Film Piracy (opinions and box office effect)

[GirafficPark]

Just now, EmpireCity said:

I'm sure we could go on 20 more pages with these silly and flawed reasons why there is a percentage of the population that feels they are entitled to pirate the work of other people, but it all boils down to a simple undeniable fact you will have to live with .  

 

Doing any of this makes you a lazy cheap douchebag.  Try and do better with your life.  I have also found that people who do this and fight 20 pages trying to justify it are usually not very successful in life and there is usually a correlation.  

You keep thinking your above us lot then, its no odds to me. Your failure to understand the issue doesn't affect me one bit.

 

Without piracy there would be no iTunes, no Netflix. You would still be forced to buy hard copies of everything more than once for each device and wait up to year for release like the good old days.

 

Its also sad that people still think its theft rather than license violation, the industry has done a great job of fooling the gullible with that one.

 

No one claiming its all legal, but not all piracy is wrong, legal and wrong or right dont always correlate.

[The Panda]

4 hours ago, terrestrial said:

Didn't read through all this, as I might get way too angry...

 

Are people aware about the big earners of a studio are being needed to co-finance in a way the small ones, middle ones, flops,... and paying majorly for the running costs of a studio in general - let them have the minimum needed for a studio ... for financing future projects, and - with a lot of luck - even in-house = cheaper than per bank loan?
Every argument about 'it's mostly hitting the big earners, they wont loose sleep over it...' is IMHO very short sighted at best. The big earners are often enough 'the only hope' for the continuing existence of a studio.

 

Plus:

it's logical that it's hitting those the most, as in generated the most interest in GA. Let's say an usually more expensive $100m dom BO gets pirated $50m worth, and a $20m dom BO gets pirated $10m = both get pirated 50%, but only one of those will probably appear on the the top-pirated list = as such to me 'pirated the most' chart is more or less worthless in viewing the damage per film - and studio and/or distributor.

 

Again: in my POV there is no excuse to be a thief, even if the legal version needs 10 years till it gets available, so what?

 

Why are the people today not able or willing to wait or simply to do without watching it (see not wanting to support / pay for a film based on e.g. quality, involved people, ...) and go to be criminals instead? 

 

 

 

I wasn't arguing "oh it's fine, and not a problem for studios at all."  I'm saying I think the box office effect is fairly minimal.  And if any market is hurting from it, it's home video markets (but also, I don't think piracy is what killed DVD/Blu-Ray sales).

 

The Movie Theater likely isn't going away any time soon.  It's something to do to get out of the house, people like going every once and a while to see something with the family or friends.

 

Stagnation in ticket sales likely comes from cheaper home alternatives as a whole.  Before Netflix and streaming became prevalent.  It was, in general, more expensive/equally as expensive to buy a movie as it was to just go to the theaters.  Not to mention, if you wanted to rent something, you still had to get in your car and drive over to the nearest blockbuster.  There were also movies playing on TV, but those options too were fairly limited.

 

The demographic mainly causing the stagnation in ticket sales isn't people who pirate.  It's people who just wanted to watch a new movie, and don't want to bother to get out of the house to either go to the theaters or buy/rent a DVD.  Netflix is convenient, and it's something that doesn't kill moviegoing, but probably makes it less frequent.

 

I just haven't seen a compelling argument to show how piracy has been the cause for stagnating ticket sales, at least domestically.  Piracy isn't something that's all that new, maybe it's a little more prevalent, but that could also be because of expanding overseas movie markets.  As American movies become more popular in countries like China, I could see piracy of them becoming more popular too.

 

Black markets exist for a lot of goods, and I can't recall a case where one was responsible for the death of one.  Especially when I'd reckon the majority of your core theater going audience doesn't pirate anyways.

 

Now if you want to talk about how piracy is affecting the home video market, find data on streaming sales, look at DVD/blu-ray sales (which are both becoming outdated now), and take into account things like Netflix and maybe you'll see a dent.  Maybe not. (I'd think that streaming rentals and Netflix are the major reason for home video sales dropping, but I can see piracy having an effect as well)

 

 

Now, I'm not trying to argue that piracy is morally right or wrong.  My preference is not to pirate, and to go to the theaters.  I'm just saying that I believe piracy is overall irrelevant in the long run for a movie studio being profitable.    It's an excuse and shows that movie studios don't actually understand why ticket sales have stagnated, which means you won't see a rebound until they actually do.  (I also don't think theaters are in risk of dying off, right now)

Edited January 1, 2017 by La La Panda

[Bishop54]

6 minutes ago, EmpireCity said:

I'm sure we could go on 20 more pages with these silly and flawed reasons why there is a percentage of the population that feels they are entitled to pirate the work of other people, but it all boils down to a simple undeniable fact you will have to live with .  

 

Doing any of this makes you a lazy cheap douchebag.  Try and do better with your life.  I have also found that people who do this and fight 20 pages trying to justify it are usually not very successful in life and there is usually a correlation.  

Nice of you to be able to talk civilly about it. 

[cannastop]

1 minute ago, GirafficPark said:

You keep thinking your above us lot then, its no odds to me. Your failure to understand the issue doesn't affect me one bit.

 

Without piracy there would be no iTunes, no Netflix. You would still be forced to buy hard copies of everything more than once for each device and wait up to year for release like the good old days.

 

Its also sad that people still think its theft rather than license violation, the industry has done a great job of fooling the gullible with that one.

 

No one claiming its all legal, but not all piracy is wrong, legal and wrong or right dont always correlate.

We understand that you think you're entitled to all movies whenever you want for no extra charge. We just disagree with you.

 

Oh and these licences are what allows intellectual property to be profitable at all.

[GirafficPark]

5 minutes ago, Dexter of Suburbia said:

But the theater makes more than a enough money to keep in bussiness. If I would to steal a blu Ray from Wal-Mart how is it Amy different than downloading a movie illegally. 

Would you be okay to someone stole from the industry that you worked at.  Too many people have this entitlement attitude about everything should be free that I have a RIGHT to this. 

 A Blu-ray is a physical object, you are buying the object and the content. Its completely different than downloading an object that you never intended to buy anyway, which had no inherent value.

[Lordmandeep]

Reality is people who pirate and download are people watching movies and tv shows.

 

 

I doubt they go some great ethical dilemma thinking about it.

[cannastop]

Just now, GirafficPark said:

 A Blu-ray is a physical object, you are buying the object and the content. Its completely different than downloading an object that you never intended to buy anyway, which had no inherent value.

"Not going to buy it anyways". Everyone, even you, knows that's horseshit.

[GirafficPark]

1 minute ago, cannastop said:

We understand that you think you're entitled to all movies whenever you want for no extra charge. We just disagree with you.

 

Oh and these licences are what allows intellectual property to be profitable at all.

And thats fine, and i accept that you think the current licensing system is justified and viable, I just disagree with you.

[EmpireCity]

Just now, Bishop54 said:

Nice of you to be able to talk civilly about it. 

 

People who ignore the basic civility of the issue because they feel entitled to free content don't deserve the respect of being talked to civilly.  

[Bishop54]

2 minutes ago, EmpireCity said:

 

People who ignore the basic civility of the issue because they feel entitled to free content don't deserve the respect of being talked to civilly.  

Sure they do, everyone here deserves the respect. 

[GirafficPark]

1 minute ago, cannastop said:

"Not going to buy it anyways". Everyone, even you, knows that's horseshit.

Its an established fact actually. Its never been proven or even loosely shown that sales are lost as a result of piracy. Never once, and in fact the opposite is true more often than not.

 

If you can prove that the 40M+ downloads of the Revenant resulted in ~400M less theatrical gross the please go ahead, because we all know thats horseshit.

[EmpireCity]

1 minute ago, Bishop54 said:

Sure they do, everyone here deserves the respect. 

 

Not on this topic and not in this thread.  

[GirafficPark]

3 minutes ago, EmpireCity said:

 

People who ignore the basic civility of the issue because they feel entitled to free content don't deserve the respect of being talked to civilly.  

I wouldnt be shocked if i spent more on content than you, so maybe its you being lazy and cheap?

[cannastop]

2 minutes ago, GirafficPark said:

Its an established fact actually. Its never been proven or even loosely shown that sales are lost as a result of piracy. Never once, and in fact the opposite is true more often than not.

 

If you can prove that the 40M+ downloads of the Revenant resulted in ~400M less theatrical gross the please go ahead, because we all know thats horseshit.

You can't prove that it didn't negatively affect sales.

[GirafficPark]

1 minute ago, cannastop said:

You can't prove that it didn't negatively affect sales.

And you cant prove it did.

[Lordmandeep]

I think for the Revenant it for sure effect after market revenue.

 

Back in the days people would have rented the film or would have bought the DVD to check it out.

 

 

I think almost everyone I know watched the film pirated. 

[EmpireCity]

2 minutes ago, GirafficPark said:

I wouldnt be shocked if i spent more on content than you, so maybe its you being lazy and cheap?

 

Even if that was true (which it very likely isn't), the only metric worth measuring on this is how much content you watched illegally that you didn't pay for.  Mine is zero and your's is more than zero, so you easily lose that one.  

[AniNate]

We basically have two sides here that aren't going to budge at all and continuing to try arguing your points is just going to make all of you look like assholes, regardless of whether you're on the right or wrong side of the law.

[terrestrial]

7 minutes ago, La La Panda said:

- snip -

I am pretty sure I did not have read your post or only catch a phrase whilst skimming. The BO argument is only one argument, the 'it wont hutr them, they already earned so much is, what I am uestiong people about if they had even thought the whole business through.

No matter the parts,... I really doubt some of the reasonings here (and from a certain member elsewhere - definitive not you, you = you think)

I am always speaking about all income, including ... now it comes:

when people do download before their provider gives it to them... will they still add to the count of that film later on, so the market worth at least is not damaged also?

= I mean BO / HV / TV /..... = all forms of income but also ~ a kind of finacial worth for e.g. TV stations.... reputation of a studio / distributes.... can get damaged - and I am speaking long term, I am observing the ww film busibness now since a really long time, I think some details can have an measurable effect even a decade later.

[EmpireCity]

1 minute ago, tribefan695 said:

We basically have two sides here that aren't going to budge at all and continuing to try arguing your points is just going to make all of you look like assholes, regardless of whether you're on the right or wrong side of the law.

 

I'll gladly look like an asshole to shame thieving ass pirates.