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Difficulty Understanding The Impact Of Downloading Films
from the let's-look-at-those-numbers-again dept
Consulting firm Deloitte & Touche has come out with a very odd report looking at the impact of movie downloading on the film industry. While there have been stories about why the movie industry has been better prepared for file sharing after watching how their counterparts in the music industry have floundered, D&T suggests otherwise. They basically say that since the movie industry hasn't (yet) made all the same mistakes, they must not understand the "threat". Here's where the report gets even more problematic. They say that 400,000 to 600,000 movie files are downloaded every day "costing the industry up to $3.5 billion a year". Then, they say that all this downloading "has yet to make an impact on the film companies' bottom line." Hmm. It's costing $3.5 billion a year, but it isn't impacting their bottom line? Clearly, something isn't right with this report. What's obvious to everyone except (apparently) consultants and folks in the movie industry is that of those 400,000 to 600,000 downloaders, the vast majority either (a) would not have gone to see that move in the theater anyway or (b) still went and saw the movie. In some cases, people probably went and saw the movie in the theater because of what they saw in the download. More to the point, the report seems to ignore the fact that for most people, going to the movie theater is about the experience of seeing the movie in the theater. It's a social event that you do with friends - to see a film on a big screen with a great sound system. That's an experience that isn't replicated sitting in front of a computer, and is one reason why the movie industry has a lot less to fear directly from downloading. The report also seems to miss out on the fact that the movie industry has smartly put quite a bit of effort behind extra features on DVDs, which make their products worth purchasing because they give you much more than just the movie by itself. The D&T report seems to toe the party line, but that party line is wrong.
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Fuzzy Math
Hm. Let's run the numbers
3.5 * 10^9 / (600000 * 365) = $15.9 per download.
So every download costs the movie industry a DVD purchase? If seeing a movie causes you to not buy the DVD, then shouldn't the movie industry stop showing the films in theatres? Bring me the head of Jack Valenti!
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Re: Fuzzy Math
I'm sure that would be true if the quality were any good. But most of these moviez are lousy quality. I managed to get my hands on an actual copy of the matrix last night, and I watched it. Now, I'm planning to go to the theatre to see it just to catch that key dialog at the most important part of the movie that I missed because of the shitty quality of the download.
But hey... you get what you pay for.
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No Subject Given
I sometimes get clueless ppl who read articles like this and mention them to me (either castigating the nature of the internet or wanting to know where various movies can be downloaded) and my comment is usually the same:
Example: "Did you know that the new Matrix movie is already available for download on the net?"
My response: "Do you REALLY think ANY of the people who downloaded it DIDN'T go to see it in the theatre that same opening week?"
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