And, Once Again, Hollywood Is Making Tons Of Money At The Box Office
from the and-yet-they-complain dept
For years, we've pointed out that as Hollywood kept insisting that piracy was killing its business, and all anyone would do is watch films for free at home, box office revenues kept increasing. 2011 was a slight blip -- in that US box office revenue dropped a tiny bit, even as the global box office set new records. And the drop in US box office was mainly due to a bunch of less than stellar movie options. So it's little surprise that this year, on the backs of things like The Avengers, the latest Batman and The Hobbit, the US box office is back on the rise. It's interesting to note that this year there's even an increase in number attending rather than just in revenue collected.So, once again, we're left wondering two things. First, why does the industry keep insisting that piracy is killing it and second why has the theater industry still done so little to improve the movie going experience, to capture the clear interest in the public to go see movies in the theaters? Yes, some people will argue (as the MPAA likes to) that it's not the box office they're concerned about, but rather the home video market. But, really, that's pretty rich, given that it was less than 30 years ago, the very same MPAA was doing its damndest to make sure there was no home video market as it sought to kill off the VCR. That they should now be complaining that they can't make as much money there -- at the same time they've often failed to make their own movies available digitally in a reasonable manner -- reeks of just bad business, rather than any sort of existential threat.
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Filed Under: box office, movie industry, piracy
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Nor exactly...
From the very start, this has been about control of markets through monopoly. Ever since Hollywood ran away from Thomas Edison, they have worked to control markets through law, collusion, or threats.
We've heard that they can't treat actors fairly or pay them proportionately based on their performances.
The musicians and composers have lost on copyright based on how record labels control their work and take away their venues.
Writers have been screwed by the Author's Guild who fights for more copyright over their interests.
Finally, the public had green screwed since 1976, when copyright was strengthened to diminish the public domain and bar people from telling stories with new music, movies, and games based on old material. For every remix that people wanted, there is a maximalist trying to underscore what copyright's true purpose is: control.
You can't control a million people. But controlling their access to new technology and maintaining that control had been the aim and it's failing.
I don't know if that fragile monopoly will maintain for any longer. It seems more likely that the more people look into copyright issues, the less inclined people are to support copyright monopolies.
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I really don't understand this argument that you oft repeat. If the VCR hadn't come out, surely another home video player would have with movies supplied by the studios. You assume that no one would have had any way to watch videos at home. I can't imagine that ever would have happened.
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"At The Box Office", Mike, NOT a cent from pirates!
Once again, we're left wondering two things. First, how would Hollywood make $100M dollar movies in absence of copyright, with every little pirate in the world stealing them soon as possible. Second, where's this Masnick's $100M dollar movie which proves his notions sound?
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Re: "At The Box Office", Mike, NOT a cent from pirates!
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And you assume it would have been allowed at all. They wanted to block the VCR because it was going to be a piracy epidemic free-for-all. Now, take that mentality and try and properly extrapolate consistently, rather than just take an opposing point of view from Mike for argument's sake.
If the VCR had been blocked, anything else would have too. It's really not that hard to see. Unless of course you're a wanna be lawyer in training apparently.
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The MPAA fought the VCR not to stop that specific technology, but to stop the home movie market from eating into theater revenue. Yes, if the MPAA had won, we would not have an alternative.
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If it were not for the fight that the people won with regards to home taping and viewing we would be sitting with 100% of the population being classified as criminals for doing something that is both natural an acceptable, watching content when where and how we like to after it has been purchased, or shared.
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Thus, with history backing them up, people look at the internet piracy scene and say that's going to play out the same way VCRs did. It's not much of a stretch to make that conclusion.
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I won't quibble with "Hollywood Is Making Tons Of Money"...
So I think Mike was for once accurate in his titling.
Now I object to Pirate Mike's fatuous "they've often failed to make their own movies available digitally in a reasonable manner" accusation that problem is all Hollywood's stupidity -- and explain more through the magic of copy-paste:
Mike has an agenda to favor certain grifters over those who actually create and produce content. MANY of the pieces on Techdirt are hair-splitting legalisms supporting the symbiotic system that skates on the very edge of overt commercial infringement. Mike maintains the following sequence is perfectly legal, even protected "free speech":
1) anonymous up-loaders have a "right" to transfer ("share") whatever data they wish to wherever they wish because it's not commercial infringement;
2) so that commercial scale file hosts can claim they're NOT infringing copyright because have no knowledge as to whether full-length movie data is copyrighted and NOT "fair use" -- with the extra twist of can't have such knowledge because are too many files to check! -- meanwhile, with the draw of providing for free someone else's valuable copyrighted content, the file hosts directly sell premium access speed plus get advertising revenue;
3) so that links sites announcing the infringing but "free" content can also draw eyeballs to advertising for income;
4) so that anonymous down-loaders can get the valuable content for free.
So here's Mike's actual calculation: $100M movie + 1 up-loader + many file hosts + many links sites + unlimited down-loaders = infinite goods!
[A similiar symbiotic sequence is in peer-to-peer networks: omit specific file hosts, and only links sites get advertising revenue.]
Note that except perhaps (one time) for the up-loader, NONE of those entities pay one cent to whoever produced the content. But ALL depend upon getting FREE content: it's a "business model" that can ignore the "sunk (or fixed) costs" for a $100M movie to focus only on bandwidth costs EXACTLY as in Mike's "can't compete" piece! -- I say that's NOT coincidence.
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They wanted to force the consumers in to the theaters.
And even you have admitted in the past that it is pretty easy to be angry with the MPAA.
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The MPAA specifically stated that the Home Video Player, or rather, the VCR, was going to kill movies like the Boston Strangler killed women.
You know who saved the VCR?
Mr. Rogers.
He went to Congress and said that the VCR was a good thing.
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Re: I won't quibble with "Hollywood Is Making Tons Of Money"...
Attacking Mike wont move the discussion about the state of copyright or the business practices of the entertainment industry forward. You'll note that I'm not asking you to agree with anyone, just drop the personal attacks.
However, if you want your comments to be ignored, then I guess you are getting the reaction you are getting.
Happy New Year.
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Re: "At The Box Office", Mike, NOT a cent from pirates!
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Re: I won't quibble with "Hollywood Is Making Tons Of Money"...
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Re: Re: "At The Box Office", Mike, NOT a cent from pirates!
(The $100M movie is my on-going focus. See my 2nd bit above for more, or READ Mike's "can't compete" feature piece and then YOU explain how Mike can just forget about a $100M of "sunk (or fixed) costs" for a movie.)
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Re: Re: "At The Box Office", Mike, NOT a cent from pirates!
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Oops...sorry. For a minute I thought we were on a different reality were what you said made sense. Never mind what I said.
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"During the late 1970s and early 1980s, Jack Valenti became notorious for his flamboyant attacks on the Sony Betamax Video Cassette Recorder (VCR), which the MPAA feared would devastate the movie industry. He famously told a congressional panel in 1982, "I say to you that the VCR is to the American film producer and the American public as the Boston strangler is to the woman home alone." Despite Valenti's prediction, the home video market ultimately came to be the mainstay of movie studio revenues throughout the 1980s and 1990s."
Just so you know...
Jack Joseph Valenti (September 5, 1921 – April 26, 2007) was a longtime president of the Motion Picture Association of America. During his 38-year tenure in the MPAA, he created the MPAA film rating system, and he was generally regarded as one of the most influential pro-copyright lobbyists in the world.
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Re: Re: Re: "At The Box Office", Mike, NOT a cent from pirates!
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Re: Re: "At The Box Office", Mike, NOT a cent from pirates!
Re: "At The Box Office", Mike, NOT a cent from pirates!
Moron
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Reasonable readers dropping in (assuming any do) take note of this: "Zakida Paul's" response is what you'll get from the fanboy-trolls at Techdirt: not a bit of argument, only ad hom. They're children who are unable to resist comment but have no substance at all, only some positions that they repeat over and over. They don't expand and support Mike's points, just go along with their guru's untried and even untested notions. Anyone who disagrees with Mike is variously reviled; they don't even grasp that they're the ones making a hostile forum here. Techdirt even has an official "comment enforcer", Timothy Geigner, aka "Dark Helmet", whose specialty is being so vile as to run off most people.
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Re: Re: Re: "At The Box Office", Mike, NOT a cent from pirates!
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Re: Re: Re: Re: "At The Box Office", Mike, NOT a cent from pirates!
Re: Re: Re: "At The Box Office", Mike, NOT a cent from pirates!
Ok. Why does there even need to be $100m movies that do nothing but distract from the real talent and creativity of independent film makers who do not have that sort of budget. There has not been a decent $100m movie in years."
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SO? Questions are easy, aren't they?
Make all the movies you want of whatever budget, then "give away and pray" at whatever price you want to charge, sell T-shirts, and so on, and NO ONE WILL STOP YOU (from losing your own T-shirt). -- GO AHEAD and introduce whatever new business models you want. -- BUT you cannot say that the movie industry can operate in absence of copyright and allow piracy to become universal. I don't see any new model that works: go ahead and outline it, then. -- NOR can you force existing industry to provide their products for free! Because that's what Mike wants them to do, SO that his $100M movie example can be a source of income for grifters!
See my 2nd piece here for exactly what Mike proposes.
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Re: Re: Re: "At The Box Office", Mike, NOT a cent from pirates!
You are focusing on the wrong problem.
If your goal is to make money, creating a $100M movie that sells "OK" should not be a priority. In fact, even if it sells "well", you've sunk so much money into it that you'll have to make many sales just to break even.
The game studios are starting to learn this the hard way as the smaller, and more nimble indie studios are starting to eat their lunches, even with their tiny budgets.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: "At The Box Office", Mike, NOT a cent from pirates!
Re: Re: Re: "At The Box Office", Mike, NOT a cent from pirates!
It's about all your comment merits. You haven't answered my question above.
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Oh, REAL ORIGINAL. First, I don't respond to endless time-wasting questions by fanboys who I'm not going to convince. BUT have made an exception because in a mood, so right back at ya:
I've provided more than your comment deserves. You haven't answered my question above.
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Question for OOTB
On the Instagram article you came down on Mike for being pro corporation and yet here you are defending the corporate whores that run Hollywood. Why so inconsistent and even hypocritical?
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: "At The Box Office", Mike, NOT a cent from pirates!
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No, because the usual responses you get are debunkings of your moronic and ignorant posts. You know, the ones you usually don't bother responding too. Probably because of a lack of facts to support the claims you make.
Also, it's a bit, well actually VERY, hypocritical of you to say others have no arguments and only ad homs. Considering all your post thus far in this article have consisted solely of making ad homs about Mike and readers of this site. Nor do you make any arguments contrary to what was stated in the article, at least none that are supported or backed up by anything in the way of facts. You've resorted to the AJ approach of "ANSWER MY QUESTION!!! RAWR!!!" (See your constant bit about the $100M movie.)
"They don't expand and support Mike's points, just go along with their guru's untried and even untested notions. "
Provably false. In point of fact, most people commenting consistently expand upon Mike's points. Usually in reply to trolls like yourself. Elaborating on and putting as simply as possible what Mike says and means, then adding their own commentary to it as well.
"Anyone who disagrees with Mike is variously reviled; they don't even grasp that they're the ones making a hostile forum here."
No, many who disagree with Mike are NOT variously reviled. Or better said those that do so with a level of respect for Mike's position, even if they disagree with it, and are able to communicate their own thoughts and feelings on a given subject without resorting to launching personal attacks at Mike or making generalized ad homs about the people on this site (you know, those little things you do every time yo ucomment). In addition to that they use logic and reason in their arguments against a given position, without resorting to "but piracy!!!" or "but the law!!!" or "but morals!!!" (Basically, they avoid the bits that are irrelevant and focus instead on facts and data. Again, something you may find yourself unfamiliar with, given as you've never come across it once in any of your postings.)
As for the hostile forum here, that's a blatantly false statement. This forum is anything but hostile. Except for when trolls like you come here and start accusing everyone of piracy or resorting to comments that are nothing but personal attacks. That's hostile. Hypocrisy thy name is Blue.
"Techdirt even has an official "comment enforcer", Timothy Geigner, aka "Dark Helmet", whose specialty is being so vile as to run off most people."
Oh, would this be the same "comment enforcer" you routinely confuse me with and refer to as, and I quote, "Dick Helmet"? Yeah, you're not very good at this "argument" thing are you? You wag your finger at others about making ad homs and ignore the fact that you refer to the "comment enforcer" with the terms I just quoted every chance you get. That's an ad hom by the way, just in case you weren't aware.
Anyway, this is me, a fanboy-troll apparently (since I visit this site daily and comment regularly, albeit anonymously, and agree with the majority of things on this site, but not everything and definitely not with everyone) replying to your comment in a reasonable and respectful manner. Hopefully in the attempt that you get a clue and realize this is the kind of comment you SHOULD be making, but knowing it is definitely not the kind you'll ever make, much less respond to (because it shoots down everything you just said and we all know you can't respond to those kinds of comments, as is usual).
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Re: Re: Re: "At The Box Office", Mike, NOT a cent from pirates!
You used to have occasional posts that while I didn't agree with them I could at least understand them, but lately you increasingly exhibit many of the negative behaviors you so readily point out in others. This hypocrisy reveals much about your agenda and does little to promote your credibility and cause.
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Re: Re: I won't quibble with "Hollywood Is Making Tons Of Money"...
Re: I won't quibble with "Hollywood Is Making Tons Of Money"...
If you could just force yourself to quit the personal attacks, your arguments could be made in to a interesting discussion.
Attacking Mike wont move the discussion about the state of copyright or the business practices of the entertainment industry forward. You'll note that I'm not asking you to agree with anyone, just drop the personal attacks.
However, if you want your comments to be ignored, then I guess you are getting the reaction you are getting.
Happy New Year.
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1) I don't really care about the forum, NOR results (if any). The fanboy-trolls here have nothing but personal attacks: it's they who don't move opinion. If they started to analyze Mike's notions -- as I did -- they'd come to same conclustions: Mike has nothing but hazy notions of "better business model" and selling T-shirts. It's not an industry.
2) You AC don't have anything but personal attack here. In at least the item you replied to, it's all substance on Mike's positions, not a bit of personal that I see. You're just another of Mike's virtual sock-puppets trying to sway me from substance. My comments stand on their own, especially since not answered substantively -- nor even ignored! That's the funny part. You'd think by now that the fanboy-trolls would have learned not to bother, they're only making the forum unpleasant with ad hom comments, but they don't. I give them a prod and they yap their heads off like anke-biters. Quite an interestingly wacky sociology here, keeps me interested...
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I love it when the freetards just pull made-up shit out of their ass.
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Re: Question for OOTB
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Oh wait...
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: "At The Box Office", Mike, NOT a cent from pirates!
Therefore, I should be able to go the grocery store and take whatever I want.
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oh wait...
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: "At The Box Office", Mike, NOT a cent from pirates!
Here's a better one: You can buy* a watermelon and use the seeds to create as many "copies" of that watermelon as you want. Nobody is going to stop you.
* If it helps with the analogy, you can think of this as paying for your internet connection...which pirates still have to do
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: "At The Box Office", Mike, NOT a cent from pirates!
Okay, so let's do this on a point by point basis.
1. "Give away and pray" is NOT and has NEVER been advocated for by Techdirt or Mike.
2. T-shirts. Ditto.
3. New business models ARE needed. As is rather obvious, the old ones are no longer effective in a digital age.
4. No one, TD/Mike, has said the movie industry can operate in the absence of copyright and allow copyright to become universal.
What has been said is there are ALTERNATIVE business models that can work. No business model will work for everyone. Experiment as you please, find what works for you.
Copyright is not being advocated against in the sense that you portray. Copyright REFORM is. Big difference, although the point may be lost on one such as yourself.
Piracy is NOT being advocated for, much less condoned. As has been on numerous occasions flat out stated by Mike himself.
Piracy CAN be beat by updating business models to reflect the changing digital times and consumer wants/needs of said digital times. (Reasonable prices, as digital "copies" are not requiring any physical materials to produce. As such they should by default be cheaper. Windowed releases no longer work when the world has instant access to anything and everything. Consumers are no longer tied to one device for media consumption, allowing for use on multiple devices with NO DRM would work with this new trend.)
5. To quote Christopher Titus, "Just because you don't get the joke doesn't mean it's not funny." Same applies to you. Just because you don't see any new models that work doesn't mean they don't.
6. See previous point made. No business model is one-size-fits-alls. Outlining any would therefore be ineffective. YOU want exactly that, one size fits all. Doesn't exist. Quit asking for it.
7. No one is forcing existing industries to provide their products for free. They are being asked to change their business practices to reflect the changes in the market's wants/needs. (Reasonable prices, no windowed releases/geographical restrictions, no DRM, etc.)
8. No, that is NOT what Mike wants them to do. At all. But the point of what he does want them to do is lost on you.
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Re: Re: Question for OOTB
Don't ruin his buzz.
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I figured out how Masnick and you bozos function:
1. State that Hollywood has a business model problem and that's why they're not making enough money, not piracy.
2. Later say piracy must not be a problem because Hollywood is already making enough money.
3. Go back to Step 1 and begin talking in circles again.
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Re: Re: Re: Question for OOTB
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You and me both.
Anyway, Jack Valenti, president of the MPAA during the 1970s and 1980s did his level best to kill the VCR. I have posted the appropriate quotes on this page, just search for "Jack Valenti" to see what I said.
And you know who stopped the Supreme Court and Congress from ruling against the VCR?
Mr. Rodgers.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: "At The Box Office", Mike, NOT a cent from pirates!
When i make a copy of a movie, the original is still there.
When I take a watermellon from the store, that's one less watermellon for everyone.
See the difference?
Or are you that obtuse?
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At the time if you would have introduced a player only device the consumer would have rejected it as it did not record as well.
Remember laserdisk?
It was this wonderful device that let you record shows to be watched at a later time. It was one of the first devices that let consumers have control over when/where we consumed content. Thats why it had to be stopped.
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RE;Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: "At The Box Office", Mike, NOT a cent from pirates!
They should be taking it out on themselves for drinking the kool-aid from the RIAA and MPAA. Yet they can't resist time and again making fools of themselves and winding up being vilified by everyone who has a bit of common sense other than the black hole that seems to be omnipresent in their heads.
You'd think by now they'd be getting tired of the same old shtick but, no, with each post they seem to relish making horses' asses of themselves by name calling, and garbage spouting.
For once why don't O_O_T_B, Average_Joe, Bob and TAM sit down together and commiserate on the fact that no matter how much stupidity they espouse no one is going to believe them.
I feel sorry for these simple minded, misinformed, ass clowns who think that the word of RIAA and the MPAA is gospel and anyone who disagrees is a heretic.
Unfortunately, there are some people out there, these four souls amongst them who seem to think that the sky is black the sun is blue and the wind only blows roses and perfume from the dung heap that is Hollywood and the RIAA.
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Re: Re: Re: "At The Box Office", Mike, NOT a cent from pirates!
http://whyipirate.blogspot.com/2012/04/theatrical-movie-business-perished.html
So what makes you think early release DVDs would have any kind of substantial impact?
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Yes, they were. Just like they were worried about cassette tapes and home taping. Just like they were worried about CD-Rs. Just like they were worried about DVD-Rs. Just like DVD jukeboxes, or breaking DVD encryption, mp3s, and user generated content sites, Youtube, streaming music and movies and Hulu, Aereo, or whatever the next dozen innovations they'll try to kill, tax, or control to no good end.
How many do we have to name before you get it?
Every single fucking time they have been proven completely and utterly wrong. Wrong about the facts. Wrong about the results. Wrong for the wrong reasons.
There is an elephant in the room and you keep trying to hand wave it away.
You have to be willfully blind not to see this. You're not stupid, Joe. But either you are intentionally ignoring things just because they don't suit your viewpoint, or because Mike is the messenger, or because you're naive. Take your pick.
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Re: Re: Re: your hate of the MPAA
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Yet the "content industry" failed to actually supply enough "content" for those devices to encourage their adoption, apparently holding little interest in fostering a home video market despite the technology existing.
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Re: Re: Re: I won't quibble with "Hollywood Is Making Tons Of Money"...
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Sounds to me like he was a prophet.
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I Boycott all MAFIAA and give them a big Two Finger Salute.
And I have no problem at all spending my money on Local and Indie Art.Fuck You to Hollywood.If I really need to go near you I will just buy a Used Product.And if that is not ever there I can easily just not watch whatever new thing you got out.The thing is I just do not have any interest at all in your Industry.Time to move on to new ground.Dinosaurs can go extinct.............Finding new life elsewhere.That is Evolution.
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Re:
The point is not the VCR as you well know and picking on that in a post about how film revenue and attendace are going up while the studios are whining about how "piracy is KILLING their business" looks rather petty.
The VCR is, however, a prime example that the legacy content industies try and block every technical innovation that comes along that might force them to adapt their business model even slightly and how they scream it's going to spell doom, Doom, DOOOOOM for the industry.
As for "video player" versus recorder, you're just playing your usual picky semantic games. Technology advances and even if it it had been the VCP that was invented first, the VCR would inevitably have followed a couple of years later just as the CDR followed the CD, the DVD-R the DVD. For every recorded medium there must b e the technology to record onto it and that technology will eventually be cheap enough for consumers no matter how expensive to start.
So hollywood would have whined about the VCR whenever it was invented and as always it's them trying to control what other legitimate businesses get to do.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: "At The Box Office", Mike, NOT a cent from pirates!
Spoken like someone who doesn't bother to read responses yet feels the need to let people know how no one bothers to see your side of the situation. A conversation, at least an intelligent one, needs to have both sides listen, so obviously you are not holding up your end of the conversation.
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2. The MPAA and RIAA bribe Senators and Congresscritters to write laws that only they know of and export them, but do little to actually address other issues.
3) Go back to Step 1 and begin talking in circles again.
FTFY
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If your goal is to stop piracy, then yes, you would want to stop those technologies. But, if your goal is to make money, then you need to embrace those technologies.
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It's become evident that even occasional readers are seeing ootb's rants resemble someone off his meds.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Question for OOTB
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Re: Re: Re: I won't quibble with "Hollywood Is Making Tons Of Money"...
You apparently don't understand much about individuality if you think that everyone would come to the same conclusion about anything if they analyzed it as you did.
Different people are different, obviously. Even people who might agree with you to some degree will still come to a wide variety of variations on your conclusions.
The "I'm right and anyone who doesn't agree with me didn't think about it properly" position is just arrogant and sad. Even if you had a legitimate point, why would anyone bother to read your comments other than to laugh at your vitriol and immaturity?
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BUT
Whining about insults is precisely the same thing.
There's either an argument, or there isn't. Stick to the meat, and ignore the extraneous stuff. Calling someone out for insults is trying to make your argument more "respectable."
Both are classic debate tactics. In fact, I think the words "ad hominem" are used here far more than any actual ad hominem attacks happen.
Same goes for shill. How anyone can say the debate here is honest, when every single person who argues against piracy is called a shill is beyond me. It takes a special kind of cognitive dissonance for that.
That anyone thinks this a balanced forum is laughable. I'm sure Bill O'Reilly also thinks he is reasonable.
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You're a complete moron.
Artists get royalty checks from sales, not platinum credit cards.
Stop trying to rationalize ripping someone off, you worthless douchenozzle.
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Re: Re: Re: "At The Box Office", Mike, NOT a cent from pirates!
...and is as irrelevant as any of your other ramblings. It's been explained to you why many times, yet you keep using it as if it's the only argument.
"the notion of selling DVDs in movie lobbies on first day of new movies; it's a staggeringly silly idea because would facilitate piracy and guarantee far less ticket sales"
Perhaps if instead of using attacks on fictional strawmen, you actually address one simple question - why? (including citations of your evidence and reasoning as to why it's the only outcome) - then maybe people would consider you an interesting person to debate with, instead of the obsessed troll you present yourself as today.
Personally, I think that only an abject moron would think that allowing people to buy movies on the day of theatrical release would think it leads to *more* piracy when the pirated version are already available - BEFORE release date in some cases. lower sales for other reasons perhaps, but not "because piracy", which seem to be your only argument for anything. I'm willing to discuss my reasoning why if asked. Are you that honest? I think not.
"MIKE HAS NO ANSWERS."
Nor do you. At least Mike is capable of addressing reality instead of launching shrill personal attacks on anyone who dares disagree.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: "At The Box Office", Mike, NOT a cent from pirates!
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Well, whaddaya know...
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