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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

Stopping pirates?

Piracy as promotion only works if you have something to promote.

If people don't buy your DVDs, Pay to stream or download your content and won't go to a theater but would have otherwise then piracy isn't doing you any good.

The counter argument is that when I was 12 I pirated 3dsmax. At the time it was about $4500. There is no sensible reason for a 10 year old to buy a copy of 3dsmax. Now I own a personal copy and my employer owns a copy for my workstation and they collect the $1k a year in maintenance fees. There's a strong argument for offering extremely low cost non-commercial products to those who wouldn't otherwise spend anything but would later convert into paying customers. And I think offering extremely low cost content to those who are on the peripheral also keeps them "customers" instead of training them to be pirates. Even if they're paying a small fee they're at least in the mindset that they can't get it for free. Since then through educational packaging and Personal Learning Editions most high end software has embraced this strategy. In the case of music I think there should be free streaming on record company websites. It keeps the user in the mindset that they should pay if they want to upgrade while satisfying the "I won't ever buy this album, I would just start listening to the radio."
crowd.

Movies are so much more consumable though that you really have to make money on the first sale if it's going to be purchased. You can't as easily depend on return customers to spend money after having seen it.
 
I've worked on six figure productions, where client didn't sell a single copy of the finished product. But 40 million people got to see it - for free. Sharing (or piracy) was in fact encouraged. It's up to you as a filmmaker to explore this value (of eyeballs).

And no it wasn't a commercial....
 
"But what in fact happened was that the buzz generated from viewers in the US looking at the pirated first episode increased the US audience significantly and as a result...Sci-Fi had an instant hit."

What a shame?

Someone should burn in hell?

TV is different than features, of course. Hooking the audience to watch more down the line is a great strategy, even if you lose money up front. Showtime put the first episode or two of United States of Tara right up on their website for free. Seems kind of an obvious way to get viewers.

One can hope that this translates to other types of content (increasing buzz = increasing chance of success, duh).

Anyway, some people are never going to pay, and they will watch your crap for free. There's nothing you can do about it, so best end it all now.

Others will always pay, even too much (providing they hear about it and desire it at all, not a given).

Many in the middle will pay a reasonable price, whatever that is, or tolerate commercial interruptions.

All dependent on them actually hearing about it in the first place in a sea of competition.

Piracy is the least of your worries when it takes $100,000,000 to launch a film these days.

So, if you're still upset, and still in this kill the pirates rage, consider that these people who watch free pirated versions have friends. Some of them may recommend it to a friend who purchases, or watches it in some other version down the road. Is it worth something to you then?

Of course it is.
 
J. P. Sendall said:
I'm working on a business plan that actively seeks to release material through the bittorrent sites for free. There will be a release of material and goodies for our core audience that they can hold in their hand that nobody else will have.
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I'm heading down this road. A friend of mine spent a year making a documentary. About a couple years ago he began selling the DVD online. Within a week the entire movie was on Google video. He had a very hard time getting them to take it off. When they finally did take it off he noticed his sales went down. I'm not saying A caused B but it sure made us stop and think.

Now he has a ton of 3 minute clips on youtube in hopes people will come to his site.

I think there's different types of piracy - they all kinda suck. The worst is where a company knock offs of your product and sells them as legit. Individual users bittorenting still seems like it's probably more a pain than it's worth for many people. A bigger issue for indies is that Titanic is in the $5 bin at Walmart. Best Buy is going to have $7.99 Blu Rays on Black Friday. Why are they paying $20 for your low budget thing? How does a distributor make money?

If I was the original poster here I'd probably sue them at this point. If I could go back in time I'd probably give them a nice Blu Ray version and put copies in the store for people to buy. Why not make a partner out of these travel guys? They like money. Sell the damn disc and make some profits.

Now I'm working on the assumption anything I create will be bitorrented. Given that REALITY how do I make money? I think the physical goods with movie purchase is a one reasonable route. Maybe you make the download free, don't even produce a DVD and you sell stuff.

A lot of people pay $1 for iPhone apps and Music. I'm afraid movies are going to be the same price. You might be better off writing a great song and spending $100k marketing that. No really.
 
Joel Kaye said:
If I was the original poster here I'd probably sue them at this point. If I could go back in time I'd probably give them a nice Blu Ray version and put copies in the store for people to buy. Why not make a partner out of these travel guys? They like money. Sell the damn disc and make some profits.
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Well in this specific case the travel guys were given this VHS I presume in order to work out just such a deal, but they declined the offer. Which is to say they're dirty rotten thieves.

I like the 3 minute clip system. If someone is willing to watch my material in 3 minute intervals then they clearly don't actually care enough about it to actually ever spend money, but they might get engrossed and so fed up with such small intervals that they spend money to finish it. :D

The trick with the digital age is going to be getting positioned to exploit customers when they're most vulnerable. The best two ways I think are going to be from low cost impulse buys. "Watch this movie for $2" or nagware. I know when my internet connection is on the fritz and I'm in the middle of a movie I'll spend $1,000s of dollars to make it stop buffering and just start playing :D. Stream it for free. But play a commercial every 10 minutes and a button that's nice and easy to press that makes the bad annoying commercials stop. They won't want to stop watching, they won't want to the commercials. The adrenaline from frustration will be boiling to the surface and they'll rage-buy. It's like the new pay-to-drive carpool lanes. You're sitting in traffic, you're losing your temper but for the low low fee of only $1.50 all that can go away... just press this little button .... right... here. :emote_hippie:

The problem with TV downloads right now are they are WAYYYYYY TOOOO EXPENSIVE. $3-$4 an episode? A 20 episode series and you're up to $80 for a season of scrubs. That's ridiculous. But if it was $0.50 for rental to $1 to own I would probably pay it without thinking. Eventually money stops having value and for me $3 is just above "nothing" for a TV show and $0.99 is still above my song threshold. Make it $0.20 or $0.10 and I'd probably spend 20x as much.
 
Gavin Greenwalt said:
Well in this specific case the travel guys were given this VHS I presume in order to work out just such a deal, but they declined the offer. Which is to say they're dirty rotten thieves.
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The VHS tape (1 only) was given to a fisherman that was in the doco. He has since become a charter boat operator and he pirated it to DVD and is handing them around or selling against my protest, the plane charter mob have since got a pirate copy and they are doing what has previously been stated.
have learnt a lot from everyone here and I thank you all for your help and education
 
One thing I've always wondered and maybe Geoff knows is how Netflix OnDemand compensates its licensees. Does anyone know? Do they track a full viewing and the pay a per-view license fee to the owners? Or do they just pay a large flat rate sum for the privilege like a TV station?
 
Gavin Greenwalt said:
One thing I've always wondered and maybe Geoff knows is how Netflix OnDemand compensates its licensees. Does anyone know? Do they track a full viewing and the pay a per-view license fee to the owners? Or do they just pay a large flat rate sum for the privilege like a TV station?
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That would be interesting to know. One of my films is still on Netflix even though my contract with the distributor expired a year ago and I haven't seen 'Netflix' anywhere on a royalty report.
Who's collecting this money, if there is any?
 
Words like "buy", "sell", "pay" etc., are out of the game.

Monthly subscriptions at best,.. as all else will be hacked.

Human psychology...
 
Gavin Greenwalt said:
$3 is just above "nothing" for a TV show and $0.99 is still above my song threshold. Make it $0.20 or $0.10 and I'd probably spend 20x as much.
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Funny thing is that what the record companies earned the most on was ringtones. People were prepared to pay more for ringtones then for the song itself as a digital download? I don't know about today this was back in 2003-2005.

But I agree, the costs are high for the quality and furthermore the accessibility. A large part of piracy these days is because of the time factor. The whole world has A LOT OF INFO about a film/TV series and doesn't want to wait a year or so to see it. I include myself in that category.

We can see it for download in pay per view sites etc but we're not allowed to download and pay for it :emote_rainshower:. So the wait becomes unbearable.
 
Fredrik Callinggard said:
Funny thing is that what the record companies earned the most on was ringtones. People were prepared to pay more for ringtones then for the song itself as a digital download? I don't know about today this was back in 2003-2005.

But I agree, the costs are high for the quality and furthermore the accessibility. A large part of piracy these days is because of the time factor. The whole world has A LOT OF INFO about a film/TV series and doesn't want to wait a year or so to see it. I include myself in that category.

We can see it for download in pay per view sites etc but we're not allowed to download and pay for it :emote_rainshower:. So the wait becomes unbearable.
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Judging from what I pay for Rock Band track packs, somebody's making some decent coin there as well. Dunno how much of that goes to the original artist tho.

-sc
 
Gavin Greenwalt said:
One thing I've always wondered and maybe Geoff knows is how Netflix OnDemand compensates its licensees. Does anyone know
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I'm baffled too. My suspicion is they buy very cheap licenses for indie movies where the filmmaker makes next to nothing on the deal and then absolutely nothing when the show streams or is rented.

I'm guessing the big studios have a totally different deal and get well compensated.
 
Kevin Olsen said:
Maybe there is something a bit more sinister going on...

http://torrentfreak.com/illegal-downloads-150x-more-profitable-than-legal-sales-091009/

KO
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That's amazing!! That's a solution I never thought of. Go after the consumer directly, and give them an out.

Offer it legally for a $10 download, but if you catch someone pirating, send them a bill for $20 (to cover the cost of collection, ect.) If they refuse to pay, and they get enough infractions against them, then it would be worth it for the collection company to sue. Creates a whole new business.

I'm all for going after the people who facilitate file sharing. Target those who provide server space, bandwidth, or anything else needed in the chain to commit a crime and make them accomplices. Hit any business in their weak spot, the pocket book, and they'll shape up or go under. Tell internet service providers that they will be fined $100k for every user that violates copyright law and then let them sort out the problem. There's going to be a lot of angry pirates who can't get on the internet anymore.
 
This raises another interesting point about piracy that I think the MPAA and RIAA have GROSSLY mishandled: fine sizes.

If there's a medium to high chance that you'll be caught and the fine will be reasonable you'll be afraid of carrying out the action.

If there's a little to no chance of being caught and the fine is reasonable you won't be afraid of carrying out the action.

But... and this is where the MPAA and the RIAA made a HUGE mistake in human psychology--or at least my psychology: If there's little to no chance of being caught and the fine is *unreasonable* you still won't be afraid of carrying out the action.

If you pirate one song and you get caught you'll be hit with a $100k fine. But who just pirates one song? You'll at least download an entire album. So that means if you download an album you're liable for a $1.2M fine. Now for some people that might be a reasonable fine. For me that would be bankruptcy x 10. There's a point at which the fine is so huge you don't even care anymore. It's like poker, at some point you're "All In" and the betting is no longer of any concern. So after 10 songs why not download 10,000 the fine is already well outside your means to pay.

If the MPAA and RIAA pursued consumer piracy on the level it should be pursued: petty to non-crime but lowered their standard of prosecution then they could increase the volume of claims while reducing the charges. Make it a parking ticket. I would say the average person is more afraid of a parking ticket than piracy. The average person is more afraid of a speeding ticket than piracy. That's how badly piracy prosecution on the large scale has been handled over the last decade. Make the fine $50-$100 and just spam them. It'll be 1,000,000x more effective and unlike a $10k fine people won't fight it. They'll be annoyed and out $100 and leave a bad taste in their mouth. The average person can understand what $100 fine means. The average person can't picture a $1m fine so they just block it out entirely.

There's been some interesting research on the unintended consequences of the Three Strikes law. That after 2 strikes instead of just becoming more careful, some just become more brazen. After all, if the next strike is going to put you away for life, the reward had better be worth the risk. So violence increases, the damage values increase and they go deeper underground.
 
Yeah, and you got da Gestapo right there..

.. chasing the millions of small-time sinners and putting "PIRATE" stickers on their computers.
:rolleyes5:
 
My understanding of Netflix digital streaming deals are that they are 'Flat fee" for unlimited streaming for a certain period of time. Take this with a grain of salt but I under the licensing fee for streaming is mid-high 4 figures.
 
String of thought here,feel free to ignore

String of thought here,feel free to ignore

Well...I was sitting around today trying to solve this issue...obviously myself alone can't solve it but I figured there are a few tactics and ways...

Subscription:
We could all go subscription basis on the internet but this would only work to some extent.
You'd need to have a viewing environment that is pleasurable for the audience. VERY difficult and expensive if you were to do it. As it would need to be high quality and full screen and streaming. (no one wants a film to stop half way and 'buffer'.)

Downloads:
The alternative to this is allow for the viewing online but also allow for downloads.

This is where the problem comes in, the minute you allow for downloads its possible for piracy to happen. One person downloads and puts it up on a torrent and BAM! the world has it. $10 for unlimited viewing for one user and that gains free access for all.

Solution to this? Encode into the meta data a serial number for each quick time file. Track it to the source, take that source to court, gain llegal fees. In turn this references to that article whereby you could gain 150% profit. HOWEVER, this is obviously a bad look on your company for one. Taking down the small fish and so on, who knows, could've passed it to a friend who then passed it to another and so on. The other issue that comes with this is the major problem with meta data encoding. In order for this to work it would need 1000s if not 10s of thousands of different serial number, not an issue with generating them but rather encoding them for every person that has decided to download it. This takes time, computing power and more so it takes a lot of infrastructure to make sure there isn't a flaw in the system. Infrastructure costs time and money. Both of which could easily just go to another production.

Advertising:
There is the idea that has been chucked around here about Advertising. Great word. Bad for the end user. Not many people would watch a YouTube video that's only 2 minutes if it has 5 minutes of advertising. Similarly here, they don't know the product and there is no loyalty to a brand so advertising would alienate a large majority of users. One can argue about the cinema and advertising, a cinema is established, therefore people have faith in it.

So really you could do the idea of streaming like netflix, though this probably would be better off if you had cloud computing on your side so the end user doesn't have to deal with too much buffering or anything of sort.

Or...do zero budget for a year, make tons of shorts and market yourself on that with your service. Launch it again a year later with a loyal fan base and subscription, add advertising and you can lose some users or maybe gain a lot with all the extra money you gain in and increase the value of your content tenfold. :tongue:

The choice is rather simple, the tactics and strategies are hard.
Use piracy or combat piracy.
 
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