4 ms·

“The cloud also represents a threat in that it facilitates piracy, and the pirates seem to have gotten into this space first.” Sorry, am I to understand that y

“The cloud also represents a threat in that it facilitates piracy, and the pirates seem to have gotten into this space first.” Sorry, am I to understand that you are upset because pirates did something for free that you could have charged for? Not that I defend piracy, but this is the same song as VCRs, DVD burners, Napster, etc... This argument is rehashed to the point where it's laughable, just like everything else that comes out of Hollywood.

resu_nimda 14y ago
Yeah, it's nothing new, but it continues to amuse in a rather depressing way. How long until the general public accepts disruption of the status quo as the new status quo? Are we dreaming to think that that will actually happen, are change resistance and hoarding immutable properties of human nature?
- nitrogen 14y ago
  A related question: will we, ourselves, be unwittingly holding back the next next big thing in 30-40 years?
douglasisshiny 14y ago
It is ridiculous. This is endemic to the entertainment industry. And you're right, they (companies that the MPAA represents) have had a long time and plenty of great examples to create a service and charge for it. Pirates aren't costing them money -- they are costing themselves money. I'm reminded of this: "HBO co-president Eric Kessler has said he thinks the move away from traditional television to an internet-based model is just a fad that will pass – a 'temporary phenomenon' tied to the down economy" [1]. This is in reference to Game of Thrones being the most pirated show two seasons in a row. So in 2012, a major entertainment company's president thought a move to an internet delivery model is a recession induced fad... 1. http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/HBO-Boss-Thinks-This-Whole-Internet-Video-Thing-is-a-Fad-119442 http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/HBO-Boss-Thinks-This-Whol... (the original forbes article seems to have changed)
anigbrowl 14y ago
OK, so where is the revenue stream for filmmakers? Filmmaking has been my day job for a decade, and they're not that cheap to make, even with every technological shortcut and agile technique that there is. So how can a producer recover the cost of making a film, and ideally make enough to cover the rent, bills and so on? Even the cheapest no-budget feature represents about a man-year of cumulative effort.
- biff 14y ago
  One possibility is to bundle your work with others and create your own stream-on-demand network. A walled garden where you publish trailers and maybe one or two free-to-access programs to YouTube with your branding on them, charge a nominal fee for access to all content and comment privileges on site, and a larger fee for site supporters who get some extra perk, signed stuff, or whatever. Stream live events on the site from time to time, allow users to interview talent, etc. If you only have one or two things you're selling, and somebody has already downloaded and watched them, you're out of luck. But if you're bundling with other content serving diverse interests, offering the promise of new content down the road, and giving your audience something for paying that they can't get for pirating, you can set a better hook. Suddenly, when content from you or your partners is pirated, it becomes a loss-leader advertisement for your venture, and the cost of that (and benefit from it) is shared across your group. There's a site that just got featured on Reddit not too long ago, http://www.swearnet.com http://www.swearnet.com, that really captured my interest in this regard, if you want to see an example of how this type of thing could work in action. Piracy always struck me as something only the biggest interests could gain anything from worrying about; an efficiency problem where so much product is being moved that getting 1-2% more of it paid for could make more sense than trying to reach 1-2% more audience, perhaps because they've already saturated their target market.
  - anigbrowl 14y ago
    This is sort-of how the distribution industry works right now, and I agree that over the long term technology should allow us to exploit long-tail effects to do more with less, just as technology has made the movie production process much more affordable and accessible. The problem at present is that between a fall in (some) costs and the disruption of existing and long-established distribution networks (accompanied by an apparent fall in revenue), finding the investment capital is ironically tougher than ever. http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2010/09/18/film-school-roger-corman-explains-why-b-movies-vanished-from-theaters/ http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2010/09/18/film-school-roger-... and http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/1803469?uid=3739560&uid=2&uid=4&uid=3739256&sid=21101905540981 http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/1803469?uid=3739560&#3... are very much worth a read to understand why the film industry views piracy with such trepidation.

resu_nimda 14y ago

Yeah, it's nothing new, but it continues to amuse in a rather depressing way. How long until the general public accepts disruption of the status quo as the new status quo? Are we dreaming to think that that will actually happen, are change resistance and hoarding immutable properties of human nature?

nitrogen 14y ago
A related question: will we, ourselves, be unwittingly holding back the next next big thing in 30-40 years?

douglasisshiny 14y ago

It is ridiculous. This is endemic to the entertainment industry. And you're right, they (companies that the MPAA represents) have had a long time and plenty of great examples to create a service and charge for it. Pirates aren't costing them money -- they are costing themselves money. I'm reminded of this: "HBO co-president Eric Kessler has said he thinks the move away from traditional television to an internet-based model is just a fad that will pass – a 'temporary phenomenon' tied to the down economy" [1]. This is in reference to Game of Thrones being the most pirated show two seasons in a row. So in 2012, a major entertainment company's president thought a move to an internet delivery model is a recession induced fad... 1. http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/HBO-Boss-Thinks-This-Whole-Internet-Video-Thing-is-a-Fad-119442 http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/HBO-Boss-Thinks-This-Whol... (the original forbes article seems to have changed)

anigbrowl 14y ago

OK, so where is the revenue stream for filmmakers? Filmmaking has been my day job for a decade, and they're not that cheap to make, even with every technological shortcut and agile technique that there is. So how can a producer recover the cost of making a film, and ideally make enough to cover the rent, bills and so on? Even the cheapest no-budget feature represents about a man-year of cumulative effort.

biff 14y ago
One possibility is to bundle your work with others and create your own stream-on-demand network. A walled garden where you publish trailers and maybe one or two free-to-access programs to YouTube with your branding on them, charge a nominal fee for access to all content and comment privileges on site, and a larger fee for site supporters who get some extra perk, signed stuff, or whatever. Stream live events on the site from time to time, allow users to interview talent, etc. If you only have one or two things you're selling, and somebody has already downloaded and watched them, you're out of luck. But if you're bundling with other content serving diverse interests, offering the promise of new content down the road, and giving your audience something for paying that they can't get for pirating, you can set a better hook. Suddenly, when content from you or your partners is pirated, it becomes a loss-leader advertisement for your venture, and the cost of that (and benefit from it) is shared across your group. There's a site that just got featured on Reddit not too long ago, http://www.swearnet.com http://www.swearnet.com, that really captured my interest in this regard, if you want to see an example of how this type of thing could work in action. Piracy always struck me as something only the biggest interests could gain anything from worrying about; an efficiency problem where so much product is being moved that getting 1-2% more of it paid for could make more sense than trying to reach 1-2% more audience, perhaps because they've already saturated their target market.
- anigbrowl 14y ago
  This is sort-of how the distribution industry works right now, and I agree that over the long term technology should allow us to exploit long-tail effects to do more with less, just as technology has made the movie production process much more affordable and accessible. The problem at present is that between a fall in (some) costs and the disruption of existing and long-established distribution networks (accompanied by an apparent fall in revenue), finding the investment capital is ironically tougher than ever. http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2010/09/18/film-school-roger-corman-explains-why-b-movies-vanished-from-theaters/ http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2010/09/18/film-school-roger-... and http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/1803469?uid=3739560&uid=2&uid=4&uid=3739256&sid=21101905540981 http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/1803469?uid=3739560&#3... are very much worth a read to understand why the film industry views piracy with such trepidation.