Sony: We Can't Make More Movies Thanks to Piracy

[Guest]

Piracy is not the problem here.

The biggest problem here is Prices!

- 1) Movie Theatre Ticket Prices
- 2) Cable Prices
- 3) DVD/Blue Ray Prices
- 4) Skyrocketing Production Costs Due to Actors and Produces getting paid exorbitant wages, way more than they should get at the expense of the public.

- 5) Higher Costs = Fewer People willing to Pay full price to see a Movie which may or may not be worth the price to see it.

What with the cost of Movie tickets, I have not been to a movie theatre in at least 15 years. Also thanks to Price gouging Cable companies, I don't have cable either. Instead, I have an DB8 antenna connected to my TV pulling in Digital HD channels.

As for Movies, I usually wait till they are marked down and in the $5.00 bin unless it's something I really want to see, then I get it through the Library.

Hollywood really needs to pull it's head out of it's ass and come down to reality.

Same thing goes for Sports as game tickets have gotten so expensive that it costs a fortune just to see a game. They don't need 10, 20, 30 or more million per year just to play. Give them maybe a million each and Full Medical to care for their injuries. This way game tickets would be more affordable.

In this economy, it's more important than every to take the average person into consideration. After all, we're not all made of money as Hollywood and the Sport world seems to think.

 

[hakesterman]

Yeah i have no sympothy for them at all, they all rip us off on DVD's and at the box office. For Decades they have gleemed with Glory and now times are tough for everyone and they want are sympothy, so sad!

 

[burn-e86]

yea it's not like there's been an economic crisis...

 

[daship]

Good riddance Sony. Your movies are shit anyway. So are all of your products. Your just like Apple you sell shit and charge for your name.
Not cool!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Gulli]

Hmmm? I say this smells like cow feces...

A couple of months ago I read that cinemas were doing exceptionally good, they blamed it on people wanting to escape reality because of the recession.
Now, we're suddenly made to believe they're doing really bad because of piracy?
I see a couple of faults in that reasoning...

If piracy is such a problem, why did poor, recession struck, people pay to see a movie? Obviously people still want to pay for a good movie, which could lead one to conclude piracy isn't that much of a problem, maybe it's the social factor of watching a movie together, maybe most people still believe in supporting a good movie by watching it in the cinema, sure they pirate a lot of movies, but in general those are the kind of movies they're only casually interested in, or movies that have been out of the cinemas for a long time.
How do people know what movie they want to go see? Usually because of publicity, most often the mouth-to-mouth publicity through friends, and it is well proven that especially independent films can become huge international hits because pirates tell their friends how good the movie is, small film makers know they're selling more tickets with- than without piracy.
Even the blockbusters don't seem to have been affected that much, people who absolutely want to see them go see them anyway, people who have a casual interest pirate them, the sales aren't falling and we can see that by the rate the average blockbuster budget is rising.

When a studio has been getting 100 million people on average to see their movies ten years straight before bittorent existed and they're still getting 100 million people to go see them afterwards, then don't come and tell me that just because they've been pirated 50 million times, the studio lost a 50 million people audience, who are they to be so arrogant to think that suddenly 50 million more people would've paid to go see their movie.
No sir, the truth is you've still got your 100 million audience, and in addition to that 50 million people pirated the movie, 50 million people who wouldn't have paid for it anyway.

 

[geof2001]

Please don't even get started on the epic fail that is Paranormal Activity. Thinking of how much money I wasted watching that movie scares me more. Sony should wake up and get started on a better delivery system that can get their products to market sooner and at a lower cost to them. All their bitching is doing is garnering them more ill will than they already have.

 

[Clintonio]

The credit crunch began in 2007 I think.

It makes sense the number of films have gone down.

Correlation != Causation.

 

[michaelahess]

It's not like that "lot's of money" used to produce movies is wasted on, oh I don't know, over paid actors, overpriced CG companies, overpriced advertising, etc. etc. etc.

Start being responsible about movie making, oh and make some actually good movies, and then charge a more reasonable rate, and HOLY SHIT people will actually start paying for it!!!! But Sony is the last company in the world that will figure that out.

 

[digitalrazoe]

What the hell is Sony bitchin' about ? The premier of the Micheal Jackson movie is sold out all over LA and the rest of the country. They are going to make what they paid for in rights to the footage 10 times over !

Look... I agree piracy is bad --- Okay ? But making $h17 Movies is a crime in itself ! HOllyWood should be flattered that some of us even waste the bandwidth to find out how bad a movie really was!

 

[Guest]

I saw the movie on display in Walmart Monday, Oct 26th.

 

[rodney_ws]

So if people keep pirating movies, Sony will stop making them? Well... you know what to do guys!

 

[cruiseoveride]

162 films? I think I've watched like 15 movies last year.

 

[climber]

Everyone looks out for their own asses, including corporations, that includes movie studios. The problem is way older that the phenomenon that hit with Napster and everything that came after. The problem which manifested itself with stealing (pirating) music, games, movies, is that far too many people think:

1) They not only want but are owed something for nothing, if they aren't given it for free they'll take it/steal it, after all it's only one person... Problem is (death of a thousand, or in this case millions of cuts).
2) That if they aren't caught it's not illegal (the same reasoning behind speeding down the highway above the speed limit).

 

[climber]

Pretty soon pirating anything will be counter productive because ISPs putting bandwidth caps on accounts, which over time will have smaller and smaller caps, it will lock down piracy because no one will want to pay tonnes of money for bandwidth for clearly inferior ripped movies, filmed via camcorders in theaters. ISPs will squeeze out the torrents fanboys by squeezing everyone, thanks torrents fanboys.

 

[rooket]

It's better to watch the movie in the theater. I generally watch a movie only one time anyway. But at $12+ a visit that kind of keeps me from consistantly going. Although yeah $12 isn't a lot these days but still I am very selective when it is that high. If it was half I'd go to more movies.

As far as pirating movies, I don't like cams at all and I also prefer to watching on the big screen rather than off of a DVD. So if I download a cam, I'd say 98% of the time I won't even bother opening it in a media player. People shouldn't even bother making cams they suck.

 

[Guest]

This is an absolutely shoddy excuse on Sony's part.

Let's be realistic here, the economy is in a tough spot right now. I don't download movies, I personally feel that it's wrong, but regardless, the studios are seeing less of my money. It's not because of downloading in my case, it's because of less spare change in my wallet right now.

And I'm not the only one, in fact, a two year survey with several major ISPs actually reveals that Sony's claims are completely bunk:

"According to Craig Labovitz of Arbor Networks, “Globally P2P is declining and it is declining quickly.” The report is based on data collected from ISPs aorund the world over a two year period."

-http://www.afterdawn.com/news/archive/20031.cfm

If P2P is going down, and significantly(It was 40% of web traffic two years ago, it's now 18%, that means it's less than half of what it was two years ago) then a studio can't honestly say that increased piracy is now costing them money. It's ridiculous.

Don't get me wrong, stealing is stealing, and it's wrong. I don't support that in any way -but studios like this are using poor excuses to claim burgeoning losses, when they need to accept that the consumer's wallets are tighter right now. It's been argued that the industry is churning out low grade entertainment right now, and I don't want to take a side either way on that, but arguably they DO need to understand that with lower consumer turnout, these big budget flicks are much riskier. They should start cutting back, and working with more cost effective filmmaking. There's no reason that Spiderman 3 cost as much as it did, and it's terrible, it was frivolous spending with little regard for results. Studios should really crack down and penalize producers\directors that create those results. Perhaps even begin writing that into their future contracts. Something needs to be done, but based on actual net traffic, it's easily found that piracy isn't the source of this worsening problem.

 

[NoCaDrummer]

So why don't they spin off Columbia Pictures back to an American company? I always wondered WHY they bought them in the first place.

Sony (and its movie division) and Philips (through its movie division) brought this all upon themselves with the push to digital media. The same can be said of the record industry when Polygram (which was 92% owned by Philips) was 70% of the world record market. The push to digital media, which meant buying new players and new recordings (which both happened to be wholly owned by these two manufacturers) meant severely inflated prices. An oligopoly is the next best thing to a monopoly.

 

[warlordsagan]

They also forget that people who watch a pirated movie may tell a friend that the movie was great and that friend will go and see it in the theater with maybe more friends.

 

[wild9]

Entertainment, said that smaller movie companies that generate independent films can't afford to open globally.

Oh, like the "smaller" companies that produced the title in question? And talking globally..the Brits recently got shafted, thanks to Sony putting their prices up in the UK. These multi-national's are all in on the act - the smaller artist's and distributor's don't get a look in. There's a plethora of cinema's in the UK screening absolute junk from Hollywood, with high ticket prices as well as astronomically high food prices. The smaller, independent films from Europe seldom get a look in..things can't be that bad if the demographics for this tripe are still flooding to the cinema in their droves and despite the claimed problems with piracy.

Piracy isn't the only thing affecting the movie, game and music industry..

 

[wild9]

Entertainment, said that smaller movie companies that generate independent films can't afford to open globally.

Oh, like the "smaller" companies that produced the title in question? And talking globally..the Brits recently got shafted, thanks to Sony putting their prices up in the UK. These multi-national's are all in on the act - the smaller artist's and distributor's don't get a look in. There's a plethora of cinema's in the UK screening absolute junk from Hollywood, with high ticket prices as well as astronomically high food prices. The smaller, independent films from Europe seldom get a look in..things can't be that bad if the demographics for this tripe are still flooding to the cinema in their droves and despite the claimed problems with piracy.

Piracy isn't the only thing affecting the movie, game and music industry..