It never fails that with every new technological breakthrough Hollywood howls to the moon about how this new technology is another attack against the industry and will destroy it.

Of course we all know that the exact opposite is the case but that doesn’t stop the movie industry and its trade groups like the MPAA from doing whatever they can to hold back technology and change; but all the while the industry as a whole has been recording increased profits.

To give you an idea of some of the sillier we’re at deaths door proclamations made by the industry here’s a couple from the accompanying infographic.

Studios forced to sell theaters under anti-trust laws

Studios claim free TV can’t compete with paid content

and of course the good ol’ Studios claim online piracy will put them out of business.

Here’s the full history of ridiculous claims of destruction faced by the movie industry in a handy dandy infographic from Steve Blank.

via Techdirt

Hollywood and getting it wrong about technology again and again [Infographic] is a post from: The Inquisitr

Mike Meier, a DC defense attorney, was once considered a champion of BitTorrent users rights and was even on the list of lawyers recommended by the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s web site. He also wasn’t shy about calling out copyright holders and their “extortion racket” as he called it.

Well it seems that Mike has decided to cross over into the dark side in a big way joining other copyright troll lawyers who are suing anyone they can when it comes to suspected copyright infringement. I say suspected because no-one yet has come up with an absolutely foolproof way to identify infringers by their IP addresses.

So far Meier has sued more than 1,000 BitTorrent users, or at least that is what he proudly boast on his site. As you can see from the top image prior to his conversion Meier was on the side of the consumer but now his web site advertises about how he can help you accept your punishment and pay up.

This from the man who once said in an interview that it was his opinion that copyright trolls were just the bill collectors for the movie industry and that they were just extorting money.

I guess fighting on the side of “right” doesn’t pay as well eh.

via TorrentFreak

BitTorrent defense attorney changes mind and becomes copyright troll is a post from: The Inquisitr

If there is one thing that 2009 will go down in the history books for it will be regarding two things. The first is the all out assault against piracy around the world by the movie industry and their trade groups.

The second is that 2009 is going to be the year that the movie industry has made record profits at the box office.

So on one hand they are saying that piracy is killing their business which means we have to gut our existing copyright laws and other intellectual property laws so that the movie industry can take over lock stock and barrel.

Then on the other hand they stand to make $10.6 billion before the end of the year, and the numbers are still climbing.

The year’s runaway overall box-office tally keeps getting adjusted upward.

A week after announcing that the domestic theatrical market would push past $10 billion for the first time in 2009, and end the year at around $10.4 billion, industry tracker Hollywood.com Thursday revised its count to an astounding $10.6 billion.

And that’s a calendar-year figure, meaning the counting stops today. Adhering to a different 52 week calendar, studio distributors are actually counting this weekend (Jan. 1-3) on the 2009 books, at least domestically, so who knows how high the ultimate 2009 will end up, given the heat of “Avatar,” “Sherlock Holmes” and “Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel.”

According to Hollywood.com, the last week of the calendar year will conclude with nearly $500 million in domestic revenue, by far the biggest week ever at the North American box office.

Meanwhile, the Hollywood Reporter Thursday released data showing that foreign theatrical distribution also reached a new record in 2009, hitting $10.7 billion — an uptick of 8 percent over 2008.

Source: The Wrap

So let me get this straight. Piracy is a rampant beast that is killing the movie business and yet these self-same movie companies are setting record profits.

Can some-one please explain to me how it is that piracy is the great big monster it is being made out to be then?

Anyone?

Thought not and yet the road to ACTA continues unabated using this piracy argument as one of its driving forces. Talk about having your cake and eating it too.

Calling all movie industry dickwads – time to STFU about piracy killing your business is a post from: The Inquisitr

Netflix, despite the protestations of movie studios, has done wonders for the industry, resulting in millions of Americans that now watch DVDs on a regular basis who would otherwise probably watch whatever made-for-TV movie was on AMC; however, this revolution has been limited almost strictly to DVD delivery, unless you have a penchant for weird (or old) movies.

Hulu, the television networks’ answer to the Internet, has also flourished, but with an entirely different model: rather than paying a monthly fee for unlimited access, Hulu provides unlimited access to both fresh and archive content in exchange for some pretty hilarious, and comparatively short, commercials.  There has admittedly been some network pushback, because Hulu is becoming a victim of its own success – as more people use Hulu, the actual television viewers continue to drop, and networks don’t get the big-ticket revenue they typically could have expected.

But, at the end of the day, both industries have come to realize that they need to adapt, and quickly, in order to survive in any recognizable fashion.  TV networks are toying with the idea of different delivery models via Hulu, such as “all content, always” and “only the most recent episodes”, but they’re trying.

Movie studios, however, are not.

Hulu was a joint-venture by industry giants, and was only a success because it was given true independence and freedom – it’s not a service that can likely be replicated by the movie industry, especially since Hulu appears to have somehow gained the love and support of nerds that is a prerequisite for Internet-based success.  It is for this very reason that the movie industry should embrace a twofold online-delivery approach: Hulu and Netflix.

Out of a $10 (USD) movie ticket, the studios receive a portion of sales, as well as a fee for the theater actually showing the film – this is an unsustainable model in the modern world of other, cheaper options.  If studios could receive $5 per online viewing of new movies, with a larger audience, would they not be happy to comply?  The theory is simple:  allow Hulu to show New Release movies as soon as they appear in theaters, with a pre-roll ad that results in the needed income-per-viewer, which is honestly no different or more annoying than the twenty minutes of previews and ads moviegoers are currently subjected to.

Furthermore, Netflix’s mass-audience should be leveraged to their providers’ streaming benefit, either through a similar pre-roll advertising model or with an extra monthly subscriber fee to allow Netflix members access to the New Release content via streaming, much like paying for a movie channel on a cable TV plan – but is actually useful.

The music industry was forced to adapt, much to their undying hatred, and they have suffered greatly for it – this is why they continue to try to restrict listeners’ rights while also increasing profits.  If the movie studios choose to adapt, much as television networks have been halfheartedly attempting to, they could fare far better in the end than they do even now.  The pay-per-stream movie distribution idea, through iTunes or Amazon, was a valiant attempt but has proven to not be of interest to most consumers, likely because of its expense and DRM-related difficulties.

FOX, Lionsgate, and all the others:  this idea was free.  The next one will cost seven figures – the check can be made out to “Kyle ‘Awesomeguy’ Brady”.

Kyle Brady is a contributing columnist for the Inquisitr, an entrepreneur, and has a future in science fiction.  He can be found at his blog, via email, or on Twitter.

A Free Idea For The Movie Industry is a post from: The Inquisitr

Is it an issue directly related to the economy or is it an issue of over consumption?

Variety reported in August that movie rentals are up, indicating that as economic conditions worsen (and this was pre the latest Wall Street crisis) people are more likely to rent a movie than buy one. And yet they note in the same paragraph:

However, sales of catalog and TV series on DVD are robust, suggesting that sagging DVD movie sales may be due to the maturity of the business — and to the quality of the titles.

How many DVD’s are enough? The industry saw saturation coming, and was hoping that Blu-ray would drive new sales based on the premise that people would want to have a copy of their favorite movies in HD. The problem being is that people haven’t bought in, and they are content with their current DVD libraries. There has been no rush to buy Blu-ray titles, and an aimed marketshare of 50% by the end of the year will be lucky to hit 10% instead. As Blu-ray players become cheaper, more people will buy Blu-ray movies, but only when buying new titles, not in most cases as replacements for their existing libraries.

But this doesn’t explain the DVD slump. Wired reports this month that movie execs are saying they’ve seen no downturn in the DVD business, and yet Variety the month before reports:

“None of the studios are making their marks,” an industry research analyst states. “Week to week, there have been double-digit declines.”

…Even the most bullish execs will concede this summer’s light DVD slate exacerbated declining new release fortunes. The ongoing deterioration is creating a ripple effect throughout the industry.

But even before the summer, new release sales were trending downward. According to analyst Tom Adams, “there was another decline, and a fairly substantial one at that,” for theatricals debuting on disc the first half of the year. He says the average overall perf was down 12% in first half, and he expects further declines through the end of the year, although he expects the sheer number of year-end releases to offset individual shortfalls.

So is there a downturn or not? Let’s take a middle line and say growth is flat, and as Variety notes, there are two factors at play, content and market maturity. Content is easy enough: Hollywood hasn’t had as many blockbusters as in previous years, and the flow on effect is lower sales once the movies make it to DVD. But maturity is the interesting factor. Has mass consumption and high sales delivered a market that can take less consumption because, to use a food cliche, it is full or close to it? DVD has been a huge success, and many have big libraries of movies, a brilliant marketing strategy that probably delivered beyond the studios wildest dreams. But how much is enough? As sales become flat, we see no increased desire to consume more. If sales are down, we see people content with their existing libraries, as we see with Blu-ray. They may still add to their collections, but in no where near the volume of years past.

The Digital Challenge

The movie industry is yet to face the same challenges we see in the music industry. There has been no mass uptake of digitally delivered content, even if we see increasing sales of both movies and TV shows from Apple’s iTunes store and others obsess with pirated content. Most people don’t have a digital content conduit in their loungerooms, so although I may rent a movie on my Apple TV this weekend, I am among a small few. But as we know, things are rapidly changing. The age of internet enabled televisions is upon us, and with mass market penetration, so to will consumption switch from physical media to digital media.

I would have bet that Blu-ray would have been the last great physical distribution medium, but it may never get to a point where it is. The successor to DVD will be digitial delivery, but the consumption argument stays the same.

People are not going to rush out and buy digital content (even if it’s HD) when they own the same title on DVD. An upsurge in rentals will help drive digital uptake, but a drop in actual sales presents the same issues to digital content as it does to Blu-ray and DVD. We’re not seeing a consumption shift in delivery, we are seeing a consumption shift based on scarcity, or lack there of to be precise. The challenge for the various companies looking to role out digital delivery in the coming years is how do they make the offering appealing when the end user may have past saturation point when consuming media.

Blu-ray down, DVD sales flat: a crisis in consumption? is a post from: The Inquisitr