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Pirates? Hollywood Sets $10+ Billion Box Office Record

The MPAA tends to leave no opportunity unused in its quest to show that online piracy is devastating the movie industry. However, this supposed devastation is not visible at the box office this year. In 2012 North American movie theaters showed more movies than ever before, and for the first time in history domestic box office grosses surpassed $10.7 billion The new record comes in a year where two academic studies have shown that “piracy” isn’t necessarily hurting box office revenues .

The MPAA has made it very clear that the economy is losing billions due to piracy. Illegal downloads, they say, are slowly killing the creative industries.

While we’re not going to dispute these movie industry commissioned numbers here, it is worth pointing out that at North American box offices a new record has just been broken.

For the first time in history total ticket sales have exceeded $10.7 billion. According to the most recent numbers total revenue this year will be around $10.8 billion, with 6 percent coming from this year’s blockbuster The Avengers.

The new record was set without raising ticket prices, and even when adjusted for inflation there’s a significant bump compared to last year’s grosses. And if that’s not enough, the total number of movies premiered in 2012 also went up to a record breaking 655.

The new record follows an even more stable international trend where box office revenues have been growing for several consecutive years. Over the past decade international grosses nearly tripled from $8.1 billion in 2001 to $22.4 billion in 2011.

Keep in mind that this was the same period that online file-sharing took off.

The good news for Hollywood is that “pirates” are not all that interested in the low quality “camcorded” movie releases that are usually available during the first weeks after a movie premiere.

There aren’t many movie fans who see a camcorded version of a movie as a true alternative to watching a film in a movie theater. The two are totally different experiences, and not direct competition at all.

If anything, downloading a camcorded movie could be compared to downloading a low quality bootleg of a concert. People who download these are collectors, passionate fans, or just curious.

The suggestion that online piracy may not be all that bad for the box office is in line with two recent academic studies. The first showed that the US box office is not suffering from movie piracy at all, and another one came to the counter-intuitive conclusion that the Megaupload shutdown negatively impacted ticket sales.

But does this mean that piracy is not an issue for the movie industry at all?

Not necessarily. Most “pirates” appear to be waiting for higher quality DVD and Blu-Ray rips which are more likely to affect the DVD-aftermarket and VOD sales. These high quality pirated copies are direct competition and can impact revenues.

The challenge for the movie industry is to make legal offerings more appealing than their pirated counterparts. Of course it may not always be able to “compete with free”, but there is still a lot of ground to make up when it comes to availability and quality of legal offerings.

But overall we’d say that the movie industry is still very much alive.

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  • Lulz

    Sadly. I wish they would die.

    • Fr3d

      Yep, I’d prefer it too. Spreading lies after lies. I hope as an example to them that piracy stops and then when box office records are affected then we’ll see the fun.

      • http://twitter.com/Balstrome Mike de Fleuriot

        But remember you, me and everyone else who downloads these movies knows that they are telling lies. They can scream and shout and it will have zero effect on us.

        Until they work out a better business model that addresses our needs, we will continue to pirate the ass out of these movies.

        • D’ D’

          Looks like file-sharers “failed” this year, they didn’t “hurt” the industry……
          And they’re failing year after year, movies are earning more and more money,
          but you know, MPAA also wants the cash you put aside for groceries,
          that’s the reason to create more and more laws to get money for them
          or was that to protect the intellectual properties? Can’t remember.

          In the end, going to cinemas and getting the original product are things
          that downloading files on internet can’t offer and some people will always want to do.

        • Guest

          Have they ever considered how much pirates COULD hurt them if they push them too hard? No. They think they have it sewn up now they have the governments in there pockets.

          How about this then:

          A small band of pirates in every city each produce ten discs – cost? negligible.
          On those discs are 6 blockbuster movies and instructions and software on how to make duplicates. These are left on tables in coffee shops and pubs all over cities all over the world with a polite note that these are an example of freeing information in 2013 and another note explaining copyright and the eventual tyranny corporate power will create in our world.

          At the bottom is a request saying: PLEASE DUPLICATE AND PASS ON.

          Jeez. They could be bankrupted in 12 months.

          Moral of story: Don’t fuck with freedom of information. It can bite your ass!

        • Guest

          @Guest – Ha ha ha!

          Nice. Like it. Add to note: NO NETWORK REQUIRED.

      • Guest

        I’m American. Is that sarcasm, or irony?

        • Foreigner

          I’m a foreigner. I hated America… I want to boycott all their products. But recently I bought lots of audiophile equipments like subwoofers, receivers, tower speakers on vacation there during black friday sales. Man they are really really cheap. Fucking selling cheap 3X cheaper than in my country! I felt guilty. Is that sarcasm, or irony?

        • 7th_Guest

          @Guest: Irony.

          @Foreigner: Hypocrisy.

    • Roflmao

      What they actually mean is: That, the record would be even higher if there was no piracy, therefore they think, that they are losing billions without any proof that the pirating people would actually buy the stuff in that case.

      Well, sounds like a conclusion any corporate would come into, but there’s always those who don’t buy a thing for sure..

      • Guest

        Excuse me? There is lots of self-evident evidence to prove their losses.
        It must be self-evident because it’s never used in court.

        • UraPhake

          Self-evident – containing its own evidence or proof without need of further demonstration. Axiomatic.

          So…if I downloaded a copy of Ishtar and was brought into court it would be “self-evident” that they suffered a “loss” from a movie I would never purchase or even view at a $1 matinee in the first place? (forget for a moment the fact that I wouldn’t really download the thing, this is just a hypothetical)

          How can the above be classified as “self-evident” without some sort of proof to support their claim? In this case there is absolutely no such thing as “self-evidence” other than the fact that the law supports the copyright monopoly without question. That’s one of the things about copyright law which is legislated without any real thought on the part of the legislators.

          Just as “ignorance of the law is no excuse” there should be a counter-balance to that such as, “an ignorant law should not be excused” as well. They should be forced to prove their claims of loss in the same manner that one must prove defamation of character, libel, or slander. No judge is going to accept a plaintiff’s claim as “self-evident” in any of those instances.

          The only thing “self-evident” is the arrogance of the entertainment industry and the corruption and collusion of legislators (never mind the legislators who are simply stupid).

          But since you brought it up — just exactly what do you mean when you say, “There is lots of self-evident evidence to prove their losses?” Cite a clear example, please. Indulge my ignorance of such a thing if you will.

        • Guest

          UraPhake I think he was using sarcasm. He’s pointing out that they have no evidence to use in court, or none that they are bringing.

        • UraPhake

          Okay — it’s been pointed out to me that you were being sarcastic. My apologies. There’s “no excuse” for my ignorance but I’d like to give one anyway. ;)

          I often see the nic “Guest” used by “copyright trolls” and it was my assumption you were one of them. Another reason for people to try to use unique names here. Regardless, I will make an attempt to hone my detection of sarcasm so as to forestall future embarrassments like this.

          But you did give me a chance to “spout off” in any event — so I guess that makes me a nozzle.

          Ironically, the tip-off was from another…”Guest.” Or…was it?

        • Jimmy671

          @UraPhake

          Yes he was being sarcastic,and I agree that posters
          should use a proper nick,otherwise it can get confusing.

    • http://www.clubvalenciacf.blogspot.com SlickR

      Well I wouldn’t go as far, though I’d like the MPAA more specifically to disband as they are wasting money on the very thing that has been proven by studies and in practice to actually increase sales.

      Piracy is pretty much free advertisement.

    • http://www.facebook.com/charles.broam Charles Broam

      Actually, let’s clarify that statement. Speaking for myself, I wish for the MPAA (and RIAA) to die, not necessarily the whole movie industry. I actually like SOME of the movies coming out of Hollywood. That being said, there is a LOT OF ROOM for major improvements. With all the books out there that have been written already, and new ones coming daily, why do they always do the most stupid CGI-laden, paper-thin character, dry-puff black hole plot less stories?

      • Guest

        Maybe this would improve if we could get more companies in Hollywood, and I don’t mean more “companies”. I mean completely seperate companies and not ones owned by the majore companies.

        • Frunk

          Boy, stop smoking that shit!

    • JordanKratz

      Yes, Sadly there are not enough people Boycotting MAFIAA.
      Maybe the Six Strikes Program or some Major Education will show folks the light.
      Boycott All MAFIAA
      Buy and Support Local and Indie Art

    • Porkchop

      Crap movies hurt sales. Quit producing shit and people will see a movie, SIMPLE.

  • Anon

    I’ll buy the good stuff and download the so-so stuff…

  • Mr.Mmph

    I’d say “told you so” but mmph

  • Scythe

    With all due respect, this article is misleading because the figures aren’t adjusted for inflation. A 2012 dollar is worth substantially less than a 1970,1980,1990 etc. dollar due to inflation . Although on face value 10.8 billion may seem like a staggering figure,the real profit margin not be as high after adjusting for inflation and other factors

    • Ray

      Can you be more specific with an actual number? You have the necessary figures.

    • http://profiles.google.com/pablo.bollansee Pablo Bollansée

      The article clearly states that even when adjusted for inflation they still made more. Or am I missing something?

      • xpmule

        your right i noticed that when i read the story..
        Scythe needs to pay more attention when reading ;)

    • MadAsASnake

      The real value as after obfuscation by Hollywood Accounting?

      • Guest

        Yeah. It does say adjusted for inflation. Not the right type of inflation, maybe?
        Perhaps ‘Scythe’ IS a Hollywood Accountant?

        • MadAsASnake

          Perhaps. My view is that Hollywood Accounting is tax evasion and as such straight out fraud. Fraud, unlike copyright infringement, is essentially theft.

        • Joeshmoe

          I like the theory where they fear monger around in saying they would make even more if it weren’t for piracy. Absince of evidence and all that jazz.

    • Who

      “With all due respect, this article is misleading because the figures aren’t adjusted for inflation”

      you defiantly got your head WAY up you ASS!

      “A 2012 dollar is worth substantially less than a 1970,1980,1990 etc. dollar due to inflation”

      ok so ticket prices back in say the 90′s was around $4
      for 2012 they are @ $7+
      so form $4 to $7 is not inflation?
      so in 2012 the value of $7 is actually what? $2?
      so that actually means they are price gouging?
      this also means that ALL business are doing this.

      you want to change your statement now?

      .

    • Guest321

      Yeah how can profit margins ever be high when some actors are getting paid $50 million for a movie? Clearly, there’s not enough money to go around and everybody in the entertainment industry is starving.

    • RAVince

      Scythe is correct. The article is just using a general calculation when they say adjusted for inflation. Most likely the article was also generated off a Hollywood press release since the promotion machine of most studios like to promote everything as “bigger than ever” (The only way that the cynics in these comments who says Hollywood lies are even close.)

      As an example, one major inflation figure the article does not take into account is that the total gross includes revenues from upcharges for 3D, which typically run around a $3.00 surcharge in the U.S. This causes approximately a 25% increase in the average ticket price by as much as 10% of the tickets sold that did not exist as few as 5 years ago.

      The correct way to compare sales in business is unit sales, which means attendance in the theatrical exhibition industry. But rarely do news articles report these numbers. The reality is attendance has been declining for a number of years and 2012 is remarkable in that this is the first year attendance is up. Even then, attendance is not the level it was 10 years ago.

      The worse news is to accurately measure success it is necessary to look at the population base. In other words, if over a given period of time, the population has doubled, the same penetration percentage should render double the sales.

      When those calculations are taken into account, revenues should be closer to $20 billion.

      The difficult is you can never accurately measure the business you don’t generate. So all the pircacy advocates use that as a justification to prove they don’t have an impact when, in fact, the industry is not doing as well as it did in pre-Internet and home video days.

      • Danny

        Forget the money for a second.

        If piracy was really ‘killing’ their business, like they say, why are more films being made and more people attending cinemas.

        Also the population of the USA hasn’t changed dramatically in the 10 or so years that piracy has been ‘killing’ the film industry.

    • http://www.facebook.com/richieskerr Richard Kerr

      I agree, adjusted for inflation, I would imagine that the movie industry has been in decline over the years. While 10 billion dollars seems like a lot of money, Apple brought in 150 billion dollars (estimated) in 2012. Still I hope that the Movie industry maintains, it is a very important part of the American economy.

  • Guest321

    Tell us again how piracy is hurting the entertainment industry?

    • Anon

      The number of people in the world with courage committed in their conviction within Pirate Parties is so incredibly small you could hold them all in a thimble with enough room left over for Fredrika’s legal accuracy and Rick Falkvinge’s leadership skills.

      2013 will prove interesting alright. Keep abusing online privilege and we’ll see what government thinks is the right thing to do next. A fine pirate strategy.
      lol

      • Guest

        I’m not sure about that.
        It would require a fooking big thimble just to get my legs in.
        Just sayin’.

      • Guest

        What government thinks?
        ‘and we’ll TELL the government what we think is the right thing to do.’
        There, fixed it for you. No charge.

      • Guest

        @Anon

        Guest321 asked how piracy is hurting the entertainment industry, not for your opinion about the Pirate Party, Rick Falkvinge, Fredrika, or 2013.

        Nice job evading the question. Then again you really can’t answer it, can you?

      • guest765

        You just go ahead and keep believing that. We will come out of the wood work in swarms. Don’t think for one instant that you can fuck with our right to sharing, culture, and freedom of information. These are not privileges, they are human rights.

      • xpmule

        answer the question ?

        and nice story.. needs more dragons and maybe a couple of wizards..

      • Guest

        $10 Billion + profit must be really painful and hurtful for you to comprehend. If it was a loss of $10 Billion + then people would believe your comments but they don’t lol

      • Guest

        Anyone would think that you are upset NOT lol

    • http://www.facebook.com/people/Ryan-Clemens/1117714190 Ryan Clemens

      It’s hurting the big wigs pockets. As long as they’re not getting money for what you’ve downloaded they’ll keep bitchin’. And try forcing people to pay copious amounts of money. Nasty corporate greed at work, welcome to earth where money is more important than anything else and the ones that have plenty want still more. The worlds economy is so fucked.

      • Andrew me

        It is called Greed, just like they hate it when anyone but themselves makes even a dollar , look how cinemas are treated, they get a very small percentage of that money, then look at the sites that try to sell content, they are licensed so heavily they dont see profits for years, while the movie industry is rolling in money. It will eventually sort itself out , Greed always destroys the Greedy, always!!!!!.

        • 7th_Guest

          You know, I don’t think it’s greed; at least, certainly not what’s going on at the core. See, greedy people – simply greedy people – have no other goal or motivation in life than to maximize their wealth through their actions, hence when one of their ventures pays off well or better than expected, simple, greedy people would have no reason not to be happy or tell/show the world that they are. But in this case, it’s something else below this.
          Big Content has a reason to keep playing the abused victim card even when the assertions and “evidence” they offer as proof are as bold-faced and obvious fabrications as they can be and fly in the face of any existing facts and recorded figures. That reason is to preserve the momentum and keep the pressure on the politicians and legislators they’ve already got in their pocket. Much like how trademarks work, a narrative is only good when sustained, otherwise a different POV could start to become the more prevalent counter-trend that could question and challenge its predecessor. For Hollywood to just come out and flat out state, “yes, this has been our most profitable year for over a decade now and we’re happy with that” without any caveats attached, that would easily make every (non-Pirate) third party just fold their arms and logically conclude that no further anti-piracy legislative or law enforcement action need happen now since the best possible outcome has already arrived. Lobbied politicians not pushing for harder copyright enforcement… we certainly can’t have that, now can we?

          It is called an agenda ;).

  • Anon

    Total transparent straw man. lol Such bullshit. :-)

    Box office revenues have nothing to so with download or dvd after-market sales. Nice try. But we’ve come to expect something more sensible of TF. Time to send in Falkvinge’s utopian blather again! lol

    • http://profiles.google.com/orfetheo Orfeas Theofanis

      Is it more bullshit than the MPAA’s “studies” and “research” ? I don’t think so.

    • Guest

      ‘What we have here, is a failure to communicate’

      • xpmule

        ya he’s worked up with no place to go lol

        also he needs to work on being a more coherent copyright troll supporter.
        that crap is hard to decipher lol

    • Guest

      “Total transparent straw man.”

      You clearly still have no idea what a straw man even is.

      “Box office revenues have nothing to so with download or dvd after-market sales. “

      And nobody said they did, you semi-illiterate tragedy. Awhile ago, somebody posted a theory that the MAFIAA only hires morons anymore because they learned the hard way that smart people can be reasoned with and turned in to piracy supporters.

      You keep giving that theory ammunition.

      • xpmule

        jeez you could a bought em dinner first lol

        • Jimmy671

          No dinner for Anon,heshe prefers a gangbang.

    • UraPhake

      You know what would really be “more sensible of TF?”

      If in addition to the “Like” button, they had a “Smells Like Dog Shit” button.

      My other reply is this — Falkving’es utopian blather is a thousand times better than your corporate blather. “Lol” your ass off to that!

    • Guest

      Someone seems annoyed. GOOD lol.

      If you don’t like what the article is writing about then leave.

    • Jimmy671

      “”Total transparent straw man. lol Such bullshit. :-)”"

      That’s really funny coming from you Mister Troll.

  • Gma

    Now these MAFIAA shitee got more money to sue innocent people and hire more troll like Nejtillpirater to troll for them :/

  • Iavrtx

    Want to cut mainstream, movie-related, piracy out of the picture? Start a service that charges next to nothing to watch movies that are already available on DVD. I have no problem paying $1-2 for apps that often end up being useless and don’t see why movies should be any different. It should be cheap enough to stream a movie that if you do choose to not finish watching the film you don’t feel like you have been robbed.
    Most of us spend $2+ per day on coffee or other random beverages/shit we don’t need to buy and it is only because of how convenient it is to buy. Most of us would pass if we we actually had to stop, park, get out of our car, walk in the shop, wait in line. Give us a drive-through for movies and most of us will visit it daily!

    • Hmn

      they stopped most drive ins because of the amount of rapes going on in there. they figured that putting ppl in a dark theater is better, however now mafiaa have night vision googles to spy on you (see prev articles) so if you have sex or whatever, mafiaa owns the rights to the videos and are peeping toms on everyone, and the sheep allow mafiaa to spy on them in the increasing numbers, which is fucked up,…

    • puddipuddi

      I agree. If I could pay $50 a month for the all-you-can-eat media consumption that I’m enjoying now, I’d pay up. But it would have to be exactly that, direct downloads of all existing media, no restrictions. That’s when they’ll get my money.

      • guest

        Ever heard of netflix?

        • Who

          netflix has restrictions man. Ive used them for years.

        • Anyone

          “not available in your region”
          long release windows
          streaming, not downloading

          so netflix is nice (if it would be available here), but nowhere near an actual alternative to piracy

        • puddipuddi

          Hmm never heard of netflix letting my burn my own 360 games or streaming my content to my raspberry pi. It also doesn’t let me watch movies weeks before release. Please dude, piracy is complete media freedom, and I would pay for a service that replaces it. Oh wait I do through donations, shut up and run your business right so you can take my money!

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  • Sonicboom99

    They were full of shit! Who knew?!

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  • GotNoFilter

    Camcorded movies are huge all over the streets of Los Angeles. Teachers even show them in schools. I’ve even seen cops buying them from street vendors.

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  • Randy Lahey

    If it werent for filesharing, I’d never know what to buy.

    • The_Doorman

      This is worthy of being a quote on a t-shirt, bumper sticker, signature comment, etc… A tip of the hat to you, sir.

  • http://nejtillpirater.wordpress.com/ Nejtillpirater

    “For the first time in history total ticket sales have exceeded $10.7 billion. According to the most recent numbers total revenue this year will be around $10.8 billion”

    The sales went down both in 2010 and 2011 and the increase from 2009 to 2012 is only 2%. The increase would surely have been larger without the piracy.

    http://www.boxofficemojo.com/yearly/?view2=domestic&view=releasedate&p=.htm

    • Guest321

      Your boss is off to buy a private island and you’re still getting paid a dime an hour to suck his dick. Time to ask for a raise my man.

    • Guest

      you’ve been brainwashed, I pity you

    • Guest

      How much money do you greedy bastards want?
      That is more than the GDP of a lot of small countries!
      Is your glass ever even half full?

      • http://nejtillpirater.wordpress.com/ Nejtillpirater

        Since when has it become greedy to sell something?

        Don’t like it – don’t buy it (and don’t steal a free copy either)

        • Guest

          @Nej

          I ask how much do you people want.
          When do start giving back, if ever.
          TPB can educate students for nothing, remember?
          Out of that near eleven BILLION, what good causes do you think may benefit?

        • Guest

          It’s impossible to steal something that’s free.

          Am I wrong or are you getting continuously stupider?

        • Sense

          Making a manufactured copy is not thief by the way. But your right, if i don’t like it i will certainly don’t buy it.

          It’s greedy when entrepreneurs is changing laws that remove civil liberties for profit.

        • Who

          “Since when has it become greedy to sell something?”

          its not….. BUT am I required to PAY for something that I don’t like? NO.

          “Don’t like it – don’t buy it”

          how do I find out if I like it or not?

          any good samples? NOPE

        • xpmule

          Black Friday: A Festival Of Greed In The Midst Of A Sea Of Pain And Suffering
          http://www.benzinga.com/10/11/634451/black-friday-a-festival-of-greed-in-the-midst-of-a-sea-of-pain-and-suffering

          how many examples do you want ?

          Don’t like it i don’t buy it whats your point ? That is how retail works..
          File sharing has nothing to do with it. Your trying to slide that in there when there is no real tangible connection.

        • Guest

          “Don’t like it – don’t buy it (and don’t steal a free copy either)

          Giving something away for FREE is not steeling.

        • icec0ld

          It’s become greedy since the industry making millions in gross yearly profits cries the loudest about the increasing supposed “theft” of their works, with lengthy lawsuits and time wasting propaganda while lobbying for laws infringing on human rights of which are the foundation of a democratic society (privacy and freedom from unjust persecution).

          in laymens terms, Hollywood is like the fat child demanding a 5th ice-cream because the people across the room got cake and screaming that by consuming and enjoying said cake, they’ve deprived him of his right to a 5th 6th and 7th helping of ice-cream

        • Jimmy671

          Now repeat after me Mister Troll.

          Copying is not Stealing

        • Guest

          If you make a copy of something you don’t steal it because the original file is left intact.

          http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IeTybKL1pM4

        • Arioch

          OK mafiaa troll, why don’t you show your commitment to the “creative arts” and sponsor things like Music Schools. Teach kids how to play an instrument, write music and be creative?
          Oh sorry, that would eat into your corporate profits wouldn’t it?

          The grey suits wouldn’t like that would they?
          All they want are “cash cows”.

    • Trespass

      Still drinkin’ the kool-aid, Nej…. Very one dimensional thinking as usual…. Sales couldn’t be down because of the quality of entertainment offered that year??!!

      • xpmule

        if people like him think that way then when a grocery store has low sales it must ONLY be because of shop lifting then right ? Not because of High prices bad quality, customer service, selection, convenience etc..

        their logic is so flawed its shocking !

    • Guest

      ” The increase would surely have been larger without the piracy.”

      What are you basing that on? Oh, I see. You’re basing it on nothing.

      It doesn’t matter if the increase is 2% or 2000%, because any increase at all should be totally impossible since piracy is destroying the movie industry and all. Unless… Unless it’s all just a lie that piracy is destroying the movie industry.

      But…*gasp!*… That couldn’t be right, could it!?

      • bobmail

        Not correct. You have to consider that the population is increasing, inflation is increasing, and yet actual attendance is dropping.

        Price per ticket is up, but attendance? Not so good.

        *gasp!* It looks like piracy does hurt.

        • Anyone

          or the movies are just not worth the ticket price
          or people don’t have enough money to go to the movies that often
          or people don’t want to sit in a theater with hundreds of other people watching a movie but rather watch it at home on their couch

          blaming piracy is too simple and is disproven by studies

        • Guest

          No. Not even close.
          People are on lower wages.
          Health and longevity is increasing. Families are larger and have to be FED.
          Nobody can afford your stuuupppiiid ticket prices!

          *gasp!* Make them cheaper, more attendance, more money. GEDDIT?

        • MadAsASnake

          Economics 101 in your own sentence. Put the price up and fewer people will buy it. Thundering obvious in these days where peoples incomes have been squeezed by the banking crisis. If they want more people to go (I’ve been to few cinemas recently – Life of Pi – 3/4 empty), lower the prices. Fill up those empty seats – as with all of these things, a seat not filled is revenue never made (no, it’s not a lost sale)

    • Sense

      Hi Nej!

      Don’t you remember that bad economy from 2009-2010? House price and banks blew out.

      It would be mentally sane to save money from entertainment to basic need like paying the house and the food.

      “The increase would surely have been larger without the piracy”
      It’s your opinion that i’m not sharing. By the way, you seem anxious about all this profits losses, are you profiting directly from tickets sales? I would not understand your logic otherwise. 99% of the human population are still slave, are you part of the 1%?

      • Anon

        Just for the record, I’m part of the 1%.
        Suckers.

        • Guest99

          We know. We also know that any minute now, the three friends you pay for will click ‘Like’, even though it’s a post worthy of flagging because it insults their intelligence.

        • Heisenberg7

          Whatever helps you sleep at night, sweetheart.

        • Trespass

          Feel free to buy more media, Anon…

        • Sense

          So what are you doing here? Being 1% to suck up all the money of the 99% Well i will drop some tears when you speak about thievery when we download. It’s nice, because you are part of the 1% and loosing your time here at torrent freak? You must be fearing something no? Ah yes the 1% are loosing control right now. Because now, they overpass the civil liberties to be sure to keep the control. But we see it now, don’t worry, the internet is giving us weapon now.

          Yeah call us terrorist and thieve, that must be it.

        • xpmule

          For the record your blatant attempts to Troll here are laughable.
          This sucker will be in your face till you die.. file sharing ;)
          We’re the ones laughing and we arn’t going anywhere.
          And what is REALLY enjoyable is how we get under your skin :)

          Your permitted here for our amusement.. now dance for us !

        • Guest

          Annons comment flagged

    • Who

      “The increase would surely have been larger without the piracy”

      NOPE for the simple FACT….YOU CANT FORCE PEOPLE TO PAY.

    • xpmule

      how do you not understand the concept that if i refuse to go to a movie theater and download a movie means lost ticket sales revenue ?
      I can say the same thing about retail dvd’s etc if there is no way in hell i will buy them then how are they losing money ?

      explain that..

    • Guest

      You seem butthurt that making $10 Billion + profit is not good enough.

    • DoTheMath

      According to these numbers, theatrical attendance in the US, compared to 1995, is up by 53%, while revenues have doubled (currency adjusted): http://www.the-numbers.com/market/

      53% more people, 100% more profit!!!! The movie industry is dying, right…

  • Nospam

    i like randy lahey comment and it is oh so true. and if i like it i usually buy it. it is sad that these cocksuckers are making billions and it still isn’t snuff

  • Mananano

    they dont deserve it :P

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  • Anonymous

    we all know the truth, just as ALL the entertainment industries know the truth. the problem we have is the same as Google. the more we do, the more we are expected to do. with this sort of monetary income just from the US box office, it will be interesting to see the global total. however, all the industries will say to the thick fucking politicians is ‘just think how much more we would have had if it were not for ‘piracy’. think how much more we could have spent on improving services (fuck all!) and paying the artists (even less than fuck all!!)’ and those politicians will use those crap statements as reasons to ramp up copyright protection and anti-piracy laws still further!!

    • Guest99

      My bet is, when the global figures are all tallied up, the studios will all make a loss. Somewhere, out there in the Pacific maybe, there is an island made completely of cash boxes, and all around it, in little rowing boats, are politicians with there hands out. ;)

      • Guest

        If they use UK accounting they can make billions of profits into billions of losses and get out of having to pay tax to the UK

  • http://profiles.google.com/sol.europa Bill C

    Did you include the UK’s Governments OFCOM study?
    Where it found “pirates” spend more on DVD/CD/music than others?

    http://torrentfreak.com/uk-movie-pirates-spend-way-more-at-the-box-office-121122/

    • Anonymous

      this is another well known fact that is also ignored totally by the entertainment industries and their government lackeys. they dare not admit to it being true, as they would have fewer reasons to do the shit things they keep doing just to allow the industries to keep their 50+year old business model and further the spying etc that is carried out on the people!!

      • guess who

        this cctv is complete facists controling crap of us, the masses. when the ira was merrily bombing everything, the government blankley refuzed to give into terrorism. america gets bitchslappedy by some cray arabs, all of a sudden we’re in a police state askeared of terrorism. that is not the country i know. i had friends who worked in london, where on platforms that had bombs blow up while they are there (one was injured by broken glass) and had thier offices destroyed in ira bomb attacks. i asked them if they’d quit working in london, they all said no, they’re not going to give into terrorism. what the fuck happend to this country??????????????? we’re now, the government, at least, scared of our own shadow.

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  • guest999

    This is just more concrete proof that copyright has NOTHING to do with creating jobs, encouraging innovation, bolstering the economy, or any other nonsense rhetoric that is spewed out by the copyright industry, which is nothing more than a government sanctioned private monopoly raking in record breaking profits.

    Copyright law, (especially the new laws being drafted in complete secrecy like TPP) is about censoring the flow of information on the internet, it’s about controlling what you can watch, say, and access because these idiots can’t stand that we have free access to what we want to see, when we want to see it, and where we want to see it. They are obsessed with controlling our thoughts and access to information. These people will continue to do nothing to contribute to society. The only thing they will ever accomplish is to stand in the way of innovation and human advancement. Imagine the day when you get arrested because of a comment you post on Facebook that some corporate entity does not like. Think it’s far off? It’s not if the copyright monopoly gets their way.

    Abolish copyright now! Screw reforming it. It’s totally obsolete, worthless, and pointless. Copyright is a great threat to our civil liberties and our rights. Do your part, get involved, inform others about what’s really going on. Vaporize the fog of illusion about what copyright really is.

    • guess who

      people here here in england have already been jailed for comments and jokes on twitter.

  • http://twitter.com/krozareq krozareq

    Because they finally put out some stuff worth watching rather than exclusively mass producing complete shit to cater to the mindless weekly moviegoer who will hate it but go back next week anyways because they need a more productive addiction; like drugs.

  • Con

    I am not missed any good movie for last decade, I’m always buying cinema tickets.
    Never downloaded any camrip shit and I am on 100mbit,1min per a movie if I wish to download.

    • http://twitter.com/krozareq krozareq

      Cool, so you went out and watched the 4 or 5 good movies.

    • BullshitCleaner

      You’re not going to get 100% of your 100Mbps or have the other side(s) of your download, including peers and pops, guaranteed to be up to 100Mbps… but you can say that you can download up to 750MB in a minute if that is what you’re into.

    • Peace

      I always ask to myself, who are those persons that want to watch camrips?
      Restless kids!!!

  • mafiaastompinninjabunnies

    “Over the past decade international grosses nearly tripled from $8.1 billion in 2001 to $22.4 billion in 2011.

    Keep in mind that this was the same period that online file-sharing took off.”

    Connect the dots mafiaa morons.

  • guess who

    what would conclusivley prove either way if piracty is effecting the film industryis: if globaly all us pirates didn’t download a damn thing for a year (i know an ideal situation, time wize for a true comparrision). after a years lack of dl’s, it’d be interesting to see who hollwierd would blame for lack of ticket sales and dvd’s.

    • Anyone

      why should we limit ourselves? it’s out there, it’s free, I’ll download it, even if I never watch it

      • MLAN

        You didn’t get his point.

  • salvagesalvage

    I don’t think it hurts the DVD market at all or at least that much, this time last year:

    TORONTO, Jan. 25, 2012 /CNW/ – HMV Canada reports its best holiday season performance in over 5 years, attributing its success to sales of DVDs and CDs – with unit growth on comparable stores of 24.7 percent on DVDs and 0.5 percent on CDs, as compared to the same 13-week period in 2010.

    http://www.newswire.ca/en/story/910611/hmv-canada-reports-record-holiday-sales-results

    Canada is supposed to be one of the big bittorentors so you’d think HMV would be the first to really notice it.

    And imagine if you walked into an HMV and started telling people “No, no you can get it free, here look…” and then you showed them how to download even high-quality movies? You’d think that even a percent would snap their wallets closed and run home to never shop again?

  • Who

    “The MPAA has made it very clear that the economy is losing billions due to piracy”
    this right here is were I drew the line between respecting the MPAA, to giving them a big O FUCK YOU!

    as this statement is NOTHING BUT A BIG FAT LIE!!

    piracy had NOTHING to do with the economy falling. it was the outsourcing to 1 other country that royally FUCKED the eco. and that country was CHINA.
    BECAUSE of GREED they TOOK the jobs of MOST and gave them to a country that has such low pay rate for its citizens it was like a gold mine idea to JUST gain more profit at a much more rapid pace then what they originally were gaining at.

    well guess what? IT BACK FIRED for MOST.

    well now that millions and more millions are now jobless every one is experiencing hard times and there for sales are at an all time low for most industries.

    so guess what? than means MORE WILL start to download content that THEY CANT afford, so there for the MPAA’s “so called piracy” is increasing.

    the problem is we got some “pricks” going around telling more LIES about just what PIRACY is. the TRUE definition of this term is to make and “EXACT” copy of another something. its also referred to as to use in another manner to witch was not intended.
    just simply making a copy of something is NOT piracy.

    and it dam obvious that record sales of there works is proving that they are nothing but LAIRS.

    “The challenge for the movie industry is to make legal offerings more appealing than their pirated counterparts” the ONLY country that I know they are even doing this in is CHINA. they sure the FUCK are NOT doing this in the US.

    • Guest

      Piracy is to make an exact copy of, and profit from its sale
      Filesharing has no profit so it is legal
      Uploading is a grey area, but is becoming more black with each day.
      Downloading is frowned upon but unstoppable and (mostly) untrackable.
      ‘Fair Use’ backup is legal (and dups which are given away) and untracable.

      My point being the entire system is stupid and has tied itself in knots.
      Nobody disputes real Pirates are the ones making money. Go hunt.
      The 99.9% who simply exchange files are doing nothing illegal. Leave us be.

      • Who

        you misunderstood my post man.

        but ya I agree with ya. “Fair Use” try telling the MPAA this. they seam to think is called “public performance law”. BUT the US copyright law clearly says “fair use” so there is NO such “public performance law” it just the MPAA lie’n again.

  • Nick N.

    I had thought that 2012 was a record year for films released. I’ve never seen so many new movies in one year! It’s pretty amazing.

    Why do you think this is? Have the costs for making films dropped due to the use of digital technology (as opposed to old-fashioned celluloid film)? Or has the use of cheaper digital technology made filmmaking easier for more people, especially indie projects? Would be interesting to see an article about this.

    • Anyone

      since culture is more readily available through piracy that surely will have helped the creativity of the film makers

      • BoboBohannon

        “creativity of film makers”? Where? I can’t remember the last movie that I saw that wasn’t a remake or a copy of something else. There is little creativity or innovation in Hollywood these days. I’ve been watching a lot of older movies, from back when they were better.

        • 2nd Strike – Anyone

          Hollywood is now everything but creative, if they’re not remaking old movies,
          they’re buying rights of interesting and great movies from other countries
          and making downgraded versions.

  • Eatmybark

    I have felt so screwed by bad movies in the past by misleading trailers and am so thankful for cams. Saved me a bunch of money on shit movies. Isnt that what this is all about sucking the sheep in to the fleecing to suck ass movies.

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  • VigVamVoo

    Holy smokes man, you have got to admit that is pretty amazing. Wow.

    http://www.ItsAnon.tk

  • Guest

    To those at the MPAA who accuse people people of piracy that is making losses for you I guess it really is hurting you to make profits of $10 Billion +

    • BuddhaFacePalmed

      Nah, they be like “fuck you pirates, I could have my fourth Hummer and 12th penthouse in Florida if it weren’t for these meddling kids.” :P

  • http://www.facebook.com/antonio.gambino.338 Antonio Gambino

    Tell us again how piracy is hurting the entertainment industry?

    • Guest

      They will still argue that piracy is loosing them profits due to loss sales.

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  • Andrew Lee

    I wonder how much they made from extortion this year. I bet it’s a fuck load!

    Customer – $20 a pop.
    Pirate – $750 – $10,000 a pop.

    They can fight it hard as they want but I know somewhere they’re uploading it themselves just to fight it. If I was some rich evil fuck I would do the same. Why settle for a crappy 20 dollars when you can get a few grand by sending a letter.
    If they don’t pay up oh well drop it and move on to the next because there are plenty out there stupid enough to be fucked over.

    Damn 2012 was one hell of a year lol.

    • MadAsASnake

      Pretty sure most of the lawsuits are based on honeypots. Proving it would be difficult, but not as difficult as proving someone downloaded something with only an IP. A Honeypot of cause is “making available” and is therefore fatal to the case. In the case of pr0n, it often illegal as there required warning notices are not there.

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  • Gary

    ba ba booey to you all!

  • Janelle

    Maybe all of us pirates need to band together and not download anything free for awhile. It would be a mass study, and would finally show the MPAA and all the non-believers that a free download does not equal a lost sale.

    The study would show the revenues would continue to be the same, attendance wouldn’t go up, profits wouldn’t go up.
    Because lets face it, if the media was not available on the internet for free, the majority of us pirates would not be lineing up to pay for the stuff in the first place. We would go without the entertainment. Most of us pirates pay for the media we really want anyways. Therefore the entertainment industry would still be in the same place that they are in now, the only difference would be that us pirates would be bored…… lmao

    I think it would be a really interesting study, although to get millions of people to stop downloading anything for a period of time is a foolish thought.

    • MadAsASnake

      And herein lies a problem. Pirates are not an organised group. Not even close, just regular folks doing regular things. Any banding together will only ever change a tiny minority. The actions that are effective are those that can be carried out by a small subset – Anti-SOPA marches are a good example.

    • Guest

      Because it has been calculated that piracy constitutes little to overall loses,
      it’s likely there would be no significant visible result anyway.

  • Wade R

    People who torrent hq are often the people who pay a premium for better quality, in most cases is a theater. They don’t deserve to waste our money $20 for physical media and $60 bluray drive. It’s not just about movie corporations vs pirates, its about all the physical stores vs the internet. I did just go downtown again to the electronic stores and everyone is looking but nothing is moving, including “regular” priced media

    • Guess Who

      it wasn’t until i had children that i realized what space is. all thier toys and stuff take up lots of room. taking this realization to dvd’s and cd’s, they take up lots of space. hdd’s contain a fantastic amount of films and music and take up hardly any room for the content they hold. digitaly storage is the way ahead as far as i’m concerned.

      i have dumped loads of cd’s and dvd’s because i have them digitaly stored on hdd’s.

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  • http://twitter.com/LukeRenner Luke Renner

    I’ve worked in the film business for 20 years and I’ve found that producers’ paranoia over the scope and scale of piracy has made them increasingly risk adverse. So, while our industry is making more money than ever, piracy does have a cooling effect on films that don’t play well in foreign markets. Every time you torrent a movie, you’re sending a message that the only reason to go to the movies is for explosions and car chases.

    • Christopher Kidwell

      Hardly…. it sounds more like producers are nitwits and cannot realize that more explosions and more car chases is a losing proposition, the true movie fans are getting bored of that stuff.

    • MadAsASnake

      Maybe a few of them need to “grow a pair” and actually try something interesting.

    • Guest

      You bought into the industry hype.

      Piracy is about selling your product for profit.
      Despite what you may have heard real Pirates are few and far between.

      Filesharers exchange them for nothing and would probably have never purchased them in the first place. Popularity of files shared does not necessarily equal a lost sale. It simply reflects the availability of a movie, album etc.
      They watch/listen because they are bored on that given day, perhaps.
      They may have actually rented it (because the price margin between free and rental is negligible). Rental companies still make a profit even so, which shows that quality of viewing is more important then free. It appears that price ($20 for a dvd, $50> for bluray) is what prohibits the large profits your industry used to expect…that and the economic crisis we are all experiencing.

  • MPAA

    MPAA will say this new record was due to the takedown of Megaupload that rippled effect closed many other popular ones…Fucking greedy criminals in suits.

  • bobmail

    Sadly, your not understanding stats enough to realize that piracy is hurting.

    Ticket sales, the number of people attending, isn’t up. Rather, the price they each paid per ticket is up. This follows a similar trend for music concerts, where they sell less tickets but they charge out the ass for them now. Gone are the days of a $40 concert, replaced with top acts looking for upwards to $500 a ticket.

    You need to look at the overall, longer term trends in actual attendance to understand what is really going on.

    • Guest

      Turn it round, dumbass.
      Greedy artists and producers are DEMANDING and EXPECTING $500 a ticket.
      People are poorer for the market crashes and recession.
      Less available cash in the economy=money gets allocated for essentials only.
      Wake up troll! MOST will laugh at those exorbitant prices. You’re fools.
      Less sales is because CORPORATE CONSPIRACY made the WORLD poorer.

    • MadAsASnake

      If you were selling water or electricity, yes, price rises like that in a depressed market can only have one result – reduced sales. Piracy is not to blame for moronic pricing policies.

  • Halfman_halfawesome

    I’m genuinely curious to read the sources for this article. What studies were they? (No sarcasm, I’d love to read it).

  • Kyle Jackson

    Well of course, there are more people now.

  • Iampirate

    I hope this isn’t a sign of things to come in 2013

    Good bye Bitgamer you’ll never be forgotten.

    https://www.bitgamer.su/

  • Dont

    Well, what about DVD & BluRay sales?

    Most people go to the cinema because they want a HUGE screen, expensive popcorn & softdrinks. You go to the cinema because you want the experience.
    If you have a HUGE screen at home, you don’t want a TS version. ;)

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  • CinemaDude

    PROOF of the pudding is this — Hollywood has forced as the theatre business (which is NOT the movie business but the exhibition business — that is, theatre owners — sometimes reluctant partners, but MOST times in direct conflict with each other) to install VERY expensive digital projectors. The heart of these digital projectors, and the thing that makes them so expensive, is the anti-piracy security that has to be built-in. You can purchase a digital projector that will give you the same res and brightness picture but WITHOUT all the extra security for 1/4 what the DCinema projectors cost….it’s all the electronic securty that prevents the digital stream from being copied. All the decoding is done in the belly of the projector and if you physically open up the projector, it stops and everything shuts down and you have to have an “integrator” come in to see what’s what and get it restarted again. In short, it is 99% bootleg proof, MUCH more so than when theatres ran film — at least before they put CAP codes in the film (visible codes that would appear in certain random frames). Yet with all this security, how come the MPAA piracy loss figure keeps going up? Well first off, it’s because piracy that REALLY costs the studios money is the PRISTINE copies that are made not from awful OSC (off screen copies made with camcoders stuffed in raincoats). A pirate gets a hold of a pristine 1080p file, THAT he can sell to the Russians or Chinese or Mexicans who can then rip PERFECT copies and sell them as the real thing. As any one with a brain knows, a forgery, ANY forgery to be worth anything has to be undetectable from the real thing. An OTS copy is useless for making REAL profit; a pristine post-production lab file on the other hand is worth hundreds of thousands, not only to the foreign markets that have no intention of prosecuting pirates, but to the unscrupulous DVD and BRay retailers in the USA who will buy 1 legitimate DVD copy and sell 5 perfect forgeries…or buy one legitmate DVD and put 5 perfect DVD forgeries in their automated rental boxes (just an example). Anyway, it’s the PRISTINE copy that cost the studio real dollars and where to those come from? They come from within the studio themselves, from all the people who work on the production, from the director to the cinematographer, the actors, etc, down to the hundreds who work in post-production who out of legitmate need or out of “look at me, the big shot” have copies of their movie on DVD or BRay copies or keep them on their laptops or in their computers — places that have very LITTLE security protection. THAT’s where perfect, SELLABLE forgeries come from — the studios themselves, NOT the theatre which is where the lying sack-o-sheet MPAA has waged a campaign of inuendo and carefully crafted inuendo to make the pubilc think it’s the movie theatre that costs its studio members 6 BILLION dollars a year in piracy, divirting attention from the REAL source of the problem, themselves. To use Jack Valenti’s own tired phase, “piracy is a cancer in the belly of the industry” only it’s their own belly that’s got the cancer. Oh yah, and BTW, that 6 BILLION figure has been around for a decade…never changed, no matter the ups and downs of attendance, they would always throw out that figure and NEVER show how they arrived at it. I guess now they figure, what the hell, we made up the 6 billion dollar figure, why not call it 10 billion, even though we’d required theatre owners to foot the bill for incredibly expensive piracy proof equipment, the piracy figure goes up. How is that possible? Ask about the “screener” DVDs they give out so the Academy Members can vote — they shouldn’t have to go to a movie theater like the rest of us dirty unwashed to see a movie so they can vote on it for the Academy Awards; no, they get DVDs and almost always those movies are just in the theatres or many times haven’t even opened yet.

    The MPAA…a cancer in the belly of the industry indeed.

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  • aeirei
  • Halxion

    New years resolution: Pirate moar

  • Daniel Mack

    The movie industry could start making their DVDs more competitive by stop placing ads at the beginning of DVD/Blu-Rays. I hate having to sit through previews for movies that have already been out for years on something that I paid for.

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  • dada

    And here I am making ends meat practically unable to buy any entertainment content that I actually enjoy having instead to use that money to keep myself alive living in a broken down apartment.

  • TheClash912

    Ok…. They made $10+ billion, but it took them making WAY more movies last year to profit that much. Pirates absolutely do hurt the movie industry, I mean we’ve basically destroyed music. I’m not saying we’re horrible, I pirate media all the time. People simply don’t realize that we steal this media because we like it and don’t want to pay for it, but it will come with serious consequences. When movie and music industries can no longer afford to make amazing media, and it all SUCKS and no one wants to watch and listen, we’ll all feel stupid, won’t we?

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