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DVD Release Delays Boost Piracy and Hurt Sales, Study Shows (torrentfreak.com)
One of the reasons that drive people to piracy is the delay in the release of a title's DVD or Blu-Ray in their local market. According to a new academic paper from Carnegie Mellon University, movie fans are finding it increasingly difficult to wait for the official DVD or Blu-Ray to come out. From a TorrentFreak report: Due to artificial delays which vary across different parts of the world, pirates can often get their hands on a high-quality rip of a movie before the DVD is officially released in their country. Researchers have looked into this piracy "window of opportunity," and found that release delays are actually hurting DVD and Blu-Ray sales. "Our results suggest that an additional 10-day delay between the availability of digital piracy and the legitimate DVD release date in a particular country is correlated with a 2-3% reduction in DVD sales in that country," the researchers write.
No shit, Sherlock.
Next, are they going to tell us water is wet?
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
It's sometimes bewildering to watch companies with a responsibility to shareholders behave in ways that appear counterproductive to their own bottom line. If the study from Carnegie Mellon passes peer review *and* the movie industry does not respond in a way that actually curbs piracy, then one has to wonder what exactly drives their behavior. This is not a rhetorical question. If anybody here on /. has insight into this, please share.
The "artificial delays" are simply a specific form of artificial scarcity, and we humans always do our damnedest to route around them.
We also *really* don't want to be lectured to about piracy when we're watching a legally purchased DVD, nor do we want to watch ads, (except for movie trailers), in a DVD we've already fscking paid for. But media producers and distributors seem positively addicted to the practice of strapping on a pair of cleats and stepping on their own dicks.
'The Economy' is a giant Ponzi scheme whose most pitiable suckers are the youngest among us and the yet-unborn.
What the heck is a "DVD"? Is that Russian or something?
N/T
I don't understand the delays. Just sell it HIGH right out of the gate.
Make movies something crazy like $60-$80 on opening weekend. Grab all that extra profit while the hype is high and plenty of families with great home theater and 2.5 kids that they don't want to pay concessions for consider it a win-win.
Drop it by $10 or so every month or so, until they're $20 at the same time they're available now.
Why do they hate money so much?
Grammer Nazis - I mod you "troll" unless you actually add something on-topic. Yes, I know I have mispellings in my sig.
I wonder how they get a rip before the DVD comes out? I'm going to guess that the theaters now get digital copies and those get rippped. I wonder why they can't control that effectively. E.g. watermark every theater's version differently.
The DVD from another region is used for the rip. It's a study about the delays between regions, not between theater and home release.
are you suggesting that Europe is responsible for delayed DVD releases?
I'm god, but it's a bit of a drag really...
Right. Text should be:
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
It makes exactly zero sense to buy a GoT DVD in Europe. By the time you could possibly buy it, it is virtually impossible NOT to know yet which of the people you knew croaked by the end of the season due to discussions on the internet.
And the same applies to ANY content. I don't even follow GoT but I would be VERY surprised if that wasn't the case. Either release it everywhere at the same time or deal with the consequences. Even if I can't copy the content, why bother buying a movie where the plot matters (i.e. not directed by Michael Bay) when I know beforehand how it's going to end?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Neither is an absolute. Piracy CAN hurt and it CAN help sales.
Burry, shaky screeners are actually more likely to help sales because people want "the real thing" instead. If, and only if, the movie is actually worth seeing. Because that's what the blurry screener does: Give people an idea whether the movie is any good. And given today's movie trailers are usually the whole 2 minutes of what's actually decent in the 180+ minutes of movie, people don't rely on trailers anymore. But if that blurry mess looks like it could be worth seeing "for real", they will grab the money and go watch it.
Of course if what you get as a copy is as good as what you could hope for if you bought the DVD (and usually, considering the bullshit like unskipable ads, trailers and other crap, the value of the bought copy is usually lower than that of a rip to the user), this will absolutely HURT your sales. Because the user already has everything he could hope to get from buying your DVD. Actually, chances are he got more than he would get from your DVD.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
i can watch and re-watch Deadpool AND learn Korean from the subtitles... win/win
Look, I don't necessarily agree with the GP, but your point is just as stupid. Don't pretend that just because Europe has had its shit together for a few decades gives it the right to lord it over the rest of the world. History didn't begin yesterday.
The only reason Europe is at peace now is because it fought a war so unbelievably terrible that it all but destroyed itself. And it had to happen twice in less than a few decades, because they couldn't learn their lesson the first time. WWII might have been avoided if the European Allies had followed Wilson's 14 Points during the peace negotiations following WWI, and during the founding of the League of Nations. Instead, they did exactly the opposite and sowed the seeds of the next conflict with the Treaty of Versailles. Not to mention all the other terrible things that came as a result of the League, such as the Mandate system, which is at least partially responsible for the state the Middle East is in today.
The kind of nonsense you're spouting is basically the "white man's burden", the bullshit justification used by Europe for colonizing and subjugating people around the world. It's fine to uphold the virtues of modern Europe, but don't do so by repeating the rhetoric of the 19th Century.
Only crack the nuts that crack. You don't put the ones that don't crack in the sack.
Or why do they even sell DVDs at all? Why aren't these media companies providing timely streaming or download options? I haven't watched a DVD in 5 years.
love is just extroverted narcissism
While it is absolutely true that African people were (and still are today) slaves of other African people, it does not excuse the purchase of those people by Whites. That said, going back through my family history I've found no evidence that anyone in my family ever owned slaves, yet I still get shit from time to time for what "my ancestors" did to "their ancestors". How about a big fuck you to anyone who subscribes to that logic? Regardless of race.
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
Sometimes it's from the factory making them for the US. So the torrent sites have the real products well in advance of anyone being able to buy it.
I hardly consider ITunes an option. You have to have itunes on a computer and then remove the DRM to play on your tv... there might be something I am missing but this is not really consumer friendly.
love is just extroverted narcissism
My economics question is why back catalog movies which have been released on disc can't be purchased as downloads.
A lot of film producers' hands are tied by contracts with upstream licensors (such as the author and publisher of a novel adapted into a film or the performer, record label, songwriter, and music publisher of music used in the film) or with cast and crew unions whose members work on a residual basis rather than a "work made for hire" basis. Not all such contracts that provide for a home video release also provide for selling downloads. DVD early on had a similar problem with older films whose home video contracts were written for particular formats ("VHS and Beta" or "videotape") rather than generically enough to include DVD.
I'm guessing these titles aren't exactly burning up the sales charts and that a budget licensing deal for streaming on back catalog title to a streaming provider would be revenue they mostly wouldn't expect to get from a DVD.
For one thing, it can be expensive to gather all stakeholders (again, upstream licensors and any cast or crew promised residuals) for a contract negotiation. For another, old movies compete with the same studio's newer products.
The fact they're not even going to pay for the product doesn't matter.
I have money. Where in the United States can I buy a lawfully made DVD of the film Song of the South?
I have money. Where in the United States can I buy a lawfully made DVD of the film Pinocchio and the Emperor of the Night?
I have money. Where in the United States can I buy a lawfully made DVD of the TV series Spartakus and the Sun Beneath the Sea?
Also - what is so hard about making trailers a bonus feature on discs? Display a 5-second unskippable blurb inviting purchasers of the legally-distributed content "Hey we included movie trailers as free bonus features" - this removes the annoyance factor, it turns the ads into something marketable, and makes the product less user-hostile, and yet, the ads still get delivered. Everybody wins!
One thing they need to nix is that bogus FBI warning, because:
* Most usenet, torrent, etc. releases prior to the disk release are internal leaks from the original source content - by your own fucking employees, not paying customers
* I will still ignore the "warning," exercise my Fair Use and DMCA interoperability rights to bypass encryption and rip the disc to my phone and tablets, so the warning will be ignored
* I already paid for the disc, damn it, why the fuck are you showing the warning to a paying customer?
* I already paid for the disc, damn it, why the fuck are you showing the warning to a paying customer?
* I already paid for the disc, damn it, why the fuck are you showing the warning to a paying customer?
And finally:
* I already paid for the disc, damn it, why the fuck are you showing the warning to a paying customer?
Also nix the region encoding. I have over 600 discs (all legally purchased), and would buy more were it not for region encoding. There is a lot of anime I want, but unfortunately I need to turn to questionable streaming sites to watch them (unless I want to buy old worn-out blurry-as-crap shelf-hogging VHS taps on feeBay and hook up my DVRs again)
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50