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Piracy Outstripping Legal Video Sales?
b.burl writes to tell us a recently released report by the NDP Group supports the horror stories being fed to us by studio execs, but not quite in the way those execs would have you believe. The study shows a continued rise in video piracy compared to legal video sales. The largest target continues to be adult oriented content and TV shows, with only an estimated 5 percent being mainstream movie content. From the article: "[A]mong U.S. households with members who regularly use the Internet, 8 percent (six million households) downloaded at least one digital video file (10MB or larger) from a P2P service for free in the third quarter of 2006. Nearly 60 percent of video files downloaded from P2P sites were adult-film content, while 20 percent was TV show content and 5 percent was mainstream movie content."
And this is a crying shame.
I download television show content myself. What I can get on iTunes, I get on iTunes and pay $2 per show, or buy a whole season at a time. What I can't, I seek elsewhere, including P2P networks. I don't download movies at all, because I can simply get them on DVD.
The fact is that I'm not going to pay $50 a month for cable or satellite for something that's, frankly, not worth that much to me. Television and movie studios can either get compensation for their stuff by making it available to me in a manner I want (iTunes/timely release of DVDs), or they can get bupkiss when I download it for free, an option that I'd really rather avoid, to be honest.
If, god forbid, the industry succeeds somehow in making television shows impossible to download, then I simply won't watch their stuff at all. Most of it has that little value to me.
It's all so stupid. I can't believe there's an industry out there that is so desperate to stop the pirates that they're willing to forego billions of dollars, yet here we are, living it.
If someone gave you the choice of making $1 billion for making a television show, but the show is pirated to an extent such that over half the people who watch it don't pay you, or making $500 million for making a television show with little or no piracy of it at all with a much, much smaller audience, which would you prefer?
Yeah, me too. Stupid, huh?
As for porn, I don't care. I've only seen a few porn movies myself, and I don't find them exciting. I honestly think that porn is one of those things that everyone thinks they're supposed to be really into, so they watch it and act like it's a big deal; but realistically, once you've seen one, you've pretty much seen them all. People get naked and do it, ho hum. Check out this other one where... Um... People get naked and do it, ho hum. But you know, whatever. I guess if there's anything I don't understand about that is why people still buy DVDs or the naughty channels on cable when they can pretty much get anything they want over the Internet.
Generally, movies are more easily available for purchase than TV shows, which might explain a lot about these findings. It would have been very nice if NPD could subdivide their categories into content which is available online or on DVD, and that which is not. Then we could see the extent to which legal distribution channels cut piracy.
The MPAA is constantly whining, wasting millions of dollars, and annoying all of us over 5 percent? I made the mistake of buying a DVD recently and had to sit through that annoying anti piracy clip. You know... "You wouldn't steal a car would you? You wouldn't steal a purse..." Yeah, because stealing a car, and copying a DVD are even remotely the same. Its frustrating and insulting that every time I watch my PURCHASED DVD, this stupid thing will come up. I don't like being accused of stealing, before watching my movies. Ironically, if I'd have just pirated the movie, I wouldn't be seeing that clip, as well as other annoying previews. Maybe they should concentrate on making good movies to win over new customers, instead of insulting remaining customers.
You can go to www.nbc.com and download Heroes episodes from thier website. Not sure if includes commercials or not, but IMO, nbc is doing the right thing here by allowing access to episodes over the web (even if it was with commercials).
Back in 1996, something similar to this conversation actually happened. This was when the Internet was really starting to take off, and the Media Moguls were really worried that free downloads would jeoparize their historic business model and wanted to preserve it at all costs.
I was working at Interval Research at the time (a Paul Allen funded attempt to clone Xerox Parc, which failed due to various bits of stupidity). The manager of our group (we were working on a precuror to the Palm Pilot) managed to get himself invited down to L.A. for a meeting of the heads of the biggest studios there.
According to our manager, the discussion went on and on about what could they do to stop the future piracy on the Internet. Out of this eventually came the DMCA law and other actions which are now well known.
At one point in the discussion, our manager piped up by asking "How about trying to figure a way of making money off of the Internet, instead of trying to stop it?". Utter silence followed for a while; then they went back to their original discussion. As we know, to this day they still haven't gotten their heads around that idea yet.
So yes, your comments are funny. But they are not far off from what actually took place.
Can I download it with Firefox and Linux? Cause I have tried, and failed.
All that is necessary for the triumph of good is that evil men do nothing.
Sales! I buy DVDs when they make it into the $5.49 bin at WalMart or the $7.50-9.99 bin anywhere else.* Bring'em home, rip'em**, copy'em to my server***, then put'em into a closet.**** I'm not big into extras or anything, and copying the VIDEO_TS folders would take up too much room anyway, so I'm happy to have one file per movie.
:-) I imagine it would also work with NetFlix discs.
:-) Rsync + cron = the poor-man's RAID.
I've also recently discovered that this method also works with DVDs from the library.
* There's no such thing as "I've got to have that video the day it comes out" for me. If I really wanted to see it, I saw it in the theater. I can wait a couple months for the price to drop. Plus, things like LOTR, etc.--you *know* they're gonna come out with 5 more versions and/or 2- or 3-disc sets. Wait and get the one you want.
** I rip them with HandBrake on Mac OS X to ~1500kbps, deinterlaced, 2-pass H264 MP4s.
*** Best Buy just had a great sale: 500 GB SATA Western Digitals for $149.99 out-the-door--no rebate required. My G5 now has 2.
**** thus the original DVD--the source material--becomes a 'backup.' (Front-up?)
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I agree. My problem with iTunes is that $2 per show (regardless of time) is just too damn much. That comes out to $40 per season for a 20 episode season. Well, on Amazon the DVDs run $20-30. On NetFlix they are a sunk cost. Why buy on iTunes?
... could you hurry up with DVDs of all the seasons of Amazing Race and more Hill Street Blues and St. Elsewhere? Come on man, that you can make a sale of off.
Now I was bored once and decided to try iTunes-Videos out, but I couldn't find anything I wanted to watch. And the more I searched the more the $2 per episode bugged me. A 1 hour show, $2. A 30 minute show $2. If I think $2 is too much for an hour show, why would I spend $2 on half that? They really need to make the price per hour, versus per episode.
I want to know how much revenue the TV stations get in advertising per hour, per viewer. I looked it up once and (while it wasn't easily available) I believe it was about $0.25 per hour per viewer. Why am I being charged 8 times that?
Look if you want me to buy something transient (iTunes) it should cost significantly less than if I buy it in a substantially permanent form (DVDs). Also if you want me to buy something with out extra features (e.g. closed captioning, commentary, etc., and once again I am looking at you iTunes) it needs to be cheaper than something with those features (DVDs). But it isn't, it is more expensive. So, I am not buying.
Plus, I don't have cable (once again, fails the price to reward test) and even disconnected my OTA attena in the last reorganization of my house. So, no chance of even watching anything that is broadcast.
I only watch about 6 shows (Stargate: SG/Atlan, BSG, AU's Next Top Model, Amazing Race) when they air. Those shows aren't even on at the same time (year-wise, not week/time-wise). I can't even get AU's NTM in the US. So, I'll keep downloading them. Really if I was forced to, I would wait for the SciFi shows to come on DVD (like I do for the HBO shows [Wire, Deadwood, Rome]).
And if you are in the TV industry
Actually there are many things about the reality of the porn business that would amaze most people, mostly about how mundane and professional it is, and the large number of women who are porn producers - not performers. One day I really should write a book.
And yes, porn actors in my experience are a pretty happy lot. They are much easier to deal with than "real" actors; fewer tantrums, less drug abuse, punctual, professional, sober, reliable, etc...
For me it's a matter of convience. I can fire up a p2p app and do a quick search and download the movies. My isp currently is offering 9.99/mo. for unlimited movie download, but it's for windows only and I run linux. If I was assured that there is no drm in them and they won't expire and they are of a better quality ie,.. HD-full screen and they make it availablle for my operating system and it's directely downloaded from their servers, then will I be glad to pay 9.99/mo. But until then, what choice do I have?