Amazingly, Downloadability Of Michael Moore's Film Didn't Appear To Hurt Box Office
from the how-shocking dept
We thought it was fairly amusing last month when Advertising Age claimed that Michael Moore's film being available for download online was "every film maker's worst marketing nightmare." After all, there was absolutely no evidence that having a film available to download hurts box office sales since the experience of watching on a computer and watching in a theater is totally different (and not just concerning quality and screen size, but the fact that going out to the movies is a social event). Plus, Moore himself had said in the past that he liked having his movies available for download. After all, remember that the last Star Wars movie was available for download before it came out and it certainly didn't hurt sales. So, it came as no surprise to us to find out that Moore's movie actually did quite well at the box office -- coming in second on a per-theater revenue basis. However, if you want to see a copyright lawyer in denial, check out the quote that News.com got from one when asked whether or not Moore's film being available for download could possibly have helped ticket sales at the box office:"No, no, no, no," Prager seethed. "This is depressing. We're not seeing a rise in the peer-to-peer influence market. Anything positive they may bring is instantly canceled."Apparently, the industry is now using the "if we just keep believing we're right, despite the evidence, maybe it will be true" method of dealing with the changing market.
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It's easy to believe in a scapegoat
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Come on now!
A lot of the problem, as you've mentioned before, is that it's very hard to estimate the influence of free/online distribution on a film/album/etc. - so to say that having the last Star Wars movie available online before it was released in cinemas "certainly didn't hurt sales" is a fallacy. You can say that it certainly didn't lead to the failure of the film at the box office, you can say that it didn't appear to hurt sales, but there is no way of knowing what the sales would have been without the online distribution, so there's no way of knowing the effect. I think it's fair to say that having a film/album be available online for free probably does lead to some lost sales, but it also probably leads to some gained sales, as people who enjoy it decide to pay for cinema quality, sleeve notes, honour, etc. In general, unfortunately, we do not know how large these two effects, positive and negative, are - and therefore we cannot say if the online distribution was an overall gain or loss to the sales of the 'product'.
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Re: Come on now!
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Re: Come on now!
There can be various reasons for downloading something for free on the internet. And every reason can be both positive, and negative. Optimism is blind... There's no telling if downloading something for free is a good, or bad thing. There is so much free peer to peer software out there. (Soulseek, Kazaa, Kazaa Lite, Bear Share, Lime Wire, Bit Torrent, etc.) Maybe the ammount of p2p software gives people the idea to download for free. I mean the software is FREE, and very easy to locate. I honestly do not think it is possible to make writing p2p software illegal. Maybe it is legal to outlaw distributing it.. But it is insane trying to place laws on content gained from the internet. I mean does the law know how people are looking at child pornography right now? Or looking into ways to build bombs, murder people?
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Re: Re: Come on now!
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Piracy and movies
After years of coasting, we are finally seeing theatre owners paying attention to consumer comfort (stadium seating so you don't have to look "through" the rows in front of you), automated availability of tickets to avoid standing in line, better quality sound and video, even digital copying and distribution.
The smarter film makers will produce films with lots of scenery, spectacle, and just plain visual beauty. This need not be shoot-em-up action films or sci-fi; it can be moving "personal" films of beauty as well. Even low-budget film makers will benefit; natural scenery (and spectacular urban sites in many cases) are free. We may expect to see lots of beautiful or spectacular locales, both here and abroad. The theatregoer can only benefit, as can sales of movie tickets.
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Re: Come on now!
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Idiots EVERYWHERE
Have you been to the DMV recently retards? Yea, I want my healthcare run JUST LIKE THAT.... What a bunch of gullible moronic fools.
Yet another perfect illustraion of why we are headed towards another Civil War. Common sense and reality WILL prevail!
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A modest proposal
I believe people are fundamentally trustworthy, but if I am wrong, after the test period the program could be scrapped and the identities of the participants destroyed. A binding legal undertaking to do so, and not to use such information if obtained otherwise (from a leaker, for example) would need to be part of the plan.
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Re: Idiots EVERYWHERE
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Re: A modest proposal
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They are worried - since the internet is a better, faster distribution system. People can produce, market, and distribute their own content and not need the corporate monolithic system to market their content.
It's like the quill and ink well - there is just a better way now...
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If he's that passionate about it, then why doesn't he just release it on the internet himself for free. What about the people who can't afford to see it in the theater? They could watch it at school or a public library.
It's just like Al Gore and his recycled materials DVD for Inconvenient Truth. Come on already! If he'd just released it on the internet, he wouldn't use any materials - and save $ on gas for shipping the DVDs to the stores.
These dudes are after $ and don't think they won't benefit in a monetary way should their agendas win in Washington.
Health care system would be far worse if run by the government. Is anything run by the government actually worth admiring? NO!
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Is anything run by the government worth admiring
The National Institutes of Health
The National Institute of Standards and Technology
The National Park Service
Various "first responder" and emergency programs (though with the massive challenges there will be some mistakes).
The Government Printing Office
The Library of Congress
The delivery system for Social Security payments
The client relations system of the Social Security Administration
Some parts of the foreign aid program
Many parts of the Defense Department
Most programs of the EPA
The college loan program
The FHA housing subsidy program (though not without its faults)
The FBI (though turf wars and overzealousness have sometimes vitiated its effectiveness)
The NSA (a marvel of technology, though some operations are the result of policy decisions at higher levels about which civil libertarians might disagree)
The NRO
The Office of Naval Research
ARPA
The US Military on the ground, especially those who have given their lives or health for the country.
etc. etc.
Many of the criticisms of "the government" one has are actually disagreements with policy makers, not the program implementers. I spent a year in the government as a Presidential Interchange Executive, and found most government employees I met to be dedicated, hard working individuals, who could easily have earned much more in non-governmental service but chose to work for "the people" or "the country" instead.
Finally, one must think carefully about which criticisms of "the government" are fact-based and legitimate, and which are due to just plain policy disagreements with many of one's fellow Americans, or even authority problems when growing up.
Finally, on the topic of this thread I have found Michael Moore to be a biased ideologue whose past films are full of selective material, special pleading, suppressed refutatory material including material in his possession, and just plain outrageously and deliberately misleading presentation. For details see any of the myriad of his factual (not ideological) critics available through a Google search.
And another thing,..When I was getting my Ph.D. in London I used the National Health System for myself, my wife, and for pre-natal,delivery, and post-natal care of my first-born son. Despite my being an American student who didn't pay taxes and could afford private care, it was wonderful and the physicians, nurses, and midwives provided excellent care and all the attention we could have wished. In addition the system provided excellent nutritional care and free milk after the birth of my son. The services were the same for everyone in the system.
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Missing a point?
I often wonder if not purposely put out, perhaps this would be the new attack method, purposely leak a movie, blame down loaders and piracy now they have a more solid argument since box office ratings show complete opposite.
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Re:
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British National Health Service
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Re:
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new paradigm
If a movie is distributed on the internet, and it sucks, no amount of hype or marketing dollars spent on trailers with cherry picked scenes will save it.
Mediocrity and hype fear open distribution.
Re: a modest proposal
I'd gladly pay a buck to download a movie.
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Lenin quotation on this subject
Lenin, http://www.quotationspage.com/quote/838.html
WHEN will these MPAA and RIAA morons realize that the business model has changed so drastically?
Moreover, can they not see that it will INCREASE their sales if they adopt a reasonable approach to the new internet age??
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Downloadable movies
In addition to a voluntary reasonable download fee:
Unobtrusive product placements, now a source of revenue, could command an even higher fee if there were a way to count the number of downloads;
Right now one is forced to watch previews and even advertising in movie houses. How about the same thing (with the amount of time limited to that in movie houses) for downloadable movies? Since everyone has a computer who would download, the ads could be targeted to those who own computers (not just computer products but cameras, ipods, educational products, etc.), making the ad time even more valuable to the producers and at least more interesting than popcorn ads. The technology already exists to prevent skipping the previews on DVDs; something similar could be used for downloadable movies.
H'mmm. Maybe MPAA should hire me as a consultant.
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Maybe that should ne Moore's next movie...
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Re: Re: Idiots EVERYWHERE
1. Get an appointment online.
2. Show up, fill out 1 page of paperwork.
3. Wait 10 minutes.
4. Spend 10 minutes renewing license.
5. Leave.
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Re: British National Health Service
I have to pay around $122.00 American a month for full coverage. I still have co-pays of $10.00 if I want to see the doctor or $100.00 if I have to go to the E.R. as well as I still have to pay a premium on insurance and god forbid I have to stay overnight at a hospital!
I happen to make more than some people in the U.S. so $120.00 may not sound like much, but our Federal Minimum Wage is $5.15/hour so after taxes of an average of 20% and that insurance premium, someone making that wage would take home $537.20 a month. That's around £266.36 a month in your land. If that's how much you take home a month after taxes and the weekly stamp fee, then sure, US health insurance charges would have been less.
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Re:
Fat Mike is interested in making as much money as possible, he has no interest in being amongst the people depicted in his films. He lives in New York City, in a very pricey place on the Upper East Side and has a hired driver to cart his lard butt around.
He's a compete phoney, and this film, like all of his, is full of inaccuracies and lies.
Stop paying to watch his crap, show you have some intelligence.
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Re: Re: British National Health Service
Am I correct in thinking that if you pay $120 per month, your employer pays a heck of a lot more for you?
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Re: Idiots EVERYWHERE
You rule o supreme commander of the third reich!
"the damage you freaks are doing to America is irrepairable"
And yet the damage that America is doing to itself and the rest of the world is?
Get your southern-bubba-backwards-guntoting-applepie eating head out of the sand dude - America has created the mess, America is responsible for getting out of it - Getting a licence is and should be a little harder to get than getting healthcare - unless of course there is a sale on gun racks at the local quik-e-mart!
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Re: Is anything run by the government worth admiri
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Re: Is anything run by the government worth admiri
Nothing is free David, the Income tax and VAT tax in England pays for health care services. Between the two the top rate is 57% (the VAT is 17.5% with no deductions).
You made so many good points, why blow it with half the story.
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Beautiful Irony
O/t, but as for Moore, I really hate the American health care system and I really hope things change, but I'm not inclined to pay money to see Sicko. Like other Moore movies, I'm sure there'll be some Geraldo-Rivera-inspired stunt at the end that will ruin whatever cogent points the film was trying to make.
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Who Cares
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Re: Re: Idiots EVERYWHERE
Healthcare needs to be much more efficient than it currently is. Healthier people equals a more productive society.
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Re: Re:
Look at where the military/police and fire dept's interface with the government/politicians and you will see that things are run horribly.
That does get reduced as things cascade down the ranks (aka by the people who care about their professions) but that does not change the fact that they could do their jobs a lot better if things were being done correctly "at the top"
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Re: Re: Is anything run by the government worth ad
VAT is a sales tax (17.5 %)
The two are not related
National Insurance contributions (NICs) pay for the national health system (and national pensions) and the rate is aprox 11% for income (before tax) of around £600 per week after that it is 1%
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More of Moore
People would actually pay to see a Michael Moore film...
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Coincidence
Amazingly enough thats how I describe the bush administration.
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If you take something like 'Catwoman', being on-line surely hurts the sales. And that's where they earn (or loose, for that matter) the money. If they can at least make people go the the theaters before they realise that the video is a piece of crap, they'll get some extra bucks.
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The media used is also an issue, after about 10 years its common that your DVD or CD will no longer work due to 'disk rot' which means you would have to repurchase a copy to watch/listen to your stuff, at least hard drive content lasts forever.
If the recording industry want a solution, put the content on something thats long term reliable and reduce the damn prices!
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Piracy
On the other hand, we can never say a company is making too much money for something they sell to argue that they can afford to loose some. What the argument of this post is defending, and I think rightfully, is that at this point piracy is not hurting the movie business, it could even make it earn more.
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Moore
There are entire websites, many run by conservatives but also many run by democrats and far left liberals who go into great detail on Moores shenanigans. The guy actually does more damage to the credibility of the left than he's done to help. He's a fact manipulating scumbag who plays on maudlin emotions while ignoring glaring facts that don't jibe with his socialist agenda. The US healthcare system desperately needs to be addressed and a movie exposing it's shortcomings and abuses could do worlds of good but all Moore manages to do is set himself up to be the center of attention due to his amateurish one-sided editorializing. Like Fahrenheit 9-11 there was more than enough fuckery for him to expose that he didn't need to make up "facts" or manipulate the viewer like a retarded school child. In hindsight the number one thing people remember about that movie is Moore's name and what the controversies were and not the content of what we saw
Of all people, Kurt Loder from MTV does a decent job of summarizing Moore's shortcomings in his review of Sicko. I suggest you read it and put down the Kool-Aide.
http://www.mtv.com/movies/news/articles/1563758/story.jhtml
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Re: Idiots EVERYWHERE
VS the wait, a pile of forms, and because a form was misfiled - I did not get proper treatment.
So bring on the DMV! And Thank You Mitch the Bitch for brining this up!
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Re:
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Bah!
and small. Everyone in the USA gets health care.
The worst situation to be in is working with no health
benefits from your employer. You pay though the nose.
Many people qualify for the federal programs medicade
and medicare as well as state run programs. There are
charity programs run by cities and also the Catholic
hospitals (probably other as well.) Yes charity works
and it should be no more or less demeaning than taking
money from the state.
Yeah in many cases it's subsitance care, crises
intervention but in EVERY system the people with more
$$ fare better. Canadians who can afford it cross the
border for by-pass surgery because they don't want to
die waiting for their own system to deliver. Other
state run systems have there problems as well.
The principal thing that needs fixing in the USA is
cost controls and nobody wants that if it degrades
their care so it's a touchy issue.
The uninsured are not uncared for. The system works well
but has problems with cost controls for various reasons.
One of which is fear of litigation by doctors. Another is
really horrible billing systems from hospitals who are not
used to having any charges questioned.
I know this because I've been uninsured while having
cardiac problems. I think Moore's case is made by
picking out the exceptions.
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True.. and what about that 'Eco' concert they are doing? How much wattage do amplifiers and spot lights use?
Far more than I use at home, that's for certain.
The fix for health care seems simple to me - leave the existing system alone and just open free clinics for those without insurance - what would be so complicated about that? Then the Government wouldn't have to pay insurance companies - they would just pay the staff direct.
Guess that's too logical of a solution...
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Re: Moore
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Lies, Liars, and Unsubstantiated Accusations
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Re: Re: Is anything run by the government worth ad
Everyone wants to blast the government. So why does everyone want to come to America.
Sorry to be the one to burst your bubble, but here's the thing: they don't.
If you're ever curious about how people perceive the US outside of your propaganda-saturated circle jerk, I propose the following experiment.
Travel to Canada, Great Britain, Norway, Sweden, France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Hong Kong, Japan and Australia. Ask all the people you meet whether they would, given the opportunity, renounce their citizenship and instead become a US citizen. I think you'll find the results interesting.
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Re: Come on now!
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Re: Lies, Liars, and Unsubstantiated Accusations
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Re: Re: Is anything run by the government worth ad
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Re: Come on now!
However, this lack of facts/proof/certainty does not stop the MAFIAA and anybody even remotely related to or shilling for them from making wild, crazy statements (like every downloaded movie/song/... is lost revenue).
So I see no reason (moral or otherwise) why "we" (= supporters of "distribution as promotion") can't state there is no net negative effect, after all, we don't have less definite proof (in fact, one could argue we have more, since there are a couple of studies that back our claim) than the MAFIAA AND we can be sure our statement, even if incorrect, will be much closer to reality than what the MAFIAA and all their minions are claiming...
Can we prove beyond reasonable doubt that we're right? maybe not (yet), I totally agree on that, but my point is that that (temporary) inability should not make us feel obligated not to respond at all, there's nothing wrong with countering their wild statements with our own, less wild, not less substantiated, much closer to reality, statements.
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Re: Re: Re: British National Health Service
You would be correct in thinking the employer pays more :-)
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Re: Re: Is anything run by the government worth ad
as an AC already said, they don't...this "everyone" of yours is highly over estimated.
AC's suggestion to travel to those countries is not bad, although I would have listed a more (geographically) mixed bag, but if you don't immediately have the time or $$ to plan those trips, as a cheap alternative, you could for example read "The Eagle's Shadow: Why America Fascinates and Infuriates the World" by Mark Hertsgaard.
I do agree that if government regulated health care, it would take corporate greed out of the equation. That's one of the main reasons health care is so affordable in those "socialist" European countries (laughing here, I just can't help it when people call Western European countries "socialist")
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Re: Re: Re: Is anything run by the government wort
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Re: Is anything run by the government worth admiri
True enough! And also true of every one of the Bush Administration's claims in support of the Iraq war.
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