Tag Archives: digital distribution

The online copyright war: the day the internet hit back at big media | Technology | The Guardian

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The Guardian looks at how internet users rallied to combat legislation like SOPA that restricts online use for the benefit of media institutions:

Stark points to a study by Musiksverige (Music Sweden), an industry association, that found music piracy in Sweden fell significantly after the introduction of Spotify, a streaming music service. “It shows what we have said all along: people want to reward artists for their work.”

Alexis Ohanian, Reddit’s co-founder, agrees. “I’m hopeful right now. These are not soundbite issues, they are complicated. If you look at the work that Reddit’s community did investigating Sopa, you can see that there is a lot of thought going into these issues in the community. Like a lot of rights, I think we took our right to a life online for granted until it was challenged. I think we are on guard now.”

Media execs are on guard too. Many look to the music industry and fear they may be next. Since the peer-to-peer filesharing site Napster emerged in 1999, music sales in the US have dropped 53%, from $14.6bn to $6.9bn in 2010. The digital world is a lot less lucrative than selling DVDs.

Last year the movie industry made $30bn at the box office worldwide. Ed Epstein, author of The Hollywood Economist, calculates box office revenue accounts for just 10% of a hit movie’s money. The rest comes from cable and satellite channels, pay-per-view TV, video rentals, DVD sales and digital downloads. All that extra cash comes from sources that Hollywood once railed against, and pressed Washington to crack down on.

via The online copyright war: the day the internet hit back at big media | Technology | The Guardian.

Is the UK Music Industry Sleepwalking into a CD Crisis? « Music Industry Blog

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This is an interesting article about the current state of the UK music industry. It seems the rise in digital sales is not matching the drop in CDs. As we hear that Game may well go bust shortly, the signs for physical media and those who retail them are not good.

CD sales are falling at an alarming rate: though digital album unit sales grew by 5.6 million, CD album sales fell by 12.3 million. So the digital growth was less than half of the physical decline in absolute terms. A worrying ratio at this stage in the development of the digital market (i.e. when it should be maturing, not just getting started).

via Is the UK Music Industry Sleepwalking into a CD Crisis? « Music Industry Blog.

Warners’ “Disc to Digital” scheme

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Another example of how behind the times the film industry is from Craig Grannell. The LA Times reports that Warners are launching a programme called ‘Disc to Digital’ in an attempt to cut piracy. This will allow DVD owners to bring their DVDs to a shop and pay to have them converted to a digital file.

As someone with a large collection of DVDs, this seems poorly thought out to me. Why would I want to load them into my car, drive somewhere, unload them all, hand them to a shop and pay when I could just download Handbrake for free and have my digital copy within a few minutes? How much would it cost? I could quite imagine the situation where paying the shop to rip a copy costs more than buying the DVD from Amazon.

It’s just odd that Warners would come up with a costly and cumbersome solution to a problem solved long ago by free software.

Observations on film art : Pandora’s digital box: Art house, smart house

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Another fascinating, lengthy article about the impact the move towards digital projection is having on independent and arthouse cinemas. As larger cinemas move towards digital-only projection systems, fewer films will be released on 35mm. Whilst chains can afford to convert to the latest tech, it’s often prohibitively expensive for arthouse cinemas which may be forced to project from Blu-Ray or even DVD:

Theatres’ conversion from 35mm film to digital presentation was designed by and for an industry that deals in mass output, saturation releases, and quick turnover. A movie comes out on Friday, fills as many as 4,000 screens around the country, makes most of its money within a month or less, and then shows up on VoD, PPV, DVD, or some other acronym. The ancillary outlets yield much more revenue to the studios, but the theatrical release is crucial in establishing awareness of the film.

Given this shock-and-awe business plan, movies on film stock look wasteful. You make, ship, and store several thousand 35mm prints that will be worthless in a few months. (I’ve seen trash bags stuffed with Harry Potter reels destined for destruction.) Pushing a movie in and out of multiplexes on digital files makes more sense.

And on the subject of Video on Demand:

Ancillary income from DVD has declined steeply, and VoD pays well. According to Josh Dickey’s Variety article and Daniel Miller’s Hollywood Reporter piece on the rise of VoD deals, Margin Call, which attracted $5.3 million theatrically, took in an estimated $4-$5 million on VoD. Another advantage is that streaming provides fast returns, while any DVD income won’t show up for many months. Moreover, VoD can reach audiences in areas of the country that don’t have art houses. And some distributors believe that the theatrical and VoD audiences don’t significantly overlap. For Margin Call, it’s claimed, most people who saw it in the theatre didn’t know that it was on VoD, and many who caught it on VoD would not have gone to a theatre.

There don’t seem to be any firm conclusions about how much day-and-date or early release on VoD can harm a film’s theatrical release. In the absence of detailed evidence about VoD grosses, exhibitors are understandably nervous.

via Observations on film art : Pandora’s digital box: Art house, smart house.

Piracy is part of the digital ecosystem | Technology | guardian.co.uk

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More on piracy from The Guardian:

At the last Consumer Electronic Show, the British market intelligence firm Envisional presented its remarkable State of Digital Piracy Study. Here are some highlights:

• Pirated contents accounts for 24% of the worldwide internet bandwidth consumption.

• The biggest chunk is carried by bittorrent (the protocol used for file sharing); it weighs about 40% of the illegitimate content in Europe and 20% in the US (including downstream and upstream). Worldwide, bittorrent gets 250 million UVs per month.

• The second tier is made by the so-called cyberlockers (5% of the global bandwidth), among them the infamous Megaupload, raided a few days ago by the FBI and the New Zealand police. On the 500 million uniques visitors per month to cyberlockers, Megaupload drained 93 million UVs. (To put things in perspective, the entire US newspaper industry gets about 110 million UVs per month). The Cyberlockers segment has twice the users but consumes eight times less bandwidth than bittorrent simply because files are much bigger on the peer-to-peer system.

• The third significant segment in piracy is illegal video streaming (1.4% of the global bandwidth.)

There are three ways to fight piracy: endless legal actions, legally blocking access, or creating alternative legit offers.

I think this is the interesting point – creating alternative legitimate ways of getting digital content cuts piracy.

Compare the difference in US and EU internet traffic:

US – Netflix takes the largest chunk

EU – Bittorrent takes the largest chunk

via Piracy is part of the digital ecosystem | Technology | guardian.co.uk.

Downloads: Not the salvation film studios might have hoped for | Media | guardian.co.uk

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More Guardian coverage of film industry concerns about falling DVD revenue, suggesting that downloads are not going to be such a lucrative replacement:

There’s little solace for film studios in digital download sales, though they might have hoped those would go some way towards offsetting tanking DVD sales. Screen Digest’s research, in the FT, explains that DVDs have generated more than $20bn every year for Hollywood but have been falling 25% since 2006. Downloads, despite a promising start with iTunes, have not filled the gap.

via Downloads: Not the salvation film studios might have hoped for | Media | guardian.co.uk.

BBC News – Is cinema facing its final curtain?

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This article looks at how the film industry is responding to falling cinema attendance (despite rising revenues) and the collapse of DVD sales:

The film industry is worried.

Despite box office revenues growing, fewer people are going to the cinema.

In the US – since a peak in 2002 when 1.58 billion tickets were sold – numbers have fallen to a projected 1.22 billion for 2011, a drop of more than 20% according to market analyst The Numbers.

Hollywood’s cash cow – and often its safety net – over recent years has been the DVD. Avatar alone sold four million DVDs in the first four days of its release. Before the digital transition, VHS provided healthy incomes, but streaming services seem to be changing everything.

via BBC News – Is cinema facing its final curtain?.

Netflix Passes Piracy in U.S. Net Traffic | Epicenter | Wired.com

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For the first time, legal streaming of entertainment is consuming more internet bandwidth than illegal downloading in the US.

Netflix streaming movies now fill more of the U.S.’s internet tubes than any other service, including peer-to-peer file sharing, which long held the top spot — to the consternation of Hollywood.

That means for the first time perhaps in the internet’s history, the largest percentage of the net’s traffic is content that is paid for…Netflix accounts for 22.2% of all U.S. broadband traffic compared to BitTorrent’s 21.6% share. And at peak times, Netflix hits 30% of all traffic, a bounce of 44% over results from the fall.

The full report contains some data on Europe, including the statistic that 6.6% of peak downstream traffic in the UK is people watching BBC iPlayer.

via Netflix Passes Piracy in U.S. Net Traffic | Epicenter | Wired.com.

Top Hollywood directors protest over home downloads | Film | The Guardian

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The plans for early VOD releases of films are continuing to prove controversial:

More than 20 leading film-makers, including James Cameron, Peter Jackson and Robert Zemeckis, have written a protest letter to Hollywood studios over their decision to allow films to be downloaded into people’s homes while they are still being screened in cinemas, rather than once they have completed their theatrical run, will take its toll on the box-office and film-making.

and

They have joined cinema owners to warn that reducing the exclusive release window traditionally given to cinema chains will lead to dwindling audiences and increased piracy with pristine digital copies being made available so early.

Cameron, who was showered with Oscars for Titanic and Avatar, said: “The cinema experience is the wellspring. If the exhibitors are worried, I’m worried. Why on earth would you give audiences an incentive to skip the highest and best form of your film?”

via Top Hollywood directors protest over home downloads | Film | The Guardian.

US cinemas threaten not to show films in video-on-demand dispute | Media | guardian.co.uk

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This row between film studios and cinema chains is useful material for AS Film students for FM2 section A.

US cinema chains are threatening to banish some films from their screens in response to a contentious video-on-demand plan by several Hollywood studios to allow new releases into living rooms within weeks of their big screen debuts.

Four of the six major film studios – Universal, Sony, Warner Bros and Fox – plan to make new releases available to rent online just two months after their cinema debut. New releases will be available to rent for $30 (£18) under the premium VoD proposals, set to be introduced in the US later this month.

Cinema owners have reacted angrily to the plans, which could significantly reduce the box office potential of new releases . The National Association of Theatre Owners (Nato), which represents the largest cinema chains in the US including Regal Entertainment Group and AMC Theatres, said it will fight the move.

via US cinemas threaten not to show films in video-on-demand dispute | Media | guardian.co.uk.