt cheap and the money goes towards helping keep these smaller stores in business. Can I get the newest and most exciting releases immediately? no. But can I supply myself with a near unlimited source of legitimate movies for very little money, no legal trouble, and while supporting local businesses that need our help because the movie industry execs are idiots… yes. Pirating keeps money away from the movie industry, but hurts the small businesses. Used movies help the small business and keeps the money away from a broken system. Thats just my 2 cents.

  • dg100rip

    I’ve been reading Torrentfreak for a long while without comment, but today I really feel the need to speak up. I apologise in advance for the length of this monologue. FYI, as far as I know, I’m not affiliated with any person, organisation or body with any particular interest in the matter, commercial, political or otherwise.

    To those of you who are pro-copyright-industry and to anyone trying to dismiss all piracy as mere theft, I’m sorry, but in some respects you are quite wrong. Ignoring some of the stranger and more bizarre political arguments put forward to justify piracy, there are some points raised by pro-torrent members of the internet community that surely cannot simply be dismissed out of hand.

    The most objectionable issue is that we are being asked to pay repeatedly for things we’ve already spent a lot of money on. How can you justify this? It’s overtly exploitative. When we buy a DVD, or whatever, we’re not just paying for the medium, we’re paying for the license to own and use the product. The movie studios, record labels and software houses have all gone to very great lengths to emphasise this. If we want to play the product on a different medium, or if the disk is scratched, we have to buy a fresh copy in it’s entirety, complete with a new license, at the full retail price. We’ve paid for it already, but there is still no other recourse for getting access to products we’ve already bought, even though we still have a valid license. From your viewpoint, how can you regard this as anything other than a flagrant abuse of consumers’ rights? Surely, there can be no better example of the letter of the law being deliberately manipulated to defeat the spirit of the law. The licensing system is meant to protect consumers as well as content providers. In practise, this has now been so badly twisted round that the latter have the exclusive use of this to exploit and abuse the former, namely us.

    Another, similar thing: I live in the UK. Here, every household is legally obliged to pay for an expensive, annual license fee for the right to own a television set. We’ve had this system for decades and it pays for a substantial public service broadcasting company called the BBC. Despite the fact that we have all paid through the nose already for the product, if we want to see any more than a tiny fraction of the vast amount of the material produced over the years, we have to go out to the shop and buy it again. The same programme that we have paid for already and which cost the company literally just £10 to make in the 1960′s, I now have to shell out £20 for, in order to watch it just once, even when the residual fees due to contributing artists from the product is zero. It’s even more galling that the BBC recently used our license-money to develop a bit-torrent-based P2P distribution system – one which they now seem to be refusing to use, presumably because of it’s associations with piracy. How can any of that be reasonable?

    Lastly, how is it in any way ethical or moral for them to continue to pump money into rogue legal firms that have so clearly focussed their efforts on extorting money from pensioners and other easily victimised parties who aren’t able to defend themselves? In this country, if a rogue plumber cons an old lady into, say, buying a new boiler she doesn’t need, someone will (hopefully) find out, the police will catch them and the courts will very likely send them to jail. When did using the same tactics as the worst kind of criminal become a reasonable course of action for a profeesional industry? Why are they only focussing on torrent sites for their biggest legal attacks? Why not Google? The only reason I can think of is that these targets are less likely to be able to defend themselves and more likely to run out of money in the face of endless appeals. How can you possibly justify this kind of outrageous abuse of different countries’ legal systems?

    Personally, I think that most copyright owners have had an essentially tame audience for many years and don’t really understand the realities of competition in today’s more crowded marketplace. I think they’re mostly just making weak excuses for their own failures as businesses. We’ve been listening to the same thing for decades now, with a different scapegoat each time, be it television, VHS or, as now, peer-to-peer file-sharing.

    I think the truth is that they started out with nothing to compete with except each other, then a few channels on TV, then the media-explosion that was VHS and now the enormously vast ocean of content that is cyberspace. And they can’t cope. The claim is made that “they can’t compete with free”. I think the real problem is that they are tiny in the face of a distribution medium that is much, much bigger than they are. I think the real problem is that, out here, they can’t compete with anything.

  • dg100rip

    Umm… alright, maybe that really, really was a bit too long. Sorry, everyone. You know how it is when you get a good rant going… :)

  • wikiBuddha

    Who buys xDs? Well, I do for one. Not DVDs, though. I do buy CDs. I totally enjoy the try-before you buy experience (ala Pandora.com). However, I’m utterly dissatisfied with the “motion picture” industry (TV and movies) and boycott accordingly.

    The biggest draw of having the “dust-collecting plastic” is a matter of quality. I’m pissed at the digital revolution. It’s quite purely sh!t; a steaming pile of it. I don’t want to download mp3s. They’re shite. I do notice degradation over time over copies. If you want to push digital music on me, offer me… options. I would pay an extra 50 cents for the higher .wav quality over mp3.

    It’s like going to a local music show. The cover is often “donation recommended”. At that rate, I can listen to the band and if they’re good I’ll toss them $1 per musician. I like to give it to the band directly to ensure they get their pay (and not the bar with overpriced drinks).

    I find the “trolls” complaints on this thread about “pirating” and I’m quite curious how they would define it. I suspect that their vision of pirating is perfectly legal. You see, I can record my stereo mixer (Audacity) while I listen to music on Pandora. I can download any mp3. The legality issue falls in the distribution of the data, not the acquisition of it.

    I have a feeling that stating that “I download mp3s for free” would automatically categorize me as a pirate from the perspective of said trolls. That logic is surely erroneous (see previous paragraph). Also, note that I didn’t state where the mp3s were coming from or what their contents are. They could be free mp3s that I’m downloading.

    I downloaded Radiohead’s latest album when they released it for free, I gave them nothing. While I did consider the album worth $3, I didn’t plan on listening to it ever again (and I don’t) so thus, I feel my offering is justified. And I don’t hear them complaining about “piracy”.

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  • Steve

    You’re simplifying this issue. It’s not the “studios” that are simply raking in money for DVD sales. Most films that are released, remember, are not like Avatar. Majority of the revenue most films generate are in ancillary sales, and DVD sales is one of the biggest slices of the pie. Oftentimes, creative people involved in productions, like a producer, for example, suffer at a loss up front and wait for DVD sales to come in to make up for it. The movie industry is a business. Just because it wants to make a profit, as any other business does, doesn’t make it fair to label it as GREEDY GREEDY GREEDY. I think it’s more greedy to feel entitled to a product, such as a movie or album, by downloading it for free. What’s more greedy than cutting off revenue for the people who actually create the entertainment for us to enjoy?

  • Anonymous

    “I do notice degradation over time over copies”

    You notice that mp3 files degrade in sound quality over time? LMAO. You are seriously clueless and have a wild imagination such that it effects your subjective assessment of sound quality to the point where you hear sound quality degrading in the same non-degradable media.

    “I downloaded Radiohead’s latest album when they released it for free, I gave them nothing. While I did consider the album worth $3, I didn’t plan on listening to it ever again (and I don’t) so thus, I feel my offering is justified. And I don’t hear them complaining about “piracy”.”

    They aren’t going to complain about piracy when they’re giving their album away with rights that enable free distribution – meaning piracy cannot happen. What is that supposed to even mean?

    “I can download any mp3. The legality issue falls in the distribution of the data, not the acquisition of it.”

    WTF? Make sense man…

    I have a feeling that stating that “I download mp3s for free” would automatically categorize me as a pirate from the perspective of said trolls.”

    No, most people would just notice you gave no infomation about what the mp3 files are and so not be able to draw that conclusion.

    If you download mp3 files reproductions of copyrighted works you are a pirate.

    Your whole post was an inane ramble that stated self-evident facts as some sort of revelation for some reason and seems to making assumptions that most people are simpletons. Why did you even post this?

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  • Haha

    Have you seen the ‘Baby Gremlin vs The Music Industry’?

    http://musicgremlins.com

  • tired consumer

    I agree that pirating leads to a smaller amount of money being transferred to the industy’s coffers – while you certainly wouldn’t have paid for all the movies you pirated, you probably would have paid for some in the past (before internet dls).

    I wonder about two things:
    a) Is it morally bad to say: “Yes, I would be willing to pay a certain (possibly fixed) amount of money for my media usage, but after the experience of the last ten years I’m not willing to put up with artificial restrictions, re-sales of content I already purchased and other still popular schemes to milk my consumer dollar. Let me consume what I want, when I want, take my money and figure out how to distribute it to the people responsible for what I looked at/heard.”
    b) Are there (still) enough people out there willing to pay for such a model to make it commercialy viable?

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  • Alice in Wonderland

    What about the movie theatres? Aren’t they to blame too?

    I think this says it all:

    http://www.futureofcopyright.com/index.php?page=news&id=766

    the consumer is being held hostage by the theatres (which charges them 15 euros for a ticket!!)

  • Mr. Anon

    Great article! I enjoyed reading this one. More than this, I liked the “I HEART P2P” pictures on the blockbuster window. That is priceless!

    Thanks TF

  • Jessica

    I demand to see the science behind the ‘piracy is killing us’ stuff.

    Something like an A=B, strong proof that the industry is INDEED suffering.

    Not another press-release, not another sales report, I’m talking about a scientific paper.

    But this seems too unlikely to happen.

  • Anon

    @neostyles

    “tunes movies also don’t come with most of these ads either. If you were actually looking to get things through distrobuition and not just get everything for free (yes, you have to pay for digital distrobuition too), you would have embraced services like itunes.”

    Absolutely not, I am not supporting Apple and if that means I never get a digital copy of a movie or never hear a band’s music, so be it. If there were a site where I could get DRM free videos and music without supporting Apple I’d be on board but until then do not use iTunes to say there is a digital distribution method that works for everyone.

    Apple is not an acceptable alternative, I don’t want quicktime on my PC, I don’t want iTunes on my PC, I do not want to give any of my money to Steve Jobs and the douchebaggery that is Apple Computer Corp.

    Sorry for feeding the troll.

  • abolish copyright now

    What’s more greedy than cutting off revenue for the people who actually create the entertainment for us to enjoy?

    using copyright law to deprive society from the access and usage of all copyrighted content.

  • Luci Temple

    Wow, what a hot topic!

    Lots of good and varied arguments here.

    I’d just like to add, that the issue of “copyright infringement” (the more correct term for what has now been labelled “piracy”) is not a new thing. New technology does not threaten the industry.

    1) Mix tapes didn’t ruin the music industry back in the eighties.

    2) VCRs / DVRs recording tv didn’t kill TV shows.

    3) the photocopier / scanner didn’t stop magazine sales.

    There are very few people in the modern age who haven’t breached copyright in one form or another. And casual domestic copyright infringement does not have a negative impact on sales – entertainment sales if anything continue to grow.

    Thing is, people who want to buy something WILL purchase even if it is available alternatively for free:
    a) Libraries don’t affect book sales b) Free music on the radio didn’t stop music sales (in fact, what artist wouldn’t kill to be broadcast?)
    c) Purchasing dvd of a tv series even while it is still running on tv.
    d) Newspaper & magazines even when available online.

    Other people will try things for free that they wouldn’t have otherwise bought. If they like it, they may well convert to purchase – but if it wasn’t available free to try in the first place they would never have given it a chance.

    Two links for consideration:

    “Ink” is a movie that benefited from piracy http://yetanotherstrugglingwriter.blogspot.com/2010/02/ink-ink-deal-with-their-fans.html

    And here is a FREE ebook that explains pricing models and how “free” can still lead to profit http://toddsattersten.com/2010/02/fixed-to-flexible—the-ebook.html

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  • SelfHelplessMovie.com

    Aww man. Piracy is a godsend to filmmakers. We are releasing Self Helpless on bittorrent because we want the people we made it for to ACTUALLY SEE IT! Downloading is democracy, keep it up.

  • Gubes

    The problem I have is that the whole premise of the internet and on-line distribution is to cut out the middle man so that the studios make more money and so that the customer gets a cheaper price. Right? Obviously not.

    Say a DVD movie retails for $15. The retailer needs to make $5, the wholesaler $2, the cost of making the disc and packaging is another $1-2. In theory, you should be able to purchase this on-line for $4-5 at the same quality and the studio gets the same cut – or rent it for $1-2 tops. But what price are they selling it for on iTunes? $15 and they need to pay Apple $5. Mind you, you are getting DRM and inferior quality for the same price = no motivation to purchase it legally.

    If content was available at the same quality as the hard media with no DRM and was sold at the wholesale cost then you would see Piracy go down and sales would go through the roof.

    And people would pay versus pirate if that was the case. Don’t forget that P2P has its issues too. Its slower than downloading from a central server and you don’t know what you are getting (viruses, wrong language content) and you have to hope that someone is sharing the content when you want it.

    The answer to piracy is simple. Sell the content on-line at the same quality at the wholesale price.

    Also, movie content takes up space on your hard drive. Why not give us the option to have it stored in a cloud once you bought it so that it can be streamed to wherever you are.

    Each year the studios procrastinate and refuse to embrace this opportunity, the more revenue they lose as file sharers continue to pirate whole libraries of content and get used to never paying for it. The studios are missing a huge opportunity here.

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  • nerd

    “Much like the big music labels, the studios are trying to control how people consume media to an extent where it becomes impossible for innovative retailers to offer a product that can compete with piracy. By this process they are killing their own business…”

    good riddance, adios, ciao!

  • google

    Entertainment: The only industry where records profits are made, but the companies still bitch and moan because it wasn’t enough.

  • john

    Tell that to Avatar or Transformers. The movie business is more a business than an art, so you can’t blame them in entirety for the problem when people keep saying one thing and paying for another.

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  • http://knewthetruth.webs.com/

    its nice…

    pls visit our site..
    http://knewthetruth.webs.com/

  • phuqertrfc

    I honestly think that this whole issue comes down to a control issue.

    I am someone who spent many years buying CD’s and DVD’s/VHS, but now I am someone who downloads the majority of my films and music for free.
    I understand that it is wrong and I really don’t know why people on this site try to justify it.

    So if it is wrong, why do I do it?

    Well for many years as a kid, I couldn’t afford to buy music or films so I relied on the radio and the TV.
    I used to record songs on the radio and record films on the TV.
    When I started high school and I met friends with similar music tastes I was able to start copying their albums off them.
    By the time I was 15 I had a huge collection of copied cassettes and a huge collection of recorded (from TV) films on VHS.

    When CD’s started to become the norm, I was a college student and I had a part time job leaving me with a little money in my pocket.
    Enough money to buy 1 or 2 CD’s a week which is exactly what I did.
    Unfortunately, every week in HMV there were 4 or 5 new CD’s which I wanted to buy but simply couldn’t afford.
    We had a system going by which my mates and I wouldn’t buy CD’s that one of us already owned, so that way between us we could own a lot more, rather than own several copies of the same CD.
    We would then swap CD’s with each other and copy them, initially on to cassette and then on to CD’s when the technology became more readily available and affordable.

    By the letter of the law we were committing a crime as we were copying CD’s, however, we were just college kids who could not afford to buy a lot of music and therefore just working together to obtain the music we wanted at an affordable price.
    This is how the music industry has always worked, and the music industry was not losing out, it was actually benefiting from us.

    If there were 10 of us and we bought 10 CD’s by different bands, it is still only the same amount of CD’s if we had each bought 1 copy of the same CD.
    The fact was we didn’t have limitless money and we bought what we could afford.
    The stuff we copied wasn’t lost sales because if we couldn’t have copied them, we still wouldn’t have been able to buy them.

    As for films, I just used to record from the telly onto VHS and kept that copy in my collection.
    Later on down the line, I was able to copy from the telly onto DVD, or from DVD to DVD and now I can copy directly to a hard drive.
    In a similar manner to above, I also copy DVD’s from friends collections for the simple reason that I cannot afford to but every DVD that I want.

    Now I am not saying that it makes it right to do what I do just because I couldn’t afford to buy everything I wanted, but what I am saying is that I have done this for years and years, long before the internet was about.
    So why was there never such a big issue before about all of this?

    This is where I think it is all about control.
    When I recorded a film off the telly or copied a CD or DVD off a mate, I was left with a copy and in the 80’s and 90’s it was a poorer quality copy than the original. In more modern times when the copy was on par with the original I still didn’t have the proper packaging that came with it, so by all intents and purposes it was still an inferior copy than the original.

    If I wanted a proper copy of the film or album, I had to buy it.

    Nowadays I still do the same thing.
    I have a mate in work who buys loads of CD’s still and rips them to his ipod, and I rip the contents of his ipod to my PC if he has any new albums I want.
    I have (virtual) friends who are constantly sharing music and films via peer to peer networks.
    The principals are the same as what I was doing in the 80’s and 90’s. I am getting a copy of a film or album off someone by taking a copy of their copy.

    The only difference these days for the industry is that the copy I get is not inferior in any way at all.
    It is an exact copy of the original and because the original is bought from itunes or another online retailer there is no packaging or physical artwork or booklets.
    So in essence, I have the original of the product.

    Whereas before in the 80’s and 90’s I would save up to buy the originals of the copies I loved, in this day and age to do that, I would be deleting a file from my PC and then paying for the exact same file to be put back on it.

    So now the industries feel that they need to control what I pay for to stop this from happening.
    But that means that they take all my freedom away from me with the product I buy.
    When I bought a CD in the 90’s, I was free to play it in my bedroom, in the front room, in the car, at my mates, in work etc etc, but now I am being told that if I buy a CD I am limited as to where I can play it.
    CD’s I bought 20 years ago can still be listened to today, but I already have songs from itunes that can’t be played on my PC because I have had over 5 new PC’s since I first bought the songs.

    That lack of freedom does not sit well with me, and I suddenly realise that for the first time ever, the copy is actually superior than the original, because the copy gives me all the freedom that a CD did, but the original doesn’t have that anymore.

    So how does the industry get round this?
    I honestly do not know the answer, but what I do know is that trying to control what I have bought after I have paid for it is not the answer.
    Once I have paid for it I expect it to be mine to play on all my PC’s and music systems even if I own 30 of each.

    All I know is that in the 90’s I was copying CD’s and films left right and centre and it did not upset the industries at all.
    They still sold millions every week even though copying was going on.
    I honestly think that the two work hand in hand.
    If the industry just concentrate on selling us value for money and putting more effort into bands with substance as opposed to 5 minute popstars, people will keep buying their products.
    Yes copying (sharing) will go on like it always has done but the industry will not only survive but flourish as it always has done.

    If they keep trying to control what we can do with the music and films we buy through DRM etc, then people will just not buy their products.

  • Luci Temple

    I just wanted to add, further to my last post, I think this is a complex issue where part of the problem is the vague use of the word “piracy” to describe actually a whole variety of actions, some minor and others large scale commercial operations. I’m trying to come up with different categories so we can discuss the issues properly – have blogged about it here http://bit.ly/cHNwc

  • Mr. Movies

    I would guess that people using their cell phones to text and tweet their friends about how bad a movie is before even leaving the theater does a lot more harm to a movie than piracy or even greed ever could.

    Both the music industry and hollywood are doomed though, at least in their current forms. You cannot hope to maintain a closed system revolving around control of information in todays world.

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