Is film piracy as big a problem as it's made out to be?

busyliving · 08-07-2011 11:39pm

A lot of what they complain about is over-hyped in my opinion...

If i'm being honest, the people i know who watch pirated movies are the people who don't go to the cinema anyways...granted pirated movies which have been released on DVD is a big problem, as i haven't brought many DVDs in the last 5 years...maybe 17 DVDs in total.

But the movie industry do cause a few problems themselves, an example of this is J.J.Abrams latest movie has been already released in US, but won't hit Irish cinema screens for another 2 months...now why on earth would you do that, release movies within a week(in different regions) across the world and the likelihood of the pirates doing damage is lessened.

But surly the recession has an effect as well, with people only choosing to go and see good movies, the amount of sh!te movies released over a year is crazy.

But i'm the kind of person who tries to make it to the cinema once a week, even if the movie has got poor reviews, just enjoy the cinema:D

Sad Professor · 08-07-2011 11:57pm

Worldwide simultaneous releases are certainly for the best in the case of big films like Super 8, but I think I agree with what Goldstein said earlier that if people want to watch poor quality cams of such films then good luck to them. I think DVD and Blu-ray rips are doing more damage. The studios make such a big deal out of cams and telecines of big blockbusters, but they still freely send out thousands DVDs and Blu-rays for Oscar consideration every year which inevitably end up online.

Staggered cinema releases can sometimes favour smaller films though as it gives time for word of mouth to spread. Of course, if they are too staggered then you end up with DVDs/Blu-rays becoming available in one region before the film has even been released theatrically in another.

mystique150 · 09-07-2011 12:02am

I just paid extra vision to watch "Love and other drugs", I should have been paid to watch it as Pfizer was mentioned every five mins. Some films don't deserve money - I'll happily pay for a good one though!

iMax · 09-07-2011 12:30am

Sad Professor wrote: »

I assume the studios/copyright holders get the €200/whatever that Xtravision pay for the rental disc. How much filmmakers get depends on their contracts. Nothing in most cases. Afaik this is different in the US. They don't have rental copies. Anyone can just buy a bunch of DVDs, rent them out and profit.

And I'm not so sure I'd be interested in Netflix even if it was available here. My understanding is that the quality is sh*t.

Not even.

I have extensive experience in this field. I also happen to have a July price-list in my mailbox. Here's a couple of sample prices from the largest wholesaler in Ireland:

The Lincoln Lawyer - €16.01
Limitless - €18
Rango - €25
Sucker Punch - €15.20
Big Momma's House III - €22.50
Hall Pass - €15.20
Unknown - €18

All prices are ex VAT & Delivery. Prices are base price which means they will be discounted with significant quantity.

I would expect Xtravision pay approx. ⅓ - ½ the above price based on quantity ordered. They would also have exclusivity arrangements in place.

I can remember a time when VHS rental titles would have averaged £50 per copy & the libraries would still have their money back in a month based on a £2 per night rental.

For older "catalogue" titles the price is much lower & within two weeks of street date, you could slash about ¼ of the street price of new releases.

Streaming here is prohibitively expensive, I was quoted €300,000 for 750 titles for a year for licence (paid in advance), which works out a little under €8 per title per week cost to me.

Now all I'd need to do is stream each one twice a week to be in profit, but the titles aren't even that new (about two months behind DVD) & I'd have to be streaming every single title twice a week. Big problem with that is the infrastructure we have here in Ireland. We have no-where near the broadband capability required.

Because of that, the DVD market is going to continue here (xtravision are launching an online service in August AFAICR), wether they get the rental model right or not, we've yet to see, they have to be careful not to cannibalise their B&M market.

Netflicks have expressed an interest in entering the european market, but it's unlikely they'd start in Ireland & even if they did, they wouldn't be streaming for the reason above. The cynic in me thinks that the reason XV might be rushing into online (because they don't know how to do it) is so they'll be ripe for a netflix buyout.

To get back to the original question, piracy is a problem, but it's not as big a problem as is made out. It's a way of keeping the overall gross down on lead titles & not paying out the full percentage points that major start/directors/writers would have. Although it can harm an opening gross of a movie ( which is why we now see simultaneous release dates), I think if you are an actual film fan, you'll want to see it in a cinema anyway & not on a 20" monitor.

Incidentally, the major studios are currently trying to terminate their contracts with netflix (& have recently started cancelling streaming rights) as they are loosing too much money on product. They created a monster & now want to kill it.

Dman001 · 09-07-2011 2:14pm

iMax wrote: »

Streaming here is prohibitively expensive, I was quoted €300,000 for 750 titles for a year for licence (paid in advance), which works out a little under €8 per title per week cost to me.

Now all I'd need to do is stream each one twice a week to be in profit, but the titles aren't even that new (about two months behind DVD) & I'd have to be streaming every single title twice a week. Big problem with that is the infrastructure we have here in Ireland. We have no-where near the broadband capability required.

Because of that, the DVD market is going to continue here (xtravision are launching an online service in August AFAICR), wether they get the rental model right or not, we've yet to see, they have to be careful not to cannibalise their B&M market.

Very interesting info, cheers iMax. You can see how some of these start-up Movie Streaming sites struggle and fail with licencing fees like that, on top of Operating costs.

If Xtravision are to bring out some sort of online service, it would want to be subscription based as the Pay-to-Buy has been done. Although, Lovefilm's catalogue of films in the UK is very poor, and I don't think Xtravision will do better.

don ramo · 09-07-2011 5:38pm

ive been buying VHS and DVDs for years, a lot of them soon after they were released i had over 100 VHSs, and i have over 300 DVDs, i gave the VHSs away as realistically they are worthless, i passed them into a charity auction at a local hall, they fetched E14 and came with a set of draws i bought to hold them which cost me about 20/30 pound back in the day,

so a 20/30 pound case and 100 VHS films which at first day value came to (from an inccurate memory, i cant even remeber how much a new VHS cost) at least 700 pound+, just given away:mad::eek:

so now i have 300 odd DVDs which when newly released were worth about E4k, but are now probably worth 6 maybe 7 hundred quid,

i still buy DVDs but only when there maybe E3 and i might buy one for a fiver if i think its worth it, and TV boxsets i buy when the series is cancelled about 4 or 5 years, more to have the complete collection in one neat little box, i got The Sopranos, The Wire, The West Wing and OZ recently, thats nearly 300 hours of pure quality for a reasonable E250, why the hell would i pay E20 for a film thats 2 hours long, and already cost me E15 to go see in the cinema 6 months previous,

you cant loose money to illegal downloads when your film has already recovered its cost 10 time over before its even left the cinema, it just dont add up, :mad:

PucaMama · 09-07-2011 6:20pm

maybe is cinemas were a bit cheaper people wouldnt download illegaly. 9 or 10 euro for 1 ticket. its a disgrace.

iMax · 09-07-2011 7:20pm

PucaMama wrote: »

maybe is cinemas were a bit cheaper people wouldnt download illegaly. 9 or 10 euro for 1 ticket. its a disgrace.

I originally posted this way back in 2003:

How Cinema Works:

Ok this is how cinema works in Ireland...

The Omnis/Savoy/Screens of this country are owned by the Ward Anderson Group (who also release some films). The rest (including Ster/UGC/UCI) are all classed as "Independents".

Ward Anderson currently account for about 70% of cinema screens (note "screens" not cinemas) in Ireland.

The distributor - fox/warner/uip etc rent the film to the exhibitor for a percentage of the take & a small fixed fee.

This is called a "nut". The nut varies per film, so for example, a star wars movie would have a higher nut than the latest sandra bullock movie (because it's going to take more).

The nut starts out at about (in the event of a starwars) 80%. That is, 80% goes to the distributor in week 1 & 2. This then falls to 70% in week 3 & so on. The nut varies per release so by week four of a film, the distributor may only be taking 5% - 10% with the rest going to the exhibitor. Moreoften than not, there is an agreed timeframe for the exhibition of a film. so they might have agreed a 6 week showing. If this is the case & there is a rash of movies to be released a film will be pulled early & then refunds on the nut will be made.

Regarding food, cinemas make their fixed running costs on these products, they're what pay the rent, staff & utilities. The nut is what provides the profit.

Any other questions ?

Cantona's Collars · 09-07-2011 7:21pm

Went to see Transformers 3 in the cinema as it's the kind of movie that needs to be seen on the big screen to appreciate the effects and the 3D but the price is a rip-off.

My local cinema closed as it couldn't compete with two new cineplexes open in the county.So a visit to the cinema for me is a 30 mile round trip and most movies aren't worth the hassle to go and see.
Before I'd head to the cinema on average once a week.But these days it's very rare and downloading movies is just so handy and I can watch them in the comfort of my own home on a large led screen.
Another thing is the long wait to see some of the good tv shows from America,the likes of True Blood won't be on tv here until after Christmas if previous form is anything to go by but a quick glance in the tv forum shows how many viewers it has who won't wait that long-me being one.
The Pixar movies are ones that suffer a lot from downloads as we have to wait months to see them over here after their original release in the States.

One thing I've also noticed is that the people downloading aren't just teenagers but couples with kids who simply can't find the time or the money to go to the cinema on a regular basis and the few times they do it's to see a kids movie with their offspring.

PucaMama · 09-07-2011 7:28pm

iMax wrote: »

I originally posted this way back in 2003:

How Cinema Works:

Ok this is how cinema works in Ireland...

The Omnis/Savoy/Screens of this country are owned by the Ward Anderson Group (who also release some films). The rest (including Ster/UGC/UCI) are all classed as "Independents".

Ward Anderson currently account for about 70% of cinema screens (note "screens" not cinemas) in Ireland.

The distributor - fox/warner/uip etc rent the film to the exhibitor for a percentage of the take & a small fixed fee.

This is called a "nut". The nut varies per film, so for example, a star wars movie would have a higher nut than the latest sandra bullock movie (because it's going to take more).

The nut starts out at about (in the event of a starwars) 80%. That is, 80% goes to the distributor in week 1 & 2. This then falls to 70% in week 3 & so on. The nut varies per release so by week four of a film, the distributor may only be taking 5% - 10% with the rest going to the exhibitor. Moreoften than not, there is an agreed timeframe for the exhibition of a film. so they might have agreed a 6 week showing. If this is the case & there is a rash of movies to be released a film will be pulled early & then refunds on the nut will be made.

Regarding food, cinemas make their fixed running costs on these products, they're what pay the rent, staff & utilities. The nut is what provides the profit.

Any other questions ?

if they took less of a profit, we could pay less for tickets, but afford to go more often.

iMax · 09-07-2011 7:35pm

The cinema only makes about €1.60 per ticket for the first couple of weeks of the movie. There's very little profit as it is. The admission price is dictated by the distributor not the cinema.

Cinemas are horribly expensive places to run as well, I know of one small chain who's electricity bill is an average of €48,000 a month per site. The projectors cost a fortune to run. Count in staff, insurance & other overheads & you'd wonder why anyone would want to be an exhibitor.

There was a lot more money to be made when they had exclusive rights to a film - this was done by bidding on the nut & phased out in the late 80s. The exhibitor would get a smaller percentage but would have exclusive rights to the movie for a fixed timeframe, so You'd HAVE to go to the Ambassador to see Star Wars, because they bid to take the lowest bite of the nut.

Jagle · 09-07-2011 8:28pm

Sad Professor wrote: »

Huh? Your attitude is rubbish. I don't care what you've copy and pasted from the Netflix site or Wikipedia or whatever. What I've read about Netflix online from people that use it is that quality can be very poor and fluctuates a lot depending on bandwidth. It will be great one day, but streaming just isn't there yet IMO.

id argue against you.

Ive used netflix and ive found it very good, what surprised my was a mod here making such a sweeping statement that netflix quality sucks. when it clearly doesnt, if they can broadcast, close to dvd/dvd/and hd quality content then clearly the issue is with peoples internet/bandwidth and not the content as it leaves netflix.

amacachi · 09-07-2011 8:36pm

PucaMama wrote: »

if they took less of a profit, we could pay less for tickets, but afford to go more often.

Exactly. I have to admit the local cinema is pretty reasonably priced and have very good offeres for unemployed people and students. Since they only lose (roughly) 40-50 cent per ticket by charging half the price it means that if 1 in 5 of those people buy a drink or about 1 in 15 buys food they've covered that initial "loss".

PucaMama · 09-07-2011 9:45pm

amacachi wrote: »

Exactly. I have to admit the local cinema is pretty reasonably priced and have very good offeres for unemployed people and students. Since they only lose (roughly) 40-50 cent per ticket by charging half the price it means that if 1 in 5 of those people buy a drink or about 1 in 15 buys food they've covered that initial "loss".

even if they had a single day in the week that they had the reduction on it would be good

Dman001 · 09-07-2011 10:27pm

iMax wrote: »

The cinema only makes about €1.60 per ticket for the first couple of weeks of the movie. There's very little profit as it is. The admission price is dictated by the distributor not the cinema.

Cinemas are horribly expensive places to run as well, I know of one small chain who's electricity bill is an average of €48,000 a month per site. The projectors cost a fortune to run. Count in staff, insurance & other overheads & you'd wonder why anyone would want to be an exhibitor.

There was a lot more money to be made when they had exclusive rights to a film - this was done by bidding on the nut & phased out in the late 80s. The exhibitor would get a smaller percentage but would have exclusive rights to the movie for a fixed timeframe, so You'd HAVE to go to the Ambassador to see Star Wars, because they bid to take the lowest bite of the nut.

This is the problem. I assume the distributor is often the Studios themselves? If they didn't demand such a huge percentage of the takings from a film, we could then see cheaper prices and a drop in Piracy. Instead, the insist on complaining about Piracy and make pathetic attempts to stop it.

iMax · 12-07-2011 10:06pm

Dman001 wrote: »

This is the problem. I assume the distributor is often the Studios themselves?

More often than not.

Dman001 wrote: »

If they didn't demand such a huge percentage of the takings from a film, we could then see cheaper prices and a drop in Piracy.

Films cost a lot of money to make & market. A studio normally has only four or five "tentpole" movies in a year that it makes a lot of money out of. The rest sometimes make money, sometimes not. The tentpoles allow the development of a broader range of movies. It's unlikely we would ever see a drop in piracy. If the price of admission was slashed, piracy would still grow because there is a segment of society who just want it free (or very cheap).

Dman001 wrote: »

Instead, the insist on complaining about Piracy and make pathetic attempts to stop it.

There's not a whole lot that can be done to prevent it, complaining (loudly) gets it to the forefront & reminds people that they can go see it in a really dark room with a huge screen & fantastic sound, Vs the "cam" (seriously, why bother?) they just downloaded.

A quick look at a popular site:

Rank	TOP 15 Torrents (Last 48 hours)	Seeders	Leechers	Peers	Comments
1	Ironclad 2011 BDRiP XViD-PSiG	5003	878	5881	270
2	True Blood S04E03 HDTV XviD-LOL	2629	62	2691	106
3	Alphas S01E01 Pilot HDTV XviD-FQM	1776	170	1946	35
4	Falling Skies S01E05 Silent Kill HDTV XviD-FQM	1893	31	1924	77
5	Weeds S07E03 HDTV XviD-FEVER	1494	46	1540	37
6	Top Gear S17E03 HDTV XviD-RiVER	1251	39	1290	48
7	Teen Wolf S01E07 Night School HDTV XviD-FQM	1154	84	1238	31
8	Warehouse 13 S03E01 The New Guy HDTV XviD-FQM	1197	62	1259	34
9	The Witches Of Oz 2011 R5 XviD-ViP3R	1068	161	1229	72
10	True Blood S04E03 720p HDTV X264-DIMENSION	1131	19	1150	39
11	Eureka S04E11 Liftoff HDTV XviD-FQM	1047	36	1083	34
12	Mr Poppers Penguins 2011 CAM READNFO XViD - IMAGiNE	920	96	1016	48
13	Bad Teacher 2011 TS XViD v2 - IMAGiNE	886	110	996	55
14	Falling Skies S01E05 720p HDTV x264-CTU	837	26	863	19
15	Leverage S04E03 The 15 Minutes Job HDTV XviD-FQM	729	19	748	22

eleven out of the top fifteen are TV series, which to me indicates a demand to view shows quicker than movies. Out of the remaining four movies, one is a TS, one is a cam, one is a R5 & one a BDRip.

Take "Bad Teacher" as an example. Probably the widest opening movie there, big cast, probably worldwide appeal, yet 886 people (on this site which claims a membership of approx. 1.2m) are willing to watch a shaky cam with ****ty sound. They were never going to go see it in the cinema. So if they weren't able to download it, they'd probably have bought a "silver" of it, which is actually more dangerous to the industry as they'd probably loan that to a bunch of people, whereas the digital copy will probably be deleted after viewing.

Fysh · 13-07-2011 9:11am

iMax wrote: »

eleven out of the top fifteen are TV series, which to me indicates a demand to view shows quicker than movies. Out of the remaining four movies, one is a TS, one is a cam, one is a R5 & one a BDRip.

Take "Bad Teacher" as an example. Probably the widest opening movie there, big cast, probably worldwide appeal, yet 886 people (on this site which claims a membership of approx. 1.2m) are willing to watch a shaky cam with ****ty sound. They were never going to go see it in the cinema. So if they weren't able to download it, they'd probably have bought a "silver" of it, which is actually more dangerous to the industry as they'd probably loan that to a bunch of people, whereas the digital copy will probably be deleted after viewing.

The problem here is that the film industry is still trying to work an old paradigm that simply doesn't work any more. We have a communications network that's effectively worldwide and which forcibly makes obsolete concepts like enforced broadcast delays to maintain "exclusivity".

Bad Teacher is a film I've no interest in watching, but I can think of a half a dozen films that have come out this year that I would've paid maybe a fiver to see (eg The Mechanic), because they're watch-once-and-forget entertainment. I'm lucky - there's a cinema in central london (the Prince Charles) of which I'm a member whose entire model is to get in films a couple of months after they go on general release and screen them for cheap. Now, if the Prince Charles shut down tomorrow, I wouldn't suddenly start paying £12-15 to go and see The Mechanic, I just wouldn't watch it. The same goes for an awful lot of other films.

If film distributors offered legit limited streaming services on that same £3-5 price point, I'd be there with bells on. I would imagine a good number of current pirates would as well, given what research into the purchasing habits of downloaders has shown (ie people with money who download stuff a lot also spend considerably more than average on paying for stuff, whereas people with no money who download stuff don't spend money on paying for stuff because they have no money and were therefore never a prospective audience member to begin with). But until someone's willing to take our money, we can't give it to them...

iMax · 13-07-2011 9:23am

Second run (& even third run) cinemas used to be extremely popular here right up until probably the early 80s. Outside Dublin, most cinemas were second run as it was cheaper to get the film (different nut ratios) & cheaper to get in. In addition, most films were exclusive in the Dublin cinema they ran in for several months, which meant the demand outside of the capital was there.

Factor in the international delay, Star Wars (my continuous point of reference), for example, opened in May 1977 in the US, January 1978 in the UK & June 1978 in Ireland (Ambassador Cinema). A full year after release for the print to reach Ireland, because of the geographic box office takes & lack of piracy, it was possible to re-use the original prints elsewhere (which had the added bonus of being cheaper to do).

They wouldn't work anymore to the same extent as they did because of piracy & demand.

For those interested in the development of multiplexes in Ireland or the history of the ambassador, here's a couple of articles my dad wrote for Box Office back in the late 90s.

Anyone interested in finding out what the longest playing movie in Dublin was ? Thank me & I'll tell you

sidekick! · 13-07-2011 6:04pm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_highest-grossing_films

there is one film that hasn't been made in the 00's in the top 10. movies are making more money than ever. clearly they would be making more if downloading wasn't happening but they're doing just fine!

johnny_ultimate · 13-07-2011 8:58pm

sidekick! wrote: »

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_highest-grossing_films

there is one film that hasn't been made in the 00's in the top 10. movies are making more money than ever. clearly they would be making more if downloading wasn't happening but they're doing just fine!

The argument is much more complicated than that. As is regularly pointed out, the 2000 films are only the highest grossing because a) inflation and b) box office receipts are more accurate. The budget: profit ratio has also significantly disimproved. I'm not for a second disagreeing films ain't making enough money, but there's far more at play than that wikipedia list would suggest.

Dman001 · 13-07-2011 11:19pm

It could be argued that a lower ticket price would lead to a surge in Cinema-goers, therefore increasing Movie profits. If you could watch a film in the cinema for the same price as renting a DVD, I know what I'd pick!

iMax · 13-07-2011 11:36pm

Also, don't forget, Studios participate in what has become known as "Hollywood Accounting" which can turn a massively profit making production (tentpole) into a loss.

Only about 5% of movies officially show a net profit, and the "losers" include such blockbuster films as Rain Man (1988, Worldwide gross of $172,825,435 against a production cost of $25,000,000), Forrest Gump (1994, Worldwide gross of $329,694,499 against a production cost of $55,000000), and Batman (1989 Worldwide gross of $251,188,924 against a production cost of $35,000,000), Figures are box office & do not include video/DVD/BD, PPV & TV sales.

Hollywood accounting basically means that anything the studio takes a loss on that year can be offset against the income of a particular movie, so if as the writer of Forrest Gump found out when a movie set not connected to the film, but owned by Paramount in a different country burned down & was offset against the film. As a result, he won't sell the rights to "Gump & Son".