Has The Megaupload Shutdown Been Good For The Entertainment Industry?
from the thoughts? dept
One of our most vocal (yet anonymous) critics posted an off-topic comment on a totally unrelated story mocking us for not having covered the story of how Hollywood has been saved (saved!) thanks to the shutdown of Megaupload. Of course, the reason we hadn't covered the story was because we didn't know about it. He referenced a couple of French news reports, which I hadn't seen until I had some time just now to catch up on some old comments. He could have submitted the stories, but he insisted that it would be a total waste of time because we ignore any story that we disagree with. That's pretty funny, considering many, many of the stories here are ones that challenge our views. And, I'm especially interested in reports of actual data, even if it conflicts with other data we've seen in the past. In fact, I'm especially interested in such stories, because my focus is figuring out what's really happening and understanding what's actually best for culture and society. So data that actually challenges my assumptions is some of the most useful data around.Unfortunately, the stories don't actually have any data. The first one is totally anecdotal, concerning a guy who now goes to the movie rental store to rent (physical) movies since the shutdown of Megaupload, and the second one is about claims from TV stations that their websites are getting more traffic since the shutdown of Megaupload. Both are anecdotal, not data based, and really just seem to scream out the obvious: man, does the entertainment industry do a horrible job giving consumers what they want. If Megaupload's website was offering a better experience than the TV networks' own offerings... they should be firing their web designers and starting again. As for the guy renting videos... we'll see how long that lasts.
The same commenter then left a comment with some bullet point claims. He doesn't source them, so I have no idea how accurate they are, but they seem to indicate the same point in that second article. In the few weeks after Megaupload got shut down, TV station websites got more traffic. Again, this seems to simply show how bad a job they must have been doing in the past to attract viewers to their own websites. It also means that as soon as something better comes along (and it will), people will split. Ignoring that the market is telling you something is no way to build a long-term business.
Of course, we've also seen significant other data from firms that have access to a much wider view of internet traffic, which suggested that Megaupload traffic pretty quickly shifted to other, similar sites. Of course, some of those sites have since shut down or changed models, but anyone who thinks that more such sites aren't springing up (with some keeping a lower profile) simply hasn't been paying much attention to how the internet works.
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Filed Under: anecdotes, data, revenue, shutdown, streaming
Companies: megaupload
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So did torrent sites.
"...a guy who now goes to the movie rental store to rent..."
Where? Blockbuster's closing 500 more stores, so if this guy's renting...
I seriously wish everyone would just stop buying movies, music, books, and video games.
Without the revenue, these middlemen die by default.
Artists? Saves money from having to sue them to get what's due them.
Everyone wins.
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Note that this guy is saying he's been using Megaupload since HADOPI went into effect, so clearly that bit of legislation did little to prevent copyright infringement online.
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Or maybe the simple answer is that those film directors, once they make the money, send out the prizes and all, are busy making their movies without the MPAA being involved.
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I didnt see that reported here!
Clearly the megaupload shutdown is encouraging new artists to enter the field.
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Did enormous damage without helping Hollywood.
It's been conclusively demonstrated that the government can seize and destroy your data on nothing more than an accusation that some party or parties unknown, with whom you have no accusation, have been using the service to "infringe." You can be cut off from your backups, records (in the data/information/paperwork sense), without so much as a warrant against YOU, and that data will be destroyed even before any trial, if there ever is one.
Cloud computing has crashed before it ever really left the runway.
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Re: Did enormous damage without helping Hollywood.
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You mention the anecdotal evidence of a single video shop owner but ignore the information given by an online rental business serving that market, that presumable has much broader and significant evidence.
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This article, in french, does not site any sources for any of its data except for a claim that the number of Video on Demands ordered from Canal+ (company?) went up by 20%. The link they give is to lefigaro.fr, which gets this info from a tweet from the "director of the film within the Canal+ group" (second link "20% increase, blue letters) that goes google translated like this "Megamachin closing, the Vod CANALPLAY took 20% in 7d. I await confirmation of final figures. Yalla!" Notice that he is "AWAITING FINAL FIGURES". So, if you'll actaully take the time to research what your talking about before you spout out random data, maybe you won't make such a fool of your self next time.
Links:
http://www.lefigaro.fr/hightech/2012/02/06/01007-20120206ARTFIG00554-l-arret-de-meg aupload-profite-a-la-vod-et-au-peer-to-peer.php
https://twitter.com/#!/Manald1/status/16539418043 1028224
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I wonder what the defenders of site seizures are going to say now with this "statistics"?
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Clearly, you still want the content - why do you insist on getting it illegally?
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Did I ever said anything about "illegal" anything? Stop judging the people by yourself, man! Grow up.
I don't go there for anything that any TV station can provide. (BTW, that's the reason I never go to any TV station's website 8^)) If you look around you there are plenty of LEGAL files in this world that are getting shared through the sites like Megaupload.
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Poor bastards... They just cant stand a different point of view.
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The Really Important Measure of the MegaUpload Shutdown
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Movie Reference Licensing Fee: $2,000,000
ftfy
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When they say profits have decreased, dont blame piracy, blame yourselfs, for attacking something through ignorance
Internet has built many little cyber societies if you will, which you neither respect nor acknowledge, dont expect us to be meek about it, the writting is on the wall.
If you want to break then mould the internet with our blessing, you'll have to make laws against things the internet users dont want abused, like privacy and such, even then, the less you break, the better.
And while you're at it, laws against politicl corruption and lobbyism, and reform of the copyright and the patent systems, thaaaaanks, that'll be peachy fellas
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/I haven't checked them in 6 months or more
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Fighure Lie and Liars Figure
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Retroshare appears to be booming in France and the US.
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Was sourceforge hacked or something?
The Ares Galaxy has seen 8 million downloads this week?
WTF!?
8 million new P2P user in a week?
Right after the Megaupload fiasco.
Somebody should ask Sourceforge for a blow by blow statistics of those filesharing programs hosted there to see how much increase they had after the Megaupload, after Hadopi LoL
I'm betting that pirates are moving around.
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http://sourceforge.net/projects/aresgalaxy/files/stats/timeline?dates=2012-01-01+to+2012-03-01
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Almost forgot, anybody insterested in playing Hedge Wars(Turn based strategy/action game with pink hedgehogs, they are pink!), it is free and open source people.
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"laims from TV stations that their websites are getting more traffic since the shutdown of Megaupload"
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Challenging your views?
By challenging, I guess you mean challenging them from an even more extreme end of the spectrum. As it, "We normally think piracy is just great but this new study shows that it's totally cool as well."
Seriously. Point us to more than two stories that suggest that pirates should actually be punished and you've been wrong in the past. Usually when you do this, you do it in a odd way as you did with paywalls. You used to hate them when the NY Times tried them, but once Kevin Smith and Louis CK embraced them you started claiming that paywalls were some of the new business models that you keep claiming are coming any day now.
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This, still? AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
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bob "paywall" DOES NOT mean what YOU think it means.
Kevin Smith/Louis CK's "paywalls" ARE NOT "paywalls" in the same manner as the NY Times paywall was/is.
In fact, they're not even paywalls. At all.
You seem to think that having to pay for something automatically makes it a paywall. The word "stupid moron" springs rapidly to mind when I see your "definition" of a paywall (although you don't state the definition as such, it's readily inferred based on your use of the word and the "examples" you give to prove yourself correct).
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https://twitter.com/#!/ThatKevinSmith
http://www.viewaskew.com/main.html
https://buy.louisck.n et/ Quote from the site: No DRM, no regional restrictions, no crap. You can download this file, play it as much as you like, burn it to a DVD, whatever.
Where is the paywall?
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You're a fucking joke around here. As in the butt of the joke.
Seriously, how old are you? 85?
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Dear bob: accepting payment is not a paywall.
Thanks.
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Dictionary definition of "paywall"
noun
1. a system in which access to all or part of a Web site is restricted to paid subscribers: Some newspapers have put their content behind a paywall.
2. the part of a Web site that can be accessed only by paid subscribers.
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This word....I do not think it means what you think it means.
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First off, Mega itself - something like 50 million page views a day, down the toilet. That in itself is a major shift.
Second, the repercussion shut downs, as various file lockers and torrent site operators decided to just close down, or to severely limit their service to block all file sharing activities.
Third, you have the shut down of many of the "pay to upload" and "pay for traffic" affiliate programs related to these file locker sites.
Finally, you have the knock on effects of tens of thousands (if not millions) of forum links to pirated material suddenly going dead, and many of these sites losing their income sources as a result of the third item above.
Does it "help" the entertainment business? Clearly any time legal action results in a significant change to the landscape, there will be people who reconsider the pirating option. Anyone using a piracy forum right now to source content is probably very pissed off, unable to find files. If you are in the US, you are doubly screwed, often unable to access the file locker sites at all.
The help isn't short term (sorry Mike, no black and white answer), but perhaps more of a long term thing. Certainly, it has knocked the shit out of the file locker business, and sent many piracy supporting ass clowns back into mom's basement, crying because the big bad gubbermint took away their toys.
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Do you even know how the internet works?
It routes AROUND damage. So these "pissed off" people you seem to claim are out there, were probably pissed off for like, I dunno, 24 to 48 hours, and then they A) found everything they wanted when it got uploaded somewhere else B) they found a torrent of it or C) they moved on to something else. And since you mentioned it was a forum, I bet most of the dead links got responses that listed where the content can be found on other services that aren't mega.
Haha. I just have to laugh. Here you are using the internet to post but you don't realize this exact system is why most people aren't having any of he reactions you claim them to be having.
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We are talking millions of pages of links, most of which are still not fixed. We are talking dead links by the bucket load. Entire forums with tens of thousands of posts point to crap links now.
They ain't getting fixed very fast. The route around isn't working very well in many cases, go out and read the comments.
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You are so excited at the thought of hundreds of thousands of people being pissed off, you forgot that's ITS THE INTERNET, stupid.
As I said before, it routes around damage. Even if the links don't get replaced or corrected, its not like they can't use a search engine to find another copy.
Or go to a torent site.
Or another cyberlocker (they aren't ALL gone)
Or they found something else to download.
Get a clue. They most certainly are not still pissed off this far from the mega seizure. They most likely got over it the day or 2 afterward.
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They took down megaupload, but what was that? 1 site, where a bunch of files were stored. People downloaded those files. So they can and are re-uploading them.
This is the problem with the approach to piracy thus far. You can't sue everyone who's uploading and downloading, it's been tried and it doesn't work. So you move to the sites. Well if you're suing them then we'll just keep uploading and move to other sites, or setup direct peer to peer methods. So you try and shut it down completely and we switch to encrypting everything or sneaker net. Megaupload only inconvenienced those who had someone else show them what to do to get their music. Now those people are asking their friends what to do now, and they're being told oh, just do X. It'll take a month or two tops to get the content back up that's missing.
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The Lifespan of such links has always been limited.
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Besides haven't you people learned anything?
You shutdown Napster people moved on, you shutdown Grokster people moved on and year after year after year piracy keeps going up not down, just like the reveneues from the entertainment industry.
If you people were serious you would sue each and every user who download something that will teach them to have self-control. But that is not what you people want, you want the sheep to be dumb and impulsive, because if they stopped to think about it and had any self control they wouldn't waste money at all on you people ever, because it brings nothing to their lifes.
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Eh, most major piracy forums just started rebuilding, went to private tracking, jumped into direct connections hubs (private or public) etc...etc...etc... At least most the ones I've seen have.
Which really is just a better form of service, and helps to diversify the methods of getting the content. Hell there were actually even some piracy forums that got entire userbases invited to other forums that used methods other than cyberlockers in order to get the content back out there ASAP. You can't stop the signal man.
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Response to: Anonymous Coward on Feb 29th, 2012 @ 11:08am
For the record I think it can be a good thing because I believe we live in the age of communication and freedom of communication increases education which increases. That increases innovation as long as people are willing to innovate. If people are not willing it causes problems. I ask then, do you want better stuff?
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http://takedownpiracy.com/2012/02/according-to-torrent-site-poll-downloading-results-in-lost- sales/
Interesting results. Perhaps the real truth is out there.
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We know nothing about the age, or income of those polled. Let alone how much they spent before v how much they spend now, meaning the people who answered they stopped all spending might have only bought an album a year while those that say they buy more could by 100 albums a year. I think there is little factual data you can get from this poll. Which does not mean I wouldn't like to see a lot more studies in this vain.
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Of course they are. This is like busting on drug dealing outfit - you just end up with others springing up.
Worst part is, I was trying to download some MODS for a game that recently put out a new expansion pack. Sadly, most of the mods were on MegaUpload. Since I didn't have the money to get the expansion just yet, I was going to add some MODS to my existing install to see if I would 'get into' the game again with some new spice in it.
I ended up just forgetting about it and started up another game.
So EA will lose me buying the next expansion for the game, but then I started getting into another game... and was planning on buying the newest version tonight.
As for movies - free or not free, I'm not paying $20 for a new movie on DVD, sorry. I am patient, I can wait for it to turn up used, or just watch more of the on-demand I already pay for.
But we get back to the CORE portion of all of this:
How many movies/music have you bought *WITHOUT* hearing or seeing it for free first? Sure maybe some you'll buy after going to the Cinema - I bought Avatar. And Avatar is the only new movie I've bought in 7 years or so due to prices - and it was a gift, lol.
But for Christmas this year, I bought loads of used DVD's for $1.00 each and gifted those out. I even commented that they are used, but I could get them 20 times more movies - everyone actually seemed to appreciate that, and asked me where I got them for a dollar at...
Out of the movies I've bought over the last two months - used - I've seen them all before, just wanted a copy.
Music - I almost never buy without hearing it first... on the radio, pandora, etc - FOR FREE.
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I'll guess 10 gig.
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#BLACKMARCH starts tomorrow
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I suspect the only content you won't be able to find now is older legal stuff.
Illegal stuff will end up posted elsewhere, but there were many game MODS, documents, and custom created content on Megaupload. To be honest, I wasn't even aware there was pirated crap there, until I heard all this news, but then I'm not in the 'piracy scene'.
I'm just a legit customer who's usually pissed off at the gouging the "entertainment" industry tries on the consumer.
Thank gosh for on-demand and libraries. I'm not opposed to paying a *FAIR* price, but the prices aren't fair.
How is it fair to charge $15.00 for a digital download of 15 songs? What 'cost' is incurred in this? 20,000 a year to maintain the server hosting it, if that?
If the RIAA had *any clue* of how much music I DID NOT buy due to the pricing I bet they'd be amazed.
$15.00 probably don't seem like much to the money-mongers at the RIAA and really it isn't much - in a relative sense.. Until you think of how easy it is to duplicate digital music - then you realize... it's a rip-off.
I'll just hit the radio, pandora or cable for music.
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The media companies should FOCUS on the customers that DO pay, like myself.
Give us a 'good deal' and we'll buy it.
I don't pirate, for moral reasons above anything. But I don't waste money either.
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Response to: Overcast on Feb 29th, 2012 @ 12:04pm
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Yeah, but...
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I hope this guy has a friend who can teach him how to use torrents. (Anyone who'd consider a Blockbuster-equivalent to be a valid source of movies probably needs help configuring their router.)
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Life. Is. Good.
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