It’s not a well kept secret, but it is facts like this that copyright holders would rather keep quiet when discussing online piracy. This isn’t the first time movies rake in record breaking profits while the industry argues that the industry is facing total collapse due to unauthorized downloading, but one more reminder wouldn’t hurt.
It’s that tired old argument the movie industry uses over and over again to justify overly strict copyright laws – piracy is killing the movie industry and it needs to be stopped or else the movie industry will collapse. Studies bought by the industry try and say they are losing billions in profits, but those billions really wind up being a made-up statistic or a guesstimation a lot since it’s based on the premise of one download means one lost sale which has been proven repeatedly to be a flawed argument.
Industry execs might say, “Well, if the industry isn’t doing so bad, where are the headlines that say the industry is doing well?” We can most certainly help with that. You can find those headlines here, here, here, and, for good measure, here and here.
So what’s the story like in other countries like, say, the UK? Turns out, it’s the same story, different country. Techdirt points to a very interesting page from the UK Film Council which has the following information:
- UK film grossed $2 billion at the worldwide box office last year;
- UK box-office takings are at record-breaking levels, worth £944 million in the UK in 2009, up 62% from 2000;
- The overall territory box office gross for the UK and the Republic of Ireland exceeded £1 billion for the first time in 2009;
- UK Film Council investments in British films have been hugely successful – for every £1 we have invested, £5 has been generated at the box office;
- Over 173.5 million people went to the cinema in the UK in 2009 – up 31 million from 2000, the highest since 2002 and the second highest since 1971;
Not exactly the ailing industry being killed by file-sharing. All this on top of a posting earlier this month by the the Cinema Exhibitors Association Ltd which claims, “In 2009, financial losses to the cinema industry due to copyright theft were estimated to be around £144m. That equates to over 15 per cent of box office, or some 26 million attendances”
So, let me get this straight, the UK film industry broke revenue records by posting an astounding £944 million at the box office, up 62% from 2000, and without skipping a beat, complain that their industry is dying due to an alleged estimated £144 million loss (no doubt derived from the flawed logic of one download means one lost sale). Somehow, out of all of this, are we suppose to be sympathetic for the industry over money? Forgive me for thinking that something doesn’t really add up – especially when it’s the same industry that is begging lawmakers to pass overly restrictive laws such as a three strikes law in the UK which most people feel is too strict to begin with. Personally, I really don’t feel sorry for them on this front.
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Cinema tickets for £5. Where the hell is that. It’s £11 in manchester lol
@Drew Wilson
I thought I’d respond to the point that you made above that studies on the impact of piracy are “based on the premise of one download means one lost sale”.
When it comes to film downloads, we do not assume that every download is a lost potential sale, the figures are high because of the scale of the problem of copyright theft. I work with the Industry Trust for IP Awareness and the figures which we estimate as the losses for the film and television industry are worked out via a method of research and consumer insight.
On behalf of the film and television industry, independent research supplier, IPSOS, carries out tracking research on copyright theft, which looks in part, at consumers’ behaviour. For both film and television separately, respondents are asked in what way, if any, they would have watched the film or TV show if they had not viewed an unofficial copy. The options to select from are numerous and include ‘watching it for free on terrestrial TV’, ‘borrowing an official DVD’, ‘watching on a digital movie channel’ as well as the option to state that they wouldn’t have bothered to watch it all (an easy choice to make with the benefit of hindsight). The difference in the costs associated with buying, downloading or renting films are taken into consideration. For the categories looked at, each had a different cost associated to it which was based on national averages for 2007, e.g a cinema ticket – £5.07, a new release DVD – £12.21, a catalogue DVD – £6.46, a DVD Rental – £3.11 etc.
Even then, these results are not taken at face value because the industry recognises that, in reality, people may not have visited the cinema or bought the DVD as frequently as they claim. The rate of lost sales is therefore down-weighted further using an industry standard methodology for regulating consumer claims in research such as this.
This method is how we arrived at our estimate of the costs of copyright theft to the film and television industry as being around £500 million, (measured in 2007). Whereas, if we did assume that one pirate copy, viewing or download was equivalent to one lost sale, the losses would amount to £2.186 billion (based on 2007 survey by IPSOS); that’s 4.5 times greater the £500million estimate.
Thanks,
David
Those in the movie industry persistent in detestably purporting preposterous nonsenses, even when the evidence bluntly proves otherwise, absolutely deserve no sympathy whatsoever.
Incidentally, all the fools utterly characterized by feeble-mindedness, blatant insolence, shallow disposition, weak argumentation, fallacy-induced cognition, empty affronts, and inane blathering deserve to receive no intelligible response to their ludicrous mockeries of comments.
The ACTA is about control, not copyright. Copyright is the guise, along with the flag waving of ‘think of the children’.
@ crybaby
Global Fucking Recession Dickhead, shove your plastic disks up your hole and cry somewhere else.
@Drew Wilson Thank you very much, extremely informative article.
this argument is flawed from the start
box office = 20-30% of all revenue for a film
you guys are fucking idiots
your site will cease to exist very soon
fuck you