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King Kong vs. Movie Pirates
Caoz writes "The New York Times is running an interesting article about movie piracy with Peter Jackson providing some comments. There a couple of comments that I thought were surprising. Like an executive admitting that file sharers are not the biggest threat to Hollywood. From the article: 'There is a very dark, black cloud in this game. It's not in the hands of kids who live next door to you; it's organized groups and organized crime.' Why are they suing bitorrent users then?"
It's not in the hands of kids who live next door to you; it's organized groups and organized crime." Why are they suing bitorrent users then?"
Haven't you realized this very dark and cloudy organized group they're referring to is the Bitorrent User Group (BUG)?
I do have another question though - Why don't consumers buying/wearing fake branded products get arrested?
A Nike t-shirt is probably as easy and cheap to copy and produce as a DVD movie. Imagine law enforcement officers roaming the streets and ripping counterfeited t-shirts off materialistic girls.
Rock that crushes, Paper & Scissors that don't matter.
Why are they after BT users more than the crime syndicates? Because BT users are a far more high-profile target. And BT users don't have the money or clout to get themselves out of trouble. When a BT user is charged, they usually fall on their knees begging for a settlement. When (more like if) the crime syndicates are charged, money talks and suddenly the case "disappears".
It's like asking a bully why he picks on the little guys. He's afraid of messing with kids his own size.
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I don't like this article. It claims that box office releases are "unprofitable, expensive form of marketing".
The truth is that hollywood has made an art of hiding profits ever since they started signing profit sharing agreements with actors and directors. Sure, a crappy movie isn't going to make a good ROI. But the movie industry generally makes out quite well.
Because it is easier.
2) Since BT users are not prone to violence they're easy targets. It's kind of like the TSA at airports, rather than doing something useful but hard, such as securing the borders or inspecting the millions of containers shipped through our ports every day, each one a potential WMD delivery system, Homeland Security has chosen to do something useless and easy, namely harass people at airports. I'm sure there's some division of the **AAs that has some metric where they are rewarded for the number of pirates they catch, regardless of whether or not those pirates are the Yakuza, Mafia or the Tongs who are making a million copies of Spiderman 2 at a pop or if they're BT users who downloaded a low resolution transfer Dr. Who episode. In large organizations it's often OK to do things that are completely worthless, so long as you look really busy while you're doing them.
cheap labor conservatives - they want to keep you hungry enough to be thankful for minimum wage.
Five years ago when Napster was getting sued, everyone on Slashdot--editors included--rallied behind the idea that they should lay off the companies providing the apps and going after the individual infringers, because that was fair and logical. I think nobody expected they'd actually do that. And now they are, and so the rallying cry has changed.
"Sufferin' succotash."
Yep. It's easier to be lazy and look slightly useful than to actually effect change. Office Space said it best.
Just like most things in life. Play the part just enough to have people think you're doing something while really only barely skating by.
From TFA:
Hollywood reported global revenue of $84 billion in 2004, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers, the accounting firm. With most theatrical releases amounting to little more than an unprofitable, expensive form of marketing, DVD's have become Hollywood's lifeblood: together with videos, they kick in $55.6 billion, or about two-thirds of the industry's annual haul, with box-office receipts making up most of the rest.
From that paragraph, isn't it clear that accessibility ("freedom" to an extent?) is what people want. People want to be able to get access to a movie when they want to and watch it in whatever way they feel like.
The whole system is broken, because it's old and redundant. Money is spent exorbitantly in all the wrong places and, quite simply, isn't obeying simple rules of economics. You want to push your product out as much as possible at a price that people are prepared to pay.
The only saving grace is that this antiquated system is doomed. I, for one, welcome the new era of "Pro-Ams" and the demise of DRM.
Well, according to the US economic census the total revenue of all sorts of entertainment and recreation was about $142 billion. That includes live performing arts, bowling alleys, and a lot of other stuff you can't put on a website for download.
The total economy was over $18 trillion in 2002, so arts and entertainment represent about 0.7% of the total US economy in this census. I'd say the effectiveness of the tactic would be about nil.
The only smaller categories in the census were management companies (mutual funds and the like) and educational services (Princeton SAT prep, commercial trade schools like DeVry, corporate training outfits). Categories taking in over a trillion dollars include construction, manufacturing, wholesale trade, retail trade, finanace & insurance, and health care & social assistence. Hollywood is barely on the financial radar.
"Why are they suing bitorrent users then?"
Because they are distributing material that they have no right to distribute?