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Here's one site showing domestic box office totals. It shows attendance is actually decreasing slowly since 2001, but revenues are basically holding steady (thanks to higher ticket prices).

And Here's an article about 2015 numbers showing that global box office revenues hit a record $38B+ that year.

Over here, a sound-bite box mentions that (presumably domestic) revenues from at-home movie-viewing surpassed the box office in 2015 (11B to 10B).

So, AFAICT, the movie industry is whining about something that isn't a true problem: their box-office revenues are higher than ever, and they're even making more money on home viewing (the legal kind that people have to pay for) than they're making in theaters. Another sound-bite box at that last link mentions cinema advertising, so they (not sure which 'they') are making even more money that way, since you can't ad-block ads in a cinema; who knows how much they're pulling in from that. So for them to complain about piracy smacks of pure greed. "We're making more money than ever, but it's not enough! People are stealing our content and it must stop!"

Number of tickets sold peaked in the early 2000s at over 1.5 billion, and has been on a very gradual decline to around 1.3 billion per year since then (for North America).

The inflation-adjusted cost of a movie ticket soared in the 1960s. So you could argue this either way - that the new price is the new norm, or that the theaters have been gouging us for 50 years. I wasn't around in the 1960s so can't really speculate as to what caused the rise in prices then. But in the last 40 years I suspect the advent of cable TV and VCRs/DVDs, and now streaming has forced theaters into a higher-priced niche. They're now more about a viewing experience (e.g. IMAX, THX, 3D) rather than merely watching the movie.

Which brings us to an important point. You can't judge how well the movie industry is doing solely on theater ticket sales. Subscription services (e.g. HBO), and disc and digital sales and rentals are an important part of their revenue today. From what I could gather, theater ticket sales only account for about a third of the industry's revenue.

The mainstream press is enamored with Apple and has always cast the profit picture as Apple being normal, everyone else performing poorly. That's actually backwards. The average profit margin in the smartphone industry is not far off the average for consumer electronics (about 3%-7%). Everyone making smartphones is operating under the same economics as everyone making routers, or DVD players, or printers, or laptops. But you hardly see those industries chastised by the press for not making enough profit; in fact most people would consider them to be very healthy industries.

It's Apple which is the aberration, with a profit margin around 25% - about the same as high brand-name fashions. While they're very good at capturing the 5%-10% of the market which is clueless or doesn't care about their money as long as it's popular and looks good, you'll find most technophiles steer clear of their products due to either lacking functionality, or not providing enough cost-to-benefit ratio. Despite the praise lavished upon them by the press for their "innovation", they're not really innovators. They're actually near the bottom in R&D spending as a percentage of revenue. (Though to be fair, they've been increasing R&D spending considerably the last couple years.)

IBM ........ $82b revenue ... $5.2b R&D ... 6.3% of revenue
Saumsung .. $196b revenue .. $14.1b R&D ... 7.2% of revenue
Google ..... $66b revenue ... $9.8b R&D .. 14.8% of revenue
Intel ...... $56b revenue .. $11.5b R&D .. 20.6% of revenue
Qualcomm ... $25b revenue ... $3.7b R&D .. 14.6% of revenue
Microsoft .. $87b revenue .. $11.4b R&D .. 13.1% of revenue
Apple ..... $183b revenue ... $6.0b R&D ... 3.3% of revenue

First time in, well, almost forever that that's happened. Yeah IBM gets a lot of patents, but they also spend a lot in R&D. Have done so since the beginning of the 20th century. In 2015 their R&D spending dropped to $5.2 billion, which dropped them out of top 20 R&D companies in the world.

Here's how the others mentioned in TFA stack up:

IBM ........ $82b revenue ... $5.2b R&D ... 6.3% of revenue
Saumsung .. $196b revenue .. $14.1b R&D ... 7.2% of revenue
Google ..... $66b revenue ... $9.8b R&D .. 14.8% of revenue
Intel ...... $56b revenue .. $11.5b R&D .. 20.6% of revenue
Qualcomm ... $25b revenue ... $3.7b R&D .. 14.6% of revenue
Microsoft .. $87b revenue .. $11.4b R&D .. 13.1% of revenue
Apple ..... $183b revenue ... $6.0b R&D ... 3.3% of revenue

Despite Apple's reputation among lay people as an innovator, they're really not. They don't use much of their income on R&D. This is their first year cracking the top 20 in R&D spending, and as you can see the percentage they spend on R&D trails far behind the others.

The agreement Switzerland signed was to disclose information about American clients who consent to the disclosure:

http://www.pwc.com/ca/en/infor...

Since banks can sidestep the agreement by just refusing to deal with Americans, that's what they do.

What the hell are you talking about. The ACA is based on a heritage foundation outline and was implemented in Massachusetts just fine. You are not forced to buy the most expensive plans. In fact the exchange plans are competitive with the general market plans http://www.pwc.com/us/hix?WT.m... Furthermore, you are discounting all the people who are benefiting from the expansion of Medicaid in states that chose to allow the expansion. The law also provides a solution to the pre-existing condition problem. It also allows kids to stay on their parents plan until age 26 which helps out a lot of college kids. I agree that the law is not perfect, but it sure is a whole lot better than what we had before. You have no facts backing up anything you said. Please stop trying to spread your FUD here.

And the advantage using it is what then?

That nobody will be able to tell where the money you're spending on it came from. That you can avoid paying both a bitcoin->actual currency and a credit card service charge by combining them both in the same transaction.

Besides, if it's like a traditional prepay credit card, what they mean by "not anonymous" is "we ask you for your name and address when you sign up, but make no effort to validate those unless you try to load more than [£500/$1000/whatever local KYC threshold applies in the jurisdiction the card is issued] onto the card".

I really wish everyone would get over the idea that East Texas is still the best place to file patent suits. It definitely was for about a year in the mid-2000s, but since then it's returned back to within a few percentage points of the national average.

The percentage of patent cases where the plaintiff succeeded at trial was, over the period from 1995-2009, in line with the national average (66.7% trial success in East Texas vs. 66% nationwide), and by all indications it hasn't changed from that in the last few years (as a point of comparison, Florida Middle District Court had an 80% trial success rate for plaintiffs over that same period). Aside from the one-year blip where plaintiffs won more frequently and the district deservedly earned its reputation, its rates have been at levels that are in line with other district courts. Unfortunately, most people seem to have not caught on to that fact yet (even Wikipedia's sources regarding much of this stuff is several years out of date).

Because of that one year blip being so noteworthy, there is still a mistaken perception that the East Texas courts are plaintiff friendly, but that's all it is now: a perception. In fact, for NPEs (i.e. non-practicing entities, a.k.a. patent trolls), the Florida Middle District and the Delaware District courts had overall success rates (i.e. including summary judgments) that were about 11% and 7% higher, respectively, than East Texas over the period from 1995-2009.

That said, the East Texas courts do make for an ideal venue for trying patent cases, even if they're not as one-sided as people seem to think. The district has faster turnaround times than many other federal districts (which was part of the motivating factor in this particular case), the judges are well-versed in patent cases and have indicated an interest in handling them expeditiously, and there are local laws permitting lawyers from any bar association, not just the Texas bar, from trying their cases there, making it easier to use than some of the other districts.

The fact that the judges are knowledgeable is especially important, because many of the corporations being sued prefer to have their cases tried there, rather than getting them transferred to their home district where an ignorant judge can add a major level of uncertainty to the equation (in fact, in one case involving 112 defendants less than a year ago, the East Texas judge was able to dismiss 99 of the defendants immediately because they weren't infringing and didn't request transfers to other districts). As a result, more cases that start in the district tend to stay in the district than you might otherwise see, creating a larger volume of cases that reach a conclusion. So, not only does it handle more cases, but it also concludes more cases than most of the other district courts.

It's just a shame that people are still perpetuating the idea that it's plaintiff-friendly when it's not, since it sets up East Texas as a distraction and as a scapegoat to vent our frustrations over the patent system whenever a ruling we disagree with comes out of there. The fault isn't theirs any more than it is any other court's. It's the fault of the corporations playing this billion dollar game with each other.

(Note: much of this was pulled from a previous comment of mine from February)

My comment below, Price increases are far more than interest rates, had some errors. I'm posting a corrected version again here. I don't have the time to do more research.

Inflation is around 2% only if the reduction in house prices is considered, I'm guessing. The fact is that prices for everything are being raised rapidly.

U.S. dollar inflation, some examples:

Food, +4.8% -- Food Price Outlook, 2012
Quote: "The food-at-home Consumer Price Index (CPI), in turn, increased more than expected '4.8 percent in 2011' which means that food price inflation was not as strong as in 2008 when it increased 6.4 percent over 2007."

Medical treatment, +8.5% -- Medical cost trends for 2012
"This year's report from PwC's Health Research Institute finds that the medical cost trend is expected to increase from 8% in 2011 to 8.5% in 2012."

University tuition, +8.3% -- College costs climb, yet again.
"Tuition at the average public university jumped 8.3% to $8,244."

Gas, +108% in 8 years -- Historical Price Charts

U.S. dollar inflation, some examples:

Food, +4.8% -- Food Price Outlook, 2012
Quote: "The food-at-home Consumer Price Index (CPI), in turn, increased more than expectedâ"4.8 percent in 2011â"which means that food price inflation was not as strong as in 2008 when it increased 6.4 percent over 2007."

Medical treatment, +8.5% -- Medical cost trends for 2012
"This year's report from PwC's Health Research Institute finds that the medical cost trend is expected to increase from 8% in 2011 to 8.5% in 2012."

University tuition, +8.3% -- College costs climb, yet again.
"Tuition at the average public university jumped 8.3% to $8,244."

Gas, +208% -- Historical Price Charts

Chart 6d on page 22 shows that patent trolls (non practicing entities) receive vastly higher damages in software. The median for software is ~$143, while that for the runner-up (computer hardware) is ~$48.

Combine this with unavoidability of accidentally using obvious software patents and you can see why there are only a few big players that control the software market.

Chart 2c shows that the Lucent got awarded over $1500 million in damages from Microsoft for MP3 techology. I was not aware of this case from 2007 before. The damages are larger than the Eolas and i4i cases combined.

Because of patent trolls, more politely called mass patent aggregators, patent litigation has in part increased by more than 230% over the past 20 years

The number of patent cases has increased almost exactly in lock step with the number of patents granted (see page 8). The growth rate for litigation since 1991 is 4.9%, whereas the rate for patents granted is 4.5%. There is not a lot of evidence that there are more patent cases because of non-practicing entities. For example, litigation rates have been relatively flat since about 2003, despite numerous patent aggregators only coming into existence in that timeframe (see page 8 again).

NPEs also tend to lose cases more often than practicing entities (see above, page 24 and 32). NPEs win about 23% of the time overall, and PEs win about 39%. When NPEs do win the awards are higher, but that's to be expected. The primary value of litigation for an NPE is to get money, either as a damage award or as a license agreement. The primary value of litigation for a practicing entity is to exclude a competitor. Damages are nice, but the real point is the injunction.

That loss rate is a good example of why more fee-shifting (i.e. loser pays the other side's attorney's fees) in patent cases would be beneficial in eliminating frivolous, "shakedown," and otherwise questionable patent suits brought by NPEs.

Please site your sources.

In case you want some more though, the facts simply don't line up with your snark. The percentage of patent cases where the plaintiff succeeded at trial was, over the period from 1995-2009, in line with the national average (66.7% trial success in East Texas vs. 66% nationwide), and by all indications it hasn't changed from that in the last few years (as a point of comparison, Florida Middle District Court had an 80% trial success rate for plaintiffs over that same period).

According to:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T._John_Ward

Since Ward initially joined the Eastern District of Texas, the district has seen a tenfold increase in cases since 1999.[8] There were 14 patent cases in 1999,[8] 32 in 2002,[1] 155 in 2005,[8] and 234 in 2006.[1] The district is one of eight with more than 100 new patent filings each year.[8] Ward heard more than 160 patent cases in his first seven years on the bench.[3] He had been handling 90% of the patent cases in Marshall, but later was reduced to 60%.[6]

Patent cases presented before Ward were more frequently won by the patent holder plaintiff than the defense.[9] One source claims that patent holders win 88% of the time in Ward's court, compared to an average of 68% nationwide.[3] Another source claims that patent cases in Marshall are won by patent holders 78% of the time versus 59% nationwide.[1] And a third source claims that in 90% of cases patent holders win jury verdicts.[8]

I know that /. loves to paint Texans, especially those in East Texas, as backwards folks with backwards ways, but the trope has gotten old, and I'd even suggest that it's harmful. We're using East Texas as a scapegoat to vent our frustration, but that only serves to draw attention away from the real threats that should be the targets of our ire. It's time /. moved on from blaming East Texas for patent cases gone awry.

In case you want some more though, the facts simply don't line up with your snark. The percentage of patent cases where the plaintiff succeeded at trial was, over the period from 1995-2009, in line with the national average (66.7% trial success in East Texas vs. 66% nationwide), and by all indications it hasn't changed from that in the last few years (as a point of comparison, Florida Middle District Court had an 80% trial success rate for plaintiffs over that same period). Admittedly, East Texas did have a blip for about a year in the mid-2000s where the plaintiffs won more frequently, and that's when it deservedly earned its reputation, but its rates have since then returned to levels that are in line with other district courts.

Despite that, there is still a mistaken perception that the East Texas courts are plaintiff friendly, but that's all it is now: a perception. In fact, for NPEs (i.e. non-practicing entities, a.k.a. patent trolls), the Florida Middle District and the Delaware District courts had overall success rates (i.e. including summary judgments) that were about 11% and 7% higher, respectively, than East Texas over the period from 1995-2009.

That said, the East Texas courts do make for an ideal venue for trying patent cases, even if they're not as one-sided as people here seem to think. The district has faster turnaround times than many other federal districts, the judges are well-versed in patent cases and have indicated an interest in handling them expeditiously, and there are local laws permitting lawyers from any bar association, not just the Texas bar, from trying their cases there, making it easier to use than some of the other districts. The fact that the judges are knowledgeable is especially important, because many of the corporations being sued prefer to have their cases tried there, rather than getting them transferred to their home district where an ignorant judge can add a major level of uncertainty to the equation (in fact, in one case involving 112 defendents a few months ago, the East Texas judge was able to dismiss 99 of the defendents immediately because they weren't infringing and didn't request transfers to other districts). As a result, more cases that start in the district tend to stay in the district than you might otherwise see, creating a larger volume of cases that reach a conclusion.

Any court will make rulings we disagree with, but the rulings we disagree with make big headlines every time, get brought up frequently, and linger for quite awhile in our collective minds, while the ones we agree with tend to disappear and not be brought up over and over again. Since East Texas has so many patent cases, they naturally have more cases that we hear about, but we latch onto the ones that we disagree with and use them to confirm our past belief - now mistaken - that East Texas is a plaintiff's playground.

They have a term for that: confirmation bias.

I am somewhat aghast that this incredibly ignorant comment was modded insightful. Many, many CPA's (full disclosure, including myself) specialize in tax strategy, planning and compliance. The tax advice you can receive from a CPA is often as good as, if not better than advice you could receive from an attorney.
For today's anecdotal fact, I provide tax expertise to several law firms and their clients. The fact that these firms outsource their work should give you an indication of the relative quality of our work.

http://www.ey.com/global/content.nsf/International/Services_-_Tax
http://www.pwc.com/extweb/service.nsf/docid/efee1aa2f6b3a99485256fbe0060ff96

First in general, you're not the "average user." PricewaterhouseCoopers has a very nice industry report from which I'll reference for data. It's a pay service, so you'll have to take my word, but if you want to pony up it's all there.

Most music listeners nowadays are prefer buying singles to albums. This is especially true of younger than 25 listeners, who make up almost half the music market. More than 40% of music revenues nowadays are generated by online downloads (e.g., iTunes, Amazon) and that number is growing rapidly (for reference it was 10% just two years ago). This is the state of the music business, singles and downloads are the future, not albums and CDs.

What I proposed is a compromise that caters to this future, try-before-you-buy and cheap singles. The latter will feed off the former, and I feel the majority of users will get a good deal. The fact that you don't is not indicative of the plan's total worth as you are not the average user.

You're perfectly welcome to continue with your habits. No one is stopping you from buying CDs. But that said, the world isn't perfect. You can't please everyone, hence the term compromise. To analogize, if you tried to build a speed bump that won't ruin the front end of a Ferrari Enzo, you would end up with no speed bump at all. You're the Enzo. Take it as a compliment.

• "US digital cinemas and the introduction of 3D screens will reinvigorate the box office market."
• "In EMEA [Europe, Middle East, and Africa], online subscription rentals will propel overall rental activity while cannibalising in-store spending."
• "Asia Pacific will be the fastest growing region, rising from US$16.7 billion in 2006 to US$23.1 billion in 2011, growing at a 4.6 percent CAGR."
• "In Latin America, rising affluence and low-cost videos will help counter ongoing piracy and boost home video growth."
• In Canada, Video store openings and online subscriptions will fuel rental spending, while high-definition DVDs will enhance sell-through."

Great points, but you missed one:

Sixthly, what does "a lot" mean? "A lot thought the industry should be regulated", eh? Was that a majority? Did a lot more _disagree_?

Every week there's a new security survey, usually of about 50 people, showing how critical it is that I rush out and buy a product from the company that sponsored the survey. It tends to make me somewhat skeptical of surveys and polls. Very few stand up to any sort of scrutiny, though there are the occassional exceptions

As I posted in "The Smaller Screen", in the earlier Slashdot discussion:

What exactly is this "Hollywood" that Matthew Yi claims is smaller than the $10B "Game Industry" in TFA? Maybe it doesn't include the $14B US ($32B global) record industry: a business run out of LA, mostly, and NYC, even if it's 80% owned in Tokyo/Sony, Berlin/BMG and Paris/Vivendi-Universal. Is it just movies (not TV, either)? The actual scale of "filmed entertainment" revenue (not including music videos, part of the "recorded music" industry) was $75.3B globally, before the predicted 7.5% growth rate for 2004 (ie. $81B). Porn movies and website subscriptions alone have a global revenue of $8-10B. Maybe video games are bigger than Hollywood the same way that John Lennon was bigger than Jesus.

FWIW, my numbers have a stronger citation basis than Grumpy's, comparing the more-relevant global scale, and actually show "Hollywood" to really dwarf the game industry. I'm not complaining about being underappreciated, because my post is mod'ed a "5, Informative", whatever that's worth (not much, as it garnered 0 replies). But I wonder what a guy's gotta do to get his counterpoint delivered on the Slashdot front page? Is it just a matter of publishing in another web page, to which Slashdot can point as a 'blog - chumming the Web with Slashbait, as it were? Or is there really a "higher mod" level than the apparent maximum "5", within which one's fabulous post can be promoted to a story of its own? How do I get my story pitched beyond this little screen discussion syndication, and get it starring in its own story, on the homepage big screen?

What exactly is this "Hollywood" that Matthew Yi claims is smaller than the $10B "Game Industry" in TFA? Maybe it doesn't include the $14B US ($32B global) record industry: a business run out of LA, mostly, and NYC, even if it's 80% owned in Tokyo/Sony, Berlin/BMG and Paris/Vivendi-Universal. Is it just movies (not TV, either)? The actual scale of "filmed entertainment" revenue (not including music videos, part of the "recorded music" industry) was $75.3B globally, before the predicted 7.5% growth rate for 2004 (ie. $81B). Porn movies and website subscriptions alone have a global revenue of $8-10B. Maybe video games are bigger than Hollywood the same way that John Lennon was bigger than Jesus.

Here is the real link

Home video sales now account for nearly 60 percent of Hollywood's revenue. DVD sales are not only the fastest growing part of the movie business, they're changing the way Hollywood does business.
He says DVD sales can save a film like "Dark Blue," which pulled in a modest $9 million in theaters. "It actually did more revenues in DVD than it did at the box office," says McGurk, because the DVD market is a man's world.
Blockbuster films now often sell more than 10 million DVDs in the U.S. alone. And that's at $20 a pop. And with DVD players still in only half of American homes, Hollywood believes those soaring sales will just get hotter still.

Finding Nemo grossed $320 million from DVD sales in 2003. "Consumers spend more money on the DVD version of almost every movie than they do on that same movie in theaters, including blockbusters such as The Lord of the Rings, Finding Nemo and Pirates of the Caribbean" (USA Today). CNN/Money reports that the movie studios "pocket roughly 80 cents of every dollar on each DVD sold, a take well above the 50 cents for each dollar at the box office" and The Hollywood Reporter says that "studios are earning about 60% more upon initial release from video sales of theatrical feature films than they did during the VHS-only era". So, not only are video sales up overall, DVDs are more profitable for the media companies than VHS or the box office.

And the future looks rosy as well. PriceWaterhouseCoopers has a sample chapter of their Global Entertainment and Media Outlook 2004-2008 report online which says:

We project filmed entertainment spending in the United States, EMEA (Europe, Middle East, and Africa), Asia/Pacific, Latin America, and Canada will rise at a 7.5 percent compound annual rate, reaching $108 billion in 2008 from $75.3 billion in 2003. EMEA will be the fastest-growing region, rising by 10.3 percent compounded annually to $36.9 billion in 2008 compared with $22.6 billion in 2003. The U.S. market will expand at a 6.3 percent rate, from $34.3 billion in 2003 to $46.6 billion in 2008. Spending in Asia/Pacific will increase from $13.3 billion to $17.3 billion in the five-year period, growing at a 5.4 percent compound annual rate. Filmed entertainment in Latin America will total $1.6 billion in 2008, up from $1.3 billion in 2003, representing a 4.6 percent gain compounded annually. Spending in Canada will rise from $3.9 billion in 2003 to $5.6 billion in 2008, 7.7 percent compounded annually.

This is anything BUT piracy eating into sales. Mr. Lucas, would you like to change your answer?

The Roman Takeover of Gaul

Read the pricewaterhouse coopers analysis

and this other commentary

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The Spiders are coming