Film piracy costs Hollywood $6.1 bln on Reuters.com
Film piracy costs Hollywood $6.1 bln: study|Reuters.com
Hmm, let me see if I believe this.. the MPAA, a totally unbiased organization(ahem), says they've determined that Hollywood's major studios lost over $6 billion in revenues in 2005. And that loss was due to piracy. Let's link to the actual MPAA report just for fun, here.
To believe that report, conducted by the Lek group, you'd think that the movie box office receipts would be down by $6 billion or perhaps around the world would be down by that much. But let's look at the MPAA's own numbers.
"US box office for 2005 was $8.99 billion. For the fourth straight year, domestic cumulative box office from all studios continues to hold near $9 billion. (Refer to page 2 of the 2005 Theatrical Market Statistics Report)"
"Worldwide box office held steady at $23.24 billion in 2005. Although down 7.9% from 2004, the worldwide box office reflected a 46% growth over 2000. (Refer to page 5 of the 2005 Theatrical Market Statistics Report)"
"US admissions were down 8.7% in 2005, at a total of 1.40 billion. This compares to 1.54 billion in 2004. (Refer to page 6 of the 2005 Theatrical Market Statistics Report)"
It seems to me that there's a discrepency somewhere. Where did that 'lost' $6 billion go? Or better yet, where did it come from? The numbers indicate a fraction of that in downturn.
I'm sorry, but I just don't see it visible in their numbers. Perhaps they could publish a public report with lots of details instead of giving us the summary statements. Perhaps they'd care to break it down by demographics better.
Or pehaps they'd like to bounce their numbers against reviewer ratings, world events(flood/famine/hurricane), or other market indicators????? Guess not today.
Is anyone out there doing those sorts of stats publicly and loudly enough that I might care about an industry that keeps churning out such quality flicks as Larry the Cable Guy: Health Inspector or Slither. We know folks were fighting each other to get tickets to those. :)
More later, rant off,
Tojosan
1 thoughts:
"To believe that report..."
Not quite: the press release seems to include purported loss of potential profits due to any kind of copyright infringement, not merely loss of potential box office receipts. "Bootlegging," "illegal copying," and "Internet piracy" (their three categories) could all apply to sending a disc image to your video server via TCP/IP if you accept MPAA claims[1] that only they can create legal copies.
Now, let's assume that the top brass of movie studios are neither stupid nor stupendously deluded. It seems more likely that they do not believe their own propaganda. Why then are they spending what seems like significant money to buy legislation and advertising? Why do they plaster their "FBI Warnings" onto DVDs? What's their motivation?
Personally, I spend approximately my maximum entertainment budget on entertainment. I haven't infringed movies in years, but I don't buy more movies now than I did then. Actually, I bought a lot more DVDs back when I infringed several times a week. During the entire time that I've been aware of copyright law, I feel confident in saying that strict enforcement would never have caused me to buy more; I would just view/hear/read less or other.
[1] MPAA cites RIAA on fair use from their web site: http://www.riaa.com/issues/copyright/laws.asp#fair
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