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Piracy 'Warnings' Fail To Boost Box Office Revenues, Research Says (torrentfreak.com)
A new academic study shows that graduated response policies against file-sharers fail to boost box office revenues. From a TorrentFreak report: The empirical research, which looked at the effects in various countries including the United States, suggests that these anti-piracy measures are not as effective as the movie studios had hoped. [...] Thus far there has been very little research on the topic but a new study, published by Dr. Jordi McKenzie of Sydney's Macquarie University, suggests that these "strikes" policies don't boost box office revenues. For his paper, published in the most recent issue of the journal 'Information Economics and Policy,' McKenzie looked at opening week and total box office revenues for 6,083 unique films released between 2005 and 2013. Using a variety of statistical analyses, he then measured the impact of the graduated response systems and related policies in six countries. In addition, another ten countries were included as a control measure. The overall conclusion based on thousands of data points is that these anti-piracy policies have no significant impact on box-office income.
Hollywood is enjoying a streak of box office highs for the past several years.
In short, "piracy" isn't touching their bottom line. If anything, the ability to share these movies and the associated emotions has increased it.
Word of mouth as the best form of advertisement. Who wouldda thunk it?
Preventing people from getting your movies for free does not in fact make them better able to afford your movies, or make it seem more worth it to those who can.
If you are going to the movies. It is often because.
1. You are excited to see it and really do not want to wait for it.
2. You would want to see it in a large screen, quality speakers, perhaps 3d.
3. You want a reason to leave your home, and perhaps with other people.
If you are excited to see the movie. There isn't any real rush to pirate it. This no rush means it may be available at higher quality vs legit streaming channels, or DVD/Blueray rentals (say from RedBox) for a few bucks.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
crosswalks routinely disregarded by pedestrians in a hurry
turn signals almost never used 100 feet from an intersection
dad still refuses to buckle his seatbelt, "that damn plastic liberal conspiracy killed Dale Earnhardt" he insists.
Good people go to bed earlier.
The not so subtle suggestion you think a large portion of your patrons are no good criminals or ignorant boobs that need to be lectured at over and over again does not make them want to cooperate or cause them to embrace your way of thinking?
Wow I am totally shocked! Maybe if they were a little less in your face about it, did not threaten you jail they'd get more buy in. That and they need to stop pushing the obviously false equivalence with physical theft. Only the most radical intellectual property proponents consider that remotely equivalent. They'd find a lot more allies among the general public if they stopped clutching the pearls quite so hard. Many people myself included agree we need some copyright and intellectual property protections. Where we don't and won't agree is that it has to be FOREVER or that we need armed FBI shock troops kicking in doors and shooting peoples dogs because they copied a DVD once. Which I realize does not happen in minor cases like that but you'd sure imagine that it does after watching some of those piracy warnings and propaganda shorts they put in front of movies now.
I don't know about others but the response those things engender in me is, "These guys are nasty bullies, I don't like bullies so I don't care what happens to them, best of luck to pirates." Which is a simplistic, non intellectual response that when I sit down and think about the issues careful I realize isn't really right, but they are making an emotional appeal and so they trigger an emotional reaction; just not the one they want.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
If you want me to go to the movie theatre then do two things. Improve the whole theatre experience and make better movies.
I got tired of people talking and using their cell phones during movies. Granted that this really isn't the movie industry's fault as it's people being inconsiderate. We don't need a technological solution such as something to kill the cell signal. Just have it so that the movie studio pays for someone to be in the audience looking out for disruptive people. The usher would then go and have a quiet word with them reminding them to be nice. It works for all cases (people talking, texting, playing a game on the phone, etc) and if someone refuses they can be removed by calling security. (Of course the theatre company would have to have the balls to implement this.). Another thing I hate is the pile of ads and previews that are shown when the movie is supposed to start. I paid to see the movie, not 15 or 20 minutes of ads. (This goes for buying movies and TV shows too, especially the FBI warning on pirating. I've bought the show so don't force me to sit through a message on the evils of pirating every time I put the disc in the player.)
The other reason I don't go to the movies is that there aren't really any movies worth going out to see, or even to download. Hollywoods idea of a great movie is one that has more explosions. I want a great story that makes me think. How about something original?
The thing about Hollywood movies is, more and more I can't even be bothered to watch most of them when they are free, never mind the trouble of going to the theater or wasting bandwidth downloading them...
The theaters have done what they can with things like having theaters that have assigned seats and comfortable roomy chairs. But it doesn't matter how great the room is, if the movie stinks why would I go?
I don't know what it would take for movie studios to start producing interesting and original work again. Maybe they should ask Netflix how it's done...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Specifically, they don't need to wait through that unskippable crap. Only legal customers are actually penalized.
45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
99% of movies has the same schema portrayed in various backdrops & settings, you have a protagonist battling an antagonist over either a princess or a treasure...
And so it is with every single story retold since the spoken word. How sad to be you... you couldn't even entertain yourself with a good book with that attitude. Or maybe your problem is less the schema and more the Action:Plot:Character ratio, which for the last 2 to 3 decades has been leaning a bit too heavy on the action side and rather light on plot and character. Then there's the fact that everything coming out Hollywood now has to be Dark and Gritty(tm)...which doesn't surprise me so much considering where the bulk of today's blockbuster directors are coming from age wise (the grunge era leading into emo).
If you go to the theater to see a movie it is because you REALLY want to see it.
No, it's for one of two reasons. It's a movie I want to see ON A BIG SCREEN and/or I'm going to the movie theater because I'm on a date. There are no other reasons. You go to a theater because the can provide an experience I cannot get at home. Theaters provide that - a huge screen and a great sound system at minimum. Often they have other amenities as well. If my only goal was merely to watch the movie then there would never be a reason to go to the theater.
Screaming kids, people getting up and squeezing out through the row of seats, and then back again later, and cell phones, and people talking, and telling their life story, along with narrating the film, people kicking the back of your seat, throwing popcorn . . .
You need to find yourself a better theater mate. None of that describes the experience I've had in any movie theater in recent memory. Once in a while someone gets up - not a big deal. I've never had anyone kick the back of my seat. I can't remember the last time someone talked loud enough for me to care during the movie. Certainly no screaming kids and the few times I've seen little kids get fussy the parents hustled them out quickly enough. I've never seen anyone throwing popcorn. Most people are pretty respectful and are just there to have a good time. You have a vision of theaters that is disconnected from the reality of them.
On the other hand, Piracy warnings seem to have been correlated with a notable increase in interest in Downloadable Cars.
I think the only proper response to those "You wouldn't download a car..." ads is "Of course not. 3D printers aren't good enough yet."
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
These stupid warnings ended up pissing me off so much I simply stopped buying disks.
For a while I switched to a well know ads-free streaming platform, until they banned VPN.
Since I simply browse the web, read books or play games.
They should not underestimate how much customers despise being interrupted with stupid insulting warnings (or worse : anti-piracy videos)
What genius didn't realise the pirates will not be the ones seeing these annoying messages ?
Irrelevant news and morons using moderation to mod down what they disagree on. 2018 resolution: so long.
Most of what Hollywood produces is not what I want. Let's talk about mp3's.
I can easily buy DRM free mp3's, say on Amazon, for a reasonable price. I can put them on all my devices. And on all future devices I will ever own. I feel like I actually purchased something. I have no reason to pirate music. The inexpensively purchased mp3's are high quality with good audio engineering and uniform volume. Despite the reasonable price and ease of purchase, people still pirate music. Those people probably would never buy it under any circumstance. I just pointed out that purchase is quick, inexpensive, and DRM free.
Too bad Hollywood doesn't figure this out for movies.
Too bad eBook authors don't figure this out for eBooks.
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
If someone threatens to take your Internet away, that is a big incentive NOT to go to the movies. Why would you finance the bullies?
Meanwhile, if you forget that they are spying on you and censoring the Internet, then you might go to have the "movies" experience.
And I note that a lot of people here are talking about the warnings in the beginning of the movies, but that's not what the article is talking about:
France was one of the pioneers in this area with its three-strikes anti-piracy law, and similar policies have been implemented in countries such as Ireland, South Korea, New Zealand and the United States, among others.
We hate you. Please buy our stuff.
I guess if I was in marketing, that approach might make sense to me?
Moderating "-1, Disagree" is simple censorship. Have the guts to post your opinion.
It's true, and it's part and parcel to what I've been saying for years on the subject... I'm totally against piracy, especially when we're talking about entertainment content - I hate the entitlement mentality and the hoops people jump through to justify their violation of the rights of others.
I'm not unilaterally against piracy. For a start, the copyright industry cartel has bribed their way into progressivly longer and longer terms. I don't see how that's remotely ethical and I think it's a find choice to pirate something sufficiently old. I cannot abide by the theft from the public domain.
Secondly, I've actually pirated a show I owned on DVD because Sony thought it would be a grand idea to load so much extra DRM on that my DVD player wouldn't play it without visible interruptions. I can't see how I was ethically in the wrong there.
And then there's DRM. I think that's ethically completely bogus, and is simply an attempt to deny users their legal rights and steal from the public domain when the copyright expires. Two wrongs don't make a right, but I'm not sure it's a wrong. Copyright is an incredibly powerful and restrictive set of laws which are supposed to come with a quid pro quo: someone gets limited exclusive rights for a limited time which gives them an incentive to produce and so the public domain is ultimately enriched. They are essentially stealing the right we're supposed to have and from the public domain (as in theft: once they get it, we no longer have it), so I don't think they have a good claim to have those rights they're supposed to get.
I'd say if anyone's got entitlement, it's the industry.
And then there's the issue of abandoned things: how can having a work be inaccessible to anyone for 90 years benefit anyone? How is copyright justified in that case?
I'm not really much of a pirate at all (of course I've pirated things in the past), and I've spent a substantial amount on completely legetimate media, but with every new restriction, the case against piracy gets weaker.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
Well, I know the industry might disagree with me, but I don't consider having a copy of something you legally own to be "pirating." I've cracked legally purchased games in the past to get around stupid copy-prevention schemes (like reading codes from a book or code wheel). How can they say you're a pirate when you've paid for it? And I'm not disagreeing that companies are bad guys, here; I'm suggesting that copyright infringement is not justified for your entertainment needs simply because they don't offer it in a format that suits you - you still don't get to decide what they "must" do. You simply get to decide NOT to buy it.
Stupid sexy Flanders.