Pirates? Hollywood Sets $10+ Billion Box Office Record

This same pattern plays out in so many different places.<p>1. Massive concentration of power (in this case, the entertainment industry. I think 5 corporations control 96% of commercial media [2] - TV/Movie/etc.)<p>2. Artificially powerful threat (in this case "pirates") always JUST about to destroy/harm/impact/irreparably damage #1.<p>3. #1 is justified in fighting a war on #2 -- physically, legally, financially, whatever.<p>4. For all intents and purposes, the stronger #2 (the "threat") seems, the easier job #1 has justifying ANY recourse. If #2 (the threat) isn't that strong on its own, I would imagine it be in the best interest of #1 to make it appear so and even help bolster it if necessary.<p>5. There is so much rhetoric, confusion, mix-facts, misreporting and fuzzy data being seeded and organically produced on the topic of "#1 vs #2" that it is impossible to cleanly and clearly make heads or tales of any of it -- well #1 has a point, but so does #2, but #2 is doing something illegal, but #1 is also doing illegal things... ad infinitum.<p>6. #1 continues to pump energy and complexity into #5 which engages, exhausts and overwhelms us until it becomes noise and we learn to tune it out. Think of a person standing in the middle of New York as opposed to the middle of a corn field -- our brains are wired to tune out repetitive audio and visual queues -- we are tuned to spot differentiation. #1 doesn't have to _hide_ anything per se, it just needs to amplify it and muddy the noise enough that it becomes repetitive.<p>There are examples of this same strategy played out over and over and over again all over the world in all nooks and crannies of our lives - oil, pharmaceuticals, electronics, governments, publishers, music, farming/food, etc.<p>I would expect this strategy is as old as mud, probably starting with its roots in false-flag[1] campaigns in the annals of history, but it works and it has been refined and continues to work -- just like the format for romantic comedy movies continues to work even though we've seen it 100,000 times and the format for super-hero movies works.<p>We are incredibly manipulatable. Our convictions are disturbingly fragile and the worst part of it is that most of us are lead to believe exactly the opposite and completely reject the possibility that they are.<p>I think _that_ is what makes us so susceptible to this type engineering and why it is so successful.<p>[1] <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_flag" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_flag</a><p>[2] <a href="http://www.fastcodesign.com/multisite_files/codesign//post-inline/IllusionofChoice-1.jpeg" rel="nofollow">http://www.fastcodesign.com/multisite_files/codesign//post-i...</a>

The problem with film piracy isn't box office records- blockbusters will always generate great revenue, and this year was one full of blockbusters.<p>The problem is that independent filmmakers are hit harder by piracy than the blockbusters. And piracy causes Hollywood studios to be less likely to back indie films, causing them to instead favor low hanging fruit, projects with mass appeal that will generate the most revenue regardless of piracy, instead of independent projects that may be more bold and creative, but would have more to lose from piracy. See here:<p><a href="http://articles.latimes.com/2010/sep/28/business/la-fi-ct-film-pirate-20100928" rel="nofollow">http://articles.latimes.com/2010/sep/28/business/la-fi-ct-fi...</a>

I'd love to know why movies are so incredibly expensive on iTunes, and whether anyone's experimented with pricing movies at €5 rather than the current price of €12+.<p>At 5 Euro, for me the price is an instant purchase, no thinking necessary. Not so at €12 or more.<p>I hope it's not the case, but I wonder whether there are so few people that pay for movies at <i>any</i> price that the studios have concluded it's just not worth it, and so keep the higher prices. Or, alternatively, there are enough people that <i>do</i> buy at the €12 point, again not making it worth the time to lower the price.<p>In conclusion: trying to work out pricing points hurts my head.

If Hollywood wants to make MORE money. Let me watch NEW movies at home.<p>Why at home?<p>1) Bathroom breaks<p>2) People's heads aren't in the way<p>3) No blurry screens<p>4) No crappy audio<p>5) Snacks I want<p>6) Quieter. No kids crying or cell phones, etc.<p>I am willing to spend the same price. I hate going to movie theater these days... I just wait for the DVD (or Bluray).

When the RIAA and MPAA claim that their profits suffer from piracy, one should be skeptical. People have been sharing files on the Internet for decades at this point -- what kind of company can lose money for decades without going bankrupt? There are industries that were bankrupted by the Internet, like the film camera and development industry. The MPAA is just greedy, they always have been; they are the ones stealing from artists:<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollywood_accounting" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollywood_accounting</a>

The MPAA &#38; RIAA are blind. They'd make a LOT more money if buying the real thing was easier than 1) spending time hunting for it online; 2) waiting for it to download; and 3) if it weren't overpriced. Same for games. $60 for a damn game? Valve's shown that $5 prices lead to massive increases in sales over $20+.

When adjusted for inflation, it's not a box office record; that honor belongs to 2002:<p><a href="http://movies.stackexchange.com/questions/2386/annual-revenue-for-film-industry-by-year-adjusted-for-inflation" rel="nofollow">http://movies.stackexchange.com/questions/2386/annual-revenu...</a>

That's just box office though, the more interesting figure is total revenue including disc sales etc.

But think of how much <i>more</i> they'd be making if we couldn't get the movie at home and had to go to a theater to watch it.<p>I'm not even sure if I'm serious or sarcastic on this one.

So, what this is really about is not the destruction of the movie business and western culture, its all about the movie business thinking its not making enough money. It should be making more. Making great profit is not enough. Thay must have more.<p>Well, me too. Can the government get behind that please?

"for the first time in history domestic box office grosses surpassed $10.7 billion"<p>As the article says, especially when taking inflation into account: The End Is Near for Hollywood. All due to piracy.

Big box office numbers don't really prove or disprove much.