Firefly Sets Yet Another Record!

POSTED BY: 6ixStringJack
UPDATED: Friday, February 23, 2007 02:07
VIEWED: 52370
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SIGMANUNKI

Thursday, January 18, 2007 7:49 PM

@Razza:

And as I recall, total sales actually increased after Napster was widely adopted. But, total sales started to go down after the industry took a heavy hand. Apparently they haven't learned a lesson from this. Namely, that you don't bit the hand that feeds.

IMO, they are just pissed that after having a monopoly on distribution for as along as they've existed, the consumer now has the power to make that monopoly to go away. And now those aged bastards are fighting the only way there narrow little minds know how, legally. Well, as the consumers have shown, they can sue and sue and sue, and we'll keep downloading.

I pity them.

----
I am on The List. We are The Forsaken and we aim to burn!
"We don't fear the reaper"

RAZZA

Thursday, January 18, 2007 8:21 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by SigmaNunki:
I pity them.

I agreed with every word until here. I cannot find it my heart to pity anyone this stupid and obstinate.

-----------------
"There is not such a cradle of democracy upon the earth as the Free Public Library, this republic of letters, where neither rank, office, nor wealth receives the slightest consideration."
---Andrew Carnegie

"Doing research on the Web is like using a library assembled piecemeal by pack rats and vandalized nightly."
---Roger Ebert

SEAFORT32

Thursday, January 18, 2007 8:29 PM

Ok, so I'm trying to make a point I guess...

I'm just not a fan of taking something that you should pay for.

If Napster and such actually increase sales then why is the record industry trying to prosecute the biggest offenders? Why am I now getting anti-pirate advertisements on some of my DVD's? If peer-to-peer is good for business, why aren't they promoting it? My uncle is a musician and is is PRO downloading. He wants the record companies to go out of business. Anecdotal, I admit.

A big difference between the music industry and the movie industry is the cost. If the record industry goes down the tubes, we will all still have music. It takes almost next to nothing to make music and post it. Movies take $100's of millions (depends on if it is a romantic comedy or Star Wars, true). So if you can show me how the movie execs think that pirating movies is a way to get a return on their investment, then I'll see how that'll get us another Firefly flic. Until then I'm not to keen on it.

I don't want this to devolve into a flame war. So if this starts to get hot I'm out, btw.

RAZZA

Thursday, January 18, 2007 8:50 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Seafort32:
I don't want this to devolve into a flame war. So if this starts to get hot I'm out, btw.

Seafort:

We all hate (well most of us anyway) flame wars, so I'll promise not to let it devolve into that.

I'm afraid I can't convince you that "..movie execs think that pirating movies is a way to get a return on their investment..." because they don't. That's the problem! They are so blind and stupid to what is virtually staring them in the face that have stuck their head in the sand rather than deal with it. The movie entertainment business is a billion dollar industry. The industry is not in any trouble of going broke because a small minority of peer-to-peer users don't spend money on movie products. As I've said, people who use peer-to-peer networks do in fact buy movies and DVD's. There is evidence to support the supposition that they buy more than non users in fact. I have a large DVD collection and I have also downloaded movies online. Why is it so hard to believe that someone would download a movie, enjoy it, and then want a DVD of it? Is the movie company worried that if they get it free and don't like it they won't buy it? That speaks more to the product they produce than anything else. If they provided us an opportunity to download it as a rental at a reasonable price and let us watch it once you might have a case. They don't give us this option, however, and why is that?

-----------------
"There is not such a cradle of democracy upon the earth as the Free Public Library, this republic of letters, where neither rank, office, nor wealth receives the slightest consideration."
---Andrew Carnegie

"Doing research on the Web is like using a library assembled piecemeal by pack rats and vandalized nightly."
---Roger Ebert

RAZZA

Thursday, January 18, 2007 8:58 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Seafort32:
...No suit sitting in the boardroom is going to say "Let's make a movie so it can be downloaded."

because these empty suits sitting in a boardroom are blind to a distribution model which costs virtually nothing and widely desired by consumers. Doesn't make that distribution model invalid, just the empty suits stupid.

Quote:
Sure it shows it is super popular. Say everyone on the planet downloads it. Still won't make a movie, since all that proves is that fans of the material aren't willing to pay for it. I offer it will acutally have the opposite affect...

Except this makes the assumption that people who download the movie for free will never in fact purchase the DVD. What evidence do you have to support this huge assumption?

-----------------
"There is not such a cradle of democracy upon the earth as the Free Public Library, this republic of letters, where neither rank, office, nor wealth receives the slightest consideration."
---Andrew Carnegie

"Doing research on the Web is like using a library assembled piecemeal by pack rats and vandalized nightly."
---Roger Ebert

MACAVITY

Thursday, January 18, 2007 8:59 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Razza:
Quote:
Originally posted by SigmaNunki:
I pity them.

I agreed with every word until here. I cannot find it my heart to pity anyone this stupid and obstinate.

Myself, I pity them because they're stupid and obstinate.

If they weren't so blinkered, we wouldn't have had the hoo-ha with the original Napster and all the file-sharing services that sprang up when Napster went down - instead, they would have said something like "We like your idea, but the way it's executed leaves something to be desired. Would you mind if we formed a partnership to make this a profitable enterprise?"

Instead, though, they went and sued, which got people's dander up and led to the whole DRM-DMCA-CSS-AACS-etc. mess.

There are very few things I'll buy from mainstream entertainment companies - and Doctor Who, Torchwood, and just about anything related to Firefly and the BDM top the list - so most of my money goes to indie groups and labels.

Part of the reason is that the independents in the business are more concerned with keeping their customers happy than they are with the bottom line (because, after all, the happier your customer is, the more likely you are to keep him, and the more likely he is to give you his money).

Another part of the reason is that most of the mainstream stuff is . . . well, to call it trash would be an insult to the trash.

But mostly . . . well, what kind of browncoat would I be if I didn't support the independents?

"First come smiles, then come lies. Last is gunfire." - Roland Deschain, gunslinger

MOONSHINER

Thursday, January 18, 2007 10:06 PM

Well, I don't even possess an HD DVD player, nor an HDTV. The market for HD DVD hasn't really kicked off yet. I don't see any danger in this release leaking onto the internet

SEAFORT32

Thursday, January 18, 2007 11:22 PM

Razza,

Ah! Ok, here we get to the root. We are talking about two different things, I think. Reality and Perception.

You are talking about Reality. Do downloads help or hurt? I browsed through the study you cited and that made it seem to even out or be slightly positive in favor of downloads. Napster did get shutdown at least for a while, so there are probably studies supporting the suit's point of view. I'm not going to argue that one way or the next.

I'm talking about Perception. The suits perceive that downloads are bad, they will cut into profits, and so they will not make a movie that won't make tons-o-cash. They will ignore Reality no matter how much it makes sense. We've all met those kind of people, eh?

Until someone banks on Reality and builds a movie studio around the idea that free downloads are a good thing, we need to deal the Perception that they are a bad thing.

So that's why I won't download that HD-DVD version of Serenity. As a Browncoat who wants to see more sequels I need to be sensitive to that Perception...at least until you start up a movie studio ;) Then I'll download your movies for free!

Thanks for the discussion!

69RDRNR

Thursday, January 18, 2007 11:52 PM

How many HD-DVD owners didn't buy Serenity? Serenity was the first I bought! My real question though is why pirate the HD-DVD...to watch it on your computer? I think that the benefit of HD is somewhat lost on smaller screens. How many people are willing or able to connect their PC to a bigscreen TV. Honestly if you want a "free" version of the movie you are probably better off with the SD version which most people would be capable of watching on whatever display they have. I seriously doubt that someone would watch the HD version and like it without liking the SD version. If you want to argue that it might make HD-DVD more accessible and encourage people to buy into the format, I could see that.

IVY

Friday, January 19, 2007 4:26 AM

We can connect our PC to our big HDTV. We do not own a HD DVD player yet - because we are sitting it out to see what format "wins". As soon as we purchase a HD DVD player, you can be sure Serenity will be purchased the same day.

As I said earlier in this thread, I've purchased about 10 copies of the regular Serenity DVD.

If the movie industry wants to sell more HD DVDs, maybe they should stop all this nonsense with 2 formats.

ugh - I'm too old for all of this. I remember the VHS/Betamax wars....

Ivy

I've been sane a long while now, and change is good...

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