piracy discussion - new series

[rahullak]

Economically speaking, it actually isn't "worthwhile". When supply of any particular good is infinite, its price tends toward zero. Granted this does not include the effects on the future production of goods from the same producer.

The justice system can handle this only to some extent. In the end, it is the moral compass of consumers that is going to decide whether piracy goes down or up, whether today's piracy ends tomorrow's production.

 

[uniderth]

So is there a way for a studio to release material freely accessible online and still make enough money to continue to produce that material? The money has to come from somewhere, either advertisers or the viewing audience.

 

[Guy Gardener]

It's called advertising.

Asking for donations, if you liked the product seems to work.

Bu you've veered off on a weird tangent uniderth.

The copyright holders don't have to compete with pirates.

They don't need to offer their media for free, to stop us from taking it.

They set a price.

We pay or miss out.

Piracy is not going to increase just because CBS is charging 1 million dollars per episode for us to watch.

(Okay it might triple, but still, most of the noob audience would chose to go without, than figure out how to pirate for the first time, but someone would have to have paid a million dollars for the first episode in this hypothetical circumstance, and then up loaded Star trek S01E01 for 2 million (plus?) humans to watch for free.)

 

[jefferiestubes8]

(Okay it might triple, but still, most of the noob audience would chose to go without, than figure out how to pirate for the first time, but someone would have to have paid a million dollars for the first episode in this hypothetical circumstance, and then up loaded Star trek S01E01 for 2 million (plus?) humans to watch for free.)

The preview episode (episode 1) from CBS network broadcast will be recorded and have commercials cut out and put up on torrent websites as pirated copies within 1 day of it being broadcast. People around the world will see this first episode. I think CBS is actually planning on this to get some additional buzz to gain subscriptions to CBSAA in the USA.
This in addition to all of the marketing from July 21, 2016 at San Diego Comic Con, and all of the announcements, a special feature on the The Animated Series Blu-ray in Q4 and a special feature on the Star Trek Beyond blu-ray release in Q4.

 

[fireproof78]

So is there a way for a studio to release material freely accessible online and still make enough money to continue to produce that material? The money has to come from somewhere, either advertisers or the viewing audience.

My point exactly. When you devalue a product and it moves to zero, what incentive do people have to keep making it?

 

[jaime]

It's called advertising.

Asking for donations, if you liked the product seems to work.

Bu you've veered off on a weird tangent uniderth.

The copyright holders don't have to compete with pirates.

They don't need to offer their media for free, to stop us from taking it.

They set a price.

We pay or miss out.

Piracy is not going to increase just because CBS is charging 1 million dollars per episode for us to watch.

(Okay it might triple, but still, most of the noob audience would chose to go without, than figure out how to pirate for the first time, but someone would have to have paid a million dollars for the first episode in this hypothetical circumstance, and then up loaded Star trek S01E01 for 2 million (plus?) humans to watch for free.)

That hypothetical is the proposition..studio stumps up a million for the episode instead of first buyer.

I am mostly anti piracy, if something is available at an affordable price, there is no...for want of a better word...honour, in pirating it.
Desperate to see it...no way to see it in a timely fashion...broke teenage student...I get that. We've all been there.
But unless you put your hand in your pocket at some point, no one will make these things we enjoy any more (look at piracy in video games, the lack of developers on the vita having been burned by the psp...then the consumers not wanting to pay for an expensive console that would be cheaper if it didn't have to have anti piracy features baked into its set up....arguments will rage, but largely silly ones.)

 

[Guy Gardener]

These are first world arguments.

China and India don't care about destroying Hollywood.

 

[T'Arwen]

Desperate to see it...no way to see it in a timely fashion...broke teenage student...I get that. We've all been there.
But unless you put your hand in your pocket at some point, no one will make these things we enjoy any more (look at piracy in video games, the lack of developers on the vita having been burned by the psp...then the consumers not wanting to pay for an expensive console that would be cheaper if it didn't have to have anti piracy features baked into its set up....arguments will rage, but largely silly ones.)

That may be true for video games but not other types of media.

See this about music. Although data here is more tricky to interpret because the industry is more diversified (people may see concerts if they don't buy albums) and less consolidated (takes less money to be an indie singer than filmmaker).

http://musicbusinessresearch.files.wordpress.com/2010/06/paper-felix-oberholzer-gee.pdf

However, it's less ambiguous for the film industry. I previously posted a link to an article on page 5 which said that the number of films made was actually HIGHER during the advent of piracy than without it. It also did say studios employed less people, but so were plenty of other industries during the recession. That doesn't take away from the argument that piracy DOES NOT discourage creative output as the data shows. Yet some people continue to insist otherwise.

I couldn't find articles that specifically addressed the TV (or gaming) industry but the consequences of piracy are probably similar to that of the film industry. That's because the movies and shows most likely to be pirated are already hits.

 

[mlk]

I don't believe Star Trek is popular enough or will have hype enough to reach any real height in the piracy top ten. Star Treks audience feels like one who pays for their episodes in one way or another so no, piracy won't really hurt the new show.

 

[AviTrek]

I don't believe Star Trek is popular enough or will have hype enough to reach any real height in the piracy top ten. Star Treks audience feels like one who pays for their episodes in one way or another so no, piracy won't really hurt the new show.

Popularity to reach the top 10 is irrelevant. What matters is ratio of piracy to purchased products. And as a sci fi show on a subscription service, I would expect the ratio to be high. If the ratio is too high and brings down the revenue too much, then the show may not survive.

 

[mlk]

Again, the Trek audience is a mature one, hardly one who goes to pirate bay to search for torrents when there are legitimate ways to get episodes.

 

[m.lp.ql.m]

What matters is ratio of piracy to purchased products. And as a sci fi show on a subscription service, I would expect the ratio to be high.

As a sci-fi show with an arguably nerdy fanbase who actually know how to pirate, I would expect the ratio to be high.

 

[T'Arwen]

Popularity to reach the top 10 is irrelevant. What matters is ratio of piracy to purchased products. And as a sci fi show on a subscription service, I would expect the ratio to be high. If the ratio is too high and brings down the revenue too much, then the show may not survive.

Maybe. Maybe not. No one has ever done a show on an exclusive streaming service for only one network. And let's not forget that Les Moonves turned down a lot of money from all the major streaming services to push CBS All Access. If it doesn't work out on All Access, it's possible they could run back to any one of them. The mostly likely candidate is Netflix since Moonves specifically mentioned them and their "quick money."

As much as I'd rather have it on Netflix, I have to admire the balls for Moonves to turn them down.

 

[jaime]

That may be true for video games but not other types of media.

See this about music. Although data here is more tricky to interpret because the industry is more diversified (people may see concerts if they don't buy albums) and less consolidated (takes less money to be an indie singer than filmmaker).

http://musicbusinessresearch.files.wordpress.com/2010/06/paper-felix-oberholzer-gee.pdf

However, it's less ambiguous for the film industry. I previously posted a link to an article on page 5 which said that the number of films made was actually HIGHER during the advent of piracy than without it. It also did say studios employed less people, but so were plenty of other industries during the recession. That doesn't take away from the argument that piracy DOES NOT discourage creative output as the data shows. Yet some people continue to insist otherwise.

I couldn't find articles that specifically addressed the TV (or gaming) industry but the consequences of piracy are probably similar to that of the film industry. That's because the movies and shows most likely to be pirated are already hits.

It's false correlation though. Not least as an overall up trend in the industry will simply mask people saying 'sod it, it's not making enough money,regardless of its pirate bay viewing figures...hmm'
Imagine some small show, sci-fi, now imagine it's dodgy download figures are actually legit download figures, paid for.
Suddenly it's profitable enough for series 2.
(and here's where someone points out that pirates only pirate things they wouldn't buy anyway...well, if it was the only way to see/play the thing,they would have to.)
It's always going to hurt niche things more.
I am not holier than thou on this, I just don't think the arguments hold any water for the galleon to float in. Pirate if that's your only way to see it right now, and if you think you can get away with it....but when that show you love so much comes out on Dvd...put your hand in your pocket to show your appreciation. Carry on watching the files on your tablet or what have you, save ripping the media time, but make sure somewhere along the line you recompense the people who are providing your entertainment. This is not the 12th century with the upper echelons putting on a show fir the common folk while we bow and scrape.

 

[T'Arwen]

It's false correlation though. Not least as an overall up trend in the industry will simply mask people saying 'sod it, it's not making enough money,regardless of its pirate bay viewing figures...hmm'
Imagine some small show, sci-fi, now imagine it's dodgy download figures are actually legit download figures, paid for.
Suddenly it's profitable enough for series 2.
(and here's where someone points out that pirates only pirate things they wouldn't buy anyway...well, if it was the only way to see/play the thing,they would have to.)
It's always going to hurt niche things more.
I am not holier than thou on this, I just don't think the arguments hold any water for the galleon to float in. Pirate if that's your only way to see it right now, and if you think you can get away with it....but when that show you love so much comes out on Dvd...put your hand in your pocket to show your appreciation. Carry on watching the files on your tablet or what have you, save ripping the media time, but make sure somewhere along the line you recompense the people who are providing your entertainment. This is not the 12th century with the upper echelons putting on a show fir the common folk while we bow and scrape.

I get that niche shows are completely different animals from blockbusters. But that was outside the scope of the study, which only looked at the overall effect on studio and record company production. Blockbusters already make so much money that pirated copies are only a drop lost from the bucket. Movies and shows not on the top 10 pirate list are more likely to be in trouble. But niche TV shows and movies are probably not going to generate enough interest for professors to study. Imagine somebody begging for a grant to research that! Maybe individual productions would get hurt but the studios will go on and be profitable as usual.

 

[fireproof78]

Until it progresses to the point that no one wants to buy it.

 

[Guy Gardener]

All of M*A*S*H* is online illegally and free, and has been since the late nineties.



This is interesting.

A VPN (Virtual Private Network) is a service that for a small fee, makes the internet think that you are standing in a country that you are not actually standing in, which can allow you to do highly illegal shenanigans relatively anonymously.

One of the mostly laughable things that regular people do do, Canadians in this case, with a VPN is tell Netflix America, that they are Americans and not Canadians, to access superior American Netflix.



http://technology.canoe.com/News/2016/04/17/22625085.html

Netflix stamped down on a bunch of popular VPNs, which is just the cost of doing business, but interesting per this conversation is the numbers of Canadians doing VPNed US Netflix.

(Numbers.)

A third of Netflix users in Canada illegally subscribe to US Netflix.

%40 of English speakers in Canada use Netflix.

20 million persons in Canada were regard English as their first language in 2011.

(20 million x %40) / 3 = 2.67 million ignoring Canadian Netflix and subscribing (paying for) US Netflix.

Think about this.

Hundreds of thousands, upwards towards close to 10 millions (in Russia, India or China) of dirty foreigners per country multiplied by 196 countries equals nearly 1 billion non Americans who might pretend to be Americans to watch Star Trek with a VPN on CBS all Access.

CBS All Access won't give a damn about VPNs because CBS doesn't belong to a multinational global fraternity like Netflix does, and might chose to ignore that their new current customer base somehow equals 4 times the population of the United States of America.

That's a lot of money.

(This rant sounds like science fiction.)