Movie Studios Unveil New Anti-Piracy Lab

PaulusMagnus writes "According to the BBC Walt Disney, Sony, Paramount, Warner Bros, Universal and 20th Century Fox have formed a new organisation called the Motion Picture Laboratories. They've also given them a nice tidy sum of US$30m to play with to develop new technologies to combat piracy." From the article: "There are thousands of new concepts floating around the hi-tech community about how to develop tools to fight piracy ... Researching and developing these technologies now will help save the major studios and other motion picture producers and distributors money in the future."

Comments

The first discovery....

[Dark Paladin]

Make another "Mary Kate and Ashley Olson" movie, and *nobody* tries to pirate it.

Success!

Re:The first discovery....

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know... I think "One Night in Mary Kate and Ashley" would probably be the #1 pirated movie ever.

Re:The first discovery....

[tktk]

Another Tom Green movie would work though.

But One Night in Tom Green would be going way too far.

Re:The first discovery....

[hypervinetest45]

I slept with Mary Kate and Ashley before they were famous.

Re:The first discovery....

[tktk]

Visual?

You think that's bad? I though of it!

I'd stab my own brain if it wouldn't kill me.

Here's a good tool to fight piracy

[Marxist Hacker 42]

Price your movie tickets within the reach of NORMAL FAMILIES!

Re:Here's a good tool to fight piracy

[great om]

here in Nyc it's 9.50-11.00 usually based on where you are in the city. If you are lucky, some theatres have discount days where if you go at an unpopular time (like late sunday night or during the workday) it'll be like 6-7 bucks

Re:Here's a good tool to fight piracy

[Marxist Hacker 42]

$8 discount, $15 regular showing. But that's not what I'm talking about. I'm not talking about a comparison between different cultures. I'm talking about basic pricing philosophy. Back when I was growing up, we had a third-run theater that continually waited until the end of the blockbuster weekends before they'd get copies of movies. They'd charge $2.50/ticket- and kept doing that well into the 1990s. $10 for a family of 4 to see some third-run film; and you can bet we didn't have people with camcorders sneaking in. (Last I heard, they went up to $3.50 but started throwing in the popcorn for free). Not to mention the old drive-ins that would charge by the carload instead of individually.

The point is that the MPAA wants to make all of their investment and profits up front- where if they'd go for volume pricing instead, and roll prices back a few years, they'd have NO problem with piracy at all.

Re:Here's a good tool to fight piracy

[Marxist Hacker 42]

Um, how did the tax cuts reduce your standard of living? They may be contributing to the deficit/debt, but I'm having a hard time seeing how the tax cuts have you in the poor house.

Simply put- the majority of the tax cuts were to people who live on dividends. Because people are encouraged to live on dividends, this puts downward pressure on payroll (after all, businesses only have so much profit to go around- and if the stockholders are forcing the majority out in dividends, it has to come from somewhere, and the easiest place to cut is payroll). There are two ways this happens: In the software engineering industry, it happened through layoffs and outsourcing. In other industries, it's layoffs and hiring illegal aliens instead (who, thanks to another Supreme Court Decision in the last few years, are exempt from Davis-Bacon Act and Federal Minimum Wage laws). But inflation didn't stop- after all, those living on dividends have plenty of money to buy. So the rest of us have to slowly subsidise more and more of our lifestyle with debt. I've hit the wall on that- but many others will soon.

Re:Here's a good tool to fight piracy

[shmlco]

Back when I was growing up, a cup of coffee or a loaf of bread cost a quarter, a shake 50 centers, you could get an entire meal for a buck, and $30,000 was the price of a house, not a car.

I say we take on the nasty, profiteering coffee, bread, ice cream, restaraunt, housing, and auto companies...

Then again, since none of those other things cost the same now as they did then, and since what was once a million dollar movie now routinely costs $50-100 million, why is it again that you're expecting to pay decades-old admission prices?

Re:Here's a good tool to fight piracy

[Txiasaeia]

Primer cost $10,000 USD, and it was the best film I've seen all year. The point is that you don't need a million-dollar budget to produce a quality film, and with a lower budget comes lower ticket and DVD prices. Even so, I paid over $30 CAD for the DVD of Primer when I could find it (for comparison, most DVDs cost $20-25 CAD when they're released, and usually drop by $5 after six months). The moral of the story is that people are willing to pay for quality; I know I'll be buying The Constant Gardener for full-price when it's released to DVD, but won't pick up The Brothers Grimm even at $10.

Re:Here's a good tool to fight piracy

[Mr. Underbridge]

1) The middle class got a tax cut, as did the lower classes. I'm in it, I do my own taxes, they were less after the cuts. We may not have gotten the cut we "deserved" but it was greater than 0. 2) Inflation has been quite low for some time now, outside of housing in certain markets. 3) I'm not really buying that chain of events. Downsizing and outsourcing are happening for a number of reasons, but tracing them back to tax cuts (for individuals) through a convoluted link structure isn't all that believable. 4) Are you trying to support a family on your salary in a high cost of living market? Because that can be tough in any event.

In any event, if your problem is that you're having trouble finding a job in IT, good luck (and I don't mean that sarcastically). If your problem is that you feel you're underpaid...thank a growing mass of IT workers here and worldwide driving down salaries through supply and demand. These days a diverse skillset is absolutely necessary to compete in the market.

Seriously, what are you trying ot do?

Re:Here's a good tool to fight piracy

[Leiterfluid]

why is it again that you're expecting to pay decades-old admission prices?

Because they're recycling the same decades-old plots and story lines.

Re:Here's a good tool to fight piracy

[shmlco]

Well, put that way, since you've already seen them, you don't need to see them again, now do you?

Re:Here's a good tool to fight piracy

[Marxist Hacker 42]

Actually, there's the good point in other threads that the same movie that cost $1 million back then could be made for $10,000 today- by using technology (which makes me wonder how much Tim Burton's latest claymation cost- done with a relatively cheap digital camera). So you'd actually expect to see DEFLATION on this.

Re:Here's a good tool to fight piracy

[thefirelane]

MOD DOWN

This is entirely incorrect. The taxes in dividends were reduced, but that did not have the effect described above.

Previously, the tax on long term capital gains was less. This means, instead of dividends, companies paid out profits to share holders by either buying back stock, or holding onto the cash (thereby increasing stock value). The problem with this, is that it placed pressure on companies to increase stock price, instead of simply paying higher dividends. The problem is that a higher stock price can be created through manipulation, whereas higher dividends can not be faked. This led to Enron and others, which is why the law needed to be changed.

The point of the story is that before, a hypothetical company would go from $100 to $125 whereas no it is more likely to go from $100 to $100 with a $25 dividend payout. The main point is that all the tax break did was change the channel through which the same money traveled. It did not have the effect described in the parent post.

Re:Here's a good tool to fight piracy

[ckokotay]

I am dead center middle class total family size of 5, and I got what would end up being a HUGE tax cut, relative to income. You keep forgetting that people who make more money will receive a higher cut because they PAID more taxes. We already disproportionally tax the rich with the graduated income tax. You forget that the rich people you seem to loathe are the ones creating the jobs, and thus creating wealth. I have never seen a pverty stricken person employ anyone.

I swear, everyone in Slashdot anymore is just out to Bush bash, no matter what the cause, no matter what the issue. I personally will thank him for a nice extra chunk of change in my wallet.

Re:Here's a good tool to fight piracy

[theblueprint]

A good friend of mine is the GM of a Cinemark. He's told me repeatedly that they only make money on the concessions. The price that studios charge theatres is reflected in the high price of the ticket.

He's got no real reason to lie to me, since I get discounted tickets from him ($1.50 cheaper). I found this out when he was admonishing me for smuggling in Taco Bell...Granted, there's a decent margin on the snacks, but that's where the Theaters make their money.

Re:Here's a good tool to fight piracy

[drsquare]

In other words, if you don't like the price of something, take it illegally instead. It's not your fault for breaking the law, it's someone else's fault for pricing it wrong. After all, Slashdot posters have a god-given right to DEMAND how anyone else does business.

I believe in the free market. If you don't like the price of something, don't buy it. I think that Premiership football clubs charge too much for tickets. But I don't climb over the gate and sneak into the stadium, I just don't go. Simple, no?

Re:Here's a good tool to fight piracy

[Mr. Underbridge]

I happen to be in one of those markets.

I am too, so at least believe me when I say I know what you're talking about.

Fine with me. All I know is that in the 1990s, businesses were willing to spend money on R&D- and now they aren't. At all.

Huh? No R&D for what industry? As someone who got one of those nonexistent R&D jobs this year, I'm going to have to question that. R&D hiring has bounced back rather well in most science fields since 2000.

Portland wasn't a high cost of living market to begin with- and it's still about 50% what it is in other cities- but it's most certainly on the rise and has been for the last 5 years.

Yeah, I'm in DC so no believe me, it's a lot worse here.

And even then. I have 42 languages and 10 years of R&D on my resume- and the best I can do is contracting for the state at a rather low rate- far too low to support my lifestyle apparently.

The number of languages you know isn't an indication of your value, if you spend time learning more than a handfull you're wasting your time and employers won't be impressed. What were your 10 yrs R&D spent doing? And when I said diversity of skills, I didn't mean the number of programming languages you know. What are you trained in other than programming? Are you trained in anything to which you might apply that programming skill?

Seriously? Just stay in my house without getting kicked out by the bank or being forced into bankruptcy. I've downgraded my dreams seriously.

Well, yeah. Owning a house on sporadic contracting work isn't going to cut it. I'm completely guessing here, but if your work history started in 95 and got tough in the last 5 years, you might find that the world you knew 95-2000 isn't a realistic one. Your expectations might not match reality. I don't own a house, if you live in a big city that is quite a luxury.

Honestly - and I mean absolutely no offense - but I don't think I'd blame macroeconomics for your problems. There are quite likely things you can to to better your situation, and there are full time jobs that certainly can be had. And I don't mean to be condescending or judgemental if anything came off that way. But the mid 90's are never coming back, and it may take some pride swallowing to take a position that might not be ideal but gets you on the path you want.

Re:Here's a good tool to fight piracy

[lgw]

The top 1% of income earners pay 33% of all income taxes, the bottom 33% of income earners pay 1% of all income taxes. Sounds progressive to me.

Did you notice that when Reagan cut the top tax bracket back from 70% that federal revenues actually went up? The purpose of the tax system is to fund the federal government, not to punish success. Though given that you're a self-described Marxist, you probably think the reverse should be true. Marx was a fool and his ideas have killed tens of millions.

I'm not wealthy now, but one day I'll be living on my savings and those dividend tax cuts will come in quite handy, thank you!

Re:Here's a good tool to fight piracy

[Maxo-Texas]

Walk, Ride a bike in 95 degree heat. Check (Peak temp was 106 degrees)
---
Walk/Run 1.6 miles to make the bus after work. Check
---
Wait for the buses to start again at 5am so I could go home and get some sleep before turning right around and going back to work. Check (sometimes just -walked- the 8.9 miles home in 3 hours- got home about 4am)
---
Ride a bicycle 8.9 miles -each way- (~45 minutes) to get from my affordable housing to my $8/hour job. Check. (started regularly getting off after the last bus- got a used 10 speed bike for $45)
---
Ride a bike in temps down to 22 degrees. Check.
---
Ride a moped in 33 degree rain to work and school. Check. (ah it as glorious to finally save up enough for $630 moped).
---
Occasionally get soaked in thunderstorms or wait until they finished. Check
---
Go to community college, then real college and self-train for 11 years so I didn't have to do that any more. Check.
---
Done all that. Know all that. Had no help from anyone (not even grants). Mother didn't finish high-school, had no dad. Not particularly smart (just not actively dumb or self-destructive).
---
I was dirt poor for at least 7 years. Part of that I was dirt poor AND supporting a wife and child.
---
You can ALWAYS make excuses why you can't succeed but the fact is people until very recently (last 40-50 years) had it much harder than us and they survived and got by.
---
Make the sacrifices and never give up and you have a shot and getting ahead. Life is never certain.

Oh, isn't that just so cute

[Conspiracy_Of_Doves]

They actually think they can stop piracy

Millions for defense...

[Quinn_Inuit]

...and not one penny for good movies!

Make decent product

[yroJJory]

I thought the best "technology" was to make a decent product. Then people would likely feel more inclined to actually pay for it, rather than waste their $$$ on a turd.

Re:Make decent product

[Microlith]

Oh they do make decent products.

The decent products get pirated anyway, along with the junk.

The piracy is indiscriminate, which makes most arguments about quality moot since warezers will trade ANYTHING.

And people will enjoy anything, so long as they get it free. If people didn't trade shit online, and simply made sure that bad movies -bombed-, then maybe they'd have no case.

Ultimate Solution

[Arandir]

Just outlaw motion pictures! When there are no motion pictures to pirate, no one will be able to pirate motion pictures.

No more fair use

[Nonillion]

This just means you can kiss all your "fair use" rights goodbye. No mater what they try, it will certainly hobble my fair use rights to make copies of my disks so the kids cannot ruin the originals....

Re:No more fair use

[moexu]

They're doing a pretty good job of interfering with fair use now. Part of the reason that I buy stuff on DVDs is that I want to watch the content and not all the crap surrounding the content (commercials, previews, etc). I've gotten DVDs with introductions or previews that can't be skipped and even one movie that disables fast forward. WTF is that about? Why don't I get to decide which parts of the disc I want to see and which I don't? I bought the thing after all.

Re:No more fair use

[phalse phace]

It's because you don't own the product. You are merely paying for the license and the priviledge of watching it. And that license is under their terms only. Well, that's what the **AA will tell you anyways.

They already have the solution

[stox]

Judging from this summer's releases, the studio's have obviously found the perfect solution, only release material nobody would want to copy. So far, it appears to be working. No wonder cinema and DVD sales have fallen off so much.

All the while...

[DerekJ212]

All the while, DVD Jon sits in his laboratory funded only with chips and soda. Score: DVD Jon: 2 MPAA: 0

Re:All the while...

[Wilson_6500]

There's one thing that the individuals/groups who break copy protection are funded with in abundance, something that the entire music industry can never have, and that they can never beat...

Love.

(No, I'm not a Hollywood writer, I'm serious. Love for what they do, not for the Female Lead. Time and time again, we see how love outmatches the almighty dollar. Screw movies! Real life can teach us everything we need to know, like how fire hurts.)

Some In-House Cleaning

[thebdj]

Seriously, how many pirated copies of TOP movies actually make their way into the world via cameras? I mean, most the cam caps I have seen are horrible, poor audio and poor video, nothing I want to watch, especially on an HDTV. The GOOD copies come from screener versions of the movies. Heck some even have the, if you are watching this call...

Also with new digital equipment at theaters I am starting to wonder if some people working these booths haven't found some new way to offload the movies and possibly make copies that way. It just seems that there are too many HIGH quality rips coming out to possibly be the result of geeks with cameras.

Finally, while ticket prices are arguably high, I do not believe the real problem is ticket prices so much as nothing people are wanting to see. Actually I am more annoyed with the theater to dvd turn around time. I would honestly prefer this get as short as 3 months even on GOOD movies. Once again the digital formats available make this transition a lot more feasible, and most the extras are filmed during production or shortly post-prod anyway. So the three months release time should be enough to clean them up and release great DVDs....

If only the intelligent and tech-saavy people were running these industries nowadays and not the old fossils who developed the industry into what it is...

Re:Some In-House Cleaning

[Ronald Dumsfeld]

If only the intelligent and tech-saavy people were running these industries nowadays and not the old fossils who developed the industry into what it is...

Were the industry being run by intelligent and tech-savvy people, they likely wouldn't have the capital until they gave the proverbial pound of flesh to those you refer to as "old fossils".

Whenever anything innovative and with growth potential comes along then monied interests move in and you get last decade's basic assumptions applied to new technology. Video and DVD are classic examples of this with the inclusion of advertising. You watch it on a TV, right? So the media companies can advertise too. Heck, with a little fiddling with the hardware they can force you to watch the adverts and "don't pirate our stuff" messages.

I remember the early computer games industry. It was sucked into the same nonsense. Games came with copy protection and enterprising hardware hackers developed plug-in boards that dumped out the memory and register state. The same will happen with whatever ideas we get foisted on us by the crackpots these folks employ. There will be a demand to make copies and someone, somewhere, will find a way and post it on the Internet.

Re:Some In-House Cleaning

[Ironsides]

The biggest threats from breaking content protection do not come from without, they come from within. Most of the high quality rips you talk about come from people who work inside the DVD production plants and save an extra copy of the files to take home with them. Or the person who works in the editing room and gives themselves a copy. Or a whole host of people involved in the chain of production who can be bribed.

Then there are some other things involved. I knew a guy who was working at a TV station when Star Wars came out in theatres, in 1977. Yes, we are talking the original one here. They called up the studio to ask for some footage of the movie so they could show some clips on the nightly news, since it was such a big hit they wanted to show people what all the fuss was about. The studio sent them the entire movie over satelite, and they recorded it to 2 inch tape. They had the entire movie, while it was still in theatres on very high quality tape.

It's not breaking the "content protection" DRM crap that is the studios problem, it is their entire assembly process that has so many holes in it.

Think of the job security!

[glengineer]

$30 million stating out, and nowhere to go but UP! I want that job. It'll be like the anti-virus and operating systems security industry all over again. Pay us to protect you, make you feel good, and we'll do a crummy enough job so that you keep wanting to pay.

This will come in handy

[boristdog]

This will come in handy for them when they actually manage to make a movie people want to see!

Good money after bad...

[mr.dreadful]

two words: RCA out. Fancy encryption can always be trumped by an a/v signal out into a recording device. It's not the fastest, but it works everytime.

Unexpected display of common sense

[Anonymous Coward]

According to the article they are looking into "ways to jam camcorders being used to record movies in cinemas illegally, and developing methods of detecting illegal content sharing on peer-to-peer networks". I don't have a problem with that. At least they're not proposing another copy protection scheme that will only ever inconvenience their paying customers while the pirates probably won't even notice.

Yet.

They've been trying to stop Software Copying Since

[TastyWheat]

The C-64. I remember ripping the C-64 game protection just for fun. They spent tons. What will change now? Only the names.

Stop Pirating

[CastrTroy]

I've got a way for them to stop piracy. It's called not overpricing your product. I used to pirate a lot of movies, then I discovered Zip.Ca, where I could rent 15 movies a month for $25. I could rent more, but I can't watch them that fast. If they would drop the price on CDs, I wouldn't pirate those either. I think the biggest reason for pirating is the cost of getting stuff the legal way. $10+ to see a movie in theatres, $80 for a concert, $20 for a dvd or cd. If they don't lower their prices, people will continue to pirate, no matter how much they try and stop it.

Best of luck...

[HerculesMO]

The brightest minds in the world being paid to create copywrite protection is NO MATCH for the brilliant mind in some Norweigan country who is MOTIVATED to crack that protection.

It's always a losing game. Maybe think about offering better choices and making it more CONVIENIENT to get music? Oh what do I know... I'm just a consumer!

This is rich!

[Criterion]

They can spend all they want. As long as the movie is viewable in some form, it can be captured. Even if they were to come out with the ultimate gee-whiz uncrackable encryption, all it takes is somebody to rig up their hdtv setup with a high def camcorder, and it's all over. It's not even a fair fight, because it's one that absolutely impossible for them to win... kinda like trying to keep people from snagging a picture off the 'net. No matter what you do to try and protect it, there are ways around it.

When Will They Get It?

[quibbs0]

What was that famous quote? "Those who don't learn history are doomed to repeat it." I think that's it.

Have we not seen since the days of VCR's and tapes and CD's that things are NOT changing? No matter what, there is always going to be someone trying to circumvent the technology, and someone is going to succeed. I'm compare this with terrorism:

To think that we can stop terrorism is complete hogwash. We may kill a ton of bad apples, but there's always gonna be atleast one more guy that thinks he's saving the world from the "infidels" by blowing himself up in public.

Rather than fight the technology, work with it and in a more positive direction. Don't just try to keep finding "patches". The day piracy ends will be the same day Windows FINAL, Completely Patched Edition comes out.

Now, I'm off to combat childhood obesity and global warming!

Re:Cheap porn

[arkanes]

It's kinda funny. Porn is some of the most-pirated content around, both the full blown commercial infringment (like sites stealing content from one another) and casual consumer piracy. It's also far, far, far more profitable than the regular movie industry, theres a thriving cottage industry of amateurs and an equally thriving industry providing tools (hosting, web applications, cam/phone brokering) to those amateurs. It's actually a very healthy, vibrant economy. The traditional movie houses could do worse than to watch what pornographers do more.

HOWTO: Fight Movie Piracy

[FlukeMeister]

A simple guide for movie executives.

1. Release films worldwide at the same time.
2. Stop policing movie theatres with security guards and confiscating mobile phones as potential "recording equipment" and creating customer antipathy.
3. Release films to DVD within a month of their theatre release.
4. Stop putting region coding and anti-copying measures on DVDs.

And finally, the most important:

5. Stop your own employees from stealing and duplicating your films and selling them to criminal organisations for mass duplication.

Re:HOWTO: Fight Movie Piracy

[cliffski]

you forgot the best one:

remove unskippable bits fom DVDs, and dont put adverts in front of the feature on a DVD I flipping PAID FOR.

Re:HOWTO: Fight Movie Piracy

[Ironsides]

A simple guide for movie executives.
1. Release films worldwide at the same time.
2. Stop policing movie theatres with security guards and confiscating mobile phones as potential "recording equipment" and creating customer antipathy.
3. Release films to DVD within a month of their theatre release.
4. Stop putting region coding and anti-copying measures on DVDs.
And finally, the most important:
5. Stop your own employees from stealing and duplicating your films and selling them to criminal organisations for mass duplication.

1) Check, already being done
2) They are idiots to even bother trying this
3) This might kill the movie theatres, especially the low cost 3rd run ones that don't show a movie until it has been out for 3 months, as they will be showing the movie while it is already out in DVD. They are already having problems with the as low as 3 month time between movie and DVD release as is. (Remember, not all theatres are owned by the studios).
4) Would love this, especially as how some of us want movies that would never be released in other regions. Though I guess copyright law would have to change some (not that it can't use the update) so that there are no regional restrictions on sales/distribution.
5) This is their bigest problem, thought they are loathe to admit it.

Re:Better way to spend $30M

[xero9]

My thoughts exactly! Most of the movies out there I won't even bother to download simply because they aren't even worth the time getting. So if it's not worthwhile for me to get for free, then why would I pay for it.

Re:Cheap porn

[deaddrunk]

Providing tools? I thought that was the job of the male actors.

Re:Don't be rediculous

[ergo98]

Don't be rediculous

Sigh. Pedantry is lame, but rediculous has been a particularly virulent misspelling. ridiculous. If I can stop just one person from perpetuating this, then this post will be worth it.

Unlike this "$30 million dollars to piss in the public's faces" lab

To use some of their own lame terminology, I want the magic of the movies to continue. I want them to spend $300 million on the next hyper-realistic super-imaginary world, and I'm willing to be one of those few stupid people to see it in a theatre, or to buy it or rent it on DVD. If the investment needs protecting to be financially viable in the future, then they should go nuts. If it thwarts you and your false-moral belief that you have some sort of God given right to free Olsen twins movies, well that's too bad for you.

Re:just plain wrong

[EraserMouseMan]

Yea, and then they spend another 2 million on suing the guy for circumventing their $30 million DRM protection scheme.
AND
They'll have to spend this much each year to keep up with the hackers. But at least it's nice to know that Hollywood is fighting for ethics and the little guy. And so I'm sure this useless expenditure will not be passed on to the little guy but will be footed by the pocket change from a couple movie stars and movie studios.

Mark the film

[sxmjmae]

Why not insert a visibly hidden serial number to the film. This serial number could be applied to all releases of the film (pre-theaters reviews one, etc). A unique serial number for each real.

If a pirated moved if found just go to the point in the film where the hidden serial number is located. Then track back you had access to that film. If a theater then threaten not to allow them access to your films any more and sue them for damages for allowing the piracy. If it is a pre-release reviewer edition the same actions can be taken against them.

How hard would it be to just add a serial number to 10 frames here and 10 frames there? Hidden in the back ground somewhere. In stead of just a number it could a colour or the insertion of a special object (IE: Green coffe cup of a specific style.)

I do not think the studios want to really know where the piracy is really come from - their own staff!

Re:Mark the film

[two_ply]

Because once the release group gets their hands on two copies, they can just run a diff on the movies and kill any water marking.

Also, who's to say that the guy who is inserting the serial numbers in the movie prints might isn't the same guy who is doing the pirating?
.

Re:3.5bn?

[qwijibo]

Sorry, that's my fault.

I don't go to theatres because they're too expensive. Whenever I see a commercial for a movie that looks good, I make a mental note to buy that on DVD when it comes out. I figure for $3-6 more than a movie ticket, I'd rather have the DVD. Of course, by the time the movie eventually comes out on DVD, I've completely forgotten everything about it, including my past interest in purchasing their product.

I have the same problem with TV. I watch one show, and if it happens to be the one that doesn't suck, I want to purchase the season on DVD. However, they won't sell it to me until they've shown all of the episodes and gotten all the advertising money from commercials that they can get.

Movie piracy does not cost the companies anything. The people who are pirating movies wouldn't pay for them if they were a penny a piece. Claiming this as a loss is just creative bookkeeping (fraud) on the part of the movie companies.

The real harm is being done every day by people like me who could purchase their products, but don't. I'm a bad consumer. I should be taken out and shot for my crimes against the corporations.

Don't say you have not been warned...

[Stormwatch]

"If Coca-Cola accidentally created 100 million cans of faulty Coke, you know for sure the entire 100 million cans would be dropped in the Atlantic or Pacific Ocean, without a second thought and irrespective of what that did to the year's profits. What do we do with a crappy movie? We double its advertising budget and hope for a big opening weekend. What have we done for the audience as they walk out of the cinema? We've alienated them. We've sold audiences a piece of junk; we just took twelve dollars away from a couple and we think we've done ourselves no long-term damage."--- David Puttnam, movie producer (from GQ magazine, April 1987)

Re:Don't say you have not been warned...

[Jherek Carnelian]

David Puttnam (Born February 25, 1941) - a well known hollywood producer known for his outspoken nature was found in his home in Ventura dead of a drug overdose at 6:30am on May 2nd --Obituary Section, Los Angeles Times May 3rd, 1987.

Re:3.5bn?

[MisterMurphy]

Attorney Bob: Hey, Mitch, have you figured out how much our clients are losing each year from piracy per anum, yet?
Accountant Mitch: One second. Three. And a five.
Attorney Bob: 35 what?
Accountant Mitch: Let's call it 3.5 Billion. That's a nice number. By the way, it was a great idea to have these planning sessions during our weekly D&D game. Finding facts and figures has never been easier.
Attorney Bob: Oooh! A critical hit!

A giant step in combatting 20% of the problem

[serutan]

These movie piracy articles always have the same themes -- stop p2p, stop camcorders in theaters. The fact that 80% of pirated movies are leaked by industry insiders (New Scientist) is NEVER mentioned. They've got the public convinced that movie piracy consists of techno-geeks sneaking hidden cameras into theaters and posting the files on p2p networks. Never mind that those camcorder versions are crap. The high quality copies everybody wants are made directly from the originals by people within the movie industry. It's the same mentality as blaming terrorists for every problem.

Piracy might be a problem, but

[Windcatcher]

...it's not what's causing them to lose money. They're losing money because they're making movies no one wants to see. They don't seem to understand that word gets around about bad movies and we're not such undiscriminating cattle that we'll shell out $9.50 just for the heck of it.

I just saw AVP: Aliens vs. Predator for the first time on cable. On the one hand I'm glad I knew to wait for cable (you can usually tell if a movie is dog sh*t from the trailer), but I'm also sorry I wasted two hours last night watching it. It's bad enough that it was crap -- but it's such a blatant attempt to sucker in the fanboys that it's just sickening.

As I think about this, I think there needs to be a Godwin's Movie Law:

When a movie is compared to Aliens in an effort to sell it, it is immediately relegated to the category 'Dog Sh*t' and should not be watched on any medium, ever (even free ones).

Translation: if moviemakers can't make their Sci-Fi film stand on its own and have to try to ride the popularity of Aliens to sell it, then you already know everything you need to know about it: it's crap.

And here are some of my personal movie laws:

- Do not watch a movie based on a video game, ever. It is not worth watching. If you know someone who actually paid to watch one, slap him with a large trout for being such a sucker.

- Do not star in any of the above movies -- it will wreck your career. People sometimes confuse bad writing with bad acting. Don't walk away from such a movie, RUN.

- CGI is no substitute for talent (yes, George, I'm talking to YOU)

If it's about movie price

[Sycraft-fu]

Then why do all movies cost the same? The Matrix, and sequels were some of the $100m+ movies you speak of. Cost $8.50 at the theatre near me. Sin City was $40m, mostly paid up front by Rodriguez, also cost me $8.50 at the same theatre. Gigli was $22m, and though I didn't see it, the price was the same, $8.50. Or taking some older films, Pi had a production cost of about $60,000 (1998 dollars). It was about $8.00 IIRC, though not at the same theatre (hadn't been built yet).

You know, I don't see a scaling of price and movie tickets. It seems to me I pay just as much to see a small budget film as I do a big budget film. This is additonally odd seeing as most big budget films make back their investment. Not universally true, of course, but generally they do. Many of them even make a lot of money.

So, if ticket prices truly were based on costs, shouldn't low-budget indy films be less? Wouldn't it even perhaps be a good business decision? I mean blockbuster effects type films are widely popular and with some marketing, it's easy to convince most people to go. However low budget indys are harder, people are used to high production values and thus often snub them. Wouldn't a lower ticket price help allure them?

Or, could it be, that it's just more of the movie industry being greedy? Remember these are the same people that are mandidating that for any HD movie spec HDCP will be REQUIRED. So be it HD-DVD or Blu-Ray, you'll have to have DVI/HDMI out to an HDCP compatible display. If you go analogue, no HD for you, if it even plays at all.

My bet? Ticket prices are atrifically inflated. The studios do NO competition on price. They've fixed one price, for all movies regardless of source and cost. The only variance is per theatre or area.

The day I start seeing cheap movies for less, and start seeing one production company trying to underprice another, maybe I believe they prices are justified. For now, I think they are in every way as reality based as CD prices: Which is to say not at all.

Re:If it's about movie price

[Dirtside]

Or, could it be, that it's just more of the movie industry being greedy?

All industries are greedy, all the time, or they cease to exist. Stop pretending that the movie industry is some kind of special evil. But that's tangential; on to the main point.

The studios (mostly) do not own movie theaters. Most theaters decide their own ticket prices. Per-movie pricing has several quite real economic problems:

0) Theater owners don't end up getting most of the ticket receipts. In the first weeks of a major release, most of the ticket revenue goes to the distributor. In later weeks, the percentage shifts until finally the theater owners gets all of the ticket revenue, but usually by that time, attendance is low for that film, and so they get very little money out of it. Switching to a market-based ticket-pricing system would not benefit the theater owners in the slightest.

1) If you're going to do it, you want to do it right, which means that pricing needs to change in real time in response to supply and demand. Conveying this information to the consumer would be very difficult. A movie might cost $5 when you leave home, and then be $10 when you get there, which would be a very nasty surprise. Hell, the price of a movie might double in the time it takes you to get to the front of the line. Online ticket-buying might alleviate this problem, since prices would not change much in the few seconds it would take to confirm the transaction electronically.

Displaying this information would also be very space-intensive. Putting all that information on the big board behind the ticket counter would require a lot of space. And what about discount (children/seniors/students/etc.) tickets? Now you've got to display four or five times the info.

2) Moviegoers will not tolerate rapid fluctuations in the cost of entertainment. They go to the movies to be entertained, not to try and get a good deal on tickets. Having to deal with market fluctuations, waiting for the right time to get good prices, etc. interferes with the potential for enjoying the experience.

3) It doesn't cost a theater significantly more or less to show movie A versus movie B. They may recoup more or less of their costs, but the actual cost of showing the movie is fairly stable. (It can go up or down based on attendance; more moviegoers means you need more security and janitorial staff; you also need more concessions and ticket sellers, but if you need more, it means you're also earning more, whereas security and janitorial are both "pure loss.")

4) The studios would get pissed off when their movies got price-slashed. They'd (rightly) think that moviegoers would use the movie's ticket price as a gauge of its popularity and therefore quality. Theater owners are not likely to do things that piss off their suppliers.

5) Demand for a particular movie might, in fact, not change in response to price. The number of people who go see "Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo" would almost certainly not increase by any significant amount if the ticket price was drastically reduced. I'd bet that most people would not see that movie even if they were paid the ticket price instead.

6) Don't forget the flipside: Highly popular movies would suffer from extremely inflated ticket prices. Want to see Episode III opening weekend at the Cinerama Dome? That's $50 a ticket, please, because every show will sell out in a matter of hours since demand is so high.

Re:Cheap porn

[meringuoid]

The traditional movie houses could do worse than to watch what pornographers do more.

I'm sorry. It's puerile, I'll grant you, and the sort of humour that most of us should give up on at about the age of fourteen, but... that sentence cracked me up like nothing else.

Re:Cheap porn

[Usaflt2003]

You have actually hit on one of the open secrets of technology, porn is A. an early adopter and B. a driving force behind large amounts of technology and marketing strategems. I often baffle my friends when I tell them that, besides the obvious reasons, when I go to a gentlemans club or adult boutique (yes yes I am a dirty old man, I admit it) its to see what new tech there is or get ideas for various marketing plans I am involved in. For the doubters I invite them along on my next trip and point out certain things then tell them to watch for it over the next 6 to 12 months. They are amazed when those ideas filter to the mainstream.

If Hollywood would adopt some of the business model of the porn industry they would see a marked improvement in profits. And its not like the quality of acting or writing is all that high above porn anyway...

Re:Cheap porn

[Maxo-Texas]

For most of the 30's and 40's Hollywood ground out tons of films. The actors made good enough livings to live well and party frequently but nothing like today. Same thing for directors, actors, etc. etc. An actor might be in 7 movies a year.

Movies were cheap- a buck or two by today's standards. As a result (and because there was no TV)- people saw them regularly.

Today the people who make movies are all compensated at ridiculous levels- we make 160 million dollar movies which would be $30 million dollar movies if not for these salaries. On top of that they make us sit through 20 minutes of commercials if we want a good seat for a new movie.

Increasingly- you can turn out a quality film for under a million dollars. No film to buy, computers are cheaper, a glut of people in many countries that want to be actors who -can- act, writers who can write, and who are willing to do it for living wages- not 20 million a picture.

The end is coming for hollywood- they just don't realize it yet.

One thing not on the lab's agenda

[Todd Knarr]

There's one big idea I'll bet is on the lab's list of things not to research: "Make movies people want to watch, and distribute them the way customers want to get them at prices customers want to pay.".

i've seen this already

[circletimessquare]

i saw LotR:Return of the King in the Philippines and saw exactly what you just described: a serial number in the upper right hand corner throughout the entire movie

Can't win

[HangingChad]

There's no way MPAA can win this way, trying to build a hack proof bunker around their product. In the age old arms race between warhead and bunker, always bet on warhead.

Ran into a perfect example of this concept in operation yesterday. Heard a song on a commercial that I liked. The company had a link to the site that had the song.

I would've had to download their special player and set up an account, just to download one song. Screw that, there's no way. If I could've gone somewhere and downloaded a high res copy for .50-.75 cents that would play on my Linux box, I would have done it. But all the hoops I'd have to go through, forget it.

Getting tough didn't work, getting tougher isn't going to work any better.

Re:Don't be rediculous

[crabpeople]

"To use some of their own lame terminology, I want the magic of the movies to continue. I want them to spend $300 million on the next hyper-realistic super-imaginary world"

well sure thats your opinion i guess. Personally, I have never seen a well done movie that cost millions of dollars. maybe they exsist, but i am in mind that there is no correlation (except maybe an inverse one) between money and greatness. thats not what its about though. what you say, "i want the magic of movies to continue", is bizzare to me. do you some how believe that people will stop using film as a medium for art because someone isnt there to pay the bills? Especially with ease of distribution using the internet, viral marketing using the internet, and things like donations and micropayments. What it will succeded in doing however is kill the "for profit" movie. the movie that is dreamed up by executives in an office. the movie written, filmed and distributed with always the aim of making money. duce bigalo 2 is not art. its a symptom of the sickness of society and the willingness for corporations to do whatever it takes to extract money from people.

People need to make movies because they love making movies. you cant buy magic, and that is the point im opposing in your post. hope you dont invalidate it because i misspelled something, but i know thats just the way some people cope with ideas they do not like.

oh and lastly, i would not have experienced the amazing film lackawana blues without the miracle of file sharing. I would be very surprised with the director, if upon hearing that his movie had changed me, remarked something to the aeffect of, 'yeah but i didnt get no bank off that freeloader so fuck em'

thats not why artists make movies

Do you want people talking on cellphones?

[tepples]

2. Stop policing movie theatres with security guards and confiscating mobile phones as potential "recording equipment" and creating customer antipathy.

There's a legitimate reason to require customers on the theater's private property to deposit all phones in lockers: If it's in a locker, it can't ring or "chainsaw ring" in the screening rooms.

When will they learn:

[t35t0r]

If it can be viewed, then it can be pirated.

Please start calling it 'anti fair-use'

[ronaldgminnich]

Words matter. When you call this stuff anti-piracy you're already surrendering the high ground to MPAA.

Please, if you're going to talk about this stuff, why not 'so-called anti-piracy', which is true, or, better yet, 'anti-fair-use'

thanks

ron