I was staggered to learn a few weeks ago that arguably the most anticipated movie of the summer is not going to have a worldwide simultaneous release. Iron Man had one, but not The Dark Knight? Something is wrong with that. There is just no excuse for not having a worldwide release.
I would expect some significant piracy of TDK to take place all over Europe in the week preceding its release here. I also expect that Hollywood will come out and make some sort of anti piracy statement condemning this inevitable action. In the age of the internet they only have themselves to blame. Hollywood have wake up to the realities of how the internet works.
I even know of people who own yearly cinema passes, so effectively have cinema for free, pirate movies if the release delay is too long. If the release had been worldwide, they would have gone to the cinema and maybe brought a friend who would have directly paid to see it. Hollywood are throwing away revenue with this policy.
TV shows are another great example. Sometimes the delay between a show airing in the USA to airing in the UK is as much as a whole year. People can, say, watch the first season of a TV show, and then realise that they have to wait a whole year to see what happened, so they go on the internet and find that they can download the second season right away. Is there any reason why they wouldn’t do that? No. It also just so happens that the only way to do this is by using BitTorrent like programs, and there is actually no way to PAY for a TV show, even if one wanted to – which a lot of people would actually do, if they could. The vast majority of people on BitTorrent are getting TV shows because they can’t get them any other way when they want to get them. If you actually looked at the statistics of the users of popular BitTorrent sites for TV shows, I bet you would find the majority of the users are European, downloading the latest Lost or CSI. (Also, note, you shouldn’t be able to look at the statistics for BitTorrent sites, and for good reason. 
)
A funny thing actually happened with Battlestar Galactica during its fourth season. The episode “The Hub” actually aired in the UK on SkyOne before it aired in America. This was due to Sci-Fi Channel going on a break and SkyOne not getting the memo. As a result this episode was hugely pirated in the USA. I don’t think you could find a better example than that.
I’m not saying that piracy is correct, but if companies want to stamp it out, they have to understand the reason why it occurs. Staggered release of media is a huge reason for it. People want to see the latest episodes of their favourite TV shows as soon as they can. The internet makes this possible. Wake the fuck up.
July 13, 2008 at 4:30 pm |
From what I remember it is very costly to send the 35mm reels to cinemas. Would be interesting to see the cost of doing a world wide simultaneous release compared to the estimated revenue lost from pirate copys of the film.
July 13, 2008 at 6:02 pm |
I have heard that before and it certainly would be interesting. I’ve also heard that the move to digital distribution is designed to help them do this. Also, I think it has something to do with giving UK films a shot or something, but still, for major releases, it’s pretty dumb.
July 17, 2008 at 11:56 pm |
i dont understand this at all.there is a major problem with piracy which is fair to say,but what i dont understand is that they can distribute high def trailers for new movies,but wont put new movies on the net that you can pay to watch??it costs about £10 in the uk to go the cinema and watch a film.give me that option of going on the net to watch it,i would happily pay the same.i think alot of people watch the pirated films because theres no other option available to watch it in the comfort of your own home,unless you have to wait 6 months for the dvd to come out,surely somehow they could make the films streaming and put some sort of protection on so you couldnt download the films.think about it……..millions watching shitty ass copies from a cam in a cinema with real bad pic quality and sound,or the option to pay online as you would going to the cinema and watch a good quality streaming movie.i think i know which most people would do……!!!!!!
July 28, 2008 at 8:12 pm |
True. I absolutely agree that movie studios need to make it possible to view films from the home.
people dont realize that one of the main reasons why theater ticket sales have increased so much over the past 10 years is due to the increase in high quality home theater setups.
The obvious eventuality is that all films will be viewed at home, and movie theaters will essentially go the way of the dinosaur.
on the piracy note, the film studios are never going to win.
the biggest source of Cam and TC (telecine) films are overseas. usually in eastern europe, asia and south america.
the studios also think that these companies that they hire to track these trends are doing a good job.
that is wrong. they, also, do not understand what they are doing. not because they dont have smart little skript kiddies working for them, but because they are not IN THE SCENE (the scene refers to the people who make and distribute pirated films online).
they also like to quote trends on pirated film downloading and viewing
surveys and bit torrent tracking. they miss the fact that usenet is untraceable. this is the case because most people use private usenet providers and these companies cannot track the packets going through the ISP
TL;DR
they fail and never will win.
March 23, 2009 at 10:48 pm |
Fuck Hollywood! They make millions and do nothing for the world.