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

Posted by Soulskill on from the you-wouldn't-download-an-angry-green-dude dept.

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."

51 of 663 comments (clear)

  1. Facts! Don't talk to me about facts! by M1FCJ · · Score: 5, Funny

    Please do not try to confuse people with facts and logic. We all know MPIAA knows best. Right? Right?

    1. Re:Facts! Don't talk to me about facts! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

      If you use facts, the terrorists win!

    2. Re:Facts! Don't talk to me about facts! by ctsupafly · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Your points are correct, but piracy of media is NOT theft. Theft implies something was taken, piracy (in this sense) is copyright infringement.

    3. Re:Facts! Don't talk to me about facts! by Yvan256 · · Score: 4, Informative

      They're not arguing that there's no loss associated with piracy.

      They're showing real-world numbers that point out that the losses aren't the billions of dollars that the RIAA and MPAA keep associating with piracy.

    4. Re:Facts! Don't talk to me about facts! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      No, you're discussing the wrong thing. Every day we hear about how our basic freedoms are being taken away to stop the pirates from ruining the movie industry. We hear that we have to suffer through some awful DRM scheme because otherwise the media producer will go out of business under the staggering weight of piracy.

      No matter how many votes we place to kick out SOPA supporters or what purchasing behavior we engage in, the informed and engaged don't number enough to make a difference unless we speak loud and often to convince the apathetic masses. The point we're making is not only correct, it is the only one worth mentioning.

    5. Re:Facts! Don't talk to me about facts! by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 5, Insightful

      There is an important matter you are failing to address:

      It is arguable that the degree of harm presented by 'piracy' is immaterial in judging its illegality, or even its wrongness; but it is overwhelmingly harder to argue that it is immaterial to the question of what measures should be adopted to stop it...

      When the media owners are(more or less continually in one guise or another) continually demanding greater legal protection and enforcement, which carries both direct monetary costs to the public, as well as potential damage to the interests of people and other industries, the amount of harm that they are suffering is very much an important detail.

      Even if we are agreed that 'piracy' is theft, the question "Theft of how much?" matters. The law enforcement expenditures, and the curtailment of the interests of other parties, one could justify for the theft of $1 are totally different than the theft of $1,000,000.

      If we do not so agree, the question acquires an even greater importance. If, for instance, we construct the phrase "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries." to suggest that Congress should only extend copyright if, and where, doing so promotes the progress of science and the useful arts, this immediately raises the question of where, and where not, additional copyright protection leads to additional production.

      At a bare minimum, even if copyrights are viewed as fully equivalent to real property, and infringement fully equivalent to theft, there is an important question of fact about how big the theft is. One simply must answer it in order to categorize, and respond to, the calls for detection and prosecution of such theft.

      If one takes a less expansive view of the scope of copyright, it is entirely possible that the degree of economic harm to the owner of the work becomes directly relevant to the question of what protections you will give it. Protections are, after all, carved out of the scope of what others are allowed to do. They inevitably represent compromises. The gravity of each party's concession is important to deciding where the correct compromise lies.

    6. Re:Facts! Don't talk to me about facts! by Chris+Burke · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Something was taken. The income that would have otherwise been realized from a legitimate purchase.

      That income could be zero, if the pirate would not have made a legitimate purchase in the absence of piracy. This is the #1 mistake made when discussing this -- assuming that if someone pirates a copy, that they would have purchased that copy if they couldn't pirate.

      That relation simply doesn't hold, though. This is most obvious if you consider the teenager with $50,000 worth of music and movies on their hard drive. If piracy was impossible, do you think they would have spent $50,000 on music and movies?

      It's still stealing, and using a less stark name for it doesn't make it any less theft in absolute terms any more than the difference between lifting a pack of gum is less "theft" than boosting a Porsche.

      In both those cases, there was a real, non-hypothetical loss. You don't have to guess whether a car thief would have bought a Porsche if car theft was impossible (probably not) -- the dealer is still out one Porsche. Whereas with piracy the loss is hypothetical and you do need to guess what the pirate would have done to even claim there was a loss.

      That's why copyright infringement is not theft. It is not the legal definition of "that kind of theft". It's the legal definition of something which is illegal, but isn't theft.

      Things that aren't theft can still be wrong. Maybe this is the third mistake that leads to the previous two mistakes -- If it's not theft it's not wrong, and copyright infringement is wrong therefore it must be theft!

      No. Copyright infringement is wrong, but it is not theft.

      --

      The enemies of Democracy are
    7. Re:Facts! Don't talk to me about facts! by Eivind+Eklund · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Let me start with saying that I don't pirate - but I disagree with your conclusions anyway.

      Same thing applies to Slashdot. Threads of this exact nature pop up every 2 months or so for the last 10 years -- and the point they're trying to make is still incorrect.

      The media owners have every right to choose their business model.

      As long as they don't have a monopoly and don't collude to restrict consumer choice or set prices, that is.

      Oh, they *do* have monopolies, granted by the government, and *do* collude? Then they've violated their end of the bargain.

      The customer has every right to purchase, or not to purchase.

      You don't want to spend 10 bucks on Avengers in a regular theater -- the MPAA cannot make you spend those 10 bucks. They can't make you spend 16 bucks to watch it in 3D either. They can't force you to buy the DVD or BluRay. They can't force you to rent it. You have every right to disagree with their terms, and not give them your business. But you don't have the right to obtain their media on terms they did not agree to.

      You guys are simply discussing the wrong thing. The profitability of Avengers is 100% immaterial. The producer could choose to sell at 10x the price, or 1/100th (and take a loss). Their media, their choice. You choose to buy or not to buy (which is how you regulate their choice).

      Let me rephrase: "You choose to participate or not participate in culture (which is how you regulate their choice.)"

      This is a cost that's not reasonable for most people to take; it cuts off their references and ability to communicate.

      As part of culture, the media is partially owned collectively by the culture, and partially owned by the people that produced it. This was recognized in the original constitutional basis for US copyright:

      To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.

      (Emphasis mine).

      Piracy is theft no matter how you dress it up.

      DRM is theft no matter how you dress it up; theft from the commons.

      Piracy is copyright infringement. It is a violation of rights granted by law, like battery is a violation of rights granted by law. But it isn't theft.

      Also, I believe most piracy involve no loss to the original rightsholder - most piracy is performed by mass pirates, who would not have the financial capacity to buy more than a very small fraction of whatever they pirate in the first place, and most things they pirate they never get around to looking at, and would not have bought if it had any noticeable cost at all.

      --
      Doubting the existence of evolution is like doubting the existence of China: It just shows that you're uninformed.
    8. Re:Facts! Don't talk to me about facts! by jellomizer · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Movies like the Avengers will tend to do well vs. Piracy, because these high effect movies, look really good with all the sound, and large screens... If you pirate it, you get a shaky little display with perhaps stereo sound. Now movies with a plot, may be more of a target to piracy. As we are more interested in the story and not the experience. But Hollywood doesn't put too many of those movies out any more, and will reserve these shows to DVD or TV production. Just because they can make money off of those that way. The big screen, is getting more limited to those High End Fancy Effect films. They often will take some medium effect films and play them for a week, just to give them official movie credits, but their goal is to make money off the DVD/BlueRays.

      --
      If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
    9. Re:Facts! Don't talk to me about facts! by mcgrew · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Your post was insightful until the last line, "Piracy is theft no matter how you dress it up." Piracy is no more theft than theft is murder. Here's the difference between stealing a movie and pirating a movie.

      If you walk into WalMart and steal the DVD, that's theft. WalMart no longer has their DVD, they took a loss, whether or not the thief ever intended to watch the movie. If he's caught, he'll pay a couple hundred bucks in fines.

      If you pirate a movie, nobody has lost anything, and it may even prompt the pirate to see the director's or leading actor's next movie on the big screen. And if he's caught, he'll pay hundreds of thousands of dollars.

      "Piracy is theft" is propaganda for the stupid. They share less in common than theft and rape.

      --
      Free Martian Whores!
    10. Re:Facts! Don't talk to me about facts! by eldorel · · Score: 4, Informative

      Stealing access that you don't have

      You are misusing the word stealing.

      Taking or forcing access to something without permission is trespassing, not theft. ( hence the computer trespass laws )

      Stealing is the removal of property without permission.

      Making a copy of something is not stealing it, as no property is removed.

      Pirating may be wrong or illegal, but it's not stealing.

      And no, pirates are not "stealing the profit from the lost sales".

      Just because the pirate felt that a movie was worth clicking a mouse button, doesn't mean that it would have been worth $20 if the mouse clicking was not an option.

    11. Re:Facts! Don't talk to me about facts! by Dr.+Manhattan · · Score: 4, Insightful

      MPAA gets to choose their business model. They don't get to ban entire Internet protocols, arbitrarily shut down websites without due process, kick end-users off the Internet, or any other non-business-model-related "rights" they've been lobbying for.

      --
      PHEM - party like it's 1997-2003!
    12. Re:Facts! Don't talk to me about facts! by Mista2 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The unwelcome truth to the MPIAA, piracy isnt killing the movie industry. Crap movies are killing the movie industry.

    13. Re:Facts! Don't talk to me about facts! by Mista2 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      If its not availbale for sale in my region, its not theft. If they wont sell it to me, they cant claim lost sale.
      Want Game of Thrones outside the USA?? hahahahahahahahaha, only one way to get it.
      With ebooks I have I look for legal sources first, 70% of the time I am still faced with "not available in your region"
      I can buy the frikken paper book from Amazon and ship it around the world, but not a lousy 300Kb of data?

    14. Re:Facts! Don't talk to me about facts! by eldorel · · Score: 4, Interesting

      some number of that is definitely lost sales

      Do you really believe this?

      I'm going to use the anime market in the US as an example here.
      After the original japanese release, most anime franchises are not distributed in the US until there is already a large fan base.

      How do you have fans for a show that isn't even available? Piracy.
      How many of these pirates would have bought the dvd if there were no pirated copies being handed out? ZERO, because they would never have known the product exists.

      How many millions of dollars do you think companies like adv, cartoon network, etc made because of the pirate anime market?


      At the same time, around 100,000 people have watched a crappy download of the avengers instead of paying to see it in the theater.
      Have you ever watched a theater rip? It's painful.

      People don't watch camera rips because they would rather save the cost of admission. They watch them because
      a) they CAN"T afford the cost of admission,
      b) they want to see it before opening night,
      c) they downloaded it because they were bored and wanted something to distract them for an hour.

      Group A is not a lost sale.(they have no money)
      Group B is not a lost sale. (they also saw the movie in the theater)
      Group C is not a lost sale. (they would have just turned on the TV instead)

      Now, dvd quality rips are another story. There are people who just download the movie instead of buying it.
      However, there are also a lot of other groups of people who are labeled "pirates"..

      a) People already own the movie but don't feel like ripping and transcoding it by hand ( like my blue ray collection )
      b) People who have the dvd but just got a new 1080p mega-tv and think the higher quality is neat.
      c) People who live in places where you can't buy the movie.
      d) People who contribute screenshots to sites like imdb and tvtropes
      e) People who don't have access to TV, but have family with internet and a cheap hard drive. (rural areas, mountain regions)
      f) People who work odd hours and can't afford a dvr+digital cable for delayed viewing.

      All of these groups are downloads that would not have equated to a sale.

      a) already bought it
      b) don't think the extra 300 pixels is worth an extra $20
      c) don't have an option to buy
      d) can't afford to spend $20 on every movie they edit
      e) can't buy a show that isn't on disk. (samurai pizza cats)
      f) Can't afford the hardware, can't afford to change schedule, can't buy the disks until it's out.

    15. Re:Facts! Don't talk to me about facts! by hairyfeet · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Your points would be correct IF we had a free market, but we don't, we have government controlled monopolies. See copyrights being so long your great grandchildren will be dead before this movie leaves copyright (if it ever does) and the cartel pricing of movie theaters (ever wonder why nobody tries to undercut the ticket prices to draw more crowds? its because they CAN'T because they will be banned by the cartels from getting any prints) and your arguments simply don't hold water.

      What we are talking about is frankly one of the most simple tenants of economics, if you price an item too high and use artificial scarcity to control those prices then a black market WILL arise to service those customers you ignore. Instead of following the Henry Ford model of classical capitalism, IE sell it cheap and crank them out, instead you have a bunch of MBAs (Masters of Being Assholes) that figure out what the absolute limit is and try to charge at that price or even above. You wanna know why piracy exists MAFIAA? Look in the mirror, you don't offer the customers what they want at a price they can afford.

      If you were smart you'd do like Valve has with Steam, where they sell it cheap and crank it out but that wouldn't allow you to screw over the consumers like you screw the artists with Hollywood Accounting (which if EVER there existed a reason for an antitrust investigation that would be it) while making record profits. In the end the only ones you hurt are yourselves, no amount of propaganda is gonna make the public turn on piracy simply because your prices are too high. Many former game pirates that I know switched to Steam simply because it allows them to get games quickly at an easily affordable price point.

      But as long as the means of distribution and copyrights are controlled by the cartels friend then your argument simply does not hold because there is no real chance for competition to spring up and lower the prices. This is the main point of a cartel after all, to control access so only those that are part of the cartels have any real chance of success.

      --
      ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
    16. Re:Facts! Don't talk to me about facts! by Sique · · Score: 5, Interesting

      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.

      --
      .sig: Sique *sigh*
    17. Re:Facts! Don't talk to me about facts! by EdIII · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Especially in this case. $10 is not a tremendous amount of money. I downloaded a cam a few months ago to see the quality and it was hysterical. Anybody that downloads a cam and watches it the whole way through is the same kind of person who would dumpster dive and consider it no different than gourmet food.

      They would have never paid for it under any circumstances.

  2. How can you quantify the loss? by noh8rz3 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

    1. Re:How can you quantify the loss? by SJHillman · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Or how much piracy helped Hollywood gain? Of those 100,000 or so Americans that downloaded it, I'd be willing to bet a fair number of them did go see it in theaters simply because they liked the crappy version they downloaded and wanted the full cinematic experience.

    2. Re:How can you quantify the loss? by neokushan · · Score: 5, Insightful

      What makes you so sure that it actually causes a loss? You don't think that maybe some of the downloaders flicked through it, watched a bit of it or perhaps even the whole thing and thought to themselves "Hey that was pretty damn good, I want to go see it in the cinema and get the full experience!"?
      Maybe if it wasn't for piracy, Avengers would have made $5million less.
      Or maybe, just maybe, it would not have made a difference at all.

      --
      +1 IDisagreeSoHeMustBeATrollOrAnAstroturferOrAShill
    3. Re:How can you quantify the loss? by kiwimate · · Score: 5, Informative

      Well, according to the article, and the summary too, actually, about 0.5%, maximum. But the article goes on to say this is in the U.S.

      But does this mean that piracy is not an issue for the movie industry at all? Well not so fast.

      A recent study showed that the US box office is not suffering from movie piracy, but that there is a detrimental effect on international box office figures. The researchers attribute this impact to the wide release gaps, which sometimes result in a high quality DVD copy being available on pirate sites while a movie is still showing in theaters.

    4. Re:How can you quantify the loss? by internerdj · · Score: 5, Funny

      I'd suggest those who wonder why people aren't visiting the theaters have not yet had "the full cinematic experience."

    5. Re:How can you quantify the loss? by g0bshiTe · · Score: 4, Funny

      I have, it involved latex gloves, lube, and no post-coital cuddle.

      --
      I am Bennett Haselton! I am Bennett Haselton!
    6. Re:How can you quantify the loss? by g0bshiTe · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Yeah, but Joss Whedon's fans have been stiffed!

      Bring back FIREFLY!

      --
      I am Bennett Haselton! I am Bennett Haselton!
    7. Re:How can you quantify the loss? by Altus · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Actually there is a halo effect with movies, a friend of mine did his PHD thesis in economics partially on this effect. When a big movie comes out the previous movies (if its a series) see a bump in DVD sales. Movies by the same director or with the same lead actors get a bump. In this case, certainly the previous "Avenger" movies in the "series" probably saw a bump in DVD sales and movies with Robert Downey Jr probably saw a bump.

      The reason for this is likely pretty simple, people are talking about the Avengers and that stirs up interest in the previous movies, wanting to see them again or see them for the first time before the big movie or even a friend saying "Hey if you liked Robert Downey Jr in Iron man you should see Sherlock."

      If there is a place where piracy is effecting the bottom line for studios it is probably seen in this effect where people might have been inspired to buy a copy of the Hulk to check it out but instead downloaded it to save a few bucks. It would be interesting to look at the spike in downloads for movies that your would expect to see a spike in DVD sales for.

      Of course that doesn't mean every download of those movies is a lost sale, many of these movies are available for rental or VOD.

      --

      "In America, first you get the sugar, then you get the power, then you get the women..." -H. Simpson

    8. Re:How can you quantify the loss? by ranton · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I think he meant to say that the percentage is meaningless, it is the actual dollar amount that matters. 0.5% may sound small, but $1,000,000 is a lot of money. Not relatively large, but that is still $1,000,000 more that should go to those investing in the movie and movie theatres, not people trying to get something for nothing.

      Then again, that 0.5% is completely made up. For all I know, the pirating could have helped them make more money from free advertising ("Hey, I saw this awesome movie on Bittorrent, you should go see it this weekend").

      --
      -- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
    9. Re:How can you quantify the loss? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      I don't go to theaters often, but this is the first I've heard of TSA screening before the movie starts.

    10. Re:How can you quantify the loss? by aztracker1 · · Score: 5, Interesting

      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.

      --
      Michael J. Ryan - tracker1.info
    11. Re:How can you quantify the loss? by na1led · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I can vouch for that, I downloaded Tron Legacy (cam video). The quality was terrible but it got me interested to go see the movie at cinema. Problem is that these Trailers always make these movies look good, but suck when you go watch them. If it's a good movie, I'll go watch it on the big screen, or buy the Blueray, but I'd like to see what I'm paying for first.

      --
      -- By all means let's be open-minded, but not so open-minded that our brains drop out.
    12. Re:How can you quantify the loss? by BlackThorne_DK · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Well, according to the article, and the summary too, actually, about 0.5%, maximum. But the article goes on to say this is in the U.S.

      But does this mean that piracy is not an issue for the movie industry at all? Well not so fast.

      A recent study showed that the US box office is not suffering from movie piracy, but that there is a detrimental effect on international box office figures. The researchers attribute this impact to the wide release gaps, which sometimes result in a high quality DVD copy being available on pirate sites while a movie is still showing in theaters.

      Then fix the release gaps, and stop whining. The rest of the world is tired of being reduced to second, third, fourth, fifth and sixth class US citizens...
      If you want our money, start treating us like equals, and release the damn movies at the same time everywhere.
      With digital releases, it shouldn't be that hard.

    13. Re:How can you quantify the loss? by Charliemopps · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Agree'd
      Our local theater has started serving bagged popcorn that they heat up under a lamp. It's still $15 for a large popcorn and a flat soda. Instead of butter they now have a "butter flavoring" dispenser that shoots out some cold, yellow tinted oil substance all over your popcorn. Then they have about 5 different shakers filled with different flavors of salt. None of which really contain salt... I'm not sure what exactly it is... but it's definitely not salt. But hey, they have Imax!

    14. Re:How can you quantify the loss? by ColdWetDog · · Score: 4, Funny

      Look, this is important to us.

      We have to be first at something you know. Show a little love.

      --
      Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
    15. Re:How can you quantify the loss? by Maxo-Texas · · Score: 5, Interesting

      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.

      --
      She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
  3. who cares about opening $ amounts? by i.r.id10t · · Score: 5, Insightful

    With ticket prices way up (at least from the last time I paid to see a movie in a theater) of course even a bomb is going to have high $ sales.

    What percentage of seats available were sold? I think that would be a better metric than gross dollars worth of tickets sold...

    --
    Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos
  4. Hollywood Multiplier by SJHillman · · Score: 5, Funny

    You forgot to apply the Hollywood Multiplier. Each of those pirates would actually watch the movie at least 800 times apiece. In 3D. And buy tons of merchandise. If only the option to download it outside of the system wasn't available. So it's actually a 400% loss, not a *potential* 0.5% loss.

  5. Yar by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Yar. Though we be pirates brave and true, our great guns and carronades only reach about 1 mile inland - and that be with good harborage. Thar be no way we can conduct the required cannonades to plundar all movie theatres for thar treasure chests of delicious popcorn with non-dairy liquid.

  6. Um by Quiet_Desperation · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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?

    1. Re:Um by jeffasselin · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Every piece of literature, art, or human creative product is based on what came before. It's based on human nature, human history and human life; the species hasn't changed that much in the last 5000 years since the dawn of urban civilization.

      So if you want really original stuff, read Gilgamesh and Homer, then you're done. Everything else is not original, not completely so; no artist operates in a vacuum.

      Most of us choose instead to gain from retellings and new ways (or new mediums) of telling the archetypal stories of the human condition.

      Is The Avengers a breakthrough? No, but it's a well-executed modern take on interesting and important stories that reveal somethings about ourselves, in a new medium that has its advantages and its failings. And it's FUN.

      --
      If he explores all forms and substances Straight homeward to their symbol-essences; He shall not die.
  7. Re:they're not mutually exclsusive by SJHillman · · Score: 4, Insightful

    And how many of the 300 million that didn't download it also didn't go to see it because they couldn't justify $15 for a movie that they only might like?

  8. They still don't get it. by metrix007 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

    --
    If you ignore ACs because they are anonymous - you're an idiot.
    1. Re:They still don't get it. by Daniel+Dvorkin · · Score: 4, Funny

      You must have needed a whole truckload of straw for that man you just built and then demolished. Good job! Let us know if you need any help cleaning up.

      --
      The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
  9. Pirates increase sales! by zethreal · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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!

  10. Not News by mcmonkey · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

  11. This is a false dichotomy by nanotech · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I didn't bother to read the article obviously, but to compare opening weekend results directly with CAM downloads ignores many aspects. The most obvious to me is the people who did NOT go out to the theatre and who WILL NOT download the CAM, but who WILL wait two months for a high-quality free Blu-Ray rip to appear online. These are potentially lost sales for the theatres.

    (Having said that, after going back to a theatre for the first time in a couple years specifically to see Avengers, I still believe the root of their problem does not lie with piracy, it lies with the appalling rudeness found in your average public gathering. For the same price, two months later, my living room is infinitely more comfortable and better equipped to show ME the movie in a manner I will enjoy and not be distracted by phones, screaming children, and poor sound).

  12. Re:they're not mutually exclsusive by Cinder6 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Another important metric: How many of those 100k downloads were from people who wouldn't have bought a ticket even if they couldn't pirate it?

    --
    If you can't convince them, convict them.
  13. Re:Why I go to the Cinema by mjr167 · · Score: 4, Funny

    I have a a small child I would be willing to rent out. She would be quite happy to throw popcorn at you and ask silly questions randomly during key dialog.

  14. Re:Pirated and still paid for tickets by Marillion · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Dear Hollywood,
    The reason The Avengers succeeded where other movies performed poorly is because it was a special and unique movie. Specifically, it was a good movie that lots of people wanted to see.
    Sincerely,
    Me.

    --
    This is a boring sig
  15. You miss the point. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

  16. Re:Here's why the priates din't hurt revenues. by GameboyRMH · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The scene where she's tied up in a chair will be legendary to boob guys. It's like a 9.5 on the Hendricks scale.

    --
    "When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
  17. Mod parent up by Dr.+Manhattan · · Score: 4, Insightful
    It's a legit point. Claiming that "piracy isn't the problem the MPAA shrieks it is" is not the same thing as claiming that "piracy isn't theft".

    You can't determine the appropriate response to a problem without correctly grasping how much of a problem it is. We as a country made a decision that the problem of highway accidents wasn't severe enough to justify a 55MPH speed limit, and raised it to 70MPH, for example. As a more appropriate example, we also decided that the threat of piracy by VCR was not severe enough to ban the production and sale of VCRs - as the MPAA tried to propose.

    So, to reiterate: people can think piracy is theft while also thinking the MPAA is vastly exaggerating the severity of the problem.

    --
    PHEM - party like it's 1997-2003!