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MPAA Touts Record Year For Hollywood
proudhawk writes "A blog posting in p2pnet today catches MPAA boss Dan Glickman at the ShoWest convention in Las Vegas crowing about Hollywood's profitable year: 'Today, we stand on a new mountaintop, and I have to say: I like the view... We had about 5 percent growth in both the domestic and worldwide box office, all-time highs on both fronts reminding us once again that good stories well told always find a place in our hearts, our lives and our local theaters.' What ever happened to the ravages of online piracy?"
What ever happened to the ravages of online piracy?
the "ravages of online piracy" excuse is for years when they knowingly put out complete garbage and don't want to own up to it.
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
This doesn't contradict the "ravages of piracy" at all. Instead, the MPAA will say, "See, look! We cracked down on pirates and had a record year! CRACK DOWN HARDER!", as a justification for their future activities.
"16MB (fuck off, MiB fascists)" - The Mighty Buzzard
Do "box office" revenues include DVD sales?
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They are saying box office revenues increased. Piracy most likely hurts DVD sales and rentals more than going to a theater. There is a big difference between a movie theater and a DIVX movie on you 17 inch LCD monitor, or if you are more crafty, a bigger TV. Its the equivalent of saying "box office revenues went up despite the rampant use of recordable media in the home". From my experience, a movie you go and spend $10 on plus refreshments, and gas (plus potentially someone else's ticket and refreshments) is not something you would download instead.
No one is saying piracy is having a dramatic affect on film sales yet. It will eventually. Saying it never will is a silly argument because it's had a dramatic affect on music sales. The real point to make would be what would have film sales been without any piracy? It was 5% with piracy what if it was 7% without? 2% a tiny number? Actually no you're talking 200 million in looses if that was the case. Just look at South East Asia and China. Film sales are near zero inspite of US films being very popular. It's virtually a 100% pirated content. If people had to pay $20 instead of $1 or $2 there would be fewer films sold but still the industry is loosing hundreds of millions and conceivably billions in those markets to piracy. The whole argument itself is pointless because people that pirate don't want to change and the industry doesn't want to work for free so as piracy grows like in the music industry they either find another way to make money off films, in film commercials, product placement, etc, or they go out of business. I've yet to hear of another model that can support the industry so likely high budget films will die slowly over the next 20 years. They are preparing to spend hundreds of millions on 3D projection systems to try to hang onto box office growth but it's a desperation move and it won't save theatrical films in the long run. Take away the financial incentives for making movies and you're left with people in the midwest making Star Trek knock offs in their garages and rednecks running their bicycles into trees on Youtube for entertainment.
Without them, it could have been a 6 percent increase and I could buy a new ferrar... erh, I mean, yeah, right, where is the neck-breaking pirates now?
Seriously, people. The three driving emotions for people are greed, fear and greed. And the more you have, the bigger your greed gets. You have 5 percent increase (when everyone else is struggling to stay in business or have any kind of profit at all)? Doesn't mean jack, you want 6. You want 7. You want 10. And you could have 10 percent more income if it wasn't for all those who copy the content. It would be 15 if you could force people to throw away their VHS tapes. Hell, it could be 30 percent if you could force them to throw away DVDs!
It could be 50 percent if you could make those BluRays die after playing them 10 times. It could be 100 percent if you can make them so they die right after playing the movie once! It could be 200 percent when they couldn't play the movie at all... erh...
Well, if they still buy it that is.
And that's what this is about. The studios want more. They are not satisfied by having more than everyone else, they're not satisfied with having the best year of their existance, they're not satisfied with making a plus when the economy as a whole is struggling to avoid that big bad word that starts with an r and ends in cession. they want to have more than they already have. And they see some way to make more (i.e. crack down on those that copy), so they try to get rid of them. If they found a way to make you pay for every time you watch that movie, they would gladly do so.
And I'm fairly sure the next generation of players will have some sort of internet connection that enforces something like that.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Fifteen years before that, the RIAA leaders touted their "record year" for album sales, and CDs immediately supplanted records in 1988 and never looked back.
And thirty years ago in 1978 when Tomita released the final quad 8-track tape, the industry said it was "on track" for the best year ever as it instead saw the multi-track format slip into oblivion.
So when the MPAA touts a shiny year for DVDs, Blu-Ray is probably poised to make them eat their words.
That's partly true I think but the drive in Piracy would be more due to the way the studios try to fragment their markets in different regions, to maximise their own profits.
The internet has made the planet a truly global community and they have to relase globally, not try to stagger around the planet with Theatrical releases/DVD Releases and even different dates for TV premiere's.
In Australia we still cannot get video/TV on iTunes because of this or get access to other such online content because its all being restricted, so many people resort to pirace to see what they want and not wait 3-6 months(Up to a year some times) later.
Like the music industry the movie industry will only end up hurting itself by trying to contain online content rather then let it flourish in an open market, the more they put online for fair prices the more people will pay. Just take phone ring tones as an example of how people are willing to spend money on absolute crap. If more people could get movies at those prices they would be making huge sales.
Sounds like you're making up for never having a date to take to the movies. :P
Of course they have an increase in profits. There are actually some very high quality films coming out this year. Iron Man? The Dark Knight? Those are good reasons to go to theaters. The way I look at it, I either spend $10 on a movie ticket or I spend $20 on a DVD a year or two later - and the DVD is almost always worth it. I go to 2-6 movies a year, and they really have to earn my patronage by being a good film. And, of course, my friends have to be interested as well. I don't see how "high budget movies" are going to go the way of the dinosaur. If anything, digital distribution is going to make getting movies out *easier*. Movie theaters are sure to disappear over time, but digital distribution will probably increase the profits of movies if they do it right. Bandwidth is always cheaper than physical media.
Random Thoughts From A Diseased Mind (Not For Dummies)
Or perhaps it's merely good business in the midst of the borderline-retarded masses. Hell, Norbit made around $159m in the theater with an additional $42m in DVD sales. Why put forth the effort to make a great movie when you can heap steaming piles of shit into a movie theater and make tons of cash?
Oh and on a side-note, it's one thing to get duped into seeing a shitty movie in the theater. It's something else to buy it on DVD and OWN it.
We figured out a long time ago that it's easier to elect seven judges than to elect 132 legislators.
Wait a second? Isn't this the same industry that cooks the books to never run a profit on movies so they don't have to pay their people? I assume these profits must be including all those "services" they charge themselves for. To me that seems a liability. It seems like they just gave the final data points necessary for all those people promised net points of nothing to do the math and find what their movies really made.
...imagine how much _MORE_ we could have made."
If taxation is legalized theft, then Capitalism is a prolonged rape followed by a slow death.
I hate parasites like you that refuse to pay for what they use.
(Same AC)
You must really hate yourself, for you don't appear to be a subscriber here on /.
Ignore this signature. By order.
How many of the 20 top grossing movies of 2007 were not adaptations, remakes, or franchise installments? How many actually involved original creative development?
For that matter, how many were over-hyped drivel titled "[adjective] Movie" or starring Will Ferrell?
Hollywood is out of ideas. Period.
People pay for the big screen. People pay for live shows. You can't make a digital copy of a 60ft screen and you can't make a digital copy of being in a crowd, watching a live band. The only reasons theater sales drop are: 1. Crappy films 2. Obnoxious theater goers 3. Cell phones (see number 2)
If you live in the US, you're still missing out...the films you watch in HD at home aren't the same movies that you can see at the cinema, they're last year's box office stories. Now, here in Australia, a great many films end up on my big screen via an .mkv file on the hard drive well before they hit the local cinema :D
Income break-up:
- Cinema licenses: 5%
- TV licenses: 25%
- DVD sales: 10%
- Litigation: 60%
45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
I don't feel the outrage against them that I do the RIAA. They're more annoying than evil in their tactics.
... but keep firmly in mind that it was the MPAA that authored the Digital Millenium Copyright Act. They're a dangerous outfit, in fact because they're more subtle than the RIAA they're even more dangerous. Don't let them off the hook.
Maybe
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
We had about 5 percent growth in both the domestic and worldwide box office, all-time highs on both fronts reminding us once again that good stories well told always find a place in our hearts, our lives and our local theaters.' What ever happened to the ravages of online piracy?"
Not sure about the ravages of online piracy, but inflation in the US was about 3% last year, and the projections for current US inflation put it at about 4.6%. I'm not sure if their growth estimate takes the increase in CPI into account. Mayhaps someone with a more global view on inflation rates could chime in and give us an adjusted Hollywood growth rate?
Reid
The Right Reverend K. Reid Wightman,
Well, I was just throwing out round figures. $25K certainly is not enough for a family of 4, but I know that for some individual folks, $25K would be plenty to live on. I am a perfect example -- single, no dependents, and no expensive tastes. I don't buy fancy clothes, I don't eat lobster or filet mignon, and when I have a car (I currently do not), it ain't no Lexus. I have survived most of my adult life on less than $25K a year, and I ain't starving. (In fact, I could stand to lose 20 or 25 pounds). And, of course, geography plays a big role -- $25K can be quite comfortable in some small Midwest towns, whereas in New York you could probably make $25K and still be sleeping on the street.
"Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket." -- Eric Hoffer
> What ever happened to the ravages of online piracy?
Going to the movies is an event. People will go even when they have access to downloaded versions because the movie itself is not the whole of the event.
Concerts are also an event, but are far more expensive, more rare and almost invariably less convenient than going to the movies. Plus, a concert is almost never exactly what an album is in content, whereas a movie is. Having seen a movie in a theater, and given the much greater size (ie. download time and storage requirement) fewer are likely to then download it. Even if they've been to a concert, people are more likely to download a studio album with some similar material.
TFA was not about DVD and other pay-per-content venues. However, the statements probably hold for those too, because the margin on DVDs etc. is much less as well as downloads being less frequent. The "loss" the MPAA would hypothesize would be far less a proportion of the gross.
Note that the MPAA et al. would still report a loss even if the opposite effect (increased sales due to downloading) holds, as has been hypothesized. I'm not confident the data collection and analysis supports that hypothesis, although neither would it support an MPAA report of loss. MPAA has to report loss regardless, as failure to do so would mean not supporting claims of copyright violation. Doing that not only means loss of any relevant piracy lawsuits, but also potentially loss of the copyright involved. Failure to protect them can result in loss of them. That point explains the variance between the claims and actions of MPAA/RIAA etc. and any hard data, or lack thereof, supporting any "loss" or the opposite. Claims of loss are almost invariably just that -- claims. They are usually arbitrary and grossly inflated guesstimates. That improves the chances in lawsuits.
"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B