First the music industry, next cinemas?

[Dick Moby]

Maybe if they released the film for legal download shortly after the cinema release they could save people from pirating their wares.
I have to agree with Sam here. If I see something I like I will buy the dvd to be a "keeper" Saying that most of the stuff I buy is the older films including many black and white ones. I don't find many of the new releases all that great with many relying on special effects to sell the film.

[Twingo]

[quote]Maybe if they released the film for legal download shortly after the cinema release they could save people from pirating their wares.[/quote]

They can't, otherwise the cinema's will go crazy as it limits their window to make money. Take the very recent case of Disney, where they have announced that they intend to release "Alice In Wonderland" on DVD/Bluray 12 weeks after its Theatrical release date.....the 3 big cinema companies in the UK (with over 95% market share) are now boycotting said movie and have no intentions at this point to show it at all.

Will they back down?....probably, but who knows.

[Dick Moby]

Times change as does technology. For me a trip to the cinema involves a 90 mile round trip so I don't go very often. I don't have an urge to see the newest blockbuster and I can afford to wait for the dvd release. Many (probably younger) people have got to see a new film as soon as it's released so that probably wouldn't change.

[Ogre]

I don't think the cinema industry will get hit as hard as the music industry has been. Mainly because going to the movies at least offers an experience you really can't get with your PC (and I don't mean gum in the seat).

To be honest, the music industry has mostly itself to blame for their problems. It's an industry that deserves death. Music has been made, and will be made, and should be made without some fucktard in a suit and an army of lawyers. Pardon my french for that one, but that's how it is.

While the internet makes things so much easier for people to pirate things, the record companies conveniently forget that back in the 80's there was nothing to stop people from making copies with tapes. The reason people pirate more than they buy is because considering the product, the price is outrageous, and you are possibly asked by the record company to buy albums you have absolutely no idea whatsoever of the contents... because exposure to music is warped.

[The Last Word]

Of course there'll still be cinemas in ten years time. As said elsewhere, it's still a social experience and still fairly cheap compared to other evenings out. I'd agree the biggest danger might be films being pirated before their actual cinema release though.

Also within the next ten years will be the move to digital cinemas. A costly investment, but it will end up saving hundreds of millions in the cost of producing and transporting the actual celluloid to the screens.

[max_tranmere]

I do wonder whether the internet will eventually replace everything. I accept though that the TV and later video did not kill of cinema although attendances at cinema's are hugely down on what they were in the one or two decades following World War 2. It is, as people say, a night out where as sitting at home watching on your laptop isn't quite the same. I fear books will eventually disappear as you will be able to hold a hand-held gadget and read books on it instead of owning a hard copy of a book. That would be a shame.

[mrchapel]

Plus if things were that bad Avatar wouldn`t have made so much money. Cinema`s always been dying. When TV came out they thought it`d kill the cinema, so much so that some movie studios would try to prevent actors appearing on tv with threats of being blacklisted.
Same problem as music, instead of facing the problem that a lot of the shit being put out doesn`t appeal and isn`t selling, just blame piracy.

Mind you at least with pirated movies you don`t have the fucking piracy warning that takes forever and you can`t skip past now so really, fuck them for that.

[one eyed jack]

The future of cinema is actually quite rosey and if producers continue t make big movies with big script ideas and in 3D they will keep em coming.

Sure more people are torrenting than ever but i think in some cases this will help sales rather than hinder them.

The argument being those who torrent are either trying out with a view to buying or wouldnt have paid for it anyway but the influence of seeing it is there and may add to advertising word of mouth

I was reading a case study of Football Factory which was leaked by an over excited fan of the film from its master in storage in Soho (easily traced back to source) and it had 800, 000 hits before its theatrical release. A number it would never have got in the cinema.

The DVD went onto become a decent seller and the fact remains a lot of those people who saw it wouldnt have paid to watch it or if they did it would have been a dvd rental and it would be fair to say a fair few of that figure probably went onto own it on dvd.

The new marketing strateguy of the future is traffic. product will be made for free viewing with the intention that the product will be paid for by advertising.

if it was that big a deal then the government would step in with all that lost revenue in tax or maybe they dont see it the same way and the boffins know how the market is changing already.

Sure a few people have been nicked here and there but it seems not a great deal is really being done about it.

I still see movies packing em in at the local cinema. I couldnt get in to see Avatar until after 2 weeks!!!

[Deano!]

If I like an artist's work, I WANT to pay them both as a reward for giving me something to love and to encourage them to do more. I have just about every Kylie Minogue CD and DVD released - all paid for, because I love the little tart. The same goes for porno. Who would want to cheat their favourite wank fantasy out of her rightful earnings?

The only time I've downloaded pirated stuff is when it simply isn't available anywhere else. The Beatles can be a moral dilemma for me however, as I think the abysmal Yoko gets a cut and I still can't stand her!

[m100]

I don?t know about anyone else but I simply couldn?t face two hours+ in front of my computer to watch some copy of a film which in a few months I?d probably be able to buy as a two-disc set with extras at hmv for less than a tenner. The chances of downloading etc killing off the film industry I would guess are remote since there is the never ending re-issuing of old movies in new formats to bring in revenue, not to mention sales to tv channels, subscription services. Since cinemas don?t look like they are dwindling but have simply re-invented themselves as multiplexes in response to a public outgrowing the former toilets which masqueraded as cinemas I can?t see that the film industry has much to be worried about unduly.

The record industry has been declaring itself to be going out of business for nigh on forty years and has created a stream of mythical beasts which are devouring it. All created it seems by one body, the bpi, funded by the record companies to look after their own ends. Starting with the now legendary ?home taping is killing music? (it missed), moving on through the late seventies and eighties declaration of war on bootlegging and ?live tapes? (how could a record company lose money on something that wasn?t commercially available and why would someone who simply wanted the latest bowie gig have spent that ?5 on a Bananarama lp if they hadn?t been able to get it.). Now we?re told that the world and his wife are downloading music illegally. As someone else said how do we know they would have bought it if they hadn?t downloaded it. After all the record companies have created a disposable market themselves. This years x factor winner will be replaced by next years and it is unlikely either will make a second or third album let alone have a twenty or thirty year career. Artists whose first or second albums don?t sell substantially don?t get to make a third there is no ?building? of either a fan base or a career. Take for instance the zutons. First album sells ok, second even better plus valerie gets covered and sells a truckload on it?s own. Third album stiffs, probably through poor promotion, and band gets dropped. The Kaiser chiefs who had expected to take a break between their last two albums were advised not to try to crack america as their british fan base might desert them - this is a band at the stadium point in their career. CD?s have become something to sell alongside baked beans in supermarkets and who the artist is doesn?t really matter to the record company it?s a product and the next one is only five minutes away. It seems strange that they allegedly show so much concern for artists suffering from the supposed stream of illegal downloads and yet don?t show the same concern when drawing up initial contracts - witness the number of lawsuits over the years due to piss poor royalty rates. And you have to wonder how they are calculating illegal downloads. Are they for example including downloads of concerts - at least two major acts happily endorse the sharing of live material on the internet - do they count? The record companies also make money from ever expanding reissues of previously released albums now including outtakes, dvd?s etc all at very little extra cost to themselves and with an established fan base waiting for material which when it was for instance available as a bootleg was declared to be sub-standard - how does it now turn out to be good then - oh yeah, it?s making money for them.

The record industry simply wants as big a piece of the disposable income pie as it used to have in the days before playstations, satellite tv etc and it can't have it so it claims that it's other people's fault than it's own.