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WB Took Pains To "Delay" Pirating of Dark Knight

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the something-to-think-about dept.

Jay writes "The L.A. Times is reporting on a new studio tactic — not to prevent piracy, but to delay it, as was the case with special tactics used with Dark Knight. 'Warner Bros. executives said the extra vigilance paid off, helping to prevent camcorded copies of the reported $180-million film from reaching Internet file-sharing sites for about 38 hours. Although that doesn't sound like much progress, it was enough time to keep bootleg DVDs off the streets as the film racked up a record-breaking $158.4 million on opening weekend. The movie has now taken in more than $300 million. The success of an anti-piracy campaign is measured in the number of hours it buys before the digital dam breaks.'" You know what else helps to have a big opening weekend? Making a good movie.

3 of 642 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Honestly, now... by smidget2k4 · · Score: 1, Redundant

    The congressmen can't be that stupid right?

    You must be new here...

  2. Re:How do you know what a good movie? by Applekid · · Score: 0, Redundant

    The notion that a studio can sink millions into a bomb isn't a risk factored into the business plan is rediculous. They spread themselves around to many different types of movies for different types of movie fan and sometimes it works sometimes it doesn't.

    However, the problem is that now any time a stinker gets released, the poor return on investment is blamed on PIRACY, not that very real fact that, look, sometimes the movie just doesn't click.

    --
    More Twoson than Cupertino
  3. Re:well... by Solandri · · Score: 0, Redundant

    Yes, but business people don't fool themselves into thinking market success == good product. No, they are quite well aware that they are often trying to achieve market success with an inferior product. They are well aware that they are essentially tricking people into buying it. If they weren't aware, they wouldn't be able to work around the product's flaws with marketing.

    The point is that the business people are driven by money, and they are well aware of the obvious fact that making money doesn't necessarily mean making the best product by any metric. It means making money. That's all.

    What you're missing is that in most businesses, the bulk of the money comes from repeat business. Couple that with mass production and for most businesses there's a very high correlation between high quality products and making money. That's why capitalism usually works so much better than centralized or government planning.

    Where it doesn't work is when the products are each individual and unique and bought only once. Like with a movie. The fact that the studio's previous movie was great is only very loosely correlated with the quality of the newest movie. There are some minor exceptions like sequels, and using the same director / producer / actors, but those correlations are still loose relative to any other business. The problem you describe of getting people to buy a bad product crops up in these specialized situations, not business in general. (Another place where the problem shows up is when there's a monopoly. Or if a company is on shaky financial footing and has insufficient capital to make a better product, their only choice for survival may be to try to market the bad product.)