I came across the above picture on the internet somewhere and it got me wondering about movie and cd piracy and whether it really is having as devastating effect on the movie making industry as the industry claims.
And yes, I have watched movies where the above description in the picture is so true. You stick the dvd in and it just takes ages and ages to finally get to the actual movie after you are forced to watch message after boring message, but I don't think that is what makes people pirate movies.
I saw a study published some time ago which found that a typical movie 'pirate' would most likely not buy the movie that they had just downloaded. Based simply on that premise, the act of downloading appears to be one of opportunity - the opportunity is there to download something for 'free' and so "lets do it".
Taking only this into consideration, it would seem to suggest that the movie making companies wouldn't lose much money because the pirate is unlikey to purchase the movie anyway. But I'm sure it would certainly get on their goat that someone had obtained one (or more) of their movies for free.
However, the movie companies may lose money if the downloader makes copies of said movie and distributes it to one or two friends. It's possible that those friends may be avid purchasers of movies and so giving them a copy for free, or minimal cost, will probably deprive the movie companies of some revenue. The dollar value of that lost revenue would be anyones guess. You could estimate it, but in reality, no-one would have any real idea.
The movie companies will of course, give the worst possible scenario and tell you that losses run into the hundreds of millions of dollars, but I'm not so sure. And at the end of the day, have the movie makers made their own beds and now have to sleep in it. I mean to say, is any actor worth $10 or $20 million per movie? No way. The cost to produce movies has blown out of all proportion, and maybe if the movie dives, they blame it on piracy... "So that's why we made a loss".
I think Hollywoods Movie Makers and Actors need to have a real big reality check, but of course, it's America, and as usual, if everything is not over the top and blown out of proportion, it's not worth doing. Start paying actors $1 million per movie, and then maybe the actor can spend $2 million on a house instead of $25 million. Start reigning in with a bit of common sense. The movie industry has created this monster "bigger than life" movies and pay packets and production costs and we, the general public are expected to fund it all.
What does this have to do with pirates who download and copy movies... everything. As far as the pirate is concerned, they know an actor(s) has been paid millions, and the movie companies often expouse how expensive the movie was to make, and then of course, the press report that the movie has taken $150 million in its first week after release. Plus, don't forget down the track, there's DVD rentals and sales to be made. It really is no wonder that the pirate thinks the industry is overflowing with money.
Like I said before, the industry created this "monster", now it has to deal with the backlash when people start to say "enough is enough" and seek cheaper ways to see a movie.
With everything going digital, and high end large screen home entertainment systems becoming the norm, will people start demanding to have new releases piped to their homes via the internet? Invite 15 friends around and pay the $10 for a new movie release. Now that will hit the pockets of movie producers more than piracy.
It's only a matter of time till the movie industry starts to change. The movie industry will still want cinema releases all over the world because this is where they make all the money, but I see this as dying out in favour of home entertainment. Will the movie industry resist change just as the music industry did for years? Digital download of songs are just about the norm these days, so eventually the CD makers and retailers of music will see their industry shrinking.
Eventually DVD rental shops will disappear as well as (legal) downloading and watching of movies becomes the norm. I can see a time in the future when you download an encrypted new release movie from Foxtel or maybe on Warner Bros website and it never gets released in a cinema any more.
You'll never stop the pirating of movies. As soon as some new Blu Ray encryption is introduced, it doesn't take long for a hacker to decrypt it. The movie industry I think will eventually go the way the music industry has gone. The music industry resisted introducing digital downloads whereby people could 'design' their own albums and only download the songs they wanted - why ? because people got sick of paying top dollar for CD's to find 4 or 5 really good tracks on the album and the rest were crap.
If you can "rent" an encrypted new release movie for $10 on-line and let as many of your friends watch it as you want, that must surely help to put a dent in piracy, but of course, that would mean Hollywood would have to totally re-address production costs and what actors are really worth so that movies can be made with a $30 million budget instead of $250 million.
Ahhh, but then, what will happen to the extravagant life all these movie producers and stars lead? Maybe it might be better to keep the extravagant life, keep the cost of movies high, charge heaps for cinema tickets and maybe the pirates aren't having such a big dent after all....
Get Real
