Movie Ticket Sales Down - Blamed On File Sharing

[Atrocities]

Well we have all heard about it by now, the Supreme Court has ruled that file sharing sites can now be sued, duh, for promoting and or allowing copy written material to be processed through their sites.

Hollywood claims, albeit they have not shown proof, that sales are down this year compared to last year and that it is do to the piracy and file sharing practices of the Internet generation.

I venture to offer a more reasonable explanation for the alleged down turn in movie ticket sales and that is simply, why pay $100.00 to take the family out to see a movie, suffer through thirty minutes of commercials in a crowded over heated theater with rude obnoxious people who talk on their cell phones through the entire movie when you can wait six months and buy the movie for $20.00 on DVD and watch it in the peace and quiet of your own home on your own plasma TV home theater system.

Simply put, going to the movies has become more expensive, almost prohibitively so, and the experience has been tainted by commercials and the cell phone generation of uber rude yuppies.

Why pay $45.00 for two buckets of popcorn, 2 large drinks, and two tickets to see commercials? It just isn't economically sound.

This is why the movie industry is hurting and not because of file sharing sites and Chinese pirated copies of movies with time code and bad video lighting.

Also, perhaps we as an audience want to see more unique and revolutionary movies and not the same old same old rehashed crap that has been constantly filtering out of Hollywood since whenever. Also the fake and misleading advertising blitz that precedes all movies is becoming more and more of a turn off.

The more they hype it, the less you'll like it. People do not like being lied too and after shelling out $100.00 bucks to take the family out to see a movie that has been uber hyped only to be majestically disappointed by it is reason enough for most people to say to hell with going to the movies, I'll just rent it from block buster in six months.

So [censored] you Hollywood, don't ***** to me!

[Psitticine]

I agree completely. While I'm not exactly on the side of the file sharing sites, I feel they really aren't the big issue. There are many movies that we didn't go to see in the theater simply because we're fine with waiting just a very short while and paying much less to watch it in our own comfy home with no noisy strangers or sticky floors.

My wife, my 3 stepkids, my stepdaughter's boyfriend, and I all went to see Star Wars 3, which is the first movie I've seen in a theater in ages. I don't even want to go into how expensive that was.

Where I grew up, there was a historic old theater (the State, to be precise) that they didn't know what to do with. In an effort to get more business, they got it declared a historical landmark. The business didn't come, but the theater couldn't be turned into anything else because it was now, well, a landmark. So they made it a 99-cent place instead and suddenly were making a heck of a lot more money.

I know the theaters have problems keeping afloat, but maybe they are just using the wrong pricing model. Cheaper seats are filled quicker, and maybe they'd be filled quickly enough to actually increase the profits.

Oh, and I HATE it when some stupid movie ad tells me I've "never seen/experienced/whatevered something like this before". Pfeh! Don't you dare presume to tell me the depths of my own experiences!

[Leslie]

Reasons why I will continue to use P2P and not care one iota for the whining and crying.

Same industry gave me a high speed high powered dvd burner drive.
Same industry sells me large spindles of high quality blank cds and or dvds for mere pennies a disk.
Same industry makes programs that can copy anything in existence.
Same industry provides me with high speed high volume internet service without any regard to how I use it.

If your wife is drop dead attractive, and oh so tied up alone in the woods naked and alone. If I walk past her, yes, I am probably going to enjoy her (like everyone else that happens buy).

If you leave your car running, keys in the ignition, full tank of gas, with the doors actually open just sitting there on the side of the road, I think you can assume it will be taken.

If you don't put doors on your home, let alone close them, let alone lock them. You might want to not leave anything worth anything in your home. It will likely be gone after your week long trip out of the country. Especially if you also don't get your mail picked up that is announcing to all, you are not home.

Downloading stuff is downloading stuff, and dumb is dumb.
I don't actually have to rent movies. And my only incentive to watch them at a theater, is they have a bigger screen than me.
That people are massively downloading films comes as no shock to me. The only people not doing it, are the ones that consider downloading it "to much effort". It's actually not, but people will convince themselves of the most amazing things eh.

The only thing that will happen if they continue to gang up on say Torrent sites, is people will not get to comfy at torrent site A, and given a month, they will have had to go to torrent site B. And given enough time, it won't be torrents, it will just be a new method. Heck I don't even know all the permutations of accessing digital data on the internet there are so many to choose from.

Basically, the only way Hollywood is going to win their pathetically ineffective war, is to actually address what makes it so easy to copy their films.
It's not easy because of a P2P program.

It's easy because dvd burner drives are cheap, as are the blank disks, and the programs are so easy to locate to make it all so easy. Plus the ISPs give out service that is so enabling.
Thus, they might as well sue Sony (made my burner drive), Fuji Film (makes best disks these days) Nero program's authors, and Bell telephone (my ISP).

They all fascillitate illegal activities.

[Atrocities]

Breaking the law because you can is no defense for breaking the law Leslie. But do what you think is right for you, I will look for name in the up coming Defendant lists.

[Leslie]

You make a common mistake. I guess it's my writing style.

I never EVER EVER admit to anything, but, I do make a point of stating the known, the obvious and the apparent.

Each of us is on the internet.
Each of us has access to the options.
All of us are as they say "suspect".

All of us are human, and all of us are equally capable.

I guess I just have the balls to state it as such http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

When I see people post remarks to the effect "I never download illegal (insert item category here)" my usual response is "gee mack stick to telling me your johnson drags on the ground eh". Or for the ladies "honest guys, they're real" http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

A crime IS always a crime.
But a fool and their money are soon parted.

To date, I only know personally of one example of someone doing something that appears fool proof to a point that appears to matter.
Matrix Games.
Only company I know of personally, that has games that are actually competently protected from piracy.

It can be done.
But business has to want to do what has to be done.
To do otherwise, is to concede defeat, and surrender.

Hollywood is NOT winning any battles.
And the laws being passed have no power.
And a law with no power, well what's the point in passing it?

[Mindi]

Okay I am locking this thread (sorry Atrocities), several comments in this thread definitely break this part of our Moral Conduct Code:

Do not post any material which is knowingly false, and or defamatory, inaccurate, abusive, hateful, harassing, racist, obscene, threatening, invasive of a person's privacy, or encourages conduct that would constitute a criminal offence, give rise to civil liability, or that otherwise violates any local, state, national or international law or regulation.