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Hollywood still focused on piracy despite a record year

1 September 2007 14:48 by Rich "vurbal" Fiscus | 12 comments

Despite concerns about the extent of piracy, the movie business has pulled in record revenues this summer, earning more than $4 billion in box revenues in the US alone.

Media by Numbers, which tracks such things, estimates that the industry will rake in $4.15 billion by the end of Labor Day. That's despite record-high average ticket prices of $6.85, up $0.30 from a year ago. That's even despite claims that piracy is on the rise, and it's harming the industry.

As you may recall, the movie business has been publicly obsessed with piracy since 2005, when US box office revenues dropped 5.7 percent in a single year. To hear Hollywood tell it, piracy sapped that revenue straight out of the industry, and the industry has focused on little since.

The extent of the studios' concern is easy to gauge: just look at the MPAA homepage. Nearly every featured item on the home page (apart from a box allowing visitors to type in their favorite movie) concerns piracy. The three stories currently showing under "news and issues"? They're all about piracy. The four boxes beneath the "Magic of the Movies" picture? They're all about piracy. Parental resources? It's about... oh, never mind.

Despite this focus on piracy, it apparently isn't having a serious affect on their bottom lines. In order to believe otherwise, you'd need to expect the studios to do record business every year.

Source: Ars Technica

Permalink to this article

Analyst predicts losses for Hollywood due to plummeting DVD sales (12 November 2007)

MPAA sues sites for linking to pirated video (28 September 2007)

DRM provider says the technology isn't being used correctly (20 September 2007)

Embarrassing MediaDefender emails distributed on Bittorent (17 September 2007)

MPAA study shows film industry is back on course (18 June 2007)

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Discuss this article!
pstamer (Member) 1 September 2007 17:43
Not hurting very much,are you MPAA? Damn syphons! [ + quote]
albino92 (Member) 1 September 2007 18:34
This year didn't have great movies when it comes in terms of quality but it had so much blockbusters that it was a record year. All the goo blockbusters,people saw in theaters and all the movies that weren't worth seeing in theaters were bootlegged. [ + quote]
sciafb (Newbie) 1 September 2007 18:38
Yeah they are still focused on BS, its all unprovable bullshit (that they have such 'huge' losses because of pirating). The only reason they did so well this year is there was movies that were WORTH SEEING. If they made good enough movies that you'd want to see on a big screen then they would have this every year. It doesn't matter if someone sees a movie "illegally" online and never buys a ticket to see it or dvd. They still weren't going to fork any money over to these assholes anyway. Because more often than not, the movies they throw at us suck balls and aren't worth a waste of $10. [ + quote]
albino92 (Member) 1 September 2007 18:43
Exactly if there's a movie that's not worth seeing for 10 bucks people will download it, but big blockbuster events like transformers will make a lot of money because people want to see all that action on the big screen! [ + quote]
Bobby728 (Junior Member) 1 September 2007 19:09
Really,this years movies wasnt even that good!!!Summer blockbusters were OK!! Die Hard 4-GOOD Transformers-GOOD At worlds End-GOOD Superbad-GOOD Knocked Up-GOOD GrindHouse-GOOD Harry Potter OOTP-Avg Ratatouille-Avg Bourne Ultimatum-Avg Simpsons-Avg Shrek 3-Avg I now pronounce you Chuck & Larry-Avg Spiderman 3-BUST Stardust-BUST Rest of the years movies-Bust Even a couple Avg movies u could consider a bust. I went to the theaters more this year,then i have went in the last five .But i still downloaded torrents. [ + quote] This message has been edited since posting. Last time this message was edited on 2 September 2007 8:52
albino92 (Member) 1 September 2007 20:08
In my opinion it would go like this Die Hard-Great Transformers-Good Superbad-Great Knocked Up-Great Grindhouse- (not a summer movies but still great) At worlds end -bust shrek3-avg spiderman3-avg ratouilee-great simpsons-good chuck@larry-avg Bourne ultimatum-good [ + quote]
WierdName (Senior Member) 1 September 2007 21:08
Seriously, check out their site and pretty much everything except the "magic of movies" and "tell us your favorite movie" all are about piracy in some form or another. [ + quote]
Unfocused (Member) 2 September 2007 14:14
This is just like the insurance companies; they are screaming about how much money they are losing, but they are bringing in record amounts of profit EVERY YEAR. [ + quote]
shady8x (Newbie) 2 September 2007 15:49
Transformers-Awesome Spiderman 3-GOOD Stardust-GOOD Die Hard 4-GOOD At worlds End-GOOD Harry Potter OOTP-horrible Resident Evil 3 will probbably be awesome They aren't losing a lot of money to pirating!!! 1/4 of things they say is pirating is legal backup copies and 9/10 is loss of non existing sales like a person downloading a movie that he would never had seen otherwise and obviously would have never paid for it... It is like me claiming millions lost if a program I wrote for a class and then erased from my pc and forgot about, turns up online as a free software and becomes popular... I don't pirate movies but IN KNOW FOR A FACT THAT IT IS A VICTIMLESS CRIME TO DOWNLOAD FOR PRIVATE USE!!! [ + quote]
albino92 (Member) 2 September 2007 22:25
Yah even with people pirating movie companies are still making tons of money and also i think at world end sucked and harry potter was good, fo r the rest of the movies i agreed with you. [ + quote]
borhan9 (AfterDawn Addict) 10 September 2007 0:41
To me they are just pouring their money down a hole. [ + quote]
WierdName (Senior Member) 10 September 2007 11:53
*Originally posted by borhan9:* To me they are just pouring their money down a hole. You never know, that hole could spontaneously fill up. The only problem with that is that the hole goes all the way through the earth and that there are pirates on the other side grabbing the money as it comes out... [ + quote]