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MPAA Joins RIAA In Having Budgets Slashed
from the obsolete-organizations-die-off dept
Following the news that the RIAA's revenue was cut dramatically in the past few years, TorrentFreak has also posted the MPAA's 2010 tax filing, showing that it, too, has taken a pretty massive beating in terms of revenue from its gatekeeper members.
Also, as with the RIAA's salaries, it's pretty ridiculous to see the MPAA complaining about being rich as proof that someone must be breaking the law, when its top execs are all making pretty large salaries. Nearly every person listed in their list of key employees/highest compensated employees is clearly way far north into the 1% of most highly compensated Americans.
And all that while its budget keeps getting slashed. Perhaps the studios are recognizing that they're better off no longer throwing good money after bad. Of course, it's noteworthy that a number of people on the list ended up leaving the MPAA. Former CEO Dan Glickman left earlier than expected, apparently due to dissatisfaction from the studio heads, and a number of others left as well. So it will be interesting when the 2011 report finally comes out to see if they studios fed money back into the MPAA once Chris Dodd was brought in.
In just three years the revenue generated by the anti-piracy outfit reduced from $92.8 million to $49.6 million. The decreased budget is a direct result of the major Hollywood studios cutting back on their MPAA funding. In the same period membership dues dropped from $84.7 million to $41.5 million, more than a 50% decline.The filing (embedded below) includes some interesting tidbits. It's not at all surprising to see that the MPAA funds the Copyright Alliance, but I had not seen before that it funds ITIF. ITIF was the think tank who was the major "intellectual backer" of SOPA/PIPA. They had published the first paper that more or less suggested the approach found in SOPA/PIPA, and when the MPAA was absolutely desperate for technology "experts" who could argue that SOPA wouldn't break DNS, the only people they rolled out were ITIF staff members. It's not surprising that the MPAA funded them, but I don't recall that being disclosed anywhere previously.
Also, as with the RIAA's salaries, it's pretty ridiculous to see the MPAA complaining about being rich as proof that someone must be breaking the law, when its top execs are all making pretty large salaries. Nearly every person listed in their list of key employees/highest compensated employees is clearly way far north into the 1% of most highly compensated Americans.
And all that while its budget keeps getting slashed. Perhaps the studios are recognizing that they're better off no longer throwing good money after bad. Of course, it's noteworthy that a number of people on the list ended up leaving the MPAA. Former CEO Dan Glickman left earlier than expected, apparently due to dissatisfaction from the studio heads, and a number of others left as well. So it will be interesting when the 2011 report finally comes out to see if they studios fed money back into the MPAA once Chris Dodd was brought in.
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Trust the mpaa's tax filings?
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I doubt the studios have learned their lessons.
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The revenue is disappearing like a wicked witch in a downpour.
The "Boys Who Cried Wolf" business model will be dropped as soon as it falls on enough deaf ears.
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Have you considered the remarkably much more logical concept that there are only a few major players left now, the music industry isn't structured as it was before. With more than 58% of the revenue disappearing over 10 years, you would think that, yeah, they might cut back a bit.
Just imagine what they are doing to budgets for new band investments. With piracy, your reap what you sow.
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I'd like to see a citation for this number. Last I checked, profits were going way up, not down.
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Re: The revenue is disappearing like a wicked witch in a downpour.
Resistance is useless.
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The MPAA represents the movie studios, not the record labels. And the major movie studios have not merged like the record labels, nor has 58% of the revenue disappeared.
Look, it helps to actually read even the headline before trolling.
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Yep. And that's a good thing.
But now we know what they mean when they are constantly coming up with the baffling idea that "music is dying". They mean that they're dying, and they seem to believe that they represent the entire music business.
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Having an increasingly larger share of a collapsing pie.
If this were a normal corporation the share holders would be handing the officers their collective heads.
Let The Free Market Rule.
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wut
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I've noticed many of these counter arguments essentially start with "just imagine." Yours actually uses it verbatim. Nice.
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You'd think after a while the public would figure out that what they were doing was not practical in the long-term.
They already KNOW this... why do you think they are fighting so hard to maintain their GATE when the fence has already been torn down and the public is flooding past their 'closed' gate with them stammering, "But, but... piracy!".
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Re: Trust the mpaa's tax filings?
empires dont spend decreasing amounts on war, till the end is near
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in congress
empires fall quickly once there size decreases at all
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they are both nothing more than bribe machines. do you really need that much staff for bribes?
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Re: Re: The revenue is disappearing like a wicked witch in a downpour.
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To which the public answers "But, but... Get the fuck out of the way!" and run them over.
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Dead organizations can't issue takedowns, can they?
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In fact, the ones being bribed may suddenly realize that if what they do for that bribe money backfires, they might *suddenly* find themselves in need of a cushy post-government job that no longer exists.
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He may simply not know the difference between the RIAA and MPAA.
Another theory is he may be simply lamenting the fact that the poor RIAA had its budget slashed, awwwwwwwh, boo hoo. Maybe it even affected him personally, and so this article touched a nerve and hence the "cut back a bit" lament.
But the "new band investments" line was good for a laugh. He hasn't heard: new bands end up in indentured servitude debt to the label.
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They've gotten someone else to pay.
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I wish I got that. All I get from them is free services in exchange for ads. And they keep killing off the free services that I like using the most.
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Re: They've gotten someone else to pay.
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