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Bollywood Embraces Kazaa Movie Downloads
MaximusTheGreat writes "While Hollywood tries to debate how to tackle P2P movie downloads, Bollywood the world's largest film industry has decided to embrace it. This could usher in a new era of legal movie downloads like iTunes for music, as Bollywood, the Indian film industry produces 1000 movies a year and outstrips hollywood by almost 3:1. Theaters worldwide sold some 3.6 billion tickets to Bollywood films last year, compared with Hollywood's 2.6 billion. In revenue terms Bollywood is already larger than the British, Hong Kong, Japanese and Italian movie industry and is growing at a very fast rate."
Hollywood has been slow to embrace downloads
Understatement of the year.
Trolling is a art,
A good analog would be if iTunes only offered JPop.
Hooray for Bollywood
That screwy, ballyhooey Bollywood!
Where any office boy
Or young mechanic
can be a panic
With just a good-looking pan
And any barmaid
Can be a star maid
If she dances with or without a fan
Hooray for Bollywood!
Where you're terrific
if you're even good!
Where anyone at all from Shirley Temple
to Aimee Semple
is equally understood
Come on and try your luck
You could be Donald Duck
Hooray for Bollywood!
Hooray for Bollywood!
That phony, super Coney, Bollywood
They come from Chilicothes and Padukahs
with their bazookas
To see their names up in lights
All armed with photos
From local rotos
With their hair in curlers
and legs in tights
Hooray for Bollywood!
You may be homely in your neighborhood.
Still, if you think that you can be an actor
See Mister Factor
He'd make a monkey look good!
Within a half an hour
You'll look like Tyrone Power
Hooray for Bollywood!
at least SOME films that come out of Hollywood show traces of originality and thinking outside the box. Every Bollywood film i've seen on TV could've been created with some sort of VB app.
Well... since they have them beat on quantity, they must have them beat on quality.
They say the first thing to go is your penis. Well, it's either that or your brain. I forget which...
from new dehli, said every bollywood movie has the same plot:
;-P
2 boys, separated at birth, fall in love with the same woman, except one is rich/ powerful/ a cop and the other is poor/ a farmer/ a thief... they fight each other for the woman, and there is much singing and dancing throughout
he said that is basically every movie made in bollywood
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
From the taking on titanic link: My guess is that at 8 per cent of the cost we can achieve 90 per cent of the production quality of any of their movies. The last mile will cost us more, given the current status of the technology available here-but even that we can achieve at, say, another 8 per cent. This is why Bollywood will ultimately fail. Sure, they have a bigger market, and they make more movies, but Hollywood knows the cost (and value) of western movies. The Indian distributers can flood Kazaa with as many Bollywood movies as they want, and they can expend that extra 8% of effort, but very few people in the west will spend money on this.
Training monkeys for world domination since 1439
It looks like the tech industry isn't the only one being outsourced to India.
There is nothing so silly as other peoples traditions, and nothing so sacred as our own.
What have I seen that they've done? This is interesting and great news indeed if I can get films I actually like. Quality over quantity, remember. Looks like I'll be doing some googling this afternoon.
Either way, it IS a good step, and great news.
Damon,
http://actionPlant.com
Sounds like this Bollywood thing bas a buge and beroic future abead.
I think in another 50 years that India will be beside the US in terms of being a world superpower. In a hundred it will be the most powerful nation in the world
Not unless they figure out how to think as one nation instead of several chauvinistic states. Oh, and get rid of the pork-bellied ruling class that has held the country back so far.
Bollywood Embraces Kazaa Movie Downloads
Just when we thought the typos and lack of editing on slashdot couldn't get any worse, we get 'Bollywood' in the title. This is a sad, sad day for slashdot. (Note I did not RTFBlurb before posting.)
Man, would I like to know what goofy kind of file format they're using for that one. Probably some variant of DRM. Anybody know?
Batou: Hey, Major... You ever hear of "human rights"? Major: I understand the concept, but I've never seen it in action
Only if I was fluent in Hindi and enjoyed musicals.
'Same speed C but faster'
The social differences in particular the lack of workforce desire to take risks will prevent India from achieving any type of superpower status. Until there is major cultural change in India the country isn't suited to be anything more than an outsourcing hub for the world.
99% of the stories in Bollywood have this same plot line and seriously, it's amazing they chalk up 3.6 billion tickets.
India is not similar to the USA very much at all.
The British have not been the dam holding back the Indians from prosperity, Indian culture has been.
British rule did not stop Hong Kong Chinese or Aussies from prospering to second-world status. Israel was only formed recently, thanks to a British grant and UN intercession, yet is a world power today.
In an analogy to the formative USA, the denizens of India would be more suited, no irony intended, in the role of "Indian" as opposed to colonist.
The problems in India stem from its culture, not its past status as a colony.
For those of you not familiar with Bollywood flicks, you kind of have to watch them in a similar way you watch Hong Kong kung-fu flicks. You have similar cheeziness factors, recurring themes (boy meets/loses girl and singing and dancing in one, "you killed my father..." and fighting in the other), and so on. It's good fun actually...
People say I'm crazy, I got diamonds on the soles of my shoes...
Wait, are you trying to say that a prerequisite for superpower is being once ruled by UK? ;]
One that hath name thou can not otter
It almost seems as though Bollywood's perception is that their core Indian market won't be affected by offering the movies online-the original article quotes something like 1 million out of 1 billion people in India have Internet access. So from their point of view, putting movies online can't really parasitize their existing market because it isn't connected. So they can only win-even if somebody finds a way around any protection on the movies, it still can only increase their customer base to reach people they haven't been able to in the past. In other words, even if only 1 out of 100 people actually buy the movie rather than watch any cracked version, that's still 1 more customer than they would have had otherwise.
In contrast, Hollywood seems to perceive their customers as more connected Internet-wise, and so putting movies online will parasitize their existing market. Using the same 1 out of 100 people idea, Hollywood sees it as losing 99 rather than gaining 1.
I'm not saying either or both is right or wrong, it just seems to me to be a difference in how each sees their core market.>> India won indipendence only 55 years ago, and is fast turning into an intelectual and finincial world power. They have a space program, nuclear wepons and huge investment from global companies such as IBM and Dell.
How does wasting the resources to acquire nuclear weapons help to become a intellectual or financial power ?
http://www.nasirudheen.blogspot/
I'm not saying this is a bad idea...I'm just saying it won't work with Bollywood movies.
But on the other hand maybe movie distribution will become the killer app for broadband in India :)
of course bollywood makes lots of different movies
but an indian can make fun of his nation's movie industry if he wants to, just like americans like to say hollywood is too liberal/ too gun crazy, when the truth is of course more complex
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Maybe they should outsource to America.
Bowie J. Poag
"India produces as many as 1,000 movies each year with revenues of more than $1 billion." -- The Globe and Mail
This indicates revenue of a million a movie; that's a paltry sum which no American movie house would bother with.
"Bollywood's global annual revenues, estimated at $1.3 billion this year, are small change compared with Hollywood's $51 billion." --Business Week
This shoots down the other misdirection in the article. Sell all the tickets you want, Bollywood. You're still pulling less than 1/39th the cash that Hollywood takes in.
A lot of people watch these movies. I have seen a few. To a film, they were insipid. Do yourselves a favor and avoid the musicals at all costs.
But don't worry. They're not going to take over the film industry.
REM Old programmers don't die. They just GOSUB without RETURN.
Introducing Things You Would Never Know Without Watching Bollywood Movies
I think in another 50 years that India will be beside the US in terms of being a world superpower. In a hundred it will be the most powerful nation in the world.
And in 200, it will conquer Texas for its petrol... Yeah!Ever look around and notice how many Indian folks there are in the US, working in Tech with access to the Internet?
Ever seen a Bollywood movie in a theater in the US?
Supply meets Demand and there are some people who like these movies here in the US where they can't (easily) see them in theaters.
I'm sure that lots of folks will take advantage if this if for no other reason than to have something from their culture for their children (born here) to watch.
Good luck to them!
42 - So long and thanks for all the fish.
Here is a thriving industry (The Indian and Pakistani film groups) offering their goods online to make them available to those who live in geographical areas that would not normally be accessible. It eliminates videotape piracy which is rampant in this marketplace and allows fans access to the content. Why have the Bollywood chiefs picked this up and the American and British Music Industry dropped the ball. Was it pressure from their distributors? Lack of knowledge of the internet? No method of micropayments?
I would really like to know why it took a hardware manufacturer to bring in a system of legal digital content delivery (Apple and iTunes).
It also is good to see one of the largest and most productive media producers embracing digital video distribution. This completely jumps the gun on Hollywood and leaves the North American producers playing catch-up.
- The Film Ms and Mr. Iyer is not a bollywood movie (not a single song in it...) more a movie about Hindi/muslim differences see http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0329393 for IMDB info
- there is no price for best asian film at the Locarno film festival, this film got second prize from the youth jury...
my 2 words...I think this will really take of with xpat indians world wide. I'd say that 90% or more of bollywood dvds and video sold outside India are pirates. So any way the studios can extract a bit of money from the xpat market is a bonus. $2.99 for one viewing is fair enough but how about $9.99 for something burnable to a vcd and $15.99 for something burnable at dvd quality.
And while we're at it get hollywood doing the same. Sunday I wanted to watch about schmidt but not badly enough to go to the video store. They have taken a few quid off me if I could have downloaded it there and then. P2P isn't at threat it's a distribution method. With or without DRM there are plenty of people willing to pay for the convenience of media downloads.
If anyone has ever been to the street-markets in Bombay (or any other major Indian City) - you'll see VCD peddlers selling movies for less than $2.99. Most of them are bootleg and "screeners".... coming out 1 day after the official movie release in theatres. Don't think this won't stop that activity. In fact it might cheapen the price of VCDs to deal with this new "competitive threat"....
===> An eye for an eye makes everyone blind - MG
Its been pointed out that most readers of /. know nothing about Bollywood movies. Could some knowledgable people point out some links to reviews of Indian films that have subtitles or are in English?
liberals hate guns
so it's a contraction i was trying to show: either hollywood is too liberal in which case there are no war movies, all problems are solved without violence, and no one carries a gun (not true at all), or it isn't liberal
so hollywood clearly is not liberal
hollywood is what it is: an industry maximized to project to americans what they want to see, so whatever you call hollywood is twisting the truth of what it is
you cannot blame hollywood for sex and violence in their films, you have to blame the amercian public: that's what they want to see, they vote with their pocketbooks
hollywood makes movies to make money, not political statements
you can't move into hollywood, change how it works, and suddenly change humanity. humanity is in control of hollywood through their pocket books, not vice versa.
but certain segments of society think they can control hollywood and therefore change ugly sides of humanity, because they think that hollywood is somehow in control of what people think. that's a logical fallacy of not understanding how the cause and effect relationship between the movie and the audience actually works.
conservatives complaing about the liberal media went out of vogue as soon as fox news grabbed ratings, so your complaint against "liberal" hollywood is outdated and contrived
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Why are nukes such a big deal?
I'm hoping that you're kidding, but in case you're not...
http://www.csi.ad.jp/ABOMB/data.html
If you define "liberal" as "lots of boobs and sex", then yes, hollywood is too liberal as well.
Er, have to disagree with you there, in the strongest possible terms, I'm afraid. If you're talking about mainstream Hollywood films, then I'm constantly shocked at the lack of "boobs and sex" in them, compared to, say, European, or even British, Cinema. I think it's getting worse, too. I'm sure that there used to be more nudity in hollywood films, say fifteen years ago. This is a worrying trend. Violence is getting more acceptable, and wholesome natural human "boobs and sex" less so.
evil math within Nature's Cubic Creation!
>>How is this different from China? ;-)
India is a (troubled) democracy. The reason they shoot 1000 movies a year is because of primordial capitalist soup breeding there.
In China you would have just one, government-approved, red-flag-covered-boobies feature
... as Bollywood, the Indian film industry produces 1000 movies a year and outstrips hollywood by almost 3:1....
Well, Bollywood does not make 1000 movies a year. Indian film industry does make 1000 movies a year. The difference is that Bollywood (based in Mumbai earlier known as Bombay) is focussed primarily on Hindi movies. However, this constitutes maybe a third to a half of the 1000 movies a year. There are other languages / locations which make movies by the dozens and that make up the rest of the numbers. Most of the Southern states, which incidentally do not have Hindi as their primary language, have factories chruning regional language films. Tamil, Telugu, Malyalam and (I think) Kannada movies are made to the tune of 50-100 per year. There are other languages contributing a smaller share.
Irrespective of whether the movie is Hindi, or one of the regional movies, they all do have similar formulaes. 95% of the movies adopt romance / action formula, with maybe less than 5% movies trying to do something different.
However, Hindi movies are the ones which are known globally historically and people get the mis-impression that all Bollywood is Indian Movies (which is right), and all Indian movies are Bollywood (which is wrong).
I remember reading an interesting article in the Econimist a few years ago.
97% of movies shown in Africa were Indian moview dubbed in the local languages. An increasing percentage of foreign filmes being screened in the Middle East, Israel, Australia and now England and the US are Indian movies.
You could argue that the success of Indian movies in England and the US is because of large immigrant population from India. However, the other countries mentioned have few Indians.
When interviewed, most people said they loved Indian movies because there was an emphasis on family bonds and respect for elders - these are the foundation of Indian society - and had much in common with the societies in these countries.
They all watched Hollywood movies too, and definitely enjoyed them, but they said that something about Indian movies struck a chord in their heart.
Indians love Hollywood movies, Indians love Bollywood and all the other regional language movies - Indians LOVE movies, period. There is a long standing tradition of film in that country, and not all the output is song-and-dance.
Satyajit Ray, Shyam Benegal, Amol Palekar to name a few are extremely gifted directors and made some of the best movies ever. So, one shouldn't make sweeping statements about an industry.
Mainstream Bollywood, like Mainstream Hollywood is all a world of make-believe...it's just the ingredients that are different.
israel is a "world power" because it is completely propped up with american handouts. the state of israel is the single biggest recipient of american foreign aid. thrity per cent of all u.s. foreign aid money goes there. thirty percent! that's $3billion a year.
not hard to be a "world power" with those kinds of freebies.
oh yeah, here's my source... and here and here
2 1337 4 u!
The single biggest factor that made America great was that America found the right amound of economic and social freedom to allow entreprenuers to innovate and grow their businesses. This was the result, in large part, from inheriting the individualism alive in British culture, but stripping the aristocratic tradition out of it. Judging by the Indian nationals that I know, the future is very bright. The entreprenuerial spririt is alive and well in India, and I expect that they will be a world class economic power in less than 50 years, likely outstripping the EU.
I'm not sure what role India will play diplomatically or militarily. Because of the ongoing conflict in the Kashmir, it will be difficult for India to play any sort of "mediator" role in the Muslim world. I suspect that as long as the US remains a proponent of free trade, India will be content to be a regional power, letting the US spend most of the money to patrol the shipping lanes while India reasp the benefits.
In short, I don't forsee a long term strategic interest that puts India and the US into conflict, so why would they spend excessively to compete militarily.
China, on the other hand...
of course bollywood makes lots of different movies
I wish they did. It's ridiculous to say Bollywood has only 1 plot. Maybe, a second one accidently gets in here and there. (j/k)
Seriously, Bollywood movies suffer being built from a very limited number of templates. That's true in Hollywood only for those family feel-good goofy comedies and mindless action movies (but not ALL action movies suffer from this). Bollywood also suffers from ridiculous melodrama and absurd plot contrivances. Again, this problem in Hollywood is primarily limited to the categories I mentioned above.
The parent mentioned Monsoon Wedding. That isn't a Bollywood movie. It is refreshingly different from a Bollywood movie. Devdas is based on a noted novel and is completely botched up. The story concerns an alcoholic of rich pedigree who dotes on a childhood friend who is from a poor family. Except in the usual absurd style, their home is 5 times bigger and lavisher than a decent-sized suburban home here The acting is soap-style. All I'll say is that Lagaan is indeed a standout.
I'm sure you haven't compared parts of chicago and new york ... We have great riches and great slums!!
I'm told you are what you eat, does that mean I can be you by tomorrow with some A1?
Say it together class: "War on Terror"
Warning! Keep Out of Eyes! Wash Out with Water! Don't Drink Soap! Dilute! Dilute!
I was told by someone from India that the main purpose of Bollywood is to sell music.
Also, in a culture where arranged marriage is almost always the case, the story is usually about finding true love.
So what Bollywood provides is catchy music and forbidden (fantasy) stories. That is what makes it popular some parts of the world, but probably not in the Western world.
Tired of the lack of decent domestic films, I've recently filled my Nexflix queue with foreign films. Apropos, just last night, my wife and I watched Sex and Lucia . We saw the unrated version, but had it been rated, I'm pretty sure it would have received a "X" rating in the US. I have no idea what rating it had in its country of origin (Spain?), but I imagine it would have been equivalent to the US's "R" rating. Having lived in Germany for a year in my youth, I know that Europeans have a much more balanced view of sexuality than most Americans.
The point is that while there was plenty of nudity and "graphic" sex (by US movie standards), it was presented so matter-of-factly, that it blended perfectly within the context of the film. Let's face it, people have sex, and they walk around naked (at times). In a US film, every furtive (or gratuitous) breast shot or sex scene is presented in such an eye-popping, oogling fashion, that you'd think such events were somehow not normal.
The filming was top-notch, and the story was quite the mind-bender. I highly recommend it. I just hope the rest of my non-domestic film rentals prove to be of such quality. BTW, can anyone recommend good films from Central and South America?
Method of processing duck feet
I'm not talking about % im talking about sheer numbers. In the 1991 Cencus there were 101 million muslim's in India. According to CIA world fact book, there are currently 126 million in 2003.
And there are 180 million Muslims in Indonesia and 140 million Muslims in Pakistan. Therefore India is number 3 in muslim population. It isn't even close.
Best of all, most Slashdotters who aren't Indian could show up in Bombay and easily get paid to be an extra in a movie. Or several movies. If they like your look they might offer you a monthly contract. Tell them you use Kazaa and support their industry and they'll be foaming at the mouth. The movie culture in India is very different than Hollywood!
No, not a poll as in agree/disagree, a Slashpoll.
... (something about Windows Security) ... ... (something about the RIAA) ... ... (something about CoyboyNeal) ...
The most greivously understated comment of the year is:
a) Hollywood has been slow to embrace downloads
b) You own SCo $699.
c)
d)
e) Profit!
f)
etc.
I've attempted the comment, I'm afraid someone else will have to supply the humor.
Any spoon would be too big.
At the turn of this century, when the country was poised for major social and political reforms, a new entertainment form dawned in India-the Cinema. The first exposure to motion pictures which India received was in 1896, when the Lumiere Brothers' Chinematographe unveiled six soundless short films at Watson Hotel, Esplanade Mansion, Bombay on July 7. And the first exposing of celluloid in camera by an Indian and its consequent screening took place in 1899, when Harishchandra Bhatvadekar (Save Dada) shot two short films and exhibited them under Edison's projecting kinetoscope.
Hiralal Sen and F.B. Thanawalla were two other Indian pioneers engaged in the production of short films in Calcutta and Bombay in 1900. Around 1902, J.F. Madan and Abdullah Esoofally launched their career with Bioscope shows of imported short films. In 1912 , N.G. Chitre and R.G. Torney made a silent feature film Pundalik which was released on May 18, and it was half British in its make.
Dhundiraj Govind Phalke, more generally known as Dada Saheb Phalke was responsible for the production of India's first fully indigenous silent feature film Raja Harishchandra which heralded the birth of the Indian film industry. The film had titles in Hindi and English and was released on May 3, 1913 at the Coronation Cinema, Bombay. In 1917, Bengal saw the birth of its first feature film-Satyabadi Raja Harishchandra made by Madan's Elphinstone Bioscope Company. In Madras, the first feature film of South India Keechaka Vadham was made by Nataraja Mudaliar in 1919.
After stepping into 1920, the Indian cinema gradually assumed the shape of a regular industry. The industry also came within the purview of the law. The new decade saw the arrival of many new companies and film makers. Dhiren Ganguly (England Returned), Baburao Painter (Savkari Pash), Suchet Singh (Sakuntala), Chandulal Shah (Guna Sundari), Ardershir Israni, and V. Santharam were the prominent film makers of the twenties.
The most remarkable things about the birth of the sound film in India is that it came with a bang and quickly displaced the silent movies. The first Indian talkie Alam Ara produced by the Imperial film company and directed by Ardershir Irani was released on March 14, 1931 at the Majestic Cinema in Bombay; The talkie had brought revolutionary changes in the whole set up of the industry. The year 1931 marked the beginning of the talking ear in Bengal and South India. The first talkie films in Bengali (Jumai Shasthi), Telugu (Bhakta Prahlad) and Tamil (Kalidass) were released in the same year.
The thirties is recognised as the decade of social protests in the history of Indian Cinema. Three big banners-Prabhat, Bombay Talkies and New Theatres gave the lead in making serious but gripping sand entertaining films for all classes of the wide audience. A number of films making a strong plea against social injustice were also made in this period like V.Santharam's Duniya Na Mane, Aadmi and Padosi, Franz Osten's Achut Kanya, Damle & Fatehlal's Sant Thukaram, Mehboob's Watan, Ek hi Raasta and Aurat. For the first time Ardeshir Irani attempted a colour picture in 1937 with Kisan Kanya.
The decade also witnessed the release of the first talkie films in Marathi (Ayodhiyecha Raja 1932), Gujarathi (Narasinh Mehta-32), Kannada (Dhurvkumar-34); Oriya (Sita Bibaha-34); Assamese (Joymati-35); Punjabi (Sheila-35) and Malayalam(Balan-38).
The decade during which the second world was fought and Indian independence won, was a momentous one for cinematography all over India. Some memorable films were produced during the forties such as Shantharam's Dr. Kotnis Ki Amar Kahani, Mehboob's Roti, Chetan Anand's Neecha Nagar, Uday Shanker's Kalpana, Abbas's Dharti Ke Lal, Sohrab Modi's Sikander, Pukar and Prithvi Vallabh, J.B.H. Wadia's Court Dancer, S.S. Vasan's Chandralekha, Vijay Bhatt's Bharat Milap and Ram Rajya, Rajkapoor's Barsaat and Aag.
The first International Film Festival of India held in early 1952 at Bombay had great impact of Indian Cinema. T
the terrorist
That was its country of origin, no idea about the rating. In France (where I saw it) it was rated for age 12 and above. I suspect that was because of the violence and psychological stuff, not the nudity. "Eyes wide shut" had no restriction at all. In general, only violent/disturbing films and hard porn seem to get age-ratings in France; normal nudity is fine.
Actually, Iraq is now #1 on US foreign aid.
Try his other article too.
Interesting observations from a westerner about Indian movies.
Look up how much US aid goes to Egypt and other Arab friends.
Aid for Israel is mostly (like 60%) military aid. That dollar turns right around and ends up back stateside in the pockets of Boeing, Grumman, etc.
If there is an Insightful Troll, look no further than the parent post.
A "War on Terror" is like a "War on Jealousy".
"Having a war on terror - its like having a war on jealousy... At no point in time EVER are we going to go: 'Phew! Got em all! Everybody loves us again'."
-David Cross
You are incorrect.
Pakistan, India and China have nuclear weapons but are 3rd world countries, nukes or not.
Japan has no nuclear weapons yet is a first world power.
1st/3rd world refers to the distinction discussed earlier.
It may be less ambigious to describe the 1st world as developed and the 3rd world as not developed (or emerging), following a measure of standard of living, income, education, etc (this is a subject in itself). MSCI and FTSE use the term 'advanced emerging' as a subset of emerging to describe emerging countries with standard of living between developed and average emerging level, a useful term.
karma karma karma karma karma chameleon, you come and go, you come and go.
As a person of Indian origin who consumes the 10% of those 1000 Bollywood films that eventually do make it to the US market, and as someone who is acutely aware of Bollywood happenings on an almost day-to-day basis ( I must say the average Indian would easily fall into this category ), I think this is the right move.
Bollywood on P2P - way to go!
But why ?
1. The average expat Indian watches Bollywood purely out of nostalgia. There is a sense of loss in leaving one's home country & settling abroad, and Bollywood manages to help one cope with that loss rather effectively. P2P would cater to that segment quite nicely.
2. Despite this comment, Bollywood does large churn out pulp. Devdas & Lagaan are no different. At its core, Bollywood themes are hackneyed and trite - hero gets heroine, a couple of songs & dances, few mild conflicts ( mother-in-law versus bride, dad versus son, man versus the corrupt system, hero vs villian, etc ). So when you have a thousand of these made, year after year after year, you do have to wonder what happens to quality. Even as a fan of Bollywood, I'm not ashamed to claim that maybe 1, atmost 2 films per year, would make it to my DVD library. The rest are just fluff - to be consumed & discarded, like a can of pop. 2 out of 1000 films is 0.2%. That being the case, it seems almost criminal to waste the amount of resources needed to bring pulp onto the large screen on your local multiplex, and cause major traffic jams in local Indian hubs like Jersey City ( NJ ), Iselin ( NJ ), Flushing ( NY ) etc, where Indian communities hog the narrow arteries with their Toyotas blaring Bollywood songs as they head towards the latest Friday release, inconveniencing the local populace, not to mention the untold damage to cells in the cranium and the basal ganglia that get permanently damaged watching crap of this magnitude week after week on the large screen in surround sound. Its much better these Indians stay home and download these "Bollywood blockbusters" as they are known, on the DSL lines using P2P networks and watch themn on 15" laptops - saves gasoline for the commute, electicity needed to work the multiplex, and annoyance to local communities, plus hopefully a few brain cells.
3. Piracy is rampant among Indian film consumers - any video store in an Indian hub will sell you the latest Bollywood offering, pirated version, for $2. The industry loses a big chunk of change. Maybe P2P would pump some money back into the industry.
4. Mafia - Perhaps no industry is more tightly controlled by the underworld than Bollywood. Dons operating out of Dubai ( UAE ), South Africa, and Staten Island even, control the operation of the industry and screening of its films. P2P can subvert this whole criminal enterprise - finally technology beats the bad guys.
But, lets see if this actually takes off - efforts to reform Bollywood are few and far between, and get shut down rather suddenly - P2P may face the same fate.
I am surprised, though, that they sell more tickets than Hollywood does. The net gross is nowhere near as LA.....
Perhaps that's because the developing world doesn't get ripped off for TEN DOLLARS or more to watch a fucking ninety minute movie.
Most of us work jobs that pay a livable salary per year. Well, that's how they look at musicians, actors, etc.. they're all just doing a job, and not creaming off $20 million a picture.. this means ticket prices are lower and everyone can go enjoy the flick.
mogorific carpentry experiments
Tired of the lack of decent domestic films, I've recently filled my Nexflix queue with foreign films.
You might prefer GreenCine to Netflix. They claim to have a wider selection of non-mainstream stuff than Netflix. I haven't looked at the foreign films, but their anime selection is pretty much perfect - I have yet to look for an anime title and not find it.
I am an american, and I dont appreciate America giving aid to countries with questionable human rights records to further one agenda or the other (be it Israel over Palestine, Iraq n Turkey over the Kurds n Iran etc etc). Wish there was something I could do about where my tax dollars go, but since both the GOP n Dem's have the exact same policy ;)
That's not really correct. Yes, the decline of Europe worked in USA's favour. HOWEVER, USA was a superpower (when it comes to economics) in the LATE 1800's!!! People think USA was a superpower after WWWWII but that's not true. By the last 1800's USA already had a bigger GDP than any European country, including colonialists like Britain.
People fail to realize that USA became wealthy BEFORE it started practicing IMPERIALISM. If anything, US imperialism will be its downfall... USA probably has more enemies than anyone else in the world and this does not bode well for the country...
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Seeking the meaning of life... @slashdot of all places
The reality is that Bollywood earns far more from outside India than within. This is not just because all revenue is in dollars (and not rupees), but also because the government doesn't tax all that forex earnings. Besides, those homesick non-resident Indians will lop up any mindless crap belted out by Film-istan, so the people who make movies don't really have to move out of their bright-sets-with-characters-in-black-and-white paradigm; they only have to continue making it more shiny and more masala-driven.
(Which is why the big thing in Hindi movies these days is films with ex-pat content; in a year that saw 200 or so film releases, I can think of exactly one film set in the Great Indian Hindi Heartland up north. Something that never happens with the regional language movies, incidentally.)
So while you're correct in your assessment that film producers think India will be unaffected, it would be incorrect to say that its core market will be unaffected. For good or bad, Bollywood's focus has already crossed the seas.
More than mere navel gazing.
Certification: Argentina:16 / Australia:R / Canada:R / Finland:K-15 / France:-12 / Germany:16 / Hong Kong:III / Italy:VM18 / Netherlands:16 / Norway:15 / Peru:18 / Spain:18 / Sweden:15 / Switzerland:16 (canton of Zurich) / UK:18 / USA:NC-17 (uncut version) / USA:R (cut version)
Quite a few countries rate the movie as R or 18 (the equivalent of R in most cases).
May be because a studio gets only a few bucks profit on each disk, because the rest goes to greedy and inefficient distributors of physical goods? If a studio gets 5$ per disk and it can quadruple the sales by offering 2$ downloads, it might actually be worthwhile to ditch DVDs.
BTW, is anyone interested in setting up (a few thousand bucks investment needed) a commercial download service for public domain films (i.e. everything released before 1973)? There are places on this planet (like Russia), where copyright expires in 30 years and older works are in public domain (the fact is officially recognised by the Ministry of Culture).
Future Wiki -- If you don't think about the future, you cannot have one.