Researchers Find Megaupload Shutdown Hurt Box Office Revenues 203
An anonymous reader writes "We've heard this one before, over and over again: pirates are the biggest spenders. It therefore shouldn't surprise too many people to learn that shutting down Megaupload earlier this year had a negative effect on box office revenues. The latest finding comes from a paper titled: 'Piracy and Movie Revenues: Evidence from Megaupload.'"
Shallow research (Score:5, Insightful)
What movies did they use in their control group? I'm sorry but a 3 page paper with little details on the research is not enough to convince me that they can
make any kind of valid conclusion.
Re:Shallow research (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Shallow research (Score:5, Interesting)
In addition, they don't even claim their findings were statistically significant...
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However, combine a whole bunch of such insignificant influences, and perhaps you've got a significant total.
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Of course you can't get do it scientifically your population is your sample group and the movies are not the same as last year.
The only way to look at these thing is just though the numbers.
The other conclusion could be that movies were less desirable to see this year or that the avengers was so disable it effected other ticket sales.
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Re:What's the problem here? (Score:5, Insightful)
The proof is far more solid than any proofs given of the damage caused by piracy.
Yet you've never once whined about that, have you.
Shoddy research is shoddy research. No matter if you agree with the premise or not.
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Shoddy research is shoddy research. No matter if you agree with the premise or not.
Well then, it's above the quality of the work of the MPAA or the RIAA. We should accept this work as the gold standard.
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Entirely unlike the shoddy work you have remained silent on
Have I remained silent? Maybe you should look at my comment history before making assumptions/looking like an trolling asshat?
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The proof is far more solid than any proofs given of the damage caused by piracy.
Solid proofs like titles not being released or an industry built around combating it? Game example: Gears of War PC sequels. The engine is the middleware and already cross platform (Unreal 3). Companies dedicated to the creation of antipiracy technology is another measuring stick for the prevalence of the issue.
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The other conclusion could be that movies were less desirable to see this year or that the avengers was so disable it effected other ticket sales.
Ok, I'll bite this one...
Who else boycotted movie theaters this year because the stuff that went out was absolute garbage? FFS, Hollywood, get your act together because this year was crap to no ends.
Or then what movie did I miss? And no, I definitely won't take Avengers or Batman or James Bond for an answer. They were mediocre at best.
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OK, I'll bite on this bite ...
I didn't go and see Avengers in the cinema but would very much have liked to. Also want to go and see Bond. Feedback on both has been overwhelmingly positive, and having watched Avengers on blu-ray, I was not disappointed.
I did go and see Cabin in the Woods (in a small independent cinema, no less), and enjoyed it immensely.
Many people rated The Dark Knight Rises highly (although it's not my sort of film). The Hunger Games was equally quite popular.
The Woman in Black.
The Lorax
Ti
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"...what movie did I miss?"
Looper
Killer Joe
Safety Not Guaranteed
Savages
The Thing
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If you really wish to confirm the issue, try looking at box office records pre and post internet, or even the VCR. The numbers I've found are pretty impressive. In fact I would prefer more downloading, authorized or unauthorized, if it would keep the punks and their damn cell phones out of the theater.
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If you really wish to confirm the issue, try looking at box office records pre and post internet, or even the VCR. The numbers I've found are pretty impressive.
Adjusted for inflation, yes?
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Which measure of inflation? Consumer inflation? Money supply inflation?
Probably better to go with 'As a percent of disposable income,' or 'Films consumed (legally) per capita.'
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Re:Shallow research (Score:4, Informative)
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Yeah, because it's all about LOC ("lines of code"), a metric which works *so* well,
and compactness and efficiency must mean it's bad.
If it can be said in 3 pages, it should be said in 3 pages. End of story.
PROTIP: The longer a paper is, the more likely it is, that it’s complete bullshit.
Re:Shallow research (Score:4, Insightful)
If it can be said in 3 pages, it should be said in 3 pages. End of story.
Indeed! Einstein's famous 1905 paper was three pages long and had zero references.
The longer a paper is, the more likely it is, that it’s complete bullshit.
Reversing the "logic" does not make one jot of difference, judging the worth of a document by the number of words is just plain silly.
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That's exactly what they expect. They spoon out the shit for you to consume. I used to enjoy going to the cinema but lately I've been getting burned every other time. Formulaic bullshit with computer generated stunts that are just plain cartoonish. Frankly if most of it was free it would still cost too fucking much.
There is more to it. Or actually, less. (Score:5, Informative)
The actual conclusion of the researchers was:
We find that the shutdown had a negative, yet insignificant effect on box office revenues.
(emphasis mine)
So basically there was basically no effect either way on overall box office revenues. Blockbusters gained from the shutdown of megaupload (probably due to more people forced to go see it in the theatres as they couldn't download it any more), many smaller and less well known movies lost (probably due to less people being able to preview the movie, resulting in less word-of-mouth promotion of a movie).
Interesting results anyway.
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The fact that their results were insignificant means something different in statistics than it does in everyday speech. What it means is they are less than 95% certain their results were due to changes in the independent variable (Megaupload being shutdown or not) rather than chance.
Typically this means you can't make any conclusion about the strength or direction of the correlation.
incorrect quote (Score:5, Informative)
The actual conclusion of the researchers was:
We find that the shutdown had a negative, yet insignificant effect on box office revenues.
You have misquoted the article, leaving out an important qualifier. The true quote actually reads:
"we find that the shutdown had a negative, yet in some cases insignificant effect on box office revenues.”
I need hardly add that this is not a trivial distinction. Assuming you used copy and paste for the quote, you must have then deliberately removed the text reading "in some cases" before you posted. Why exactly would anyone do this, except to change the meaning of the quote, however slightly?
Re:incorrect quote (Score:4, Interesting)
That "negative, yet insignificant" bit was actually in the abstract. When I read it, my immediate thought was "Typo?" But yeah, it was a case of someone dropping the "in some cases" phrase. This wasn't an error in the reporting; it was done by whoever wrote the published abstract.
You'd think they'd have noticed and fixed it by now. Or perhaps (being social scientists ;-) they didn't understand the issue, and were really just using common speech rather than technical speech in the abstract. As someone already pointed out, "(in)significant" means something different in common speech and statistical terminology.
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how easily this is done, eh? Lovely example of this being done to influence policy, is the Lisbon Treaty. A few letters were changed and a single comma added, and it changed the entire meaning of the document. John Major did that, and from the moment he signed it signed away the UK's right to self govern but more importantly, to run its own Judiciary. That's treason, in my book.
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OK, you got me. I'm intrigued (genuinely), could I have a source please?
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my bad, I meant the Maastricht Treaty.
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lol. bayesian stats is so popular now that "bayesian" has come to mean simply "statistics." to wit, significance is a frequentist concept, not bayesian.
the bayesian analogue of significance testing is the bayes factor [wikipedia.org].
Good and Bad (Score:5, Informative)
Apparently the smaller films were negatively affected by the shutdown of the site (made less money). The larger films (500 or more screens) were positively affected by the shut down (made more money).
Box office revenues of movies shown on the average number of screens and below were affected negatively, but the total effect is not statistically significant. For blockbusters (shown on more than 500 screens) the sign is positive (and significant, depending on the specification).
[John]
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But the shutdown of the site also coincided with a recovering economic situation. That could also be the reason more people go to see movies in theaters. Who knows what affected a particular set of sales, could be the election, the hurricane, ... I doubt MegaUpload or TPB has much to do with blockbuster sales, they are good and have been improving regardless of the witch-hunt against free speech.
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Didn't read TFA so dunno how valid it is. But that would actually makes sense.
Big movie advertised everywhere. Person wants to watch it but doesn't want to pay. Before the shutdown they'd download it from Megaupload and watch it. But after the shutdown they really want to watch it, so they fork over the
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Cause or correlation? (Score:5, Interesting)
Just because there is alleged correlation between the two events doesn't mean the lower box office revenues were caused by the shutdown. Perhaps it is due to lackluster movies this year, perhaps it was due to the ever dwindling economy so those who would have normally gone to a movie couldn't justify spending an ever increasing amount on tickets (and concessions if the choose to get those), or perhaps it was just more people going to see "matinee" showings which are often a lot less expensive which drives down revenues but perhaps increases ticket sales. Heck one local theater to me has matinee showings that are $3 and most other showings are less than $5 before 6PM.
Perhaps instead of counting revenues they should count actual ticket sales. Like when they say a movie has broken a box office revenue record, is it because more people are actually seeing the movie or is it because ticket prices are at record highs?
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Re:Cause or correlation? (Score:5, Interesting)
We currently have higher-than-parity with the US dollar, but an adult movie ticket is now sitting around the $17 range. For 3D, they usually charge $20... then another few bucks for the 3D glasses. They're also starting to get into the habit of not giving you a choice of 2D or 3D on the big movies, so you have to pay more for an arguably inferior movie format.
They wonder why Australia has one of the highest piracy rates in the world.
Really? (Score:3, Insightful)
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So no real effect either way then. Then why was it shut down again? Because people who are cheap (or have no money) will not go see it anyway? Yet they could affect others slightly?
Eventually digital music will cut its own throat. Once you get a 'good enough portable copy'. There is 0 reason to buy it again, ever. Unless someone can convince you that their digital copy is better. Also the 'album' format is basically dead. Instead of 10 songs you may or may not want, people just buy the 1 or 2 songs
Re:Really? (Score:5, Informative)
Alternative explanations:
It could be that new music is mostly crap - I rarely buy new releases, but I have a relatively big collection of older records and I still buy "new to me" records. I also do not buy "remastered" versions with the dynamic range squashed to almost zero.
It could also be that people are only buying one copy of a song, instead of buying the CD/record for their home and a cassette for their walkman/car they now buy the file and play it everywhere. Also, files can be backed up easier than records or tapes, so the need to buy them again in case of damage is reduced.
There is also the fact that iTunes and similar services sell single songs, not albums, which means that I can buy only the good songs for ~$1/each instead of buying the album (with one good and 10 mediocre songs) for $11 (to keep the song price the same) or more. Even a CD "single" usually contains remixes of the original song which I pay for when I buy that CD, but now I can just buy the original song.
There's also Youtube. With their content filters I would expect that if the video has survived for a year and got a low of view that the copyright owner approved of it (since otherwise it would be taken down). Yet, I can find a lot of music there for free.
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My own anecdotal experience as someone who likes a lot of current music.
I hear a song premiered on the radio during one of the evening shows that promote new music (Zane Lowe mostly). I get really excited over this great song I just heard. I go home, find it on youtube or soundcloud (usually posted by the artist or label) and listen the hell out of it. Post about it on twitter and facebook and so on.
However, this song is a good month or two months away from actually being released. By the time it's actually
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Sales dropped 70%? Looks to me like the boycott worked.
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No, you have the study people even admitting that the effect was insignificant.
We find that the shutdown had a negative, yet insignificant effect on box office revenues.
So basically the article and the submission are overblowing what the study itself said.
not peer reviewed (Score:2)
The control group is based on matching movie characteristics to the treatment group.
If I wanted to be able to repeat their experiment to see if I got the same results, would I be able to do it based on this description? No I would not. The research might be good, but the presentation is extremely poor.
define:file-sharing (Score:2)
This!
+1
Retardation of the MPAA... (Score:5, Insightful)
If anyone thinks a bad camcorder copy of a screener will keep someone from going to see a film, then they are a complete and total idiot. 90% of the "pirated" movies on the internet are really low quality screeners or early edits that have crap audio and video quality. And these same videos are the ones the MPAA are claiming HURT their income. Where in fact it helps their income. When you are looking at dropping $40-$80 to go see a movie in the theater, Yes $40 is a realistic number, I recently paid that to take my wife to see SkyFall, you will have people that will not see a film unless they are sure it is not crap.
But the executives out there are so under educated they cant see marketing that is working for them. Now we have metrics that show that "pirated" films do in fact increase sales....
After my experience of taking my wife to a movie opening, I'm not going back again. The movie was OK, but smelling the disgusting feet of a unbathed idiot in the row behind, me or the rude idiots that must text on their phones through the movie as well as the sticky seating and floor means I'll watch them at home when they ome out on BluRay. My theater at home has better sound anyways....
Re:Retardation of the MPAA... (Score:5, Interesting)
You may be surprised to hear (read) this, but prices vary by market.
I live in a small city in Saskatchewan, Canada. Prices here are $9.50 and a dollar more if it is 3D.
I have family in Calgary, Alberta, Canada (1 million+ population). Last time we saw a movie there the ticket price was $17. Add a popcorn or drink, that's another $5-$7 each. This was a couple years ago so things may have changed.
If you have kids, you either have to bring them or pay a babysitter to watch them. There's another $20-30 for a babysitter.
I used to rent movies all the time. Minimum one visit to Blockbuster a week. $5-6 a week is much more economical. However Blockbuster Canada went out of business so they could pay off their U.S. debt. At the same time, Rogers Video closed down a chunk of their stores, the one in my town being one of them.
Now its Torrents for me because I am out of options. $40 for the theatre is too much (including babysitter). That's also the cost of buying a Bluray thesebdays.... I'm not about to commit my money to that if I don't like the movie and never actually watch it.
So I torrent it, and if I really like it, I will buy it. Just watched The Expendables 2 last night... I enjoyed it, no real storyline but I was entertained (OMG, explosions!). Not really a movie I would buy but my wife _really_ likes it so we will probably get it.
Not many movies out there I want to watch more than once. All of the kids movies we download we end up buying.... Disney Cars (1&2) my son likes to watch each twice a week.
Even if the correlation is real... (Score:2, Insightful)
...it doesn't mean anything in the bigger picture of whether piracy affects sales. Closing Megaupload didn't shut down piracy, everyone just moved onto another hosting services, not to mention all the plethora of peer-to-peer downloading options still available.
I would be far more interested if research would focus on the effect of transformative use of copyrighted material. If there's one change to copyright law that I would back without hesitation, it is a strengthening of protections for, and an expans
Negative yet insignificant (Score:2)
The paper itself calls it an insignificant effect, so even taking it at face value, it basically amounts to almost nothing.
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It sounds like that pot study a couple of years ago that's extremely hard to find now, the one that showed that cigarette smokers who smoked pot had half the cancers of those who smoked only cigarettes, while non-smokers had more yet statistically insignificant cancers than pot smokers.
What this study actually showed was that megaupload had no affect on ticket sales at all; that's what every comment I've seen has sorely missed.
Just keeping the streak going (Score:5, Insightful)
I think the content industries have a perfect streak going: they always oppose technologies that turn out to be, not only not harmful, but actively good for their bottom line.
Radio was going to ruin record sales. A few decades after they lost that one, they were shelling out payola to get on the air.
The cassette tape recorder was going to destroy records. After losing that one, they made a mint selling everybody the same record twice, the new version being portable.
VCRs were going to be to the movie industry what the Boston Strangler was to women; after the Betamax decision, they made money selling cassettes.
The lesson is, that when content industries oppose a new technology, they have to be beaten ... for their OWN good....
Correlation, etc (Score:2)
Correlation does not imply causation. One can even make the same argument that because Megaupload closed, tiger attacks in Chicago have gone down, too.
Oh, and the obligatory xkcd cartoon: http://xkcd.com/552/ [xkcd.com]
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So you want to put an end to our free speech rights and our right to petition the government?
Just from my personal experiance (Score:2)
I don't have cable, and I don't really watch TV. That said I typically hear about shows from friends, co workers etc and end up going on line to check them out. If I like them I tend to watch the entire series online.
Typically these shows are on pirate/rogue tv sites and I have to fish through dead links to find working ones. Why? Because I can't watch current or even last seasons episodes online from legit sources 95% of the time.
Now after I watch a show I'll get hooked and watch all of it and then stop an
All pirates spend, but only some spenders pirate (Score:3)
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Because they find it harder to do product research, and as a result find less material that they can justify spending money on.
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See, that also confuses me. Because piracy has always been something that affects MEDIA sales: not theater tickets. If anti-piracy organizations a have successfully finagled the dialogue so that the m
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I downloaded a comedy Christmas DVD last night. It's a family favourite comedian touting "unseen TV footage".
After 45 minutes of "unseen TV footage", which I'm sure I've already seen, the DVD started showing "best bits from previous episodes", which I have seen before on TV.
So, it's an "unseen" DVD where I've already seen most of the content.
Would it make a good Christmas present? Would it bollocks and I feel offended by its misleading "unseen" title.
Deleted.
The only thing burned i
how does radio work? (Score:2)
you give the product away for free, and you thereby create interest
duh
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Radio isn't given away for free. It's interleaved with advertisements that compel you to buy various products via various forms of psychological manipulation.
best ever Thanksgiving weekend (Score:2)
Re:Does it or does it not (Score:4, Insightful)
So did they host mainly pirated movies etc or did it not?
Who cares? The only thing that matters is how to protect the internet from those who interfere. It far to easy to knock people offline, and that's what needs to be stopped.
Re:Does it or does it not (Score:5, Funny)
So did they host mainly pirated movies etc or did it not?
Who cares? The only thing that matters is how to protect the internet from those who interfere. It far to easy to knock people offline, and that's what needs to be stopped.
I agree. Spammers and bot-herders should be free to host their command-and-control centers without the inconvenience of setting up redundant infrastructure.
Re:Does it or does it not (Score:4, Insightful)
No operating system can be secure enough to stop a person from installing something. That's how it spreads.
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Have you ever used gentoo? It's pretty good at stopping you from installing anything. Anything at all.
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No operating system can be secure enough to stop a person from installing something. That's how it spreads.
That's where you're wrong. Take my wristwatch for example... It is a wearable computer, and I can't install jack shit on it, and I have ROOT PRIVILEGES!!! I can set system time and date, yet I can't run arbitrary code.
What do you think of that?
Re:Does it or does it not (Score:5, Insightful)
There's only a small, finite number of movies in theaters at any one time - the article mentioned 1344. If each one were hosted once, that'd be 1344 files. Meanwhile, MegaUpload was hosting files numbering many orders of magnitude beyond that. Therefore, it's possible that both are correct - most files were not piracy related, but there were some that did, and they may have had an effect on the market.
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Box office != to Movies sold.
Simple fact of invalid comparison.
Although I think pirates are most likely going to be movie fans that enjoy watching more movies then they can actually afford.
So even though the article is flawed I don't necessary disagree with it... just about how they formulate their conclusion.
Re:Does it or does it not (Score:4, Insightful)
Movies still in the theater aren't sold for a long time. Logically, if someone DLs a movie and likes it enought to see it in the theater, he's going to buy it when it comes out on blu-ray.
The "article" was an abstract from the study, I saw no flaws. "We find that the shutdown had a negative, yet insignificant effect on box office revenues." What was flawed?
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"We find that the shutdown had a negative, yet insignificant effect on box office revenues." What was flawed?
An insignificant effect is too small to attribute to anything but random chance. That's the technical definition of insignificant. If you flip four coins and three of them come up heads, the bias towards heads is insignificant to show that the coins are unfair.
Re:Does it or does it not (Score:5, Insightful)
Box office != to Movies sold.
I assume you're referring to DVD/BluRay sales. It's worth noting that the industry also claimed, at one point, that VCRs should be illegal because they enabled piracy. A couple of years down the line, legitimate VHS sales were a major part of their revenue.
It's ad hominem, I know, but the industry doesn't have a great track record of accurately forecasting the effects of new technology on their business. They follow the same MO each time...try to block all progress to maintain the status quo and then, once there's no other option, adapt. Studies like this are needed to help bring that adaptation sooner rather than later.
Re:Does it or does it not (Score:5, Interesting)
There's only a small, finite number of movies in theaters at any one time - the article mentioned 1344. If each one were hosted once, that'd be 1344 files.
You're close. To those not aware movies and other large files frequently encountered from the scene are stored in archives (usually archives within archives) which range in size from 2,5,10,25,50,75,100+ megs for parity and convenience. If you'd like some sources for this peruse a tracker website sometime, do so with adblock at the very least. That being said, a single movie may have anywhere from 7 for the CDR sized DIVX encodes to close to 100 pieces for the 1080p variety, with the larger pieced out files typically encountered on the Megauploads of the world. On top of that there are different release groups, let's estimate that at about 5 for commonly accessible popular releases. There are many more than that especially if you include one off releases by non affiliated individuals like "MrMovieMagic Brave 720p", and then multiple releases of the same movie for different regions (English, Deutsch, Finnish, Russian, Spanish) etc. Remember this is loosely about 'cred'. Shifting the focus from encoded movies to DVD ISOs, music, software (think multigigabyte Autodesk or Adobe products, games etc.), ebooks, and you can imagine there is a lot of duplication involved. I'm not sure if you've done any work with version control, but I imagine the duplication of content on Megaupload in essence to be very similar to that of revision iterations. Oh look, another release due to encoding errors, random mislabeled files (you think that's %Language% you're getting, muhahaha), password protected junk (visit my site yo!), and down the rabbit hole it goes.
Therefore, it's possible that both are correct - most files were not piracy related, but there were some that did, and they may have had an effect on the market.
Or the crazy idea that free advertising works. Not that I think that is exactly what this is (many of these people have no intention of buying, ever.)
SO what? (Score:3, Insightful)
The article states an observational fact: less mega upload results in less purchases of second tier films. But the implication is that "piracy is good and not a crime". It is a crime whether you think it's good or not. Moreover even if it helped some sellers it may not have helped others (blockbuster owners). So one cannot point to a net increase in sales as being beninficial to all. FOr all we know the per sale profit is also lower of selling cheaper titles. The bottom line however it ultimately it'
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Moreover even if it helped some sellers it may not have helped others (blockbuster owners). So one cannot point to a net increase in sales as being beninficial to all.
Even more interesting is that this is largely irrelevant. If more people have access to movies (by piracy) AND it can be shown that piracy has a net effect of increasing total sales of movies, wealth is increased on both ends (total wealth of the consumers and of the producers--wealth isn't limited to money, but rather is the access to goods, including goods such as time and happiness and freedom, as well as food and DVDs and flying cars). In such a scenario, the economy is more efficient and effective;
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I don't think that anybody is denying that they were hosting pirated content. However, this does in no way prove or indicate that the majority of the content was pirated content, it just proves there was some.
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If Megaupload did hurt box office sales, then they obviously hosted lots of pirated material. This is against how the pirates are saying that Megaupload was mostly used for non-piracy related files. So did they host mainly pirated movies etc or did it not?
I've never used megaupload and I don't know how much of what it hosted (my impression is that most users wouldn't know what other users were using it for but maybe I'm wrong there) buy clearly it is perfectly possible both for it to be mostly used for non-piracy related files and for it to host lots of posted material. There is no contradiction between the two.
I suspect that the internet as a whole is mostly used for non-piracy purposes but clearly shutting it down would reduce piracy significantly...
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don't give them ideas!
Saying that, it'd work about as well as gun bans. <voice style="Gene_Wilder">Tell me again, how criminals obey the law?< />
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British policemen were mostly unarmed before the ban too.
Criminals in the UK were armed less often before the ban too.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/1440764.stm [bbc.co.uk]
See the graph on page 12 of this report too:
http://www.crimeandjustice.org.uk/opus713/ccjs_gun_crime_report.pdf [crimeandjustice.org.uk]
Criminal use of actual firearms is still above the levels prior to the ban.
Not sure how this relates to the movie industry, but your suggestion that the ban worked "exceptionally well" is entirely, completely, irrefutably and dangerously wron
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Guns were very, very popular in the US because the whole country fought for its independence early on. Britain's military had guns, but civilly they fought with fists; they sent their military here, and our frontiersmen civilian population acted as independent militia. They all needed guns to hunt food here in the wild, uncharted lands; Britain's well-established civilization allowed for more farming and food distribution by donkey-cart. Our guns got us our freedom, and our guns became part of our freedo
Re:Does it or does it not (Score:5, Insightful)
NO ONE is denying that OP content lives on these and other servers. NO ONE.
Claims asserted include that Megaupload is used for MORE than just that and that innocent users and businesses were harmed by the overzealous acts of the US government... not just overzealous, but illegal acts.
By the reasoning you are implying, public parks should all be shut down because drug deals are known to occur in them.
Now for a psycho-medical opinion of you: You suffer from omission and denial of the obvious along with selective evidence and conclusions based on belief. The result of this is your apparent manufacture of statements made by this imaginary "singular entity" that are 'pirates' which are not even pirates by correct definitions.
Re:Does it or does it not (Score:5, Interesting)
In Las Vegas, Circle Park was shut down because some people were feeding the homeless.
(The park had become a place for homeless people to congregate, and there were other problems caused by some of the homeless in the neighborhoods surrounding the park.)
The courts said it was illegal to prevent feeding the homeless so they shut the park down completely.
Re:Does it or does it not (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm curious if the city-wide crime statistics dropped when the park was closed. If so, I'm happy that the nanny state stepped in and protected citizens who would not protect themselves. If not, then the city deprived people of their park so that criminals would have to walk three blocks to commit their crimes.
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Did you read something else to the summary I read so you could start from a completely opposite place? The title even says the *shutdown* of MU hurt box office takings.
Or did you just deliberately ignore the most important word in the whole thing so you could have good mouth froth?
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US law clearly states that they are not responsible for their customers actions any more than slashdot is responsible for the content of your posts here.
If the DOJ ever did take this illegal seizure to a trial they would lose badly not only on that fact but also on the many procedural errors that were made.
Re:Does it or does it not (Score:5, Insightful)
If Megaupload did hurt box office sales, then they obviously hosted lots of pirated material.
You get an F in Logic 101 today. It is quite possible for a site to host no pirated content and yet hurt box office sales. For example, movie critic web sites could give low ratings. A site could have only trailers (presumably that would be legal), which could backfire, convincing people to skip the movie. Perhaps the most damaging blow is an entertainment related discussion site ignoring the existence of a particular movie.
You demand a yes or no answer to an unfair question we all know can already be answered with a yes. This is the springboard to an obvious and contrived implication, which is "Megaupload broke the law/is evil".
Have you ever told a lie? Ever? If you've told just one lie in your entire life, then you are a liar! The number of adults who aren't liars under that standard might well be zero. The world is a sink of depravity.
And your black and white view is, as others said, beside the point. The real enabler is technology in the form of the Internet and extremely capacious and fast storage media. Bashing Megaupload is just shooting the messenger.
Re:Does it or does it not (Score:4, Funny)
It's not shooting the messenger, it's stealing his bicycle and shoes and cutting off his legs with a spoon, then standing back and laughing as he bleeds out.
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And your black and white view is, as others said, beside the point. The real enabler is technology in the form of the Internet and extremely capacious and fast storage media. Bashing Megaupload is just shooting the messenger.
You're one of those gun control folks that think the real problem is guns, not murderers, aren't you?
Re:Does it or does it not (Score:5, Informative)
Where to begin, even.
First, who are "the pirates"?
Second, where are they, as a class, saying that Megaupload was mostly used for non-piracy related files?
Third and most importantly, you're spouting nonsense from a logical perspective. YouTube hosts LOTS of cat videos, maybe enough even to influence the number of cat purchases by animal lovers. That doesn't mean that YouTube mainly hosts cat videos. Who knows? Maybe it's 75% meow-infested, or maybe cat videos are less than 1% what's being hosted. THERE'S NO WAY TO TELL, just going on the fact (for argument's sake) that the number of YouTube hosted cat videos is enough to influence the pet industry. Similarly, there's no way to tell, just based upon Megaupload's influence on the box office, if movies were a major component of Megaupload's offerings.
Fourth, hosted and downloaded are two different things. It's entirely possible that by number of files hosted, pirated music and movies are a small component, but going by the number of downloads, they are the lion's share. After all, you might only need to share a particular powerpoint presentation a few times, but a bootleg media file could get downloaded tens of thousands of times. Or it could be that most uploads are not unauthorized, most downloads are not unauthorized, but the ones that are make up the vast majority of Megaupload's bandwidth. So, in that case, is Megaupload mostly used for piracy or not? Depends on your point of view.
Bottom line, the assertions you are claiming are contradictory really aren't.
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Re:Does it or does it not (Score:5, Informative)
If Megaupload did hurt box office sales, then they obviously hosted lots of pirated material.
You seem to have trouble with reading comprehension, as do the moderators (your sock puppets? I can't believe you're not -1 overrated since you obviously don't read well).
The study said exactly the OPPOSITE. Megaupload didn't hurt box office receipts, it helped them. Shutting the site down hurt receipts.
Maybe you and the mods need a remedial reading class? Well, maybe the mods thought your lack of reading comprehension was interesting... but you have no excuse.
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"they obviously hosted lots of pirated material" and "Megaupload was mostly used for non-piracy related files" do not contradict each other.
Neither statement claimed they did.
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"Lots of" and "mainly" are two very different things. Were there "lots of" pirated files? I'm sure there were, they had PETABYTES of storage and tens of thousands of users - there was no possible way they could stop everything. It's no different than the question of whether or not google links to "lots of" pirated material. Was it "mainly" (as in > and arbitrary percent like 80%) pirated files? Doubtful, but we don't know for sure, because the government decided to lock everything down. According t
Re: (Score:3)
You're joking, right? Anything that says that piracy is good is going to posted here since it confirms the groupthink. No matter that the study itself says that the shutdown had an insignificant effect.
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