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Record Box Office Indicates MPAA 'Piracy Problem' Hot Air
Kinescope writes "The motion picture industry has said that its profits are at risk due to piracy, but a record-setting 2007 box office has some wondering if the industry is crying 'wolf.' Last year, the US box office totaled $9.63 billion, a 5.4% increase over 2006. 'Piracy is so bad, according to the MPAA, that we need special legislation to target the dastardly college pirates who are destroying the business. It's so bad that Weekly Reader subscribers will learn about the $7 billion a year "lost" to Internet piracy. It's so bad that the MPAA wants ISPs to ignore years of common carrier law and the promises of "safe harbor" and start filtering their traffic, looking for copyright violations. The real world isn't quite this simple, of course. It turns out that the MPAA's college numbers were off by a factor of three, a revelation that came after years of hiding the study's methodology but continuing to lobby Congress with its numbers.'"
When the governator (Arnold!) made a visit to canada to discuss this 'problem', there was new legislation that was made law within two months. That shows you the power of the governator (or perhaps, the power of american influence). The problem was that 'Canada was responsible for over half the pirated movies in north america'. The legislation enacted was almost EXACTLY what was requested by Gov. Schwarzenegger... and STILL they cry 'Blame Canada!'
... is that it ISN'T actually a problem!
The only problem with it all
What alternatives do we have?
Our body of law gives rights to the creators and their protected ability of being the one to approve copies. Regardless of whether we agree or now with this, that is our situation.
Now, we take this to the "digital domain". Those older creators want, no.. need these protections as they see in the non-internet world. The only real way to "guarantee" this is by digital restrictions. The best way I think of this is that of a akin to a capability system and the copyright maintainer has an account on your machine.
However, our machines are ours. The geeks amongst us demand that we are able to control our software and hardware. What was unable to do in WinXP, Vista seems to offer the beginning of that capability system with the media companies at the kill switch. And to top it off, Vista has remotely disabling drivers for "holes" that might appear. For those that own a machine, this OS laughs in their face, as if saying "Bring It On!"
And there are many casualties. Those casualties are the Joe and Jane Publics that don't understand this issue close enough, or think that all needs to be done is burn to DVD... just like the iPod to music. When they find out that they are locked with binary garbage that cannot be used for any fair use purpose (backing up owned DVDs is fair usage).
And where are we now? When the users know they are eventually shafted, those that have the know-how will show others where to download the movies and the music they legitimately bought. Once they know they were taken advantage of, any feeling of "theft" (or whatever you call it) will be gone. The media companies had their chance to do their dealings with the public honestly, but have failed.
Just like língchí.. Death by a thousand cuts.
posted on kuro5hin.org
But how much of that decline is due to consumers sitting out the format fiasco, partaking of On Demand offerings, or doing the Netflix thing?
Sig? What if I prefer Glock?
Or, you know... only watching the good movies?
I like to place meaningful quotes in my sig, so people will know that I know what meaningful quotes are.
All the data in the article is proving is that a fairly consistent number of people enjoy going out to the movies. It doesn't have anything to do with piracy.
I think arguments of how much money is made a honeypot for the MPAA/RIAA to suck us into an argument on their terms. The MPAA/RIAA are going to win if you make it about money for some very good reasons:
1) It's not about how much money you made, but how much more money you could have made. Great I made $2000 last year on my stocks, but damn those pirates I could have made $3000!
2) Companies are all about shareholder equity. The more money you make, the more you increase your stock price and the more dividends you can pay out.
3) The average politician is sympathetic to this, both in terms of legally allowing business to flourish, and corruptly accepting money from donors involved with the MPAA/RIAA.
4) not enough average people make a stink about losing their rights thanks to copy protection, so politicians don't listen.
And #4 is what we need to continue to pound on and educate the masses over. Large companies want to slowly take away, nibble by nibble, your rights to copy things that you should be able to copy. You make the message simple enough, pound on it, and don't let up, and eventually rights will trump money. Consumers as a group are the most powerful group in the US, we are just completely disorganized and disinterested. Unless we get organized, the well organized MAFIAA will continue to dominate this discussion in the places where it counts.
"All great wisdom is contained in .signature files"
1-m ake films costing a bit less and stop paying that much for "above the line talent"
2- ???
3- profits!
I am never surprised that Box Office revenue increases with the way they raise prices every six months. Nine bucks for a student "discount" (in Atlanta) is a slap in the face. There are several movies that I'd like to see right now, like the one with Jack Black AND Mos Def, but I'll wait until it's OnDemand. Five bucks for pay per view is way better than the eye gouge at the movie theaters. I never go to the movies anymore because it's ridiculously expensive. I'd be more interested in the year to year number of tickets sold.
When is Slashdot going to add a -1 moderation option for people who actually RTFA?
I'll tell you the same thing I told U2s manager. Make more than 1 good movie (or song) per year (or album). Sell some bumper stickers. OR some action figures.
I'd be willing to bet Lucas made more $ from merchandise than from the actual Star Wars movies themselves.
One of the kids I knew growing up had at least $3000 of Star Wars action figures, models, posters, clothes. And that was in the 80's which translates to some ungodly amount now.
Again, this is a business model issue, not a Piracy issue. If studios are losing money, then they need to re-examine how much they pay executives and actors. I mean honestly, there is no actor alive that is worth millions of dollars a picture.
Yeah, I'm kindof a Troll about this. F'ing whiners, the lot of 'em.
Why can't we go back to using jumpers to configure slot adapter cards? Why? I say!
Yep I wish someone would explain to me, in plain terms that make business sense, why an actor should be paid 42 bazillion dollars for four half-days of work.
And once that's clarified, we'll talk about sports celebrities.
a. Standing around looking pretty, 10 million
b. Hitting a ball with a stick, 7 million
c. Designing the hardware, software and networks that bring it all to the consumers, 40k/yr
Shit's upside down!
-Billco, Fnarg.com
when the dollar is falling almost daily. Wheat growers are having record profits, too (despite the famine). That's because the dollar has lost about 15% of its value in the past year. And now comes the torrent of accusations of conspiracy theories because I think the fed inflation figure is laughable. Not that I am saying that the right to charge for a freely(as in beer)-reproducible commodity should be equated with the right to sell a piece of property that can only be sold once without having to create it again (as in bread). Copyrights that last over 10 years is what causes piracy -- not consumers that want to treat movies the way they treat books. But the dollar buys much fewer things that anyone wants to have nowadays, so there are all the dollars people "earn" or have accumulated (when spend at the same rate) must be buying fewer things... but at higher prices.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
Right, so how can we actually tell if piracy is the problem?
An economist would have to take many things into consideration:And if all these factors are measured in dollars then you'd also have to adjust for inflation and other price changes. Only after you've factored all these variables can you determine if the difference is due to piracy.
You want fun, go home and buy a monkey!
> Growing up in the late 70s/early 80s there wasn't much to do besides a) get drunk b) get high c) to to a movie.
I could list reading, woodworking, gardening, playing a musical instrument, riding a bike, skiing, swimming, stargazing, painting, and billiards. Camping, fishing, hiking, metal detecting, maple syrup tapping, and chess in the park. Jogging, flying a kite, building a robot, volunteering for Big Brothers & Sisters, building a brick BBQ off of your porch, or training your dog to play dead. Skateboarding, sidewalk chalk art, building a bat house, sending away for Uncle Milton's Ant Farm, or taking up photography. The list is literally ENDLESS no matter what age you are.
That huge room with the bright blue ceiling has been around forever, you should check it out.
And in the late 70's/ early 80's when you were feeling lazy and the weather sucked there was always the Atari 2600!
So exactly what new entertainments are you inferring are available now?
Operator, give me the number for 911!
Luckily for the people producing said rehashes, not everyone on the planet is the same age, meaning that they can just keep remaking everything with shinier effects every 20 years, introducing a few new ones to keep people from catching on. The entertainment industry is for profit, not entertaining or making people think.
tl;dr - Everything looks 'original' for the first few decades.
welcome to the reason that p2p is so popular
Anyway, that's completely erroneous, because it's an extremely shallow and useless method of appreciating movies to judge them by originality alone.
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
Good lord! Were there such things in 2007?
I am struggling to think of when I actually went to a cinema and saw a film and if so, what it was. I really cannot remember if I spent an inordinate amount of money getting in, then spent a small fortune getting a drink or sweets. Nope, still drawing a blank...
DVDs however are another matter. Barely a week went by without some sort of hiring going on. It's far more comfortable and relaxing to curl up on the sofa with fiancee and a beer and relax.
One point I will say is that during the Great Depression, movie audiences were also at a very large high. It was felt that the general population needed to escape from the reality of their lives for a short period of time and that movies provided that relief. With the way that the world is heading (rising oil prices etc), what is to say that people will also choose to spend a few hours a week safe in the womb of feel-good movies.
Maybe Disney will see a new market here and make films with even more schmaltzy endings...
Teamwork is essential. It gives the enemy someone else to shoot at
Here is how the MPAA / RIAA / ISP logic works:
Year-End Loss: Piracy is to blame. It's not our fault.
Year-End Profit: We had great artists/writers/engineers that made some great products.
Not Enough Bandwidth: Piracy is taking up all the bandwidth. It's not our fault.
Excess Bandwidth: We have a better system than the 'other'guys. We're better ISP.
Low Box Office Turnout: People are pirating movies instead of going to the theater. It's not our fault.
High Box Office Turnout: We made really great movies.
Low Record Sales: People are pirating all their music instead of buying it. It's not our fault.
High Record Sales: We have great artists who produced great songs.
Anybody see a pattern here? Whenever the MPAA/RIAA or ISP's have problems, they blame pirates for "taking away" sales and clogging networks. The MPAA and RIAA don't realize that if they continue to pump out crappy content (films/music), then people are going to want to make sure thay what they are going to spend $25 on is worth it (would you buy a song or movie without listening or viewing it first? A 30 second preview isn't enough.). The MPAA/RIAA doesn't understand that people are pirating because the industries are prducing horrible music albums and over-hyped movies that nobody feels is worth their hard-earned money. Every film t hat comes out of Hollywood is over-hyped and inflated, so there is no way to tell a great film from a bad one. Record labels use the trick of putting 2 or 3 good songs out of 10-12 tracks on an album, and then charging $25 for the whole thing. If you produce crappy content, people are going to do what they can to make it better, or at least save themselves from being duped by record labels and film studios. ISP's have a similar reaction: Comcast blames p2p file sharing ("pirating" in Comcast's eyes) as the reason that it's service is horrible, rather than acknowledge that it spends way to much on advertising for customers that it already doen't have the bandwidth or infrastructure to support.
Whenever these guys have problems, they shift blame to other people, namely, "pirates". BUT, when they have a windfall, they are pretty damn quick to shift the attention towards themselves.
Basically:
Successes: We're just simply a company of experts who know what we're doing!
Problems: It's your fault, not ours.
The problem isn't only limited to these groups, but can be seen in other companies that don't understand how to run a business:
MAINTAIN your infrastructure. If you lose it, you have nothing.
INFRASTRUCTURE is everything. If it suffers, your customers suffer, and ultimately, you will suffer the most. (Just look at AOL.....)
DO remember that your customers chose you. You didn't choose them.
DO keep your customers happy.
DO provide good service.
DO give the customer what they want. If you do, they will give you money in return.
DO remember people want a product, not more advertisements. (AOL again.....)
DON'T spend more than you make.
DON'T advertise things you can't deliver.
DON'T try to pull a fast one by your customers. You will always lose.
DON'T overvalue your product. (AOL again.....)
DON'T treat the customer like an ATM. It pisses them off.
Word-Of-Mouth is the best and most effective way to get a new customer.
A happy customer is far more likely to convince a friend to buy from you than your commercial is.
Money from a customer is good, but get greedy and it will disappear.
And lastly:
DO remember that your competitors would be more than happy to buy your company from your creditors if you ever went belly-up.
Knowing Google's lust for data collection, the Soviet Union is still alive and well inside the psyche of Sergey Brin....
Well, you're right and wrong.
People are paid based on the money they bring in, not the work they put out. If we were all paid based on the work we put out, then trash men would be gods and many of our congressmen would be paid like school teachers.
Cinema is a social event...not surprising it doesn't suffer from piracy.
When you're watching DVDs at home it makes no difference if they're pirated or not, so piracy wins.
No sig today...
The main reason for the absurdly high pay is that the people aren't considered replaceable. Software engineers can be replaced with some random undergrad incompetent (or at least the managers think they can be), so they're paid squat. You can't replace an actor in the middle of a series or movie (usually), so the actor gets to make up any number they like.
When computer synthesis gets good enough to slap any face and voice onto any actor (and we're ten years away from that now, at most - researchers already have crude working models of the technology, it just needs refining), there is going to be a lot of crying.
I think applying a quote from Dr. King to this situation is a stretch of epic proportions in the scope of the injustice.
Perhaps the true injustice is that companies with access to billions of dollars have tailored our laws to suit their own interests. These laws run counter to the original concepts of copyright that were developed outside of corporate interference.
The original purpose behind copyright was to allow these creations to fall into the public domain while providing incentives to the creator, not be used as some black-currency for corporations.
Out of modpoints but really liked a post? 1BDkF6TtmmeZ3yqXbz9yhdYVqRYnwFoXDj