The problem with film piracy isn't box office records- blockbusters will always generate great revenue, and this year was one full of blockbusters.
The problem is that independent filmmakers are hit harder by piracy than the blockbusters. And piracy causes Hollywood studios to be less likely to back indie films, causing them to instead favor low hanging fruit, projects with mass appeal that will generate the most revenue regardless of piracy, instead of independent projects that may be more bold and creative, but would have more to lose from piracy. See here:
That's not always the case. For example, the independent movie "The Man From Earth", gained a lot of attention that it otherwise wouldn't have, due to piracy, leading to the producer thanking the pirates:
90% of movie theaters already avoid independent films. If you're independent, why not distribute online? I bet a majority of "pirates" will pay instead of downloading a dubious torrent. You're not going to make money off hollywood distributors anyway.
Regarding the article, out of those 60.000, how many would have gone to the movies to watch it? I watch a lot of indie films just because it's easy, while I wouldn't go out to a small crumpled theater downtown to see it, even if it was free. That's the MPAA math and it doesn't add up.
> I bet a majority of "pirates" will pay instead of downloading a dubious torrent.
Yes, that would be true if movie torrents were "dubious", but the vast majority aren't. You don't have to be a genius to find a genuine copy of a movie, indie or blockbuster, on torrents. It's actually quite straightforward.
Though no one wants to talk about it, this is the real reason why Steam has succeeded in such a big way where services for other types of content haven't, and is one of the reasons why I don't think movie and music piracy can be reduced to the same degree Steam has cut into PC video game piracy.
Pirating and installing a video game can actually be quite difficult. You have to use keygens, cracks, and patches to remove the copy protection - executables can be difficult to use and may be deleted on accident by antivirus software for containing malware (because cracks and patches are used to do things seen in malware - modifying other executables, for example). Many people may not want to deal with that.
More importantly, you also have to manually torrent and install updates - a true pain in the ass when games these days are often released with many bugs intact, since updates can easily be issued over the internet. And equally important is that you often miss out on multiplayer features that require a genuine key.
You have to know what to look for. Torrent tracker sites are full of advertising that look like download buttons. My girlfriend still gets lost after a decade of web browsing.
You also have to choose the correct quality, or decide between filesize/quality. Check that audio is good. If you're watching with non-native english speakers, go hunting for a subtitle track that syncs with your chosen file... not straightforward at all.
For most people it's easier to download a .exe and click next/ok blindly than do all those steps. I believe the Steam model would fare quite well with the movie/music industry, though netflix or amazon instant might win.
> You have to know what to look for. Torrent tracker sites are full of advertising that look like download buttons. My girlfriend still gets lost after a decade of web browsing.
This is a completely separate issue that can be easily solved with Adblock. Everyone I know uses it, even those who don't know much about tech.
I just searched for the most pirated movie of 2012, Project X, on Google. I typed in "project x torrent". The first link took me to a Pirate Bay page for a DVD rip[0], while the second link was for a HD version. You would have to be a real idiot not to know how to download from a page that clearly says "GET THIS TORRENT" in red letters. I cannot think of anyone I know who cannot do this, and there are plenty of people I know who have very little computer experience.
In fact, I find Netflix's UI quite a bit more confusing.
> You also have to choose the correct quality, or decide between filesize/quality.
Oh yes, it is so difficult to understand the difference between DVD rip and 720p Bluray rip. Come on, you deal with this same problem if you go to the store to buy a movie on disc! People are not that stupid.
> Check that audio is good.
This is 100% FUD. I have no other response. If you are downloading a DVD or Bluray rip, there is no reason to worry about audio quality.
> If you're watching with non-native english speakers, go hunting for a subtitle track that syncs with your chosen file... not straightforward at all.
Have you used a DVD or Bluray disc or Netflix lately? Is it easy to enable subtitles? Are they even included in all discs/videos?
> For most people it's easier to download a .exe and click next/ok blindly than do all those steps. I believe the Steam model would fare quite well with the movie/music industry, though netflix or amazon instant might win.
It's not a matter of whether it's easier, it's a matter of how much easier it is. It's a tradeoff between price and convenience. My point is that the tradeoff tilts in favor of the paid option for PC video gaming, but tilts in favor of piracy for movies and TV shows (for a la carte purchases).
I'll try to gloss over your disrespect and get straight to the subject. No, not everyone uses Adblock, in fact only 9-10% of users have it. The highest average is 17% for tech sites [1]. Most people have no fucking clue what that is.
I have no idea what flavor of Google you use, but piratebay is not even among the top 15 results for Project X: http://cl.ly/image/0R1K2z2V0O3z. Your search history is probably reflecting on your results.
Third, no, a lot a people have absolutely no clue about the difference between 720p/1080p. It's not about being stupid, they just don't care enough.
Fourth, there are plenty torrents around with crappy audio, either low volume, distorted or mono, specially for new releases. Your own experiences don't apply to everyone.
Finally, yes, I do use Netflix daily and subtitles are a menu click away, and available for every video. Same goes for DVD/BR, which I haven't watched in years. Clearly you don't watch subtitled movies, so what are you arguing for?
> No, not everyone uses Adblock, in fact only 9-10% of users have it. The highest average is 17% for tech sites [1]. Most people have no fucking clue what that is.
This doesn't change the fact that the problem can be easily solved. Your girlfriend getting lost after 10 years of browsing is something that can be solved in 10 seconds. When I said that everyone I know uses it, my point wasn't that everyone in the world uses it, it was that it's not so difficult to use Adblock that people won't use it once they're told about it.
> I have no idea what flavor of Google you use, but piratebay is not even among the top 15 results for Project X: http://cl.ly/image/0R1K2z2V0O3z. Your search history is probably reflecting on your results.
I don't know why you're seeing those results, but not only did I search in an incognito window to avoid my search history biasing my results, personally I use private torrents almost exclusively, so my Google torrent search history is quite limited.
I have never seen that site before, nor do I recommend it to anyone that I know. There are bad sites out on the internet - who would have guessed?
> Third, no, a lot a people have absolutely no clue about the difference between 720p/1080p. It's not about being stupid, they just don't care enough.
Well, that's good, because on Netflix, most content is not even available in 1080p, and even when it is, it's not accessible on many devices. Hell, I've seen tons of stuff that isn't even in HD.
And most people can't tell the difference in quality between 720p and 1080p anyway, so what difference does it make which one they download?
> Fourth, there are plenty torrents around with crappy audio, either low volume, distorted or mono, specially for new releases. Your own experiences don't apply to everyone.
Please point me to some examples. And I'm not talking about crappy cams. I would never suggest watching a cam over going to a theater, if the experience is important for you.
The only reason for audio issues with a DVD or Bluray rip would be improper encoding, and such a release would just be ignored.
> Finally, yes, I do use Netflix daily and subtitles are a menu click away, and available for every video.
No, they are not. That is blatantly incorrect. I just logged into Netflix and opened a random TV show. There were only subtitles available in English. They only had a 4:3 480p video option. Please explain how this is an optimal experience again?
And Netflix is not really a valid comparison in any case, since the available content is horribly limited.
Maybe they only make available content which does have subtitles in the local language, and only show subtitle options relevant to the region. Could you imagine that? Or maybe I'm just delusional and all those netflix shows in portuguese only exist in my head.
I agree that Steam succeeds because it's easier than piracy, but I disagree about some of the details in that statement. I think you're overplaying the threats involved today. I pirated stuff when I was a kid, and it was relatively easy for someone who understood that scene to look for warning posts first. Today it's even easier given robust user rating and the camaraderie of pirate culture. It's very much an "us vs them" mentality, and it's hardly a solved problem.
It seems that pirates are increasingly looking to provide a better service, whereas publishers seem intent on bad practices that either directly hurt, or can be used to hurt, legitimate users. In fact, many people pirate today because they don't want DRM or required connectivity. (The next SimCity will suffer from this, but I expect pirates to not have to worry about it after a few weeks.) In the case of Assassin's Creed II pirates couple play fine, but legitimate players couldn't due to DDOS attacks on servers required to let you play even single player. And in a hilarious example, an Ubisoft developer was even found to use a hack by a release group in an official patch: http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2008/07/ubisoft-drm-snafu-remi...
Given the relatively equal ease of piracy versus purchase, I would give the edge to the fact that developers are insanely integrated into the game buying community at every level. They've been blogging for years, they talk on Twitter, they visit 4chan and talk games, they even visit piracy sites themselves. Gamers like developers, and want them to succeed.
But yes, I do think Steam even has a chance because it's as easy and (mostly) as useful as piracy. Ease and use are a large part of why Napster succeeded, and why Kazaa was so popular, but it's also the reason iTunes succeeds, though people associate it mostly with music. Google Play... I don't know many who even use it.
Now, UltraVoilet is a wonderful digital attempt by film studios, on paper, but they cut their nose off to spite their face by making pack-ins that come with DVDs/Blu-Rays only guaranteed to last a year. And you can't buy from the studios, but instead a few other services that the common consumer has never heard of. Film companies really are still stuck in the past. Others have learned how to make their mediums work on the Internet, and these people have ignored the lessons.
/edit: Been looking into UV more. It's actually an even better idea than I first thought. It seems that it's the bigger stores (Google, Apple, Amazon) that don't want to go along with it. That's a shame for us as customers.
I have not pirated any video games for a long while, but installing a video game legally can be quite difficult. I recently bought the Final Fantasy 7 re-release, which forced me to create an account with square-enix, authenticate my copy online, install securerom, and log into my online account before I could boot it up.
On the other hand, obtaining that game through piracy, I have the choice of various releases, mod packs, and most games have been cracked already; the crack comes packaged when you get the game, or already applied.
The reason I buy games through Steam is because I don't want to pirate first of all, but besides that, it's because Steam keeps a library of my games, I have one login to access all of my games, I can download them again whenever I want to, they patch as needed, and I never have to think about it. When games are released for PC, they typically get released on Steam at the same time.
When I want to watch a movie, I have an Apple TV. When a movie is released, it's typically first released to theatres, then it's released on video, then sometime later it's released on iTunes. When I buy a movie on iTunes, I have to choose whether I want to watch it once or keep it forever, but I don't know if I'll like it until I've watched it. They don't give me any option to buy at a discounted rate if I've rented it before though. So my catalog is small. Many movies don't even get released on to iTunes. Through iTunes, I can only authorize a few devices, since I have an iPad, iPhone, AppleTV, and a few computers, those licences get eaten up quickly, so my wife and I can't both be authorized to the same iTunes account. This means that some of our devices are also not paired correctly, which leads to weird issues when we want to sync our devices with our libraries, because we need to keep track of which item is on which device, where it's been paired to, or else we risk having some files lost in the sync process. For a while, shows purchased initially on my AppleTV weren't available for download on my computer. Now they might be, but it's nearly impossible for me to trigger those downloads. However, shows that were downloaded to my computer could be accessed by my AppleTV to stream. Et cetera.
In the end, Steam is cool because I trust it. I trust that when I log into my steam account, I can download every game that I've ever purchased through steam. I stop having to worry about where my install files were stored, or where I put that disc. I have repurchased games in Steam just for that reason.
On the other hand, what do you use to watch movies and television shows a la carte? My own choice is iTunes. I don't trust iTunes to let me redownload all of my movies. There's no easy way to go into iTunes and see your purchases that haven't been downloaded. I'm afraid that if I arrange my syncing incorrectly I might lose my purchased content and be unable to download it again. I can't easily manage my own iTunes library because it makes it intentionally difficult to transfer a purchased item from one device to another. I would feel safer pirating because then at least I can keep a backup of all of my items stored in an understandable fashion, and never be afraid that they won't be readable because of some DRM issue.
If someone were to make a Steam for TV program, that would be incredible. I imagine a steam-like interface with Television shows in a list on the left side, an arrow that lets you expand and see seasons and episodes. Downloaded shows are Yellow, undownloaded shows are grey, unpurchased shows and seasons are dark grey. A dropdown on the top lets you group by genre. Horror, comedy, drama, whatever. Selecting a show or movie gives a synopsis in the right pane, and a list of "you may also like". The director and cast are hyperlinks, clicking them shows other shows that they have starred in or directed, as well as imdb-like info.
And you could even do other things, like invite friends to watch a show with you over the internet. You would have to watch the show at the same time as them, so you couldn't just act as a broadcaster, but you could have a chat window and yak about the movie with them as you watch it. If it was a TV show or something, maybe they would enjoy it, and maybe they don't want to wait for you to want to watch it, so they can buy it themselves. If they don't, oh well, it's no different than if they were sitting in your living room.
If someone were to make something like that, I would spend a hell of a lot more money on television than I currently do. Instead, all I have is shitty iTunes.
> I have not pirated any video games for a long while, but installing a video game legally can be quite difficult. I recently bought the Final Fantasy 7 re-release, which forced me to create an account with square-enix, authenticate my copy online, install securerom, and log into my online account before I could boot it up.
Yes, it's also difficult to manually install legally purchased games. Another reason Steam has done so well.
> If someone were to make a Steam for TV program, that would be incredible.
It's not the interface that's hard, it's getting the content deals. Steve Jobs talked about it during an interview at a conference around a year before he died. They've got the engineering talent to make it happen. What they don't have is deals with the content providers. He called it a "go-to-market problem".
The reason Apple was able to force the record labels onto iTunes is because they were getting decimated by music piracy. Particularly after portable media players (PMP) became popular, it was so easy to pirate tons of music and put it on your PMP. Album sales were plummeting and Apple promised to be their savior. The labels didn't realize at that time the kind of control they were ceding to Apple. A decade later, the labels are making a lot less money than they did back in the late 90s.
The movie and TV industry isn't nearly as desperate. Not only do people continue to go to the theaters for the bigscreen experience, it's still relatively difficult for the average person to watch pirated content on their TV, because only an HTPC really gives you full access, and those have poor UIs. Also, live content has a special value (mainly news and sports, but also some other shows nowadays, because of real-time or post-show discussion online). Another factor is that movies and TV shows are much larger files than MP3s, and American broadband speeds have largely stagnated in recent years. It takes a lot longer to pirate an HD movie in 2012 than it did to pirate an MP3 in 2001.
Finally, the movie/TV industry has seen what easy digital distribution done to the music industry. It's destroyed profits for the bigwigs at the labels. Will the movie/TV studios follow through given that? Doubtful.
They might be old examples, but 'East Great Falls' was headed straight to video, until it was "accidentally" uploaded and a few months later, after much internet buzz, was released as 'American Pie'. Similarly, 'The Blair Witch Project' was successful at the box office because it too was uploaded "accidentally". Coincidentally, both of these movies' box office release were within weeks of each other and did far better than they perhaps normally would have, if it hadn't been for piracy. Piracy can create a buzz or social network effect when friends talk about movies, that is far more substantial than simply seeing a trailer. A limited amount of piracy does help movie studios and record labels, its just they don't really know how much is helpful, before it eats into their potential revenue or profits.
This is something that does worry me. I pirate a lot, but in the past[1], I used to try to buy the product as well. This is easy for big brands, but it's much harder for the little independent movies or for the foreign movies.
And I'm not quite sure what the ethical thing to do for foreign movies is: buy product only when it's available in my region? Or try to buy in my region but buy it from another region if it's not going to be in my region ever?
The industry seems to say that I must never pirate; must never buy second hand goods; must never import from another region. (But it's only relatively that they've said that format-shifting (ripping CD to mp3 player for example) is okay.
[1] Now I don't pirate anything if there's not a realistic chance of me being able to buy it. This means I'm missing out on a lot of product, but I get to feel smug.
The problem is that independent filmmakers are hit harder by piracy than the blockbusters. And piracy causes Hollywood studios to be less likely to back indie films, causing them to instead favor low hanging fruit, projects with mass appeal that will generate the most revenue regardless of piracy, instead of independent projects that may be more bold and creative, but would have more to lose from piracy. See here:
http://articles.latimes.com/2010/sep/28/business/la-fi-ct-fi...