What is Digg?110 Comments
- Wolf451man, on 10/12/2007, -5/+118They lost my money because:
1. Their movie offerings pretty much suck.
1a. I dont want to see the majority of them the first time.
1b. Of those I do see, the majority of those I dont want to see again.
2. $1 theaters rock for a family of 4.
3. My 7.1 surround is better than that of the local theater.
4. My HiDef 109" projection room is better than the local theater.
5. I can pause at home.
6. Hotdogs are not $6.
7. I don't have to take off my pistol at home.
8. I don't have to feel like I NEED a pistol at home.
9. My car has never been broken into in my driveway.
10. I can smack my kids and send them to bed if they are not quiet.
10a. Other people dont like it if you smack their screaming little brats in the theater.
10b. Other people dont like it if you turn around and tell them to STFU when they are hollaring to each other about the screaming kids.
11. I can't be thrown out of my own house for MAKING OUT during a MAKE OUT movie. - jfair, on 10/12/2007, -2/+48The MPAA paid for this "study". I think that speaks for itself.
- starbirix, on 10/12/2007, -2/+31The only response I see worth giving them: "Prove it."
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -2/+22Well I lose $20 everytime I go see a ***** movie.
- H_o_p_s, on 10/12/2007, -2/+21Losing $6.1 billion and failing to collect $6.1 billion are two separate things.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -2/+21yea, this is based off the notion that all the people that got an illegal copy of a movie would have paid for it otherwise, HELLO, out of all the movies out there, I would only pay to see maybe 5 to 10 percent of them, the only way I would even watch any of the others is to download em, or not watch them at all. If the ones I download happen to be better than I thought I will go buy the DVD. They are counting money they NEVER had, how in the world can they think they are loosing money?
- shredswithpiks, on 10/12/2007, -0/+12Exactly what I was thinking.
6.1 BILLION? Billion!?!?! No way, not a chance. There aren't enough american's who are computer literate enough to pirate movies off the internet. Out of those who are, there are still a VERY large percentage who spend time in the theaters at $8 a ticket.
If they came up $6.1 billion short, it's because the movies are getting crappier, or it's because americans are getting tired of paying $8 a damn ticket (making a trip to the movies a $20+ event if you take a date and get a drink).
You can't just say "look, here's what we didn't make compared to our largest income year ever, it must be because of piracy!!!"
>.< ANGER - Chewie67, on 10/12/2007, -0/+12I'm sure it doesn't help that they pay $20 million for big name actors to star in their movies.
I don't pay to see an actor. I pay to see a movie. Want to profit more? Stop paying dolts like Tom Cruise and Jim Carrey $20 million dollars. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+13this is their "study": (Projected Earnings) - (Actual Earnings) = (Total Amount Lost Due To Piracy)
because in their minds, the movies caaaant be sucky can they? i mean, theyre all original! high budget = high grossing right? and the moviegoing experience is so luxurious and second to none. - ColBond, on 10/12/2007, -1/+12Marking as inaccurate. The MPAA *wants* you to believe they're losing that much. There's no way it's that high.
- curtissthompson, on 10/12/2007, -2/+12Besides the fact that the study is with out a doubt biased toward the MPAA, it also makes very inaccurate assumptions I'm sure. For example assuming that if someone illegally pirates a movie, that clearly means, that they would be willing to pay for it, if there wasn't a way to get it free - not true. I pirate movies, that I really liked in theatres but don't want to fork out the extra cash to see it twice before it comes to DVD, or I use it to watch movies I would normally not cough out the money for in the first place. If you were to organize a true, unbiased study, I'm sure the effects of movie piracy is if anything breaks even or could even be a positive effect, as myself and others have suggested and studied in the past. I personally will download a movie, I'm unsure I would be interested in seeing for any number (poor trailers, little press on it, no word of mouth) and if I like how it starts or even if I watch it all the way through I will recommend it to my friends, and go to see it at the local theatre in either DLP or IMAX, a reason for me and my friends to get together and really enjoy a good movie in the best quality possible. My friends also concur with me and say that b/c of music piracy they are actually going to more movies, or at least more than they would have, and buying more too, and seeing movies they normally wouldn't have thought to. If you search around you will find many much more unbiased independent research companies who have found much more positive effects than negative to digital piracy in general. The fact of the matter is the RIAA/MPAA/IFPA all have ignored the fact that they don't know how to market to the current generation....people will no longer put up with outrageous prices on digital media, especially as the industry as grown so much as of late. They will do anything they can....even alienating their market, to make more money through lawsuits. This won't stop unless the customers hit the breaking point, and finally everyone is fed up with their malicious tactics for gaining even more profits through public intimidation and deception.
- urbanaut, on 10/12/2007, -0/+9UPDATE: Hollywood stupidy in failure to upgrade their business model since the Internet has been mainstream for >10 years found to be the cause of $6.1 Billion in lost sales!
- Cerebral, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7Yes add that to the list of "lost revenue"
17. Paying for this "study" - decksnfx, on 10/12/2007, -3/+10MPAA-commissioned study assumptions:
1. Every movie that comes out is as good/popular as LOTR.
2. The average Chinese watches movies at the same rate Americans do.
3. The price of each HDTV sold in the world is added as as expense on the MPAA ledger sheet.
Yup...that adds up to about $6,500,000,000. - Sandkat, on 10/12/2007, -3/+10Did they really lose that much if the people who downloaded movies never would have paid to see it in the first place?
- DrRo183, on 10/12/2007, -0/+614.? Overpaying ***** actors.
And seriously, going to the movies nowadays, here in NYC as everywhere else, has gotten way too expensive. I'd rather wait for a DVD and invite a whole bunch of people over to my place, watch it in comfort w/o screaming kids, and yell whenever we want. Plus, as Wolf451man pointed out, my surround sound and tv are good enough for me. - MattL920, on 10/12/2007, -3/+8You forgot
12. I can lift my feet up off the floor in my TV room without a crowbar. - Cerebral, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Hollywood has lost money because: (in addition to list at top)
1. Actors are way overpaid to make ***** movies.
2. Hollywood produces ***** movies.
3. Just because you wasted money to produce yet another director's cut extended edition of movie X does not mean I will buy it again.
4. Those ***** films I did not go to the theatre to see... I will not purchase the DVD of (most are not worth a straight up rental from Blockbuster).
5. Don't blame internet downloading because the majority of NEW movies are not worth wasting my bandwidth on.
Just remember that when you point your finger at someone you point 3 back at yourself. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6Films being produced costs ME an estimated 10.7 Bajillion Dollars! According to my studies, when people goto a movie theatre to see a movie, it means that they are no longer interested in sending their life savings to me as a donation for one of my many web sites. Further, the 'less than perfect' succses rate of my sites, can't possibly be because I make crappy sites.. no it is because the Film industry provides alternative entertainment.... Anyone wanna join me for a class action lawsuit and sue for damages against our sites?
HEY! if it works for them... it should work for us... - willcode4beer, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5It looks like they are really hurting.
http://gardenandhearth.com/Movie-News/Top-Grossing-Movies-2005.htm
10 movies made almost 2.5 BILLION in box office receipts. They'll make even more from DVD sales and rentals.
This kind of money makes me think there should be a racketeering investigation. - caldroun, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6How do they know what they have lost if they didn't have it?
(Hat tip to jgbiggs...didn't see your comment at first) - Overdose, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5I used to work in a indie movie store, I love movies. But when I see what is in the theatres, im just stunned by the lack of thought put into the story lines. If they worked harder on making one good movie and not putting out tons of movies that all suck. They might get more people to go to the theatres and then not say they are losing so much.
- alanspach, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4These numbers are always highly inflated because they assume that every thing that was pirated would have been brought at regular retail price when it would more likely actually not be be bought at all.
- bluehouse, on 10/12/2007, -3/+7They lost money because they make crappy movies and then expect all of us to line up like sheep to see them
- Burmask, on 10/12/2007, -3/+7Has the MPAA considered the quality of the movies a reason?
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4I remember hearing about how at first they put out numbers that were greater than their total revenue. Then some MPAA executives thought it was just ridiculous so they cut back on what the considered "lost sales".
They consider you making a copy of a DVD you OWN, as a lost sale somehow. These people are the scum of the earth, they deserve to have people setting up their own theatre rooms and leaving their scam behind.
The closer the theatre company to the MPAA, the worse off you are. Loews theatre charges $9.50 to see a movie, and then even more for food. If you go to a privately owned theatre by my house however, you get better sound quality, $6 admission fees, and popcorn costing half as much. Just shows you how much prices can get inflated by scam artists. - Brewdaddy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Counting money they never had... I think you've nailed it.
- acejones, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5I'd like to see a study of the amount of money we as americans have lost due to BS movies.
- Pottersquash, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Wonder how much this study costed. Perhaps they could give up trying to prove privacy hurts them and just save the cash. Yes, privacy hurts you, but maybe listen to the public which for the last 5 years has told you your movies have sucked. I heard on the news, Tom Cruise is worth 500 million dollars, now Im not ragging on Cruise but can anyone tell me the preformance he has done worthy of 500 million dollars? Some of his stuff is decent but halfway to a billion, when how for what?
Think about it, what movies this summer do you REALLY REALLY want to see? With me its Superman Returns and Xmen Last Stand and I pretty much willing to bet one will really really be crap. The other movie im kinda interested in SoaP but comon, a movie that people want tosee BECAUSE it will be bad, thats shameful that some studio is touting that. - Pottersquash, on 10/12/2007, -0/+414. Clothes are optional at home
15. No 20+ min commericals at home (I do not mind movie trailers, in fact I look forward to them, but I do not need a Coke Commerical, I am in the theater, I am sitting down, I saw the counter when I arrived, I elected not to get a beverage, Some jackass saying "True" will not make me reconsider and trek back to the counter.) - bouche, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3I've got 4 free passes for the theatre which I'll be using for The Da Vinci Code. Does that count as a loss?
Anyway, the free movie will cost me about 20 bucks after me and my girl buy popcorn and a drink to deal with the salt. - edenlover, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4When Hollywood launches a movie, RIAA recommends you to do this in the following order to avoid piracy:
- When a new movie is launched, go to the theater about 15-30 times with your friends, relatives, neighbors, work colleagues, people passing on street...
- Buy every merchandise that is related to the movie
- Pay-per-view on your TV like 50 times
- When it's launched in DVD, go rent it (because it's better than your crappy TV signal!)
- Then, finally, after 1 year, buy the 'Super super Special Collectors Edition Pack with 800 DVDs including the studio maiden's cousin interview) - HumanIMDB, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3I read somewhere that if it is a "first run" theater showing the movie, they make less than $0.50 per ticket sold; the rest of the $15 dollars goes to the movie studio. That is why they have to charge so much at the concession stand; how else are they going to pay the wages of people that work there.
However, I also read that the reason the theaters are now showing ads before the movies is to keep the ticket prices "down". Have you noticed that the ticket prices have slowed their climb? Probably not. Instead the theaters are making money off their captive audience.
AND, because they are showing ads before the movies, they are losing some of their audience, so they have to charge more for the tickets, more at the concessions, and show more ads before the movie to make up for the lost audience...can anyone else see a cycle here? - scolbified, on 10/12/2007, -3/+6$6.1 billion is just a drop in the bucket compared to the money they could be making if they released movies that were actually worth paying for.
- kupodan, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3dugg for the idioticness of it all. Last year was the absolute worst year for movies. The couple decent movies didn't get very much publicity and the others all stunk. They need to pull their head out of their rears and take responsibility for their own problems. Not blame those of us who DL movies. I don't know about anyone else, but if the movie is worth it, I go and but the DVD to get a higher quality version than what I have downloaded.
- xLiKx, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4"10b. Other people dont like it if you turn around and tell them to STFU when they are hollaring to each other about the screaming kids."
AMEN! - scooterbaga, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3I think the point most are making is there's simply no way for them to know it's 6.1 Billion. They%u2019re predicting something that didn%u2019t happen. Which fundamentally makes no sense.
A pirated movie is cheaper than the original whether it%u2019s free or just less money. The reason people get them is because they simply don%u2019t feel the movie is worth the $ it would cost them to own it. Which means given no other alternative they probably just wouldn%u2019t see the damn movie period.
Theatre attendance has been declining for decades. Probably because of the comfort level and the fact that we can't drink alcohol at a theatre. ...well you're not supposed to. - willcode4beer, on 10/12/2007, -1/+36.1 billion / 350 million americans = $17.43
Hmmm.... if every single american from babies to the elderly were to miss ONE movie and choose a pirated one instead....
Yea, this is crap. Very few people actually download movies (the process sucks, the computer sucks for viewing etc...), Its pretty unlikely that those people would actually buy everything they download. And, how many people *really* say, that they are going to choose downloading vs. going to the theater? Not very many. - cebbs, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Maybe a lot of people use resouces like netflix now. Thats what I use, and think that it is a great deal. So what if I have to wait a couple months for the movie to come out on dvd. (If you have dvd shrink, you could even back up your rental for the time you have it in your home)
If I had an xbox 360 where games cost $60 a pop, I would be using gamefly too. For the price of one new 360 game, you can get more than three months of gamefly. - khollen, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2All discussions of cinematic quality and popcorn prices aside, if they were really serious about getting their hands on my money, they'd need to take a few more steps:
• Close Amazon's "Used" section.
• Close eBay.
• Get every Game Stop, CD Warehouse, etc. to get rid of their Used DVD sections.
• Get every Blockbuster, Netflix, etc. to stop selling previously viewed movies.
• Ban me from the local libraries.
• Stop selling DVD burners.
• Go through the purchase records and seize all digital video cameras with analog pass-through and VCRs that were made in the days before SpectraVision copy-protect chips.
• For that matter, ban yard sales, thrift stores, and pawn shops.
Honestly, if they wanted me to take them seriously about this they should have banned cassette recorders and VCRs in the 80s when they had the chance. If I hadn't been given carte blanche growing up to build a media collection that was *much* more massive than what I could possibly afford to buy in the stores -- free and clear, with no discussion of "ethics" or accusations of criminal behavior -- through the liberal use of a library card, a cable subscription, and blank audio and video cassettes, then I might -- *might* -- feel the tiniest twinge of guilt whatsoever these days when I go shopping for CD-R and DVD-R spindles on my way back from the local library.
[Where my IronyMeter self-destructs are when I get lectured from my more high-minded friends -- who stand in front of eight-foot-tall bookshelves stacked to the brim with nothing but used books they bought second-hand somewhere -- and tell me that the corporations deserve full retail price for every piece of media I listen to or watch.]
I'm just hoping that when my number comes up, and I get sued for some random 80s B-side I fell asleep downloading and didn't clear out of my "Shared" folder in time, the judge that hears the case can understand the difference between larceny (stealing a car means the dealer loses the sale, because the product on the lot simply isn't there any more) and sharing (if it was a movie I genuinely wanted to own, I really would buy it -- but I'd buy it USED -- so the MPAA wouldn't be getting my money regardless). - Brewdaddy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Seriously, how on earth can they justify these numbers? The only way I can imagine calculating these figures is taking profits before piracy by downloading or DVD copying was common (what, about 1998 or so?) and subtracting today's profits in sales. There's no consideration in there that profits may have changed because of what Hollywood is doing, though that's not only possible but likely. Screw them.
- Mesach, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I don't even think that most movies out there are worth my time and bandwidth to download for free, that should mean something to them.
- bonzooznob, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2As always, these studies miss one simple point.
x = number of pirated/copied/borrowed movies
(x * DVD_price) != (Total_Lost_Sales)
Reads: The number of pirated/copied/borrowed movies, times the retail price of the DVDs, does NOT EQUAL the total ammount of lost sales dollars.
If a person copies a movie, it does not mean, that they *would* buy it, if they couldn't copy it.
E.g. if some guy copies 250 movies, at ~$20 ea. that's $5,000. Does this mean that he has $5,000 lying around that he *would* spend on movies, if he didn't have a DVD burner? NO. - buso, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2they are watching all torrent sites like a hawk. got 2 'copyright infringement' notices from my ISP which they received from SONY and NBC for downloading a movie and an episode of "The Office". I didn't even think it was illegal to download a TV show. :(
- cduquette, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Anyone find this quote funny?
"The study showed piracy in Asia is less a problem than in North America and Europe." - templest, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Sometimes I really do wonder what humanity is coming to when people are allowed to get away with so much. I feel like a disappointed parent thinking, "Where did we go wrong?". If God really did exist, at one point we were his hopes and dreams, then we pissed him off so he tried to force us to change, then he realized he couldn't do it, so he helped us try to understand, and now he's given up all hope. Left us dead in the water. He gave it his best shot, and now he's fed up. Packed up his bags, moved out. "So long cruel world". And it's not his fault. You couldn't blame him for doing so. The only thing we have to blame is ourselves.
The MPAA/RIAA... what bothers me is that these "companies" are a group of people with a macabre goal of controlling all things entertainment. If these bastards could patent "fun" they'd do it, and prosecute anyone to the fullest extent of the law, with a maximum penalty of death, that has said aforementioned "product" without paying their dues.
[/rant] - mariusaz, on 10/12/2007, -3/+5No, sh**ty movies cost them money. Hollywood has lost their perspective.
- saska, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Didn't they just lower the price of movies in China to like $1.00 to "fight the pirates on their own turf" or some such nonsense?
$20.00 for a DVD in the US vs. $1.00 for a DVD in China just *might* account for the new disparity. - slicedoranges, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3They all still get way more money than they need, so who even cares?
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