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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.
I'd take a DVD over a DivX any day. I like the extra features on them and the quality is noticeably better.
MP3s offer the same quality (almost) as CDs and the music industry has no extra offerings on their discs except a bunch of songs that you haven't heard on the radio, usually with good reason.
A music CD ripped to MP3 typically takes somewhere around 60 to 100 megs of space, with individual tracks averaging around 5 megs each--and can be downloaded separately. A movie of good-length typically takes around 600-700 megs in DivX ;-) format, currently the most popular "moviez" format. This cannot be downloaded and subsequently enjoyed in chunks.
Pirating movies takes a substantially higher amount of bandwidth per movie than small-time MP3 warezing, and the bulk of the music industry's loss comes from the high amount of 'small-time" MP3 pirating.
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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"How are people going to justify stealing a movie by saying it isn't any good after the movie's already a $100-million hit?"
There's a difference between earning $100M in the box office, and *spending* $100M to make radio stations and Top 40 charts play music that doesn't have public appeal behind it.
"Urie says his company doesn't heavily research consumer attitude, noting, "We tend to ask how can we make more money and sell more product, not deal with consumer gripes."
And therein lies the problem.
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Vivendi Universal and Sony Corp. are preparing to sue individual song swappers... I'm curious how this will be done.
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When the CD soundtrack costs as much as the DVD withe the movie and more, that explains a LOT.
DVD movie prices are going down, and consumers feel they have value. They don't feel the same way about overpriced CD's.
I'm impressed that no one mentioned the fact that I can get the new Collector's Edition of "The Evil Dead", complete with 4 hours of extras and a special "Necronomicon cover" for ~$20, while Britney Spears most recent 65 minutes of suck costs about the same?
El riesgo vive siempre!
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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There is a very simple line of logic industry leaders seem to forget. People will often spend more money on things they enjoy then something they don't.
The sad fact is, the quality of main stream music has continued to fall, and yet the industry seems to continue to put greater and greater restrictions into what can enter into the market.
The quality of movies seems to fluctuate, but at the very least, one can say that every year we get quite a few movies that are highly entertaining. This is despite the fact that the market already has quite a few restrictions as to what can enter.
Simple solution? Stop making music that is'nt entertaining, start charging prices that are out of sync with the quality of the product.
The Internet is generally stupid
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 know not everybody does the same thing that I do, but when CD's first arrived I was eager to replace many of my favorite cassette tapes because of the CD's higher quality and convenience. I wonder if DVD sales aren't for similar reasons. Now that you can get many older movies for less than 10 dollars... I bet many people are just upgrading their collections. Like CD's, that'll probably drop off as people for the most part have what they want and the only thing left to get is new releases.
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The movie is 2 hours of audio + video, with production costs running into the millions. The CD is maybe 1 hour of audio (15 minutes of good stuff diluted with 45 minutes of filler), with a production budget that is a tiny fraction of what the movie costs to produce. The blank media & burning cost of the DVD is probably 5x the cost of the CD. I'm ignoring the promotional costs of both because the hype machine runs at full blast for both anyway.
There is at least 10x the amount of data on a DVD compared the CD. At $22, it's just not worth finding a way to download & store all those gigabytes. If you can rent the movie for $5 at Blockbuster, it's not even worth considering the piracy alternatives. On the other hand, saving $14 by waiting 10 minutes to download & store 30 megabytes (for 15 minutes of audio)is a much more attractive proposition.
In my unscientific little survey, the CD price is roughly 65% of the DVD price. For 15 usable minutes of audio??? Which can be easily ripped, burned, and shared??? This would be like the bicycle industry pricing the average bike at $5000 and then wondering why (a) nobody is buying bikes, (b) motorcycles are selling just fine at $8000, and (c) there are these patent-infringing criminals who copy our designs and make bikes for themselves with parts from Home Depot. We must stop the criminals because they are killing our business!
Emulate the orignal (uncrippled) Napster. Collect $5/month from every customer for unlimited MP3 transfers. Watch the piracy problem disappear. It's that simple. My current budget for CDs is $0, which would increase to $60/year under this arrangement. RIAA, it's your choice: do you want me to pay you $60 or $0 per year? Hint: If you choose $0 you will have a revenue problem.
The audio piracy problem exists only beause the recording industry's business model encourages it. The DVD industry survives because the prices are not so high as to encourage the pirates, and there are low-cost rentals to make sure they get some money from all potential customers. On the other hand, the audio industry sells only complete albums at inflated prices, without meaningful low-cost options for those who pass up the chance to buy the whole enchilada at full list price. These idiots will soon be getting 100% of nothing, which is precisely what they deserve. If there was an economic category for the Darwin awards, the RIAA would get my nomination.
DVD Movie: usually over 3 hours of audio and video
The movie itself (widescreen and fullscreen)
The movie with a directors commentary
Isolated score
Trailers
Deleted scenes
Outtakes
Music videos
"The Making Of" Featurettes and Documentaries
Actor bios
Production photos and notes
DVD-Rom material for your computer
Music CD: usually 30-50 minutes of audio only
8-15 Songs
Sometimes some multimedia to view in your computer
Sometimes will not play in your computer at all
The American consumer isn't that dumb.
While the movie companies try to entice us to buy by adding extras like deleted scenes onto their discs (thus improving the overall quality of the disc), the RIAA is more concerned with starting lawsuits and draining every last dollar out of consumers than improving their product.
See these quotes from the article made by Jim Urie, president of Universal Music and Video Distribution:
Urie says his company doesn't heavily research consumer attitude, noting, "We tend to ask how can we make more money and sell more product, not deal with consumer gripes."
(Actually, if they dealt with consumer gripes you'd probably sell more product and make more money.)
Urie argues that lowered prices won't make a dent in downloading, saying, "The fact that consumers can steal music sort of trumps anything else we can do."
The article makes the very good point that most people have a certain amount they'll spend on entertainment. If CD's and DVD's cost about the same, then the consumer is going to look at how much "bang for the buck" they're getting with each. A DVD is typically packed with extras. A CD, if you're lucky, might have some tiny pictures and lyrics on the insert. No wonder consumers would rather buy the DVD than the CD.
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