(Opinion) What's worse, file-sharing or the Record Companies/Movie Studios?
 

I came across this bit of news today:

New Line Cinema had a deal with the Tolkien estate that stated that the Tolkien estate was due 7.5% of any money that New Line collected from the Lord of the Rings (or other such Tolkien works). This also included an upfront licensing fee of $62,500.

The article (from the BBC) states that the three movies, in its various incarnations, have earned nearly $6 Billion in movie theater attendance, DVD sales, and direct licensing.

How much did the Tolkien estate see from that?

$62,500.

That's right, they didn't see one red cent from the $6 billion dollars that the studio raked in over this. Neither did the director, Peter Jackson. Fifteen actors are suing the company for the 5% cut of merchandising featuring their likeness which was promised, but never paid.

Only when the Tolkien estate sued New Line Cinema for breach of contract (and threatened to revoke the license to The Hobbit, or at the very least tie it up in costly litigation for years), did New Line Cinema give in.

This is not unusual.

Forrest Gump creator Winston Groom was given $350,000 and 3% of the film's profits for Forrest Gump. Despite making nearly $700 million in theatre sales, and god knows how much money in Merchandising and DVD sales, Groom hasn't seen one red cent in royalties.

In probably the most egregious bit of accounting, Gary Wolf, the creator of the book that would eventually become the movie "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" sued Disney for unpaid royalties. Despite the film's complete budget being around $70 million, and making $330 million at the theater, (and again, god knows how much money in DVD and Merchandising sales) Disney somehow claims with a straight face that not only did the film not make any money (and thus Wolf did not deserve any royalties), but Wolf OWED THEM up to a million dollars due to "an accounting error" they deiscovered during the lawsuit.

Lest you all think I'm focusing on the movie companies alone here, let's say the record companies are just as bad if not worse. Hidden accounting rules the day here, with the record companies finding loopholes under every rock and bit of dirt.

For example, this decade, they were ordered to disburse $50 million of unpaid royalties that the RIAA companies had swore on a stack of bibles that they had made a good-faith effort to find the people that earned them, but gosh darn it, they couldn't find them to give them their hard-earned money, so they will keep it till they can one day find these poor souls (or their estates) and give them what they deserve.

Poor souls like Dolly Parton. Or Alabama. Or John Mellencamp. The Dave Matthews Band. Frank Sinatra. Elvis Presley.The list goes on and on.

Frankly, every time I see a new story in that list, it makes me understand more and more why people see file-sharing (or piracy, whatever folks want to call it) as a victimless crime. No, you're not stealing from the artists. You're cheating the cheaters, that's all. Before the record companies and movie studios try to claim the moral highground, they may want to clean up their own acts more.

I will admit, I do support a blanket licensing fee in the digital age. Heck, it's apparently going on in some European nations already, where a fee is added on to ISP charges and media storage units, but private, non-commercial file sharing (I.E., Peer to Peer, not large scale commercial (file sharing/piracy) is not illegal.

But until these mobsters get their own houses in order, they have no moral rights to tell us what we can or can't do.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/8245300.stm

blah blah blah two wrongs make a right blah blah blah.

I'm not saying that (although as I said, I'm beginning to believe there's nothing wrong in cheating a cheater). I'm saying that the hypocrisy of these companies is sickening.

I'd also support the end of "hollywood accounting" Get rid of the distinction between net profits and gross profits (where a company can hide the money in a shell game, by charging itself a grossly overrated fee). Stop trying to tell us all that a movie that made over a billion dollars is somehow a net loss.

When a person steals its a crime. When a company steals its good business.

I don't see how you could possibly be trying to say anything BUT that? That's precisely what you're saying, to the letter.



Pretty sure piracy is about the law, not moral rights. They're two different things, are they not?

You do realize that you're just banging your head into a wall here every couple weeks as you try to tell everyone here why stealing is ok from a different angle? we ought to have an alright boyz style RIAA/MPAA containment thread for you to post this shit in.



Its really too bad you went out of your way to frame this story as a justification for stealing, because its a pretty interesting and noteworthy story in its own right.

Just to chime in, there are other reasons that it matters whether or not a show is bootlegged. My job and my salary, as well as those of my friends, depends entirely on the ratings of the shows we work on. I get paid more to do a second season than I do a first and a second season is also a virtually guaranteed job. Yeah, the higher ups can be jerks and take money they dont deserve....stop taking my paycheck away from me in order to get back at them.

In the cases mentioned here I'd say the record companies/movie studios are worse but I have no idea how widespread that kind of behavior is across the industry as a whole.

Weinstein is notorious for creative accounting. A good book called "Down and Dirty Pictures" is about the rise of independent film, and he is easily the villain of the book.

I'm sorry, that's at least partially crap. A very large percentage of the audience couldn't count for ratings if they wanted to. Programming that's not available in other countries is a large percentage of TV shows traded online (Note, I don't know how much).

Actually, the TV networks get it most of the big three (Music, Movies and TV). They make their programs available online with reasonable restrictions (through network sites, and places like joost and Hulu) and get a higher quality audience (they apparently can charge more per watcher because it's a dedicated audience.

Record Companies looking good in pretrial

They all suck.

Of course these stats don't take into account the difference between the gross at the theaters and the money that actually makes it back to the studio. I don't know what the typical percentages are, but saying "took in $300 million at the box office" does not mean "studio earned $300 million from the theatrical release".

good stuff

From what I have been told, it actually does. For new releases, the theater keeps very little to nothing from the ticket sales. All their money comes from concessions.

What you don't hear are promotion budgets. The 'cost to make' numbers thrown around usually include salaries, sets, costumes, music etc., but not promotion. Its got to cost quite a bit to keep us completely immersed in 'Sorority Row' ads.

Exactly. The lengths at which people go to justify their stealing is laughable. There is absolutely no reason that the record/movie/whatever exec cannot be blood-sucking scumb bags AND the dirty little thieves be dirty little thieves.

Some of the practices of the record/movie/whatever companies is deplorable.

Stealing is deplorable.

They are not mutually exclusive.

I don't understand what the news story has to do with illegal file sharing. Other than I guess to loosely tie two different types of crimes into one story. The Link at the bbc site doesn't mention anything to do with illegal file sharing at all.

I don't get it at all - it's illegal to steal, even if the victim is not a little old lady who goes to search. Even if the victims are not sympathetic, or rich.

I find the justifications worse than the the crime somehow. People actually convince themselves (and try to convince others) that they bootleg stuff because of how evil the record companies and movie studios are.

Everybody bootlegs because because they want stuff for free. That's it. That's the only reason. Why is this so hard to admit?

It's a crime with very little enforcement, so lots people do it. I've committed this crime myself. So I certainly can't condemn others morally for breaking it, but I clearly broke the law, as others clearly are.

One can disagree with the law, or any law, but laws don't apply only to those who agree with them. We live in a government system where people are supposed to follow the laws, even if they disagree with them.

I am with the "stealing is bad" crowd, but I have little sympathy for the RIAA and MPAA. I meet with their reps from time to time and it would be hard to find a group that is more consistently tone deaf. Ironic.

I also have little sympathy for RIAA and MPAA. Having said that, justifying stealing or any other criminal activity because someone else does it on a larger scale is ridiculous. If I go steal meds from a little old lady because the pharmaceutical companies are scumbags, is that still not wrong?

Although downloading music/movies/TV shows/games is illegal and morally wrong I think physically stealing a product like that is morally worse because you're taking away something from another person instead of just getting a copy of it.

Every time the argument gets clouded by poor analogies from both sides.

The distillation of the issue: Is piracy theft, and if so, how do you morally justify it? I've never really seen this answered directly by the (poor words, I know) pro-piracy side, just obfuscated.

Bingo. One of the reason concession prices are higher is because that's how the movie theaters make their money during the theater runs. Movie splits vary between exhibitor and the movie studios, but typically run on a split. Summer blockbusters typically have a 4-week guaranteed run at theaters, depending on the number of prints. During that 4-week, the split could be anywhere between 80/20 studio/exhibitor to as bad as 99/1. I've seen that one. So, most theaters rely on a percap, Concession $ vs patron. On a good weekend night, you hope for as close to $4 as possible. On a weeknight during the fall, sometimes you're lucky to see $2.50. Sometimes studios get absurd when it comes to concession dollars too and that's when you might see a bigger chain not carry a movie during its initial box office runs, ie Road to Perdition, which a major movie chain decided not to carry because of the Movie Studio demanding a percentage of the concession sales during the first 2 weekends.

One commits piracy, the other commits fraud...

Does anyone ever question that theory? I'd never, ever buy concessions at a movie. If the costs were reasonable, I'd definitely by soda and popcorn every time. But I'm not throwing down $10+ on top of the $10 movie ticket.

How about 5 years after the fact, do you still get paid for the show then?

winner.

Very true, Top Gear is one of the bigger shows traded on the intarwebs, but the BBC doesn't think the rest of Earth's population deserve to see the full 1 hour show.

That's their choice, not the consumer's. They don't have to justify that reasoning to you. They're no legal entitlement to consume any show/movie you want to. I can think of plenty of reasons for this kind of decision, but it's really completely irrelevant to the legal issues.

Well, to play devil's advocate a bit here, the OP didn't, I don't think, suggest that file sharing is not illegal. He was trying to suggest a moral equivalency between the two. Which despite the protests it sounds like most here agree with, that both are immoral acts.

I want to chime in about record companies and the music business in general and say it is a very very very dirty business. The amount of people who are fucked over in the process of making a hit record and making an album is mindbogglingly. Thank God for the internet because good people can just promote themselves now.

Oh yeah I agree, but if you hold a product from someone that wants to watch it, eventually the person that wants to watch it will find a way.

I can't decide if this is a horrible butchering of a old, commonly used phrase, or an ingenious twisting of same into a brilliant new phrase.

The title of this thread should be "(Opinion) What worse, file-sharing or the Record Companies/Movie Studios?". You're going to start screwing up the newbies.

Wow. My mistake.

I kindof like it as a new play on words :)

SI

Personally? No, my paycheck ends when the show finishes because im strictly a post-production person. There are people who do get residuals for a very long time though.

I'll admit to bootlegging "Killshot" which was a blockbuster only dvd rental. And there are no blockbusters within a reasonable drive near my house. I suppose I could have spent 20-30 dollars to legitimately obtain a canadian DVD, but whatever(ie 20-30 times the average cost I pay to rent a movie). Sometimes they make it hard to be a good person.


And yeah, Molson, it's utterly dumb that concessions cost so much. I'd buy them if they were expensive instead of being unreasonable. Like I could go 2 bucks on a fountain drink(roughly 75% profit), but 4 dollars(88% profit roughly) is unreasonable.

Great i don't feel as bad now after watching both Buffy and Angel from copies I downloaded on teh intarwebs so my wife could see them. Besides I already watched the advertising back when the shows were originally on...

Typically the only time I download a show is when I miss it for some reason. If they provided an inexpensive way for consumers to get shows and (here is the kicker) watch them on their TV I would do that instead of the process I use.

I refuse to watch a TV show on my computer, I bought a 40+ inch TV for a reason.

These companies have done everything they can to stifle technology and innovation that would allow them additional ways to make money, all on account that they want to control the content. I'm glad we are starting to get to a point where they are starting to see the light on the current technology. Too bad once the next innovation comes they'll be against it as well...

The selection is limited, but Netflix streaming to a TiVo (or Roku) is excellent at this.

I agree. I have a Netflix account and love the recent Xbox360 update that provided the ability to see the library from it instead of having to log on my computer or use an iPhone app. But that doesn't solve the problem of me missing a show. Once an episode has aired there should be an ability for me to watch it on my TV after the fact, in some legal for or another and until that happens consumers will find other ways...

The only shows I download are ones that have not reached the UK. If it is being screened in the UK at the same time as the US I prefer to watch the UK broadcast as the picture quality is far better on my 40" TV.

I have bought a few US import DVDs after originally being introduced to a series by downloading episodes online.

A huge number of TV show downloaders will be based outside the US. If the networks can figure out an ad or subscription supported way of allowing worldwide viewing of their programming online, they could make a packet.

Why?

That's a serious question. Why should you be entitled to this? Do you realize what this would do to advertising revenue?

more importantly, do we CARE?

(the answer to that is no, btw)

Yes, you do. Without advertising revenue if shows are offered for free online, there's no way to fund creating the show.

That's fine that one doesn't care, though the law doesn't make the distinction between those that care and those that don't. As a democratic society, we've enacted laws that say we care. Individual dissention doesn't change that.

It's just a silly justification, the sense of entitlement. "It'm not really breaking a law because I DESERVE this" - that's actually what all criminals think. Obviously, this is a much lower level of crime, but it's the exact same mindset.

The horse and buggy whip makers approve of your last paragraph. If that was the case, then DVR's just as much "piracy" with the 30 second skip. Or the fast forward button...

Evolve or die. Advertising is trying to do the former, so it won't do the latter.

As I said, ABC/NBC/CBS have the right idea. Post it quickly (no later then day after or at most couple days afterwards), Post it in high quality.. and you can target your advertising.

The next step is to have it playable on a TV somehow. On Demand services through cable do pretty good, but now, the problem is that they only keep a limited selection of episodes.

Put it this way.. Get someone interested on late season episodes. If the show is available in high quality and easily accessible, you have a chance to set your hook (and keep them viewing your show and the related advertising).

Not available quickly, easily, legally? Then one of two things happen.. either that person fades away and you lose your chance. Or, if they're knowledgeable, they'll go to (insert site of choice) here, and download it anyway.

Get what you can out of it, at least. TV is no longer something you do as an appointment. You don't sit down to watch Cosby, Cheers, etcetera and make a night of it. It's something you do when you have the time, no matter what time it is.

Because I'm a viewer and me watching their show is what makes them money. It's they job as the content provider / producing to figure out how they are going to make money from it. I want the content, now provide it to me in the format I wish so I can enjoy it. Broadcast television needs to learn new tricks to keep their viewers and one of those tricks is not only broadcasting...

I never said I wanted the show for free online. I want to pay for it, but they need to learn not to screw me with advertising if I'm paying for it already.

Easy way: charge you.

(which...I do see you arrived at as well)

Why does morality even have to enter into it? Physical possessions don't need or deserve a moral code protecting them. The law is the law and morality can keep the fuck out of it. Is there a moral requirement not to spit on the subway? It's against the law and therein lies why you shouldn't do it not because you're morally a bad person if you do. That just obfuscates the true issue.

Same with these anti theft laws. Whenever I hear the moral argument bandied around all I can think of is someone's got some money tied up here and wants to shame people in order to protect it. That's hitting below the belt to me.

Fight legal battles in court and leave morality to whatever higher power you want to follow. I can't think of one major moral figure in history that would be a property rights advocate though I'm sure some of them would privately support them as practical issues but not major moral issues.

I can't stop corporations/powerful individuals from ripping off those they do business with. I can stop myself from stealing property that I have no legal right to.

So bad comparison.