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Piracy Fails To Prevent Another Box Office Record (torrentfreak.com)
An anonymous reader writes: The movie industry has reported global box office records reached $38.4 billion in 2015, up 5% on 2014's total, according to the MPAA's Theatrical Market Statistics report. The U.S. and Canada turned in $11.1 billion with international box office revenues hitting $27.2 billion. "I'm proud to say that the state of our industry has never been stronger," the former U.S. senator, MPAA chairman and CEO Chris Dodd said. "To paraphrase Mark Twain, the death of the movies has been greatly exaggerated," Dodd said. It begs the question whether or not piracy is truly killing the movie business -- the MPAA insists it is. According to Dodd, the box office would be more healthy to the tune of $1.5 billion if piracy could be brought under control. Some possible theories to achieve such a goal would be based off making content more readily available to the consumer. Napster co-found Sean Parker has a Screening Room project which hopes to bring first-run movies into the home via a set-top box. Though it has a trick up its sleeve: Customers prepared to pay the required $50 to watch at home would get two tickets to watch the movie in the cinema, which could either boost or at least maintain box office attendance. The Art House Convergence (AHC) said it "strongly opposes" the plan, warning it would only fuel torrent sites and piracy. National Assosciation of Theatre Owners chief John Fithian said, "More sophisticated window modeling may be needed for the growing success of a modern movie industry."
I understand it takes a lot of money to make a movie, and yes they deserve fair compensation for that. A few years of exclusive rights, definitely but no creative endeavor is made in a vacuum, people copy and use other peoples ideas, to make new creations all the time (I can't think of one that isn't). Once are fair time has passed they should be returned to the public domain so other creations can be made from them. I believe that the laws as they stand are result of a corrupt political system that allows lobbing, not what is in the best interest of society.
I do however think a lot of the cost of making a movie feeds into itself, buying rights to stories, paying actors, directors, producers millions. These costs are because movies can make a lot of money, and everybody wants their cut, so if the story, actor, director, ... is famous enough it almost guarantees success.
I think these costs, are actually killing the movie industry, they not conducive to creating new and initiative stories but rather run by accountants, that produce the same stories over and over again because they know they will sell. If you are investing $100 million you do not want small chance of success. The only way to reduce the cost of movies is to force them to be competitive.
Apart from all that just because it is wrong doesn't make it stealing, just like it doesn't make it rape.