The Avengers: Why Pirates Failed To Prevent a Box Office Record

TheGift73 sends this excerpt from TorrentFreak: "Despite the widespread availability of pirated releases, The Avengers just scored a record-breaking $200 million opening weekend at the box office. While some are baffled to see that piracy failed to crush the movie's profits, it's really not that surprising. Claiming a camcorded copy of a movie seriously impacts box office attendance is the same as arguing that concert bootlegs stop people from seeing artists on stage. ... Of all the people who downloaded a pirate copy of the film about 20% came from the U.S. This means that roughly 100,000 Americans have downloaded a copy online through BitTorrent. Now, IF all these people bought a movie ticket instead then box office revenue would be just 0.5% higher. Not much of an impact, and even less when you consider that these 'pirates' do not all count as a lost sale."

Comments

How can you quantify the loss?

[noh8rz3]

The summary is asking the wrong question. It's not whether piracy prevents blockbusters. It's how much does piracy reduce the box office receipts of new releases. Maybe avengers would have made $5 million more without piracy, or $20 million more, or 25 cents more. I have no idea. But let's at least ask the right questions. I'd appreciate anybody's thoughts on how much the piracy cost.

Re:How can you quantify the loss?

[aztracker1]

Can't speak for anyone else, but I go out to the movies several times a month... I'll often download a pirate copy if I have to go to the restroom during the middle of the film, so I can catch what I missed. I will also download copies of movies I have bought, as it's often easier and faster than transcoding them myself. I'm not always a lost sale, and a lot of times I am an added sale because of "piracy". I also tend to buy useful software, I may pirate 2-3 versions after my initial purchased version though, before purchasing again. In the end, I'm just a frugal bastard who wants a bit more convenience, and value for my money.

Re:How can you quantify the loss?

[Maxo-Texas]

I see the overpriced food and drink.

The rest don't happen at our local theatre.

What it does have is mind piercing volume. We are talking 120db, nearly weaponized volume you can hear outside the building.

We asked that they turn it down last night and they did. We stopped doing business with the theatre which will not lower the volume.

And that was a for a light romantic comedy. Not even an action film. For some ungodly reason it was set to 7th row rock concert volume.

---

You can't duplicate the huge screen.

You can't duplicate the crowd effects of mass laughter, mass "ooing", mass "screaming"-- i.e. the crowd interacting with the film as a group.

I can see a comedy at home and its ... okay. I see the same thing with 20 other people (much less 300 other people) in a theatre and it's hysterical.

For action films, the huge screen has an impact that my 55" at home lacks.

If you put cam quality dark, with theatre noises and occasional random shakes up against a real DVD 3 months later and the theatre during 1st run, it's no contest.

Cam is a novelty and helpful to poor students.

My problem with DVD's (and entertainment in general) is that there is more than I can watch. I'm overwhelmed. So I usually go with the cheapest. But for Avengers, I did go see it in 3d. The 3d sucked and the glasses were uncomfortable after 2 hours.

I paid 7.25 which seems very reasonable.

Um

[Quiet_Desperation]

People actually watch those camcordered versions? Really? I torrented one once. I thought it was a joke. Is there a market for pirated ebooks with blurry fonts or MP3s reduced to monaural sound at 16 Kbps, too?

They still don't get it.

[metrix007]

The thing about Piracy is, the people who pirate are not people who would have paid for it in the first place.

That's what they don't get. It's not stealing, because there are no lost sales.

People pirate because it is convenient, or because they want to see it and don't think it is worth paying for, or can't pay for it (students/unemployed as well as other regions). That is why Piracy makes no dent, because people are happy to pay for things worth paying for. All of the super hero movies. Good comedies. Shit like Contraband or MIB3 is simply going to do marginally well because it is tripe. Popcorn entertainment that is only worth paying for if there is nothing better to see and you still want to go to the movies.

I pirate a lot, because I can't afford to go to the theaters for most movies. Conversely most movies are not worth paying for and if I could not download them, I would be absolutely fine with that. The avengers is worth seeing in a cinema, which is why I will make sure I see it in one.

If studios, artists and programmers get rid of this idiotic concept that piracy is stealing and they are losing money, and just start making stuff worth paying for at a price people are willing to pay, then they will reap a profit. It's that simple, folks.

Pirates increase sales!

[zethreal]

Huge numbers of people pirated the movie before it was released. The movie broke the record for opening weekend sales. Therefore, using the same figuring style that the MPAA uses ( only in reverse ), piracy actually made the movie industry millions!

Not News

[mcmonkey]

We saw this 10 year ago with "The Eminem Show". That album was everywhere online before it went on sale. It was like a virus--it was hard to be online during the Spring of 2002 and NOT download a copy.

Then it was released, debuted at #1 on the Billboard charts, sold over 1 million copies the first week, and was the best selling album of 2002.

I guess a story like this is good as another example to drive the point home. But really, not news.

You miss the point.

[Anonymous Coward]

The direct damage to ticket sales is NOT the reason the industry hates piracy. This is a very common misconception.

Piracy undermines the concept of ownership of data. If data cannot be owned, then it is not an asset.

One important key to being wealthy is asset diversification. It isn't just about having money, but also having gold bars, land, vehicles, businesses, and intellectual property. You own all of these things because their value can remain high even when the value of the dollar shrinks.

So, "owning" a movie is vastly more important than maximizing rent profits. Piracy tickles rent profits, but completely destroys the ability to own the asset, and hence reduces the wealth of everyone who has a large ownership stake in IP.

Of course....the fact that data cannot be owned because the laws of physics just don't support the concept is a non-issue. That is exactly what the force of law is for: to make poor people obediently buy in to the systems of ownership that keep them poor.

Re:Facts! Don't talk to me about facts!

[Sique]

With your argumentation "lost sale" = "theft", you could also argue, that a negative critic in the newspaper is "theft", because it causes lost sales.

So for your information: Not every act that diminishes the perceived value of a good is theft.
Write that 100 times.
And then try to grasp the concept.