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Piracy 'Warnings' Fail To Boost Box Office Revenues, Research Says (torrentfreak.com)

Posted by msmash on from the act-surprised dept.

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.

4 of 189 comments (clear)

  1. Meanwhile.... by H3lldr0p · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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?

  2. News Flash by bfpierce · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

    1. Re:News Flash by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      This is so massively critical I don't think Sports and Movies people realize it. I think a study showed once that chronic pirates actually spend more at the movies. Why? Because they are addicted to watching movies (now). Kill the addiction by making it too expensive and inconvenient and then that person may turn to video games, TV, other hobbies, internet trolling, music, etc. Why do you think drug dealers, and even many legitimate businesses give away the first few doses? Simple: humans are creatures of habit. We like the known and we like to repeat the known.

      I noticed when I dropped cable two things happened:
      1) I stopped watching sports as much - I would only watch the "big games" at a bar or friends house
      2) Lack of watching sports made me buy fewer tickets to the games

      Results:
      - #1 & #2 combined over a couple years resulted in me losing interest, skipping even big games and not buying tickets to any games

      - Now I haven't spent even $1 on sports in over a year and don't feel any urge to do so (I went from full cable package + season tickets to ZERO)

      - This would have been entirely avoided by the sports team if I didn't have to pay so much for cable sports

  3. Makes sense. by jellomizer · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.