THE DEVIN'S ADVOCATE: STOP PIRATING, DICKHEADS - Page 7

Of what relevance to the issue of movie piracy is this? Ultimately it makes NO DIFFERENCE whether or not priacy hurts a film's bottom line. You are still illegally making use of someone else's IP. To use a rickety analogy, if someone swiped a pretzel out of your hand and ran for it, the negligible economic effect of the loss of your pretzel doesn't change a bloody thing. That people like Troy and others may well have their livelihoods adversely affected is just the sour cherry on the mouldy cake.

You're trying to debate a point that, ultimately, is irrelevant. Theft isn't judged in any way by the impact it has on those being stolen from. Theft is theft.

Your metaphor is shit, but I agree with the inherent "wrongess" of stealing. I was never arguing against that. But just as people are GOING TO smoke pot and are GOING TO drive over the speed limit, people are GOING TO pirate media. I'm for solving or alleviating the issue from a pragmatic standpoint rather than endlessly (and ultimately pointlessly) condemning the idiots who do it.

I mean, you're right. So now what? What can we do to solve the problem?

That's why I was asking for specifics, if they exist. Using real numbers or examining real cases of piracy hurting someone would be infinitely more useful than mounting some hopeful cyber-grassroots campaign consisting of YELLING REALLY LOUDLY AT PIRATES THROUGH TEXT!

I'm assuming the economics of film distro is not covered in your school.

Every ticket, every DVD counts for small films. They cost less but they also earn less. Much, much less. In the best scenario few small films are actually all that profitable. Most are happy to break even. They're harder to sell (especially when you have no marketing budget) because they don't appeal to a wide audience. IRON MAN 2 brings in everybody. Mom, dad, kids, grandma. It's a 3 or 4 quadrant picture.

Who's going to go see the indie movie HOLY ROLLERS this weekend? A tiny number of people. Not even one quadrant. A niche number of people. Every ticket that movie sells MATTERS. Every dollar it earns makes a difference. Losng tickets or eventual DVD sales go piracy is devestating for a small film.

What they need to teach you in film school is that nobody gives you a couple of mil to make a feature and then not expect to see their investment back because, you know, it was your first movie and the exposure is what counts.

Just saw this:

I'm fairly certain that would actually be easy to do after relatively few solid kicks. Don't see how it's relevant.

Finally, some progress here, despite the poopy tone. I agree with you entirely. But again, is this assuming that something is being released everywhere? Most people outside of big cities and universities don't get access to limited releases. Honestly, can you explain to me how a tiny film released, say, in the Southwest, would be hurt by someone in New England stumbling across it online and showing it to all of his friends? I'm not saying there isn't an impact; I just want to know how it registers.

I guess you can assume that, if it's online, everyone has access to it, and the few who might go see it wouldn't. That isn't the case in my experience, but you're free to have that opinion.

Film is an industry. The people who work on movies are often freelance. They go from job to job. You stealing WOLVERINE won't cut into the pay check the sound guy already earned from the film.

But if the industry feels that it's bottom line is being hurt, it starts cutting back. When any industry cuts back it isn't the bosses who take the hit, it's the little guys. Budgets drop, or movies simply don't get made. These people don't get hired. The jobs dry up.

It's that simple. If you hurt the industry's bottom line, the industry will shrink. When that happens it's the averag Joe working on a movie who will feel the pinch, not Tom Rothman.

Devin, when the industry "cuts back" costs, the first cabs off the rank that get canceled are smaller indy art-house flicks that would be VERY unlikely to have been pirated in the first place and even LESS likely to have made the studio any money (or had a wide theatrical release). I don't see how those films not getting made is in anyway connected to piracy, they could simply have not been financially viable or even MORE likely, not very good films. I can't see a studio head going "Sorry, [Insert Nu-Speilberg] I'm not going to make your art-house horror film because somebody stole Wolverine"*

Almost this entire thread has examples of someone citing Pirating as impacting on the film industry [as a collective or an individual]. That is how you calculate what is unjust in the world, how it affects others.

To use your pretzel analogy, if I steal one pretzel from a bag of THOUSANDS of pretzels that thousands more have put their time and effort into making, this affects nobody. Nobody loses their job, no pretzel company goes out of business... because the pretzel company [like a studio] has made many thousands more delicious pretzels that many more people have enjoyed over time.

There is no negative outcome, other than... morally... I shouldn't have taken the pretzel.

I have a friend, believe me or not, who has worked for WETA, ILM and a few other smaller CG companies around the world. He's married, owns a house and has spent his life traveling from Wellington to the US and is now based in the UK. He's never once been out of job offers or work and has worked on hundreds of movies, dozens of which were most likely pirated at some point.

We've had discussions on Piracy before and (although both he and I see movies frequently for free at the cinema or other screenings, so Piracy is irrelevant for us) he agrees... Piracy has little effect on his job as there will always be a demand for skilled CG artists.

There is no God, he was killed by pirates.


*furthermore, when budgets drop it's generally actors that get the biggest pay-cuts of them all. I can't see many people weeping for Russell Crowe not getting another paycheck on an overblown historical epic because a Robin Hood CAM download got spread around.

How does saying "I'm on the fence" and trying to prove conclusively that piracy affects small films going to change anything? You think finding out that a film lost money would stop people from downloading bootlegs? It's already plainly morally wrong - adding another layer of wrongess isn't going to magically open anyone's eyes.

Your pragmatic standpoint seems to be "piracy will never stop, so studios should just learn to work around it", which, frankly, is bullshit.

No film is made to be released in one area. Besides that point, DVDs are not limited to one part of the country. The New England pirate will almost certainly not buy the DVD, denying the movie one more sale.

Oh but Devin how do you know he'd buy it anyway blah blah blah

How is that bullshit? Piracy has always been around and it's incredibly naive to think that once it's there it'll go away entirely. It's an entitlement to a lot of stupid little rich white kids, just like Medicare is an entitlement to their rich old white grandparent. It's a lot harder to dictate taking something away or actively punishing everyone who engages in piracy than it is to deal with it by other means and alter the system. I don't know... somehow reward people who don't engage in the abusive behavior.

Alright, I get if the film is released nationwide, even on a small scale, how piracy would maybe hurt it. But again, if the person doesn't have access to "small" theaters that play "small" movies, the person wouldn't know about the film at all if it wasn't online... which means he or she DEFINITELY won't buy the film.

I know it seems like I'm trying to outsmart you. I'm really not. I just think that, more than anything, there are a LOT of mixed factors here that sometimes cancel each other out, sometimes don't, and it's different for every film.

Which, again, leads me back to: what can we actually do to stop/alleviate the problem?

They should learn to work around it. It's called evolution of an industry. Find new ways to create a demand for your product... We'd all be looking at cave drawings for entertainment by your logic.

Conflict creates Innovation. Sticking your head in the sand and yelling "stop" isn't going to stop amoral people from doing amoral things!

By that logic, looking at the last two pages of this thread, we just cured cancer and invented sex-spaghetti.

Possibly the dumbest thing I've read this week. I'm pretty sure the Renaissance wasn't sparked by naughty courtiers xeroxing tapestries.

Are we really to the point of reading every word and metaphor as literal argument?

Whatever it is or was, you won it, Andrew Merriweather.

...no but most of the innovations in artwork for the last thousand years were direct responses to curb forgeries.

If that's the dumbest thing you've read all week, you should read more.

Oh, get off your high horse. Lost amongst all thei back and forth bitchery is the fact the the one guy holding his hands up and wailing "but what should we do to combat this? Why aren't anti-piracy types suggesting alternatives?" has yet to do anything of the sort himself.

And the alternatives are there, albeit in fledgling form. Films are available for legal download, for a price. Not on the scale they could be yet, but they will be. It's not going to stop greedy fucks pirating stuff, though. The industry can change but it's always gonna suffer until the entitlement culture is done away with. The onus shouldn't be on the guys making movies to stop people stealing their work - the minute that's accepted, you've lost. It's the equivalent of throwing your hands up in the face of rising crime and saying "fuck it, let's just build more prisons".

Not only did I admit to not having feasible solutions to these problems (why would I if I'm just trying to wrap my head around the complexities of the issue?), I suggested Steven Soderbergh as a potential model for how some future filmmakers might find success.

If the people making the films don't stop piracy, no one will. Sure, the cops are there to protect the public and enforce the law, but if you're a multimillionaire who hasn't taken any precautions in order to protect your priceless art collection, you're asking for a thief to break in.

They do take precautions. Studios can't police every theatre, snatch every videophone or camcorder, chase down every website, and so on. It's impossible. The culture needs to change, not the studios.

Also, the complexities you've been trying to get at have sod-all to do with the actual situation. Whether or not piracy affects small films isn't going to stop piracy or change people's minds, and yet all you've done is go on about that for fifty posts or so. The complexities of the piracy situation lie in how to effectively prevent it, which you've not even touched upon.

That's honestly a really nice thought. A horribly shortsighted, impossible thought, but nice nonetheless. If only we could teach the culture not to spend beyond their means, eat healthier, live greener... change comes about through necessity, not positive thinking.

Until the studios, some regulatory force, or some new means of media consumption (which means anyone BUT the populace) changes business as usual and makes it necessary for piracy to end or change, nothing is going to happen.

1) Reduce the cost of tickets at the cinema
2) Pay actors less, Pay directors less and make films more cost-effective for todays climate
3) Faster turn-around on BD and DVD availability or
4) Make movies available on-line, region free, globally a week after cinema release for a "premium" price or annual subscription fee.
5) Don't "iTunes" movies, make them available through multiple online platforms for a reasonable, accessible price a month after cinema release in multiple formats (.avi, Mpeg etc...)

If I had the contacts, I'd set up a server in my garage tomorrow, sign up the main studios and retire. That's the future of cinema and the solution to curb pirating.

Make it once, sell it a billion times online in cinemas and in shops. Sure, it's not foolproof, but it would make those few who do pirate irrelevant. Most of all, doesn't cost anymore than a normal film does [as most studios have all these resources at their disposal] and would in fact KEEP people in jobs and make use of the widespread Internet medium.

From now on, all passengers on airflights must sit facing the front at all times, with hands in view, no books, laptops or anything else on their persons, and not blink more than once every second. Its the only way to prevent potential terror threats.

Do you advocate this?

You really think this would stop piracy? And I'm the one being shortsighted?

Wow. You are either dense or incredibly stubborn. Maybe both.

How does using small-films as a microcosm to examine the real-world effect of piracy on film not relate to developing a strategy to fix the situation?

You cannot prevent something if you don't understand how it operates. Gaining that basic understanding, even on a small scale, seemed appealing to me. If it doesn't work, at least I asked a question above and beyond pissing and moaning about the same tired points about "wrongness."

Alice, how can I make this any clearer to you in Wonderland?....

You're. Not. Going. To. Stop. Piracy.

What you CAN stop (or curb) is the LARGE number of people who passively pirate, either through friends or only occasionally [movies like Wolverine]. The hardcore, everyday pirates... will ALWAYS pirate. You're not going to stop them. Nature always finds a way, a pirated DVD copy of Jurassic Park tells you that.

Move on.

Talk to anyone who downloads a TV series and their excuse is (and we've seen it in this thread) "I just wanted to watch that episode right away". Is it their RIGHT to be able to watch it right away? No. Do they have the MEANS to watch it right away? Yes. Do the math. Make it accessible and easy for people to source, they'll ALWAYS pick the easier route.

I'm sorry, but whether or not a fledgling director's career would suffer if his film was pirated is really, really fucking low on the things to be looking at in terms of cutting down on piracy. It's not a microcosm of the problem at all, as the outcome of the question has zero effect on the consumers doing the pirating.

And these hardcore pirates won't upload copies of their pirated films to the commonly-used bittorrent sites all over the web. Nope, no sirree.

So when you referred me to Troy (who to my knowledge is not a huge filmmaker) to gain a better understanding of why piracy was REALLY hurting the industry, were you completely full of shit or only partially full of shit?

You're the guy who brought up the "small films" thing, not me. I pointed to a guy who actually had experience as a struggling film-maker, who had posted in this thread, as a direct counterpoint to your take, and you dismissed it. I even stated in like my third post on the subject that it's ultimately an irrelevance, as theft should never be judged by the effect it has on the victim.

You've spent the last page asking for empirical evidence which is impossible to produce, whilst simulatneously stubbornly refusing to accept the common-sense notion that, even if only a tenth of online pirates ended up paying for their illegal downloads, it would be better for film-makers.

Of course they will.

...but you've already removed the majority of their user-base by providing it DIRECTLY to people for the easiest, most convenient way possible. BitTorrenting is currently a very clumsy, slow and inconvenient way to source movies and television series. Your average person struggles with a message board let alone BitTorrent.

They're getting pirated movies from their geek-friend in the AV club who does it to be "cool"...

It's the old adage of; De-criminalize marijuana and you cut out mainstream dealers, the big bad guys. Your everyday user who just wants a roofie every other week, will simply go to the chemist... rather than the dodgy asian guy who smells like piss.

Make it accessible, and people will use it. Simple as that.

If the dodgy Asian guy who smells like piss was handing out free joints, I'm pretty sure a lot of people would just hold their nose and take the gift. That's the difference.

I absolutely challenge you to dig up where I said or even suggested this beyond simply asking the question about how small films were affected. If asking how something works was an assertion of belief in one side of an argument over another, I suppose I'm guilty.

And the evidence shouldn't be impossible to produce if there's something real going on. Again, I'm not saying piracy isn't having an impact, I'd just like one fucking example of how. Devin made a respectable attempt at providing an example. I accepted his points and tried to move on. You're limiting the debate to a realm of unbelievable naivety.

But you're talking about people who know nothing about BitTorrenting suddenly discovering it. It wouldn't happen. If you make it accessible and cost-effective, majority of people will always go the easiest route possible, rather than the work-around. You're talking about a VERY small base of people that actively download and pirate films currently, we're not talking MILLIONS of people here, we're talking a few hundred thousand folks that pirate films regularly. Most pirates, only grab the occasional download and more often than not, it's a mainstream film like Avatar or something they've heard on the news [Wolverine].

I'll give you an example...

There is a site that exists, solely for downloading pirated apps for the iPhone. Seriously, I couldn't believe it when I was shown it. An app, that costs about a buck... you can also get for free. Do you know how many people use this service? Less than a thousand people. I'm not aware of how many sites are out there like that, but we're talking about such a SMALL bunch of people that it's irrelevant... people will ALWAYS buy shit they don't need (apps, movies, television) if it's cost-effective, desirable and cheap. Movies are neither cost-effective, many are un-desirable and certainly not cheap (currently) for a lot of people out there. Those are the ones that casually pirate, because they're prioritizing putting food on their table for their kids rather than watching Wolverine at the cinema... Young, savvy tech families that have fast Internet or kids that know how to grab the final LOST episode.

It is impossible to prove that, if someone DIDN'T have the chance to download a film for free, they would pay for it. Short of ringing up a bunch of film pirates and running through a survey for them, there's no accurate way predicting theoretical future behaviour in this case. HOWEVER, logic and common sense dictate that at least SOME portion of those who download films would exentually come to pay for them were the option of piracy taken out of the equation. Therefore, does it not make sense to err on the side of the guys whose work may be affected in some way, rather than the side of the people taking something for nothing for no other reason than they want to?

Why do you need empirical evidence to go along with that? And what would said empirical evidence prove or help with when it comes to the wider piracy debate?

But that's the current situation, and it's not good enough. The system you advocate wouldn't change that, it would only involve bringing other people into the loop. And if studios start their own versions of bittorrent sites, how long do you think it would take a great number of people to find out that the same was available for free?

EDIT: Looking at your argument I'm not sure why the industry would bother to change at all, as you're essentially saying that the current state of piracy is smal-scale and fine. Why would they risk massive investments in all this new technology in order to change nothing about it?

It's called "the time before the internet." If someone who legitimately can't afford to buy a ticket is pirating a film, I'm thinking their impact is actually even more negligible.

No one is going to eliminate the option of piracy. Period. Stop arguing that point. It's exhausting. It's stupid.

You don't need the evidence to know that something is probably happening. You need the evidence of how piracy affects the industry to figure out how to curb it. I don't know how to make myself clearer on this point. You can't treat an illness if you don't know what it is. That's why leeches are, in most places, an uncommon cure-all nowadays.

So explain to me how knowing in detail that piracy effects small films is going to assist in reaching a solution. Give me an example. Not being a dick now, just genuinely curious as to why this one point is so crucial.

If someone has the means to pirate a film they can legitimately afford a movie ticket.

Those people have already paid a subscription. For those that haven't, they would most likely be borrowing them off friends who had, rather than using up bandwidth to grab it themselves. (See: Pay TV)

No, I'm saying pirating is small-scale, because Apple makes those products easily accessible, cost-effective and cheap for the majority of their user base. If you had the choice of:

a) Free movie sourced through a 3rd Party involving signing up to a messageboard, waiting 3 - 4 hours for a download and installing various software on your computer and then either watching it on said laptop or arranging a hi-def connection to your television...

or

b) $20 a month subscription service, run through a cable connection to a set-top-box (or similar device) of which there is a 5min waiting time and the highest-possible quality image and sound which is available about a week after cinema release...

or

c) Go to the movies

Which would you, as an average consumer, choose?

Out of 10 people, 7 would see it at the cinema (for traditional reasons) 4 of those 6 loved the film and downloaded it through the subscription service and 1 of those 6 sourced it third party. 3/10 never bothered to see the film in any form.

Are you fucking serious? Do you KNOW people who pirate? They borrow this shit off friends who have fast internet, it spreads because they know people who BitTorrent or go around to their friends house to watch said pirated film and then grab a copy on CD or USB. They don't do it themselves, because BitTorrent is by NO means mainstream. Majority of pirating is simply sharing, just like Casette tapes, CD's and VHS tapes... and you're not ever going to stop that.

True. But throwing your hands up, turning to the studios and saying "you deal with it" is passing the buck. Internet providers, bittorrent sites, pirates doign the uploading should all be cracked down on.

Because, according to people in this thread, it's impossible to estimate the impact of piracy on huge films. To me, the best way to get at how piracy could be affecting the industry as a whole is to study the places where you can see it doing the most damage. And, as per several people's suggestions, it's the smaller films that are REALLY hurting. So let's focus there.

If you can help curb piracy on smaller films, perhaps the trend will trickle up. The worst-case scenario, then, is that you help smaller films while big films, which weren't suffering much in the first place, aren't helped or hurt one way or another. That, to me, is better than flat-out doing nothing and I've yet to hear or read a better suggestion, save for Devin's article about how to revitalize the theatergoing experience, and the limited solutions Biggs brought up. Hell, let's do ALL of these things. I don't think there's any single solution.


Incorrect.

What you keep missing in your frenzied casting about for proof that this actually causes harm is that IT'S ILLEGAL. As someone who's going to film school, the idea of someone potentially stealing your intellectual property should be pissing you off a lot more than not seeing how it affects ticket sales.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go steal a TV from Best Buy. They account for loss in their budget, and I haven't seen any proof that one TV is going to hurt their bottom line.

People using the "steal a TV" analogy when it comes to pirating should be raped. Stealing a movie and stealing a television are completely different things.

You don't have hundreds of websites offering to deliver you a TV they stole for you*. Please, get real.

No it's not passing the buck. STUDIOS are the ones that want to stop it. Internet providers love it because they get paid for an internet connection, BitTorrent sites love it, because they get more ad-revenue through their sites. Studios are basically, the middle-man now for a small amount of internet-savvy people out there... They need to get in on this action, not try to fight it when so many other people are making money out of it!

Hell, it's keeping a bunch of dodgy Thai people employed by making fake photoshop DVD covers. It's an industry... one that the studios SHOULD be getting involved with by being INNOVATIVE.




*Technically speaking, they're websites that put you in touch with a russian guy who stole a TV off the back of a truck and will deliver that television to you in various pieces that you have to assemble at your end using a variety of tools that you need to risk getting herpies to source.

A lot of things are illegal that still happen on a regular basis and/or are debated theoretically. Look at immigration. And no, that's not a comparison of the two in terms of importance or merit. Simply the nature of the debate. Once again I'll say that piracy is fucking wrong and I don't do it.

There are a lot of other egregious ways within the entertainment industry in which intellectual property is ripped off, too. I'm worried about it all, baby.

I'm not going to explain why I was asking questions about small-scale films yet again. Go back and read the thread.

Breaking news: the rock has just rolled back to the bottom of the hill in chud's latest thread of Sisyphus.

But is pirating movies an art? ::scanners.gif::

As far as how piracy affects small films, I'd argue that it's still too complex an issue to get a firm handle on it. Partly because we still have no way of really knowing how much revenue the film loses as a result of piracy of that film (though certainly an estimation would be easier than if it were a massive movie). But it's also hard to say how it affects the investor mindset. Are investors less likely to fund a small film if they think that piracy will negate any chance they have at seeing a return on that investment? I don't have the luxury of having money to invest so I can't really say, but I'd imagine that it has at least some impact. And as studios try various strategies to combat piracy, it affects the entire industry. Some of those strategies essentially end up treating every customer as if he/she is a pirate. That in turn hurts the industry, including the small films that can't afford to take a hit.

I'm not sure it's quantifiable at all, but I'm convinced that piracy (and the reaction to it) are hurting smaller films and making it even more of a challenge to launch them. But I don't think you can extrapolate that experience to encapsulate the whole industry. I'd say piracy is hurting everyone, but it's doing so in different ways and we really don't have a good idea of how bad it is.

I also think that ultimately it doesn't matter if we know how bad it is -- what we need to concentrate on are ways to decrease piracy. And I agree that making content easier to purchase/consume is a good option. Another good tactic is to explain that legally-purchased digital media comes with other benefits -- not just extra features, but the benefit of not being a damned virus. Pirated material can give no such guarantee.

Maybe it'd be instructive to look at where a pirated movie comes from.

MacGruber hits theaters. Within a week, there are copies online. Where'd they come from?

(A) Camcorder in the theater or in the projection booth

(B) Someone leaks a screener or workprint

It'd be the theater's job to crack down on (A), and many already are.

It'd be the studio's job to crack down on (B), and many already are.

With digital projection becoming the standard, "prints" could be programmed so that the image is scrambled if camcordered. Screeners could be rigged so that they only play on a specific machine with a specific registration number; or do away with screeners and stream the movies on a password-protected site, and again if you don't have a certain registration number (or some digital hoop to jump through) it's just gibberish and uncopyable.

Of course, I'd welcome any debunking or additions to this, or even "Yeah, this was covered on this website over here," or whatever. I'm just spitballing, trying to steer the conversation to the practical solutions people are saying they want.

I'm just saying that the wonders of the digital era can cut both ways. Hell, aren't some screenplays protected from copying by being printed on colored paper? That's a real analog solution, and it seems to work.

Those two places you mentioned are generally from overseas cinemas/sources. Most likely from countries with lax or no copyright law. So again, pirates will find a way around those barriers. I think reactionary policing of theatres and screeners is a waste of time, as either way... you're fighting an existing problem, not finding a solution for the DEMAND for your product that people are taking. The demand is there, people WANT to see your movie... but they're taking it, because they're lazy. So why not give them a "legit" lazy option?

Studios need to stop blaming the cracks in their dams or finding dutch-boys to stick their thumbs in the dam and just build a better dam.

100% Agree. I doubt people will ever be able to quantify exact "damage" amounts to any kind of film that is "hurt" by pirating... because it's not regulated or recorded. I don't buy that there is detrimental effects to your "on the ground" person in film-making, there's always films being made...I just don't see it. But I do agree, on some level... your smaller, indie films may not see the light of day [from an ideas generation/funding standpoint] if a major studio was hurting from regular pirate purges. I don't think pirating would be the sole cause however, because I honestly don't think it's as dangerous (financially) as people make it out to be.

The BEST thing the studios can do is start doing actual research into pirating and see how it works, then figure out how to make money out of it. Whether it's buying up a site like Rapidshare and distributing through them for a fee or simply starting their own - it doesn't matter, they need to INNOVATE instead of being reactionary.

People will always share-material. Whether it's photos, books, music or movies. You can call it pirating, stealing or whatever you like, but it cannot be stopped. What it CAN be, is managed and turned into a lucrative source of income for the studios, if they're smart about it.

...a good place to start is what you talked about, those "other benefits" and quantifying them as things a consumer might want. Do some research, don't fight media-sharing, embrace it and turn into something workable from a business standpoint.