what happens if SOPA passes?

Cinema attendance is not showing any signs of dying anywhere in the world afaik

cinema attendance has been declining for years

I really should ask you before stating any revenue facts

digital reproduction has made the whole ontology of content/copyright so ~weird~ that I think that the solution will have to be a wholesale revision on what copyright really means, and whether it's even useful

fucking otm

/Cinema attendance is not showing any signs of dying anywhere in the world afaik/

cinema attendance has been declining for years

and DVD sales have been booming, yes? like isn't that how studios make their money now?

imo copyright has to exist, but in its current form it's being exploited by too many opportunists xp

and DVD sales have been booming, yes? like isn't that how studios make their money now?

― i love pinfold cricket (gbx), Thursday, 26 January 2012 06:54 (14 seconds ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Profits are certainly healthy, I've read more times than I can count that Hollywood had its highest grossing year ever.

as far as we know, for the foreseeable future people will pay for 'the experience' of seeing something in a theater. perhaps it's a little hard to judge how much they value that experience, because if you want to see avatar II the week it comes out, you don't have the choice to rent it or see it in theaters. but even outside of the short-term exclusivity thing, people do seem to be willing to pay a certain premium for the theater-experience.

hollywood always has its highest grossing year ever cause they don't adjust for inflation iirc

not 'always' but it's not strange for numbers to get bigger over time in a country w/ population growth and any amount of inflation

and DVD sales have been booming, yes? like isn't that how studios make their money now?

dvd sales are actually way down and blu-ray hasnt been as widely adopted or as a popular which is really part of the problem for the MEDIA CONGLOMERATES since streaming/digital revenues are p small atm as well

people do seem to be willing to pay a certain premium for the theater-experience.

This puts paid to the notion that SCREENERS will destroy Hollywood, I mean honestly, perfect copy presented in 7 channel Dolby or whatever v. squinting at a steadycam rip with muffled sound, no contest ffs.

btw now is probably a good time to mention that cinemas may have other attendance problems e.g. Ebert's recent column/opinion that independent cinemas don't allow people to talk through movies and ruin it for everyone.

again this whole "problem" is predicated on a delivery system that has been rendered obsolete: films used to be distributed, in limited supply, in a physical format that was expensive to reproduce. they were commodified. and copyright afaik was intended to protect the means of production, not content. I think

again this whole "problem" is predicated on a delivery system that has been rendered obsolete

This is the core issue btw. Discussion of profits etc is nice, but the puzzle is working out how to make the new medium profitable, not getting hung up on old models.

Geoffrey Rush is on the telly right now (he just got Australian of the Year) saying that Hollywood isn't the be-all and end-all of cinema. People like this bloke are proof that art in cinema is not under threat, much less dying.

Profits are certainly healthy, I've read more times than I can count that Hollywood had its highest grossing year ever.

ticket price inflation yo

academy award winner Geoffrey Rush can afford to say those things lol

seats getting more expensive only means more money if they make more $ than they lose from people not going

According to this, ticket sales rose from 1995 to a peak in 2002, and have steadily declined ever since, from 1.58 billion tickets in 2002 to 1.21 billion in 2011. Revenue peaked in 2010 and is now declining.

it doesn't look like that's adjusted for inflation?

the best measure would be per capita + adjusted for inflation

obviously the picture's even worse when adjusted for inflation

as w/ adjusting per capita

lol statistics

it's important! there are 50 million more people in america today than in 1995 so even when # of tickets sold is the same, that's a considerable drop in the 'average times someone sees a movie per year'

also gross is not profit, fyi

it's important!

no I mean statistics can be plied in any direction

lol

show me some statistics indicating that the movie industry is not in decline then

sigh

Mutant Sounds is moving its whole 'back catalogue' to Righthaven, thus not giving up the fight:

http://mutant-sounds.blogspot.com/2012/01/upload-solutions-are-in-works.html

has cinema attendance really been declining? in certain places (like russia) it cratered for a while and now is slowly coming back. in china (like everything else) it is exponentially increasing. for that last reason alone i'd say worldwide cinema attendance is probably up.

in the states i'm not sure. there might be a small overall decline in the number of tickets sold, although i'm not sure. i get the feeling it bottomed out in the early 1990s (after a previous bottoming out in the late 1960s/early 1970s) and has been gradually creeping back.

what has changed is HOW people go to the movies. the majority of the profits seem to be increasingly shared among fewer films, opening weekends are now almost everything, etc.

That's the other thing, studios screaming 'PIRACY!!' every time a profit statement dips isn't helpful at all. I mean christ, hello, GFC, collapse of the eurozone etc are far more likely to impact (in one way or another) discretionary spending.

in the states i'm not sure. there might be a small overall decline in the number of tickets sold, although i'm not sure

number of tickets sold has been steadily declining in the states for over a decade, as noted above.

curve oddly mirrors the decline in CD sales

there was a slight rebound in the avatar year because it was such a megablockbuster but yes the downward trend in the us is real (also for dvds)

Everyone has seen this already?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollywood_accounting

It's often in the industry's best interest to show they aren't making any money, even if they are making millions and millions in real profit.

yes for sure, but production budgets and marketing expenses are often much higher than the figures you see reported in the media

number of tickets sold has been steadily declining in the states for over a decade, as noted above.

i can't find that reference; did someone post an article that describes this?

right here

note avatar bump in 2009, outlier in an otherwise unbroken downward trajectory from 2002 on, as noted upthread

That's the other thing, studios screaming 'PIRACY!!' every time a profit statement dips isn't helpful at all. I mean christ, hello, GFC, collapse of the eurozone etc are far more likely to impact (in one way or another) discretionary spending.

this is really the most obnoxious thing about it, especially when the RIAA does it, gleefully pointing out that ITS YOUR FAULT musicians are going to starve due to these RECORD LOW sales, even though they really released 15% less material this year which cooresponds nicely with the dip in sales

no, musicians are actually starving

interesting, thanks for that!

the decline is very gradually indeed, nothing like the cratering we saw w/ the record industry.

and this may foretell the erosion of movie going in the conventional sense as a major pasttime but it also may be part of cyclical ups and downs. i mean i would imagine attendance is still higher than it was at certain points in the past (maybe late '60s and early '90s?).

but like i said china had very few movie theaters 15-20 years ago and now they are building them like there's no tomorrow.

xxxpost

the reasons for that are myriad but surely everyone has seen the pie chart/graph of how musician income has declined...?

xp

but like i said china had very few movie theaters 15-20 years ago and now they are building them like there's no tomorrow.

later i'll look for an article that gives specifics but the figures are astonishing. like they really did make my head spin.

the decline is very gradually indeed, nothing like the cratering we saw w/ the record industry.

true. and it's difficult to pinpoint what factors to attribute the dip to (cratering economy surely didn't help things)

pretty good editorial on this one which I am coming around to almost being inclined to agreeing with

the MegaUpload takedown included things like search warrants and an actual, written, legal indictment. There are much more ergregious injustices being done to more obviously innocent parties with much less evidence drudged up via due process. The key to winning this argument is championing the most innocent, defenseless victims. It’s almost dangerous to think of MegaUpload as a victim at all. MegaUpload is at worst a copyright infringement conspiracy and at best, a multi-million dollar corporation run by an unapologetic playboy with a dubious approach to to avoiding copyright infringement that was ever so slightly legal, if legal at all. MegaBox nonwithstanding, there are much better poster-children to be had, guys. MegaUpload is more than capable of advocating for itself.

http://www.geekosystem.com/megabox-megaupload-takedown-theory/

http://torrentfreak.com/emi-boss-opposes-sopa-says-piracy-is-a-service-issue-120125/

Speaking for himself, EMI’s VP of Urban Promotions Craig Davis said that the two pending anti-piracy bills are not the way to move forward.

“Personally, I feel that the method they’re using is incorrect. All it will do is cause headaches and issues for everyone,” Davis noted.

While the EMI VP opposes PIPA and SOPA, he does admit that piracy is a problem. However, Davis thinks that the problem can be better solved from within the music industry itself. In other words, the key to solving piracy isn’t legislation, but innovation.

“I do believe that a person should be compensated for their work. I feel that piracy is a big issue, and things like Spotify will assist in combating this problem,” he said.

Reiterating this point, the EMI VP refers to comments that were recently made by Gabe Newell. The Valve co-founder said that piracy is a service issue – once you give people what they want it will mostly disappear.

“Gabe Newell is correct, it’s a service issue not an issue of money. Sales have gone up from sales concerts and merchandise, it’s obvious that our fans still love music. We’re just not giving them their music in an easier way,” Davis noted.

I feel that piracy is a big issue, and things like Spotify will assist in combating this problem,”

Spotify doesn't pay the artists shit fyi

he said 'things like spotify will assist in combating this problem', not 'spotify will conquer this problem'

I think the long-term decline of the film industry and the music industry are going to look quite different. people still listen to music - in fact, it's easier to listen to music than ever before / people probably listen to it more than ever etc. etc. - the problem is entirely in monetizing it.

whereas while hollywood is doing better because of the theater-experience / exclusivity of new movies - there are a lot of new things that are competing w/ film when it comes to entertainment and people only have so many hours of free time a day. a world where lots of people illegally download films might not be great for the film industry, but that's still better than a world where people gradually move on to other forms of video-as-art/entertainment.