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

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

#131

Post by zzuser »

nitrogen wrote: post #106
sliverstorm wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

720p or 480p would be more realistic; the bandwidth costs for serving 1080p would chew through that $5 pretty quickly. (Assuming reasonable video bitrates) Besides, a very large chunk of consumers own machines that cannot handle 1080p. Before you scream bloody murder, remember DVDs are only 480p.

Let's assume that a 1080p movie encoded for streaming using H.264 ends up at 8GB (a generous overestimate for most movies). At entry-level datacenter pricing of $0.10/GB, bandwidth costs will leave $4.20 for the rest of the supply chain.

$0.10/GB is way more than market rates for bandwidth. Dedicated server hosters such as 100TB.com charge about $200 for 100TB, ie. $2/TB or 0.2 cents /GB, resulting in a grand total of 1.6 cents for a 8GB movie stream.

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

#132

Post by tptacek »

Natsu wrote: post #121
tptacek wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I read the entire article; my point is that it doesn't say anything. Did anyone think Avengers cams were what Hollywood is truly concerned about with BitTorrent?

> Did anyone think Avengers cams were what Hollywood is truly concerned about with BitTorrent? They use night vision goggles & special cameras to locate people recording movies, and charge people with serious federal crimes for the act (the kind where you can get 3 years in prison) via a law enacted in 2005 [1]. Those huge, ugly brown spots you see flash on the screen? They exist to track cam pirates. They can also u…

I can hold these two thoughts in my head at the same time: (a) that camcording movies for later release on the Internet is illegal and antagonizes theaters, and (b) that camcording movies is not a real threat the movie industry, but other (more popular) forms of file sharing clearly are.

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

#133

Post by AndyKelley »

Natsu wrote: post #121
tptacek wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I read the entire article; my point is that it doesn't say anything. Did anyone think Avengers cams were what Hollywood is truly concerned about with BitTorrent?

> Did anyone think Avengers cams were what Hollywood is truly concerned about with BitTorrent? They use night vision goggles & special cameras to locate people recording movies, and charge people with serious federal crimes for the act (the kind where you can get 3 years in prison) via a law enacted in 2005 [1]. Those huge, ugly brown spots you see flash on the screen? They exist to track cam pirates. They can also u…

I'm really curious about the technology behind the brown spots and the audio distortions. Can you cite your source for this stuff so I can read up on it?

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

#134

Post by Natsu »

AndyKelley wrote: post #133
Natsu wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Did anyone think Avengers cams were what Hollywood is truly concerned about with BitTorrent? They use night vision goggles & special cameras to locate people recording movies, and charge people with serious federal crimes for the act (the kind where you can get 3 years in prison) via a law enacted in 2005 [1]. Those huge, ugly brown spots you see flash on the screen? They exist to track cam pirates. They can also u…

I'm really curious about the technology behind the brown spots and the audio distortions. Can you cite your source for this stuff so I can read up on it?

TorrentFreak has articles on the tech itself, but they don't go into a lot of detail. I suspect the exact workings are secret.

EDIT: Link = https://torrentfreak.com/movie-spy-cameras-attack-the-dying-...

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

#135

Post by Natsu »

tptacek wrote: post #132
Natsu wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Did anyone think Avengers cams were what Hollywood is truly concerned about with BitTorrent? They use night vision goggles & special cameras to locate people recording movies, and charge people with serious federal crimes for the act (the kind where you can get 3 years in prison) via a law enacted in 2005 [1]. Those huge, ugly brown spots you see flash on the screen? They exist to track cam pirates. They can also u…

I can hold these two thoughts in my head at the same time: (a) that camcording movies for later release on the Internet is illegal and antagonizes theaters, and (b) that camcording movies is not a real threat the movie industry, but other (more popular) forms of file sharing clearly are.

The way you wrote it made it sound like the industry isn't really concerned about camming due to it not being a threat. My point was that the industry is highly concerned about it and goes to great lengths to fight it.

I can certainly agree with your A & B.

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

#136

Post by tptacek »

Natsu wrote: post #135
tptacek wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can hold these two thoughts in my head at the same time: (a) that camcording movies for later release on the Internet is illegal and antagonizes theaters, and (b) that camcording movies is not a real threat the movie industry, but other (more popular) forms of file sharing clearly are.

The way you wrote it made it sound like the industry isn't really concerned about camming due to it not being a threat. My point was that the industry is highly concerned about it and goes to great lengths to fight it. I can certainly agree with your A & B.

What I think is that if the whole of the file sharing problem was cam torrents, we wouldn't be seeing routine interventions like SOPA and mass lawsuits, because cam torrents aren't threatening. The film industry would certainly continue to do stupid things to react to stuff they don't understand, but it would happen at a slower pace and be easier to counter.

The problem, which this article conveniently ignores, is that the film industry is right about most file sharing: DVD rip torrents are a real threat.

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

#137

Post by Natsu »

tptacek wrote: post #136
Natsu wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The way you wrote it made it sound like the industry isn't really concerned about camming due to it not being a threat. My point was that the industry is highly concerned about it and goes to great lengths to fight it. I can certainly agree with your A & B.

What I think is that if the whole of the file sharing problem was cam torrents, we wouldn't be seeing routine interventions like SOPA and mass lawsuits, because cam torrents aren't threatening. The film industry would certainly continue to do stupid things to react to stuff they don't understand, but it would happen at a slower pace and be easier to counter. The problem, which this article conveniently ignores, is th…

What should happen is that they adopt the Crunchyroll model and help their customers give them money. Sadly, it appears that they will be dragged into the future kicking & screaming.

Which sucks, because a lot of good artists are being held back by this.

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

#138

Post by Tyrannosaurs »

swombat wrote: post #120
Tyrannosaurs wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Actually I think most would - perhaps not at a 10x multiple, but at least 2-3x, maybe 5x. If I were to download a brand new movie that just came out today I would definitely watch it with at least my girlfriend, but possibly invite a few friends around for a movie night. Or some friends would invite me (I hope!). I would end up watching a lot more movies, but providing much less income to the movie industry for each.

As I said in the original post, you wouldn't charge at a single ticket rate, you'd price it based on what worked. My assumption would be that most people would watch with maybe one other person and that the price would reflect that.

As I also said they lose the ability to up sell you highly profitable popcorn, you lose travel costs, the lose some overheads (but gain others) - there are a whole bunch of things to figure in. The release day cost of a movie rental wouldn't be a single cinema ticket price and it certainly wouldn't be a current rental cost. Off the top of my head I think you'd be looking somewhere around two to three times average cinema ticket prices, possibly varying by time (weekend evenings might cost more).

The last sentence is a good thing for them though not a bad one. If you watch 3 movies a week instead of one and pay on average $5 instead of $10, they've still got $15 instead of $10. Their costs will likely only be marginally higher with three movies vs. one (most of it being the infrastructure) which means that their overall profit is likely up.

You don't optimise a business for revenue, you optimise it for profit.

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

#139

Post by lawnchair_larry »

tptacek wrote: post #136
Natsu wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The way you wrote it made it sound like the industry isn't really concerned about camming due to it not being a threat. My point was that the industry is highly concerned about it and goes to great lengths to fight it. I can certainly agree with your A & B.

What I think is that if the whole of the file sharing problem was cam torrents, we wouldn't be seeing routine interventions like SOPA and mass lawsuits, because cam torrents aren't threatening. The film industry would certainly continue to do stupid things to react to stuff they don't understand, but it would happen at a slower pace and be easier to counter. The problem, which this article conveniently ignores, is th…

The article ignores it because that is irrelevant to the discussion. Torrenting and DVDs and SOPA and all that are also irrelevant. You are pulling in random other issues related to copyright vs hollywood that the article is not about.

Hollywood says cams in movie theaters are a big problem. Article refutes this. The article isn't about anything else.

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