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Music Industry Staggers While Film Industry Blooms
GLX writes "The LA Times is running an article that explores the idea that while piracy has been the (supposed) bane of the music industry, it has yet to be felt in the video industry..." "Yet to be felt" might be too strong, but DVD sales are booming, and don't seem to be much crimped by illegal copying.
IMHO, there is very little difference between mp3 and CD quality. Yes, there are differences, and audiophiles will point this out every time. But the fact is, most users don't care.
Now DVD's vs DIVX. Not only can the quality suck (artifacts all the time), but the sound can be totally out of sync, which is really really annoying. Plus, unlike mp3 CD's which can be played in just about any new CD player, DIVX does not play in standalone DVD players without hacking the hardware.
But, this could change...
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Hollywood made more money the Memorial Day weekend of 2002 than at any other previous time. Piracy is no threat to them. People who watch pirated movies on their computer are just sneak previewing, and will go to a theater. People who buy pirate DVDs at the flea market for fewer than ten dollars won't pay full retail for legit ones. People who do pay full retail for legit ones wouldn't be caught dead in a flea market or with DVDs from one. When you boil it all down, piracy is a non-issue. Shutting it down would not get Hollywood or the recording industry any richer. They are wasting their resources fighting it, and would waste our resources if Congress gives them tax money to combat piracy. This is all true of the recording industry as well. They are not interested in anything but protecting their power over artists.
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When you buy a DVD, you usually get higher quality output, less volatile / damage-prone media, and the quality won't crap out with extended use. In addition, you usually get a bunch of extras / goodies tossed in, such as interviews, Easter eggs and deleted scenes. Plus, you're able to rent a DVD first if you don't wanna buy it outright, sample the goods, and then decide if it's worth it to buy it.
With music CDs, you can't conveniently sample the music before you buy it. Or maybe you can, if you go to a Virgin MegaStore and stand at one of those kiosks for 90mins, but that's not for me. Music CDs don't have any *bonus* features beyond what you hear on the radio, and it's rare when you ever hear more than a single song or two on the radio, to give you an idea of whether the price of the CD is worth the quality of the entire album.
So am I surprised that the music industry is faltering at a time when video is booming? No. Piracy does and will continue to happen -- you can bitch about it, or you can improve your legit product and/or change your business model to make it more attractive.
Do I have a good solution for how the music industry can solve its woes? Nope. But I don't feel sorry for them -- they've been dragging their feet for decades, exploiting the lack of choice of musical options by jacking prices way up for shoddy, over-produced sound. And they continue to do it......... and so, I continue to pirate most of my music and only buy those items I deem worthy of my hard-earned greenery.
Copying a DVD with a DVD-R/+R/-RW/+RW burner is ok if you want to lose (or completely redo) the menus, extra features, etc. If all you want to copy is the film track itself, ok, but because all the DVD (re)writeable formats are single layer, many DVDs require a 2:1 burned DVD to original DVD ratio. So, your menus will not work unless you redo them.
And if all you want is the film itself, get yourself a decent DVD player and rip the DVD to SVCD on a CD-R. Much cheaper than burning DVDs and (imho) just as good quality.
On another note, I d/l-ed a DVD to SVCD rip of LoTR/FoTR that took 4 CD-Rs to burn, but is excellent quality. I will buy this DVD. Call me what you will for supporting the companies that try to thwart fair use, etc. but it's good and I expect additional features on the DVD would hook me if the movie itself hadn't already.
I would think one of the major differences in the movie versus music debate would be that you can rent movies.
Sure, this doesn't mean any difference at all to the high tech computer user who would be willing to download anything. However, for the average layman who isn't sure about a movie, it can be picked up for rent at the local video store for relatively cheap. Especially if you go in with a few friends for a cheap night of entertainment.
Compare this with music CD's. If you aren't sure about an album, you have very limited choices. You can buy it and hope it isn't horrible, you can not buy it, and finally, you can download it. In all cases, the price is either non existant, or at least 14 dollars (US).
And that is the entire crux of the issue.
The movie industry is based on the concept of making new movies and then "renting" them. They have diversified their income that no one thing can hit them too hard.
Movies make money from sales at ticket office, sales to rentals, sales to individuals, sales to hotels, sales to TV stations and movie channels. What do radio stations sell? A CD and some sales to Radio stations (even that is the other way often).
The point is that the music industry screwed up in not figuring out how to make money elsewise.
The movie industry simply were better business people....
"You can't make a race horse of a pig"
"No," said Samuel, "but you can make very fast pig"
I haven't seen that disposable income has taken any abrupt jump in the last year, so with the amount of money available to spend on entertainment, if DVD sales are surging, that means that other forms of entertainment are going to have less money spent on them -- and that means that CD sales are going to take a hit. But the RIAA won't accept that; the premise that the market will provide them with monotonically increasing sales is Holy Writ to them, so any drop in their sales must, a priori, mean that piracy is the reason people aren't buying CDs.
But even more importantly, there is a cost of pirating vs a cost of buying. I can walk into most stores, and get almost any DVD for less than $20 bucks, including special child-proofed editions of Memento with extras all over the place. CD's? Whoa! Maybe, is it on sale? And further more when I buy a movie I know for a fact I'll be getting around 2 hours, give or take, of enjoyment. With music, I suppose I could sit there and listen to the whole album before I buy it, after all it might only take 20 minutes, on a 74 minute cd.
I'm forced to observe that music costs as much as movies, occasionally more, provides far less entertainment for that expense, and for your trouble assumes you're a criminal just because that's one of many choices a person has. With the music industry so quick to screw me, and music downloading being so cheap and convienent, I sometimes wonder why I don't do it.
Not that I'm happy with companies like Disney, buying up movies like Kiki's Delivery Service and then not making them available on DVD, or making only vastly inferior versions of eXistenZ available forcing me to get the canadian import. Damn region crap.
Those businesses who choose not to serve their customers take a page not from Adam Smith's book, but from Lenin's, and they deserve all the mercy and compasion the free market reserves for such businesses.
--Jimmy has fancy plans; and pants to match.