Does Batman Need Copyright Protection?
from the maybe-not dept
With the release of the latest Batman movie, Jeffrey Tucker makes an interesting point: does the movie really even need any copyright protection to make money? It's almost guaranteed that the film will be both widely available in unauthorized forms online... and will make an absolute ton of money:We all know that in a matter of weeks or even days, there will be streamed copies online. There could be hundreds and thousands of them. At first, the quality will be terrible. Later, the quality will improve. By this time next year, you will be able to download an HD copy of your own without too much trouble. And this is despite the millions and billions of dollars, and the gigantic apparatus of the state, plus all the warnings and jails, dedicated to preventing this inevitable thing.It's possible that without IP certain aspects of the marketing and monetization plan would be different, but it seems likely that the movie would still bring in a ton of money. As we've seen over and over again, people pay for what they like (and to support creators they like), if offered in a reasonable and convenient package. And yet, there's this myth that goes around that without aggressive IP laws and aggressive IP enforcement, it's impossible for content creators to make money. That just doesn't seem to be supported by reality. As some copyright holders have noted -- often derisively -- paying today has already become somewhat voluntary. Whether or not we agree with this or think it's a good or bad thing, it's basically a fact. And, it's also a fact that an awful lot of people are handing over cash to watch this movie via official channels.
And yet: what does it matter? “Dark Knight Rises” will still make a zillion dollars. I like millions of others will shell out to see it in the theater of course. Like everyone else, I want to consume it sooner rather than later. Sure, I could save $11 bucks by waiting but there’s a time-preference issue. The movie makers are going to make a mint with clever management, clever marketing, and a high-quality product. In other words, they will make money the old-fashioned way: getting people something they want in a form in which they want to consume it.
I can easily imagine that not much would be different about this scenario if there were no IP — except that a major element of fear and force would be purged from the system and consumers would no longer be treated as the thieving enemy.
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Once again for those in the cheap seats
OF
ALL
TIME.
Piracy is not the problem.
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Re: Once again for those in the cheap seats
well, I forget why exactly. But what the hell, PIRACY!
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Re: Re: Once again for those in the cheap seats
They could stop all piracy, increase the price 100 fold and they'd still find a way to show the movie lost money... I'm guessing they'd need to find a new scapegoat though... Hmmm, I guess since we got rid of the pirates, it's now all the fault of the ninjas!
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There was one guy that actually did stop me to inspect the ticket, saw that it was folded and then ripped it while giving a sort of "Ha, I got you" look... but that's only one out of a few dozen times.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Once again for those in the cheap seats
I've long thought that the only reason for ticket-ripping is... well, I've never understood it. In the first place, I've never had anyone look at my ticket stub, ever. In the second place, the ticket is good for a particular showing, the date & time of which is shown on the ticket. So, even unripped, it's not like you could use the ticket again.
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I feel so bad for all the people that went out to have a good time and watch a movie only to have to deal with an idiot like that...
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If you pay for it, you get shot.
I wonder if can turn this into a new DRM-scheme.
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The point being of course that no matter how well something does these days all those in charge see is this fiction of how much better it would have done in a world with out piracy. It's kinda of like if you get a cake that is awesome, if you get a cake but have the idea in your head that you should have gotten two cakes then just having one cake suddenly seems less awesome.
The legacy industry is always going to focused on what they perceive they have lost because they feel entitled to it, regardless of if there's really any "it" to be entitled too. It's built in to the way they've done so well in the old model and it's why in the end that the legacy industry is going to be replaced rather than reshaped.
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Negative net profit most likely =P
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Re: Once again for those in the cheap seats
OF ALL TIME.
Piracy is not the problem."
Correction, piracy is not just not the problem, it is not even a problem.
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I am.....why?
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What is your honest opinion about the article's content, regardless of who wrote it? What do you think of the idea that movies are making more money than ever despite the moral panic over copyright infringement?
Hint: It'll be easier for you to respond honestly and thoughtfully if you refrain from including phrases like "pirate Mike." Heck, don't mention Mike at all since we already know what you think of him.
On a side note, what do you hope to accomplish by trolling other than making copyright maximalists look like petulant douches so that if anyone actually felt the need to justify copyright infringement, they can use your attitude as proof of how out of touch the maximalists are?
Do you realize you're making your side look bad and are merely amusing to the people who can see through your tirades?
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However Nolan's batman is no Schumacher's.
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Are we talking about the pan-dimensional beings or just the run of the mill mice?
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With this experience I have I can tell you that fighting piracy the way they are currently is totally useless. In fact it is worse than that. They are actually hurting their customers and doing nothing to the pirates.
They put all these restrictions in place on how you can use the product you have paid for. They then threaten you with HUGE fines and jail time if you dare steal THE ITEM YOU BOUGHT. Those "warnings" are stupid and the first thing that pirates toss when they rip a video. So the only people who see them PAID FOR THE MOVIE.
So lets see. I can pirate a movie and get it quickly without leaving the comfort of my home. It will be in HD and in a format that I can use across all my devices. There will be no threats of fines or jail. There also will be no commercials or other unneeded trash. OR I can buy it. If I buy it then it will be locked onto one particular format. I will be threatened with fines and jail time. Then forced to watch commercials.
Is it really any wonder why piracy is so bad? You treat your costumers like trash and guess what? They will not respect you and ignore your bitching and crying. Now if you treat your customers with respect and sell them what they want, then you will be filthy rich and the "Piracy problem" will solve itself.
As a side note, my experience with "piracy" is pirating the good copies of things I already own.
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I find it frustrating with the physical movies that I have to sit through previews and content i cannot skip thought before watching the movie. All my rips start right away, and are in perfect little AVI containers that I can do as I please with.
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Amen to you and mr Shin. Although I do pirate a lot more than what I own. Then buy what is worth (if not related to the MAFIAA for moral and ethical coherence).
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Cools vs. Works
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Punish the paying customer? Really?
"copied a floppy" just doesn't cut it there.
Now whether or not studios want to sue paying customers is another matter. They may find such defendants much more sympathetic than the pirates they have vilified so far.
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Yes, it does, actually. If I'm going to be sued/arrested for something, it's better when I know that I have the moral high ground.
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Effectively, yes.
The point of copyright is to encourage new works are created, correct?
The justification is that in order to create new works, creators need to be able to make money, correct?
Therefore, once the creators have made piles of money off their work, copyright on that work becomes moot.
Of course, maybe I'm just saying all this because I'm sleep deprived from seeing a really awesome movie last night at the midnight opening showing. Yes, I'm a pirate. That's why I paid my $11.50 for a ticket to go see a movie at midnight. If my parking experience is anything to go by, they may already be in the black.
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Piracy will not hurt the movie too much in the US because people are willing to pay to see it in theaters. There will be some piracy while people wait for it to make its way to DVD, Redbox, and Netflix (if it makes it there at all). The amount of piracy in the US is likely to be directly proportional to how long the studio makes consumers wait and how many hoops they have to jump through to watch the movie at home.
International sales will probably suffer quite a bit from piracy and from illegal commercial production in places like China. Again, that will be proportional to how long the studios try unsuccessfully to make people wait in those markets.
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I think that copyright protection for commercial use makes sense. But not for non commercial, personal use. I suspect Mike would agree with this (though I don't believe I've seen the distinction on Techdirt before), but its a distinction that Tucker doesn't seem to make in his article.
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I think that copyright protection for commercial use makes sense. But not for non commercial, personal use."
Yes, exactly.
On top of your point, without commercial copyright protection, every studio would put Batman in every movie. Demand MIGHT not go down for a Chris Nolan Batman but its value as an investment would certainly be compromised.
Copyright is good and necessary. Unfortunate misapplications of old law to digital media have rolled back our rights to communicate and to own our personal property, and that's a problem we're fixing, but we need reform, not anarchy.
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I invite the usual shills to comment on that. Pirate apologists from pirate Mike's crew saying copyright should exist must be mind boggling for them =/
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To me, that seems like less of a concern - I don't have a problem with something like Batman going into the public domain (after, say, 20 years, in a reasonable world), and allowing for anyone to write their own Batman script. At that point, the market will pick which movies are good and which are not, independent of their use of the iconic Batman.
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And "fair?" copyright isn't about what's fair. to was made to be a monopoly granted by the state in order to promote learning.
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The letter and intent.
In this regard, non-commercial copyright infringement should probably be completely ignored.
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You still have your own controlled distribution channels, you still have ways to compete even without any copyrights at all, it would make it hard not impossible.
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Of course it does!
As it is now you can obtain an inferior copy in Pirate Bay and, in a couple of months, a DVD rio.
Batman will surely make a ton of money in theatrical but not all movies (TV shows, books, etc) are Batman. Of course the author of that article knows that.
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Re: Of course it does!
This is one of the things I hate about movies. Do you think Batman just sells because Batman is popular? There have been other Batman movies and shows, this one sells because they're good. Not just because it's Batman. Maybe if making a movie like The Dark Knight Rises is what's needed to make money, creators would take the time to make better movies.
I for one am getting sick of Hollywood making shitty movies just because it will meet the bottom line. More movies like Dark Knight and Avengers please.
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You & I differ on what constitutes great movies. I would love it if we had a lot fewer movies of the Batman and Avengers type.
I'm not disparaging your taste at all, but using our difference to make a larger point:
I wish Hollywood would stop trying to make blockbusters. Blockbusters are designed to appeal to the common denominator. In other words, they must be vanilla. Not that there's anything wrong with vanilla -- I find it delicious myself -- but there are so many other delicious flavors out there as well, and they won't get made because the studios need blockbusters.
This is one of the main reasons why I would love to see the major studios go away. They would be replaced by hundreds of smaller movie makers, and we would see a much greater variety in movies. There would be something to please everyone!
Then, perhaps, we could have movies that you love as well as movies that I love.
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The ART of movie making can't be ignored. Doesn't matter if it's a "snooty" type of movie or not.
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If I like the movie or I'm highly expecting it I'll just pay and watch but sometimes there are movies that I either don't think are worth watching in the cinema (but I'm not willing to wait them hit the video rentals/Netflix) or I'm wary of watching it in the cinemas because of either bad reviews or simply because I'm neurotic. The latter will most likely end up being downloaded for confirmation and might get watched in the cinema. Or not.
Point is, you CAN'T pay for all content available that you'd like to check. Simple as that. So you either download it or don't watch at all. Except that by downloading it you might like and end up buying.
Of course there are the moral issues that are preventing me to buy anything original related to the MAFIAA for 2 years now but if it wasn't for that I'd follow that logic. Unfortunately I couldn't ditch cinema completely from my life yet.
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You're right there.
The interesting thing you'll then note about the less popular titles are that they are less populare with "pirates" too.
Find a title that isn't pirated at all and you've found a title that no one is buying either.
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Batman will surely make a ton of money in theatrical but not all movies (TV shows, books, etc) will make as much money as Batman.
FTFY.
You don't need to make zillion dollars to make a living as a creator.
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and when you goto the theatre bring body armor
too bad the old justice league that was against the govt cant help eh?
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Re: and when you goto the theatre bring body armor
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Sort of not a good idea to be talking about Batman today, anyway... think about the victims. Really.
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The only think that would limit the quality of showing would be the money spent on the hardware.
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And the idea to sell a copy of the movie, as I walk out of the doors is pretty exciting to me! Hell, with the experience in my mind still, I'd buy cool speakers for my TV.
In no way does the at home experience even marginally match the big screen and big sound. But I'd be really excited to see the movie again at home too.
I know there are cam vids of the Avengers on any P2P site I visit. But the video quality and sound suck. I am waiting for the DVD release, to really enjoy the movie again.
Batman does need some IP, I agree. Just to keep the cheap, awful copies popping up and sold legitimately but I've never had a problem with the spirit of IP. Just the horrible, draconian, deep time implementation of it.
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They would probably have better. I know that the experience I have in major movie theaters is always worse than the experience I have in a few tiny, "non-generic" theaters.
The major movies theaters kindof suck.
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Why would theater operators pay the studio to show the film if they didn't have to?
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They can't legally do that.
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There was a reason they had to give up their cinemas, now the bulk of money from a film comes from DVDs, TV and Downloads/Streaming.
A perfectly good argument can be made for studios to have cinemas again, especially in the context of doing away with copyright.
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Why would the studio give a copy to a theater that didn't pay ?
Yes, without copyright, that theater could then give a copy to...their competitors. That doesn't sound like a great business model, though.
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Call me pirate.
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No. Because he is Batman.
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Dear Mr. Axel Braun,
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