After Monty Python Goes YouTube, Big Jump In DVD Sales 281
An anonymous reader writes "Apparently it with the release of all of Monty Python's material on YouTube, their sales have blown through the roof on Amazon.com. It is too bad there isn't any proper news article about this, but I think it bodes well for those who champion free content. More importantly, it forces the MPAA's feet into their mouths." Not every performer (or group of performers) has the decades-strong appeal of Monty Python, but this is a great thing to see. The linked article claims that the sales increase in the Python DVDs is 23,000 percent; there are probably some other ways to figure the numbers, but a big increase is easy to see.
Re:Flawed theory (Score:3, Interesting)
Degraded Quality (Score:5, Interesting)
Amazon has been selling the boxed set for cheap. (Score:2, Interesting)
There's been several incredible deals for the "Monty Python's Flying Circus" boxed set over the past few months. That probably boosted sales a bit.
Re:Flawed theory (Score:5, Interesting)
A large percentage of media content (movies, tv, music) I purchase these days is the DIRECT RESULT of having come across the art for free online. I'd say that upwards of 50% of the media I buy is stuff I would have NEVER come across unless I'd found it on for ex youtube. I mean literally that if I didn't find the video while browsing youtube, I'd never even know your movie/tv show/song existed or interested me.
One example was the tv show The 4400. I had not seen a single episode of the show until I stumbled across a clip on youtube. Since then, I have purchased all 4 seasons on dvd. There's no question about it, those dvd sales would almost certainly never have happened without that youtube clip.
Any media product's success hinges on exposure. You should want as many people as possible to see your art. Giving it away for free is the ONLY way you will maximize potential paid sales. Get with the program.
the release of all of Monty Python's material (Score:2, Interesting)
the release of all of Monty Python's material on YouTube
Then why do I only see some 40+ video's of 2-4 minutes?
I viewed the show for fist time in youtube! (Score:5, Interesting)
Many people from Latin American countries (like me)haven't ever watched this before, this kind of humor was rarely shown in latin-american television, because the "average Jose" wouldn't enjoy it if its translated into spanish. But times change...
last generations (people now in their 20's - 30's) learned english in schools (the "boom" of bilingual schools started in the 80's - lucky me), now they are getting on the internet and enjoying different flavors of humor (and many other cultural components) they find while surfing.
now that Latin America economy is growing (Peru -my country- is expected to grow 6% this year) this will surely open a new market not only for them but for whoever does a similar thing.
Seems obvious in hindsight... (Score:4, Interesting)
How do you reach the next generation?
This seems obvious... the next generation watches youtube. When I was introduced to Monty Python, it was tv.
I saw it, it was funny, sometimes I wanted to watch it when it wasn't on tv... so I might buy it.
Now it's youtube... they saw it, it was funny, they thought it'd be neat to watch it in the car... or at least, not at the computer.
This exposure and marketing thing is not that complicated. The problem seems to be IP holder's inability to really grasp how big the internet enabled marketplace is... a tiny percentages of sale conversions, in a freakin enormous marketplaces = lots of sales.
Thing is, you have to accept the idea that you might make MORE from your body of work, by recognizing that 'enough' might not be a sale from everyone that enjoyed your work, every time they did. You can't gain the benefits of the massive free exposure of the internet, if you are not willing to concede some of the sales as marketing.
Re:Flawed theory (Score:5, Interesting)
There's no way it would improve their average sales to have those actual films previewable on YouTube.
I think that says more about their average quality than it does about YouTube.
It also would very likely force the MPAA's feet into their mouths, if they had to essentially make the argument that "Most of our movies suck so much that if people actually saw them first, no one would want to buy them. We make most of our money by selling people crap they don't really want."
Re:I viewed the show for fist time in youtube! (Score:5, Interesting)
a much better idea will be if you come here to start your own IT company - wouldn't be a huge investment and local University graduates will happily work for less than 1k$ a month. You can sell services overseas if you want.
when I was little I dreamed of living in the US, so I could go to Disney & Epcot every weekend. Right now I wouldn't live over there even if they payed me for doing it. Living in South America is not as bad as they want you to believe (except for
Re:Yes, yes, (Score:2, Interesting)
Help, help, I'm being repressed!
Bloody peasant!
Re:Degraded Quality (Score:2, Interesting)
If you had just posted a link to a video of you giving a speech to 10-30 people for 15-30 min I'd be much more inclined to buy the book. Better yet I'd be much more likely to show a video than a text-filled link to other business school professors and make adoption of your book in our classes much easier.
As it is I don't know you from harry and your offer of a evaluation copy of the book isn't something that's differentiating yourself in the market place.
Re:Flawed theory (Score:3, Interesting)
I agree completely. Places like the pirate bay allow me to "try" out music so I don't have to buy sound-unheard. If I find an album I like, I'll often buy it and stick the unopened CD in my collection; I'm supporting the artist and keeping a mint version of the original packaging
Blog Rumor? (Score:5, Interesting)
their sales have blown through the roof on Amazon.com. It is too bad there isn't any proper news article about this
Maybe because it never happened? The linked story is a blog, which cites another blog, which claims that sales jumped to 240 times their previous value, but doesn't say where they got their figures.
As far as I can see, this is just another stupid blog rumor.
Re:Flawed theory (Score:3, Interesting)
Slate runs occasional columns on the business of movies, called "The Hollywood Economist". Your typical piece of crap usually dies at the box office after its first weekend. In fact, according to Slate, in 2006, the big six studios spent an average of $38 million per new release on advertising and promotion, even though their films grossed an average of $24 million at the box office. The studios make their money on DVD's, pay-TV, foreign rights, and as Mel Brooks would say "Moichandising!". And, to some extent, they run on the same model as venture capitalists - lose money on rotten movies/crummy Web 2.0 business plans, but make up for it with a "Dark Knight" or a Google.
So, I would amend your statement to "We make a lot of crap people don't like, but make our money with one or two blockbusters a year that people do want to see." And with the ancillary revenue streams so important to their profits, I can understand why they want to stop piracy.
Let's not forget that Monty Python hasn't produced anything new in the 25 years since "Meaning of Life". If no one pirated movies for five or ten years after they were released, I would bet the studios might be more interested in releasing material on youtube.
Re:The YouTube model can work (Score:5, Interesting)
And you have to be very good to get something on TV
Good Lord, man. Have you ever watched TV in your entire life?
Good lord, man. Have you never been to film school or at least a film festival?
Even craptastic TV shows are orders of magnitude better than educated beginners. And if you've ever had to sit through a class project in highschool you would see just how good TV really is.
Bad TV is just the worst good tv. Even a Sci-Fi original like Mammoth is high quality television compared to the level of bad that's possible. Most people just judge television on the spectrum of what they see with the worst shows being a 0 and the best shows being 100. They haven't been subjected to the -1 through -1000 that is also produced.
Re:The YouTube model can work (Score:3, Interesting)
You don't get paid (or at least not near as much),
Citation needed. How much does broadcast TV make? How much do YouTube ads make?
you don't get the benefit of getting viewers simply because there's only so many channels people can watch.
True, but that's an inevitability. On TV, you already have several hundred, some places almost a thousand channels. You've also got DVRs, which cable and satellite providers are pretty much giving away with the service.
So, people are getting more choice about what to watch, and when. YouTube is the logical and inevitable end result.
Sure, you can say anyone that makes it on the top whatever list is famous...but how long does that usually last? A week? Maybe a month?
The mob is less predictable than you think.
Leeroy Jenkins. All your base. Penny Arcade. Even Slashdot.
All of these things happened pretty much by just being there, or by word of mouth, or by actually providing a solid product. None of them exactly have commercial support, and none of them really owe their success to TV.
Famous enough to make money off the fame alone? Maybe not. But also very much a part of culture, maybe not a massive hit, but not soon forgotten, either.
Re:Flawed theory (Score:4, Interesting)
You're right. I've become a, of all things, Evanescence fan. Without downloading "Fallen", more or less by accident, I would never have become exposed to that kind of music as a guy in my 40s. Now I've bought their 4 CDs.
Oh, and if you don't know them, download "Fallen" and listen to it a few times.
Seems to work fine for others. (Score:5, Interesting)
Seems to work fine for the book authors whose works are here:
http://www.baen.com/library/ [baen.com]
In a world where the people with money have increasing ways to spend it, you are competing in mind share terms. If you are just starting out, you are a grain of sand on a beach. Even if you are actually a diamond, who would know?
So either you buy advertising and marketing ($$$$$), or you give stuff out free and hope that lots of people like it and tell their friends, and eventually you get something like a network effect.
Just look at the popular music and books out there. A some of them aren't really that good - it's just they are good (lucky? ;) ) enough, and then people talk about them and it becomes part of their shared experience, and so some of them will buy for themselves or for others.
Note though, if you can only create one decent work in your entire life, then giving away that only golden egg you lay isn't going to make you much money. But that just means you're not very good at that, and you should be finding a different way of earning a living.
If I can only paint one excellent picture in my whole lifetime, I shouldn't try to make money as an artist. Maybe just paint as a hobby.
Another thing: make it easy for people to pay you. Doesn't matter how they get your stuff - whether it's from P2P or from someone else's trash.
Someone had a pirate copy of GTA3, and enjoyed it so much that he wanted to buy one - but it was banned in his country. He actually went to a neighbouring country to try to buy it, but it was banned there too!
Would have been better if there was a website where he could just pay the money and not worry about shipping charges. He already has the game why pay for shipping? He's paid the "unauthorised distributors" their share - which presumably includes shipping, handling, distribution, stocking etc.
Culturally specific might be an issue (Score:3, Interesting)
With all due respect, some of the material might appear tedious to you because it's culturally specific.
I can imagine a lot of jokes about 1970s Britain (with a lot of poking at the Home Counties middle classed attitudes of the time) might completely miss you in the same way that I (as a British person) can watch US comedies with my American friends and they are falling about laughing at cultural references that all Americans take for granted and I completely miss, and just sit and think - "what's funny? this is just boring".
I suppose the same is true of all comedy, and even two people who grew up next door will find different things funny. But definitely some culturally specific stuff in there: check out Monty Python's "International Philosophy" [youtube.com] sketch. Did you get the reference to 1966 England world cup footballer Nobby Stiles [wikipedia.org]? Me and my friends fall about with hoots of laughter when the German captain in the sketch is introduced as Nobby Hegel - how many layers of humour are in there? Hegel being associated with a short toothless midfielder, a German philosopher being given an English nickname (England beat Germany in the 66' final), bit of an intellectual gag there about Nobby Stiles being a hard man on the pitch compared with Hegel's 'might makes right' philosophical leanings.
I'm not arguing that all Monty Python stuff is genius, some leaves me bored, but just suggesting that 40 years on in the UK I miss some of the gags and wonder if you might be as well. 1970s American comedies? I haven't a clue at half of the cultural references even when spelt out obviously.
What this also tells us... (Score:3, Interesting)
I watch a LOT of movies, and I mean a LOT. Netflix has been my friend, and the Roku has been great. The vast majority of the movies suck, and while I will get mild enjoyment out of watching a bad movie, I will definitely not be watching them a second, third, or tenth time. The movies that I will be watching again and again, I buy on DVD. I have no interest what so ever to "buy" a download of them. I want packaging that I can put on my shelf and when I pass by and see it, it will remind me, "Oh, yeah, I think I want to watch that today." That just doesn't happen with downloaded movies and music. These numbers seem to show that I am not the only one who feels this way.