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Tech Saturday, November 24th 2012 at 2:00 pm

New Stats Suggest MegaUpload Actually Helped the Film Industry More Than it Hurt

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Regardless of whether or not you engage in online piracy, I think we can all agree that common sense dictates that the practice would be hurting copyright-holding media companies like record labels and film studios. Well, it seems that, in this case, common sense doesn’t hold up under scrutiny. Research from the Munich School of Management and Copenhagen Business School has supposedly gathered statistical evidence indicating that dubious online streamer MegaUpload may have actually helped global box office sales for all but the biggest of blockbusters.

The study followed the weekly box office sales of 1344 movies in 49 countries over the last five years, specifically looking for how MegaUpload may affected movie-goers. Since MegaUpload was forced to shut down in January, the total revenue of the film industry has, generally speaking, declined. The researchers believe that MegaUpload (and other sites like it) help stimulate word-of-mouth buzz for most films. The only exceptions were massive blockbusters, which have apparently benefitted from the crackdown on online piracy.

The argument is a bit of a stretch, to say the least. The paper asserts a direct correlation between the shut down of one streaming website and the revenue of an entire multi-billion dollar industry for nearly a year. The argument implicitly ignores the reality that there are many, many factors that would contribute to such a shift. The study does account for certain factors, like inflation, but that isn’t enough to counter-balance that study makes a specific conclusion about a broad topic. That isn’t to say that the findings don’t make sense. Regardless of what citizens of the internet may think, most people enjoy things more after reading or seeing spoilers: While the idea of going to theatre to see a movie after watching it on a computer seems odd to me, that doesn’t mean there aren’t people out there making good on the idea of financially backing content that they already know is good.

(via TorrentFreak, image credit: Nasa HQ Photo)

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  • arghmemateys

    i, for one, pirate movies/music/games only as a test. if i like what i pirate, i pay for it. if i dont like it, i delete it plain and simple.

  • Jack Bond

    Yup. That’s what people say they’ll do, but who’s gonna notice if you keep it? Nobody. Personally I don’t trust people or pirates as far as I can throw them, and neither do/should companies.

  • Jack Bond

    Yeah. We’ve known for a long time that pirates would have us believe their thievery helps the industry, but the fact is it doesn’t. You can stretch the numbers and find false correlations as much as you want, but it doesn’t help anything.

  • Sharma

    I don’t trust you Bond. You are hired by RIAA or MAFIAA. And we don’t care what you so contrary to that, we don’t believe you.

  • what_it_is

    You are totally right! arghmemateys is the exception to the rule Take myself for example, I pirate everything! Music, games, movies/films, TV series, software of all kinds. And I really don’t give a fuck about it! The problem with folk like you is that you assume that people “steal” whenever they can and that by default they would buy those things instead, which is probably true for some things in life, but there are also exceptions (a lot of them) on that matter.

    If it wouldn’t be possible for me to get all the things I listed above for free, I also wouldn’t buy them, period. Music, if I couldn’t get it for free I would listen to it on the radio. Movies, I would wait for them to get to a video-club or on the TV. Games, I would play the game demo and settle for it until it got to a game-renting store. Misc software, I would either not buy it at all or get around with opensource and freeware software. For all those things I could also inter-share with friends instead of each of us having a copy of the same shit filling the pockets of the industry and playing their “per-capita” revenue system.

    What i just said is not an idea or what I imagine I would do under those circumstances, it is really how I used to get by before Bittorrent and massive piracy came along. Microsoft Windows is still the king of the OSes in mainstream terms, right? I mean, 90% of all video games and a lot of software only works on Windows (consoles aside). What do you think would be that industry if all Windows copies were “uncrackable” or unusable and had to be actually bought by consumers? Less games would also be bought, period. So, yeah. Me and my family first, my friends second, and the entertainment industry third or last. Your rhetorical fallacy works around that silly idea that people will buy anything at whatever the cost. While that may be true for some brainwashed Western societies, it is not true for others where some sanity still prevails. Nobody should trust “pirates” in the same way that nobody should trust marketing campaigns. “Survival of the fittest”, Google it.

  • what_it_is

    “…pirates would have us believe their thievery helps the industry”
    Who is “us”, Jack? Maybe that “us” refers to some kind of cult, I wouldn’t know… Do you think the average Joe has conscience problems with downloading stuff from the internet? Although people might feel compassion towards a humble company, they despise the greedy billion dollar companies. As much as you people love the analogy of it being the same as stealing a physical/material object, it is not. Intangible property is doomed because society will destroy that monopoly-making tool.

  • Jack Bond

    Just because the bits can be freely transferred doesn’t mean the hard work and intellectual property can. Taking someone’s hard work without compensating them is both illegal and immoral. I don’t care if most of the population is a collection of spoiled, entitled children, that doesn’t make them right.

    I’m honestly ashamed to be a programmer. I may one day work for the very companies you pirates steal from… If it were up to me, I’d have those companies stop wasting their time and effort giving you brats free stuff so you could see the consequences of stealing said time and effort.

  • Jack Bond

    Okay, so if you couldn’t pirate stuff, you wouldn’t buy it. Good! So be it! That’s your choice, but if you’re not gonna pay for it, you’re also not allowed to enjoy it. That’s how it works.

    Besides, anything you MIGHT have bought definitely won’t get bought now because you have access to anything you want for free. Who would ever have the honor to pay for something they could get for free?

    Family first, friends second, entertainment industry third? Try necessities first, luxuries second, general well being of others last. You act like your family is the most important thing, but we’re talking about movies and video games. There’s nothing between either of those that involves actually caring for your family and friends. You’re just rationalizing your selfish entitlement.

  • Stealthnugget

    Same here. I pirate first seasons of shows all the time – and if I like them, I go out and buy them (and usually every other season as well): same with games, music etc. Probably why I’m running out of shelf-space… Anyway: @google-ee4f0f575632cc873bf452f55a17a61d:disqus, you’ve mentioned in the past your dislike Geeko’s “unbiased” journalism and whatever current crap you’re spewing… to the point where… what was it? You’d take them off your newsfeed? Do that. Please, and spare us your idiotic comments.

  • http://twitter.com/PlowPlot Plow Plot

    Piracy helps poor people. F*** poor people! They should be willing to pay the cost of eating for a week to go see a movie or not see it at all.. because you know what they did before piracy? They didn’t see the movie at all. Which means they didn’t talk about it which means it didn’t get free advertising.

  • noreply

    lol, you do realize that freeware and opensource software exists partilaly because of the intangible property copyright and the abuse of such laws?

  • what_it_is

    If I enjoy or not something that I didn’t pay for, won’t prove you right, because you yap a lot about companies losing money over that. I just told you it’s unrelated. So that’s the first point I was trying to make, not the childish “you can’t play with my toy” attitude. That’s really how it works.

    “Who would ever have the honor to pay for something they could get for free?”

    Probably nobody, but I don’t know if “honor” is the right word. Anyway, I’m still talking about intangible property, while you seem to want to escape that context to prove a point. So let’s try putting up a system where DNA genes were patentable and every parent would have to pay for the whole genome of their childs, or pattent every word in the dicctionary or configurations of words… humanity would become extinct and mute at the same time.

    You got it wrong, I was not rationalizing my selfish entitlement. I was trying to convey the idea that I spend my money on what I prioritize in my life, games and movies are none of them. Anyway, I just told you where I stand, I don’t need your second opinion on my behaviour. I just told you I pirate, and will still pirate for as long as it is possible, because I know I won’t be damaging anyone by my actions despite you trying to say otherwise.

    “Oh but if anyone followed your way of thinking, companies and their workers would be out of a job.”
    Okay, that’s where individuality comes in, I don’t have to give a darn about what other people do, so that’s no burden to me.

  • Jack Bond

    This isn’t about intangible property. This is about people’s hard work. You don’t ask a moving company to spend their time and energy working for you and then refuse to pay on the grounds that their service is intangible.

    The fact is, people worked to make the intangible material you’re taking, and those people were paid to make that material. The fact that you’re taking it for free means the entire transaction was a loss for the company. And just because it’s a drop in the bucket doesn’t make it any better.

    Individuality doesn’t mean you’re not responsible for your community. The less you give to your community, the less your community gives you, and you rely a lot on your community for more than just that entertainment material you steal.

  • Jack Bond

    Or maybe you can just not read my comments. If you don’t want to see the truth, it’s up to you to bury your head in the sand. It’s not my job to do it for you.

  • what_it_is

    “This isn’t about intangible property. This is about people’s hard work. You don’t ask a moving company to spend their time and energy working for you and then refuse to pay on the grounds that their service is
    intangible.”

    First of all, this is all about intangible property (=intellectual property). You should know it.
    I respect people’s hard work, the fact that I watch a movie or play a game proves that. That fact that I didn’t pay for it has nothing to do with me respecting their work, don’t mistake respect for empathy (really, read the whole paragraph again and think it through again). I never asked any of those companies, whose products I get pirated copies, to do anything for me. So lets leave it at that.

    “The fact is, people worked to make the intangible material you’re taking, and those people were paid to make that material. The fact that you’re taking it for free means the entire transaction was a loss for the company. And just because it’s a drop in the bucket doesn’t make it
    any better.”

    It certainly does not, it just means I’ve experienced something for free when it was expected that I pay for it. Individually, it was my choice to get a pirate copy. You may choose to pay for it, and feel all glorious and noble about it. I for one do not feel individually guilty for pirating it because I wouldn’t buy it anyway. Does that make you understand why it’s NOT a drop in the bucket or not?
    If anything, I would be making free publicity of the said product, although most of those to whom I would publicized would probably get the pirate version anyway (I only know poor people).

    “Individuality doesn’t mean you’re not responsible for your community. The less you give to your community, the less your community gives you, and you rely a lot on your community for more than just that entertainment material you steal.”

    Firstly, my interests come before the community’s. And secondly, an individual cannot ever be responsible for a whole community. One thing I agree on is that a community is comprised of far more than petty entertainment material, that right there makes me care even less (if possible) for pirating said material.

    I know that the more I write the less sense I make… Anyway, these are different perspectives projected from different environments. It doesn’t mean that I’m wrong and does not mean you’re right either. Maybe we both are.
    It just strikes me as a bit odd that you say you’re spreading the truth and everbody else is burying their head in the sand. Is it far fetched for you to think that you can actually be mistaken and that there are only half-truths and half-lies?

    Now, Mr Jack Bond, I would like to adress some personal issues with you before I ignore you for good. In almost all your comments you decided to attack the man instead of the argument, you use directed insults to prove a point. You pretend to hold moral values that you clearly lack of. I can do that too… You said that I don’t care about my family and just used it as an excuse to rationalize my selfish entitlement. That 1st one deserves a big “go fuck yourself, Jack Bond”, I love my family and you should never insult any man in that manner you piece of shit. You indirecly insulted me as being part of a collective of “spoiled, entitled children”, that 2nd one deserves an equivalent “go fuck yourself, Jack Bond”. You also called me a thieve, so for the third time, go fuck yourself Jack Bond. Simply put, you’re a prick on a high horse… now bye, Sheriff of Nottingham.

    (I apologize for the harsh language)

  • Jack Bond

    “I respect people’s hard work, the fact that I watch a movie or play a game proves that. That fact that I didn’t pay for it has nothing to do with me respecting their work, don’t mistake respect for empathy (really, read the whole paragraph again and think it through again). I never asked any of those companies, whose products I get pirated copies, to do anything for me. So lets leave it at that.”

    This isn’t about respect either. This is about compensation. And by the way, the fact that you use these people’s hard work is an implicit request for their services. Nobody directly hires developers to make them stuff. The devs make it and hope you want it. If you want it, you buy it to compensate them for their work.

    “It certainly does not, it just means I’ve experienced something for free when it was expected that I pay for it. Individually, it was my choice to get a pirate copy. You may choose to pay for it, and feel all glorious and noble about it. I for one do not feel individually guilty for pirating it because I wouldn’t buy it anyway. Does that make you understand why it’s NOT a drop in the bucket or not?
    If anything, I would be making free publicity of the said product, although most of those to whom I would publicized would probably get the pirate version anyway (I only know poor people).”

    You don’t feel guilty because you rationalize things like the publicity part. And guilt isn’t the important thing here. You can proudly break the law, but that doesn’t mean what you’re doing is okay. The fact is, piracy is wrong AND illegal… And also, poorness doesn’t mean you deserve luxuries for free. It just means you have to scrimp on luxuries.

    “Firstly, my interests come before the community’s. And secondly, an individual cannot ever be responsible for a whole community. One thing I agree on is that a community is comprised of far more than petty entertainment material, that right there makes me care even less (if possible) for pirating said material.”

    That selfish attitude is what’s going to be your and this community’s downfall. You alone aren’t responsible for a whole community, but you and the large percentage of the community who don’t pull their weight drag the whole thing down.

    “I know that the more I write the less sense I make… Anyway, these are different perspectives projected from different environments. It doesn’t mean that I’m wrong and does not mean you’re right either. Maybe we both are.It just strikes me as a bit odd that you say you’re spreading the truth and everbody else is burying their head in the sand. Is it far fetched for you to think that you can actually be mistaken and that there are only half-truths and half-lies?”

    I don’t think there’s any room for error in stating that people who work deserve to be compensated. Nobody asks you to do anything without being compensated, so why do you think it’s okay to do the same to others who do nothing but bring you joy?

    Don’t get me wrong. I don’t call you names without reason. I simply point out selfish and/or petty behavior when I see it. My intent is not to get a rise out of you, but to point out why I believe you are in error. If I have broken any of the moral code I have expected of you, I apologize for that and I will try to avoid that in the future. Furthermore, don’t believe I dislike you as a person. I just believe your actions of piracy resemble that of a thief in worst case, and an immature child in the best case. While that doesn’t make me dislike you, I have a very hard time stomaching what I believe to be such a severe injustice.