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The Avengers: Why Pirates Failed To Prevent A Box Office Record

torrentfreak.com

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Re: The Avengers: Why Pirates Failed To Prevent A Box Office Record

#91

Post by rmc »

waterlesscloud wrote: post #62
EvilTerran wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I doubt there's a single soul outside the film industry who gives the slightest damn about whether the actors are at the first showing of a film in their country/continent/whatever.

Actors attending local premieres -> local press coverage -> increased local buzz -> increases ticket sales. It does help.

Makes sense. However the film studio and the public have different interests, film studio want delayed releases, public want same releases. Now the public have the option of piracy. It's up to the film studios to run the numbers and decide if the boost from a delayed sale is worth the loss from piracy.

The world has changed. Film studios (or candle markers) do no have a right to continue to make money the same way. They can adapt or die.

Re: The Avengers: Why Pirates Failed To Prevent A Box Office Record

#92

Post by jakeonthemove »

potatolicious wrote: post #77
jakeonthemove wrote: post #71

The most mind boggling thing I've seen big studios do is block some trailers, promo videos or music videos in countries other than the US/UK/Canada or whatever their main market is. Why in the world would you ever do that? It makes absolutely no sense - they're blocking people in other countries from getting to know their new movie/single, which means those potential cinema goers and DVD/CD buyers either forget about…

> "Why in the world would you ever do that?" Because the distribution rights probably belong to someone else in said countries. It's the same reason why some songs are available on iTunes in the US but curiously missing elsewhere.

So why don't they push the distributors to release the stuff at the same time? It's their content, it's not the distributor who complains about piracy and lost sales, the studios can just kick them out if they're not making any sales... Besides, there are many countries where they have literally no presence whatsoever and it's like they're actively trying to prevent it from building up (unlike Microsoft, which just let people pirate their stuff, then came in and said "actually, you need to pay for that" - in reference to Poland, Bulgaria, Hungary and Romania, where they successfully converted many companies and government agencies from pirates to paying customers)...

Re: The Avengers: Why Pirates Failed To Prevent A Box Office Record

#93

Post by huggyface »

lawnchair_larry wrote: post #81
AndyKelley wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think you read the entire article, which explained everything you said here quite clearly.

Entire article? He didn't even read the bold teaser, evidently. That was, indeed, the entire point of the article. There are a few sites that tptacek will insta-contrarian on HN. Torrentfreak is one of them. You know the xkcd comic about someone is wrong on the internet? Substitute "being wrong" for "generating rageviews with libertarian nerds" and that is tptacek. "Despite the widespread availability of pirated rele…

That was, indeed, the entire point of the article.

What was the point of the article? I read it and came out of it completely perplexed. If I could summarize-

-Really terrible copies of something don't significantly impact the revenue of the something. OBVIOUSLY. Hence why Hollywood is going crazy trying to stop high quality copies (they want you nervously scurrowing in a corner of some dank cinema, fearful of the repercussions. Notice that there are no digital transfers or good quality rips available...piracy fail).

-Small numbers of people downloading something with wide appeal don't significantly impact the revenue of something. Hence why Hollywood needs to continue with lawsuit assaults and fear tactics and site takedowns to ensure that the number of people downloading remains small.

-Huge budget, highly anticipated, mega-marketed movies will do well regardless, so...um...

This piece could have been written by someone actively campaigning for draconian piracy laws. It literally promotes the anti-piracy campaigns.

Re: The Avengers: Why Pirates Failed To Prevent A Box Office Record

#94

Post by BerislavLopac »

I'm pretty sure I know exactly when the film companies will abandon the current business model for movies (theatres plus DVDs) and switch primarily to online pay-per-view-like scheme, with DVDs going out pretty much immediately and theatres surviving, but slowly fading.

It will happen as soon as the first studio realizes and takes advantage of the fact that with such a scheme you a) can charge for the same movie over and over again, and b) you can greatly improve the feedback on how popular which movies are, which could use an update/sequel and which should be left to die. This is something we in the Web business take for granted, but in the movies they are still too ingrained in the old ways that they don't see the benefits and effects of online distribution. But they will, mind you; not all at once, but as soon as it proves itself they'll jump on the bandwagon.

Re: The Avengers: Why Pirates Failed To Prevent A Box Office Record

#95

Post by Tyrannosaurs »

swombat wrote: post #72
Tyrannosaurs wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why delay it at all? Frankly they shouldn't care how we want to watch a film, just that we want to and are willing to pay for it. I like films but have small kids so I can't get to the cinema as often as I'd like. By not letting me give them money to watch their film (and I won't pirate it, I'll just do something else) they're throwing money away. Get me while the publicity and hype are out there, when I can discuss…

Why delay it at all? Frankly they shouldn't care how we want to watch a film, just that we want to and are willing to pay for it. If you watch the latest blockbuster on the day of release at home on your mega projector that you bought with all the money you saved by not going to the cinema, with your wife, your three kids, and your neighbours (5 more people), you pay for just one stream/ticket. If all those people go…

A few people will do this but most won't. The fact a few people game a system rarely stops a business model. It doesn't have to work in every specific instance, just overall.

Re: The Avengers: Why Pirates Failed To Prevent A Box Office Record

#96

Post by EvilTerran »

rmc wrote: post #91
waterlesscloud wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actors attending local premieres -> local press coverage -> increased local buzz -> increases ticket sales. It does help.

Makes sense. However the film studio and the public have different interests, film studio want delayed releases, public want same releases. Now the public have the option of piracy. It's up to the film studios to run the numbers and decide if the boost from a delayed sale is worth the loss from piracy. The world has changed. Film studios (or candle markers) do no have a right to continue to make money the same way. T…

"The world has changed. Film studios (or candle markers) do no have a right to continue to make money the same way. They can adapt or die."

Interesting comparison. My favourite is "weavers":

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luddite

Re: The Avengers: Why Pirates Failed To Prevent A Box Office Record

#97

Post by dredmorbius »

teamonkey wrote: post #79
tseabrooks wrote: post #4

Torrentfreak's articles seem to get better and better. They note the ways in which piracy is hurting films (foreign sales) and show some numbers indicating that in the US it doesn't appear to be hurting sales much at all. While obviously torrentfreak can't ever be considered objective in regards to piracy, they seem to be getting closer each time. Back on topic then, Does anyone have the background necessary to know…

> Torrentfreak's articles seem to get better and better. I disagree. They're intensely biased, they select only information that suits their agenda and they spin reports and statistics shamelessly. That's not to say that they're entirely worthless as a news source but they do have to be treated as a mouthpiece.

Unlike, say, the MPAA and the mainstream entertainment-media industrial complex comprising it.

Sometimes triangulation between propaganda artists points you at the truth. Or at least illuminates what each side prefers you not see.

Re: The Avengers: Why Pirates Failed To Prevent A Box Office Record

#98

Post by dutchbrit »

"This means that roughly 100,000 Americans have downloaded a copy online through BitTorrent. Now, IF all these people bought a movie ticket instead then box office revenue would be just 0.5% higher."

Even though I agree with most points in this article, the 0.5% is a bit off. When a "pirate" (yarghh) decides to download a movie, they usually end up watching it with friends and/or family - not just by themselves..

Still, if you really care about a movie, you would watch it in a cinema instead of watching a bad "CAM" version.

Re: The Avengers: Why Pirates Failed To Prevent A Box Office Record

#99

Post by psquid »

dutchbrit wrote: post #98

"This means that roughly 100,000 Americans have downloaded a copy online through BitTorrent. Now, IF all these people bought a movie ticket instead then box office revenue would be just 0.5% higher." Even though I agree with most points in this article, the 0.5% is a bit off. When a "pirate" (yarghh) decides to download a movie, they usually end up watching it with friends and/or family - not just by themselves.. Sti…

The point is that the stated 0.5% is an upper bound, so even if none of them also bought a ticket, as you speculated (and I find it very unlikely that this is the case), they would still only make up a 0.5% difference in the box office revenue.

Re: The Avengers: Why Pirates Failed To Prevent A Box Office Record

#100

Post by jswanson »

jcampbell1 wrote: post #28
tseabrooks wrote: post #4

Torrentfreak's articles seem to get better and better. They note the ways in which piracy is hurting films (foreign sales) and show some numbers indicating that in the US it doesn't appear to be hurting sales much at all. While obviously torrentfreak can't ever be considered objective in regards to piracy, they seem to be getting closer each time. Back on topic then, Does anyone have the background necessary to know…

I am perplexed by your comment about overseas release dates. There has been an absolutely massive compression in release dates in the past 5 years. Most obvious blockbusters are now globally released, and the spread for smaller films has also been contracting. Avengers was released overseas prior to the US release. A film like The Descendants was released 4 weeks early in NY/LA, and then foreign releases were only 6…

Japan still lags behind the US for most big-ticket films. Avengers won't open here until 2012/08/17, more than three months after the US release date. [1] That's a month ahead of the projected blu-ray release of the film though.

It's really hit and miss, but most of the more major films lag by two to three months.

1 - http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%82%A2%E3%83%99%E3%83%B3%E3%...

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