Hurt Locker File-Sharing Subpoenas Begin 376
In May we discussed news that producers of the film The Hurt Locker filed a lawsuit against 5,000 John Does, known only by their IP addresses at the time, for sharing the movie over peer-to-peer sites. Now, reader suraj.sun notes that subpoenas for the lawsuit are finally going out.
"Qwest Communications on Monday notified a customer in Denver that the Internet service provider has received a subpoena from lawyers representing Voltage Pictures, the production company that made The Hurt Locker. ... In legal documents, Voltage Pictures has blamed the movie's relatively poor domestic performance on illegal file sharing. As of March 21, the movie had grossed $16 million domestically, but took in $40 million overall. According to reports, the film's production budget was $15 million. The film leaked to the Web five months before the movie's US debut. ... For allegedly downloading The Hurt Locker, DGW told the Qwest customer from Denver that settling the case early would cost $2,900, according to documents reviewed by CNET."
Culprit ? (Score:5, Insightful)
The film leaked to the Web five months before the movie's US debut
Looking for a culprit ? The guy who decided to sit on the movie for months while the marketing campaign was already on. When people want to see something and it is available, albeit illegally, they will.
Re:Culprit ? (Score:4, Insightful)
I paid to see the film at the cinema. I feel ripped off twice over; I paid for something I could have received for free, and the film wasn't all that great anyway. I can't get a refund from the movie company or the cinema, but I can still be peeved at the folks who leaked it. IMHO, by the way, it's the leak who should be sued, not the consumers.
Re: (Score:2)
Devil's Advocate here, but does that mean they shouldn't be sued for their infringement?
If they can show that they caused damages even close to $2,900? Perhaps then.
The methods being employed and the shackles placed on technology means I'm not going to support the plaintiffs. A good start would be having my television not try to negotiate with my cable box to determine if I'm being a good boy.
Re:Culprit ? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Same with me.
So do I, but anticipating the crap that is produced I feel not very compelled.
CC.
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And the DRM makes them a more attractive choice than the Blu-Ray discs or HD cable
What makes them more attractive is that they don't cost $30 a pop. Having no DRM is a bonus, for sure, but really it comes down to HD movies being a horrible value. Most people outside the slashdot crew don't know what DRM is. Hell, most of them don't even know what a browser is. [youtube.com] The bottom line is most people don't want to spend that kind of money on a Blu-ray when you can get two or three DVD's for the same price or just download them for free.
Re:Culprit ? (Score:4, Insightful)
If they can show that they caused damages even close to $2,900? Perhaps then.
I don't see how the damages can be more than the price of a movie ticket per person.
Re:Culprit ? (Score:4, Interesting)
I disagree. The price is an unlimited distribution license of the movie, not a copy of the movie or a trip to the movie. The damages should be about $5,000,000 for that license. Oh wait, an Oscar-winning, critically acclaimed film? $25,000,000. So $2,900 doesn't seem too bad really.
You know what you should do if you don't like copyright? You should create content and give it away for free and if you're right and copyright is a blight on society and only holds back the advancement of the arts and science, then you'll become very successful in your model. Then you might have a case for advocating for the elimination or major reform of existing copyright law. But as long as the people bitching about copyright are 99.99% non-creators, all anybody hears is "gimme gimme gimme... i want free shit..."
Re:Culprit ? (Score:4, Insightful)
You know what you should do if you don't like copyright? You should create content and give it away for free and if you're right and copyright is a blight on society and only holds back the advancement of the arts and science, then you'll become very successful in your model. Then you might have a case for advocating for the elimination or major reform of existing copyright law. But as long as the people bitching about copyright are 99.99% non-creators, all anybody hears is "gimme gimme gimme... i want free shit..."
We're all "content creators" now. You just created content. I just "consumed" it for free. So your argument that 99.99% of the complainers are non-contributors is not quite viable. By making a complaint on a blog or the like, they are actually creating content.
I'll go one further: I am an engineer who happens to compose music on the side. I give my music away for free to anybody who wants to perform it. I don't make a dime off of it, yet I still make about one piece a year. I also have quite a few pictures on flickr that are CC-BY-SA. These photos have been used on several blogs, including some big professional ones. I have no beef with that. I've even had people offer to pay me a nominal fee for the use even though they don't have to. You'll find several e-book authors who give away their stuff, too. Granted it's mostly crap (no doubt my music and photos are as well), but so is most of the stuff we pay for.
Re:Culprit ? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
But to answer your ignorant rhetorical questions: yes, you can seek punitive damages against someone who causes your harm, in addition to actual damages.
The difference is that copyright damage awards permitted by the law are not considered "punitive". In other words, they are not intended to be a punishment, but rather a recovery of either actual or reasonable theoretical losses.
So, using high damages to "punish" file sharers is an incorrect application of the law.
Re:Culprit ? (Score:4, Funny)
Devil's Advocate was OK, almost not worth pirating, but certainly not worth buying.
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Re:Culprit ? (Score:5, Insightful)
Sued for the act of infringeing - yea sure
Suing for lost, imagined profits? Eh no...
Re:Culprit ? (Score:5, Insightful)
The film owners still have a legal right to sue for infringement, and there's some pretty good arguments for a moral right, BUT ...
The industry is claiming they need very high statutory damages to make up for the tremendous losses they say 'piracy' produces.
If those losses are really so high in part because of cases where the industry itself screws up, then the industry doesn't really deserve especially high statutory damages, AND giving those to the industry may encourage their incompetence rather than them reformulating their business models to make 'piracy' less attractive. Metaphorically, the punishment for auto theft should not be made so attractive to the victim that he or she deliberately doesn't lock his or her car in a known bad neighborhood. Running up demand when you are not prepared to meet it, and delaying consumer gratification while the product is hot, are simply bad business models.
The industry is also claiming they have a special need for taxpayers to foot more of the costs of them filing these lawsuits. If that same industry isn't bothering to do simple things they reasonably can to make those lawsuits unnecessary, then they themselves are the ones manufacturing that special need. That's one reason I qualified the part about moral rights, above - The industry has been claiming that the 'pirates' are solely responsible for creating that special need. If the industry itself is denying its own share of the responsibility, that undercuts their moral position. Going back to the metaphor I used, having your car stolen gives you no moral right to deliberately lie to the judge (and through him, the taxpayers paying the costs of a criminal prosecution) about whether you locked the doors or not.
Re:Culprit ? (Score:5, Insightful)
devil this.
Who ever leaked this only caused "harm" to the box office take by letting people know just how bad this movie sucked.
That would seem to be the studio's problem with it. They wanted to FOOL people into thinking it was a good movie. Word of mouth sunk the movie first. Try again.
Save your peeve for the people who palmed off this turd on you.
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Looking for a culprit ?
I'd say it was the sweaty man fight.
Seriously, only in Hollywood would this thing get an award. Everyone I've talked to who was actually in Iraq said the movie was complete BS. Even Newsweek whacked it with a cluestick. Does no one on the entire Oscar committee know an actual veteran?
Re:Culprit ? (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm not military and even I saw the movie as complete bullshit. And I wanted to like it. Just too many little bs things added up to ruin it for me. Hey I'm a bomb tech and I'm gonna walk up and cowboy the shit out of every bomb I come across, not to save some children, but to just act like a badass. Quick, let's go outside our operating zone and SPLIT UP!
That and the fact that the Nesquik cereal he is looking at near the end of the movie is not distributed in the US anymore. That was the most significant portion of the movie for me.
Re:Culprit ? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yep. The most likely reason the movie didn't do that well was because most people didn't want to watch it. Or they were told not to bother from those who watched it.
I wonder if those 5000 John Does are actually the total number of those who pirated the movie - which would be a rather embarrassingly small figure :). From what I hear, I wouldn't bother wasting my bandwidth downloading Hurt Locker, and I doubt I'd bother popping down the local pirate shop to get a copy.
If filmmakers wanted to make more money they should make movies that millions of people will want to watch, and make it easy for them to pay and watch it.
FWIW, I paid to watch Avatar in the cinema. And it was worth my money, nice graphics and all that. Even my mom paid to watch it with one of her friends and they both liked it too. Surprise surprise, my mom doesn't always like the same movies I like. My dad didn't want to watch it - he said it was too long. IIRC he watched LoTR, and I think that did well by most sane estimates.
But despite that, somehow LOTR allegedly didn't make enough money for some crooks to pay Peter Jackson his fair share, and apparently Return of the Jedi never made money ( http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/film/article6024677.ece [timesonline.co.uk]). "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" lost money too: http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100708/02510310122.shtml [techdirt.com]
So guess who I think are the real thieves and crooks in the movie and music industry? It's not those file sharers.
Makes you wonder how they stay in business. Perhaps the Government should shut them down and put them out of their misery.
Re:Culprit ? (Score:5, Interesting)
Sounds like they were just lazy (Score:3, Insightful)
They were going for a "gritty, realistic," movie but couldn't be bothered to do the actual work to make it so. Well that might wow critics, it would seem the movie was loved by the critical press, but it is going to fall flat for people who are actually in to that sort of thing. You can have an action packed, special effects thriller type that has little to no connection with reality and it'll do fine. People go to watch those for the spectacle, not for reality. However if you make a movie that is slowly pa
Re:Culprit ? (Score:5, Informative)
The culprit was that the movie sucked plain and simple. I mean it was quite possibly one of the worst movies I have seen in the last 5 years and I just watched Repo Men. The movie was slow, it was repetitive and the only possible redeeming quality it possessed was that it was rah rah US military and how could you possibly hate on the US military right unless you're a terrorist, right?
In addition to that, there is a recession. I haven't been to a movie in the theater in a long time because I simply do not have the money due to a new baby and a SAHM. Redbox's $1 rentals and Hulu's documentaries have filled the void. Why would I ever spend $20 (for two) to go to see a movie when I can spend $1 instead?
Enough of blaming file sharing this is plain and simple a shitty and overhyped movie which was better watched from the comfort of your own home for 1/20th the cost.
Re: (Score:2)
Why would I ever spend $20 (for two) to go to see a movie when I can spend $1 instead?
Around hear theaters are charging $12-14 per ticket. Interesting for a format that started in Nickelodeons. Now that they are approaching levels where I can STILL get tickets to see the Philadelphia Orchestra practice (Or perform.. I get a somewhat special deal).
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I still go to the movies, but only at the cheap place on Tuesdays. $5 gets me a movie date with a drink and popcorn for the girl. I still skipped Hurt Locker. I won't even go for it from red box. Hell, I won't even waste the bandwidth to download the POS.
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In addition to that, there is a recession. I haven't been to a movie in the theater in a long time because I simply do not have the money due to a new baby and a SAHM. Redbox's $1 rentals and Hulu's documentaries have filled the void. Why would I ever spend $20 (for two) to go to see a movie when I can spend $1 instead?
Because it's easier to talk one of the baby's grandparents into babysitting while you take your wife on a "date" than it is if you're going home to watch a Redbox movie? At least, that's my
Re:Culprit ? (Score:5, Insightful)
Saying filesharers caused the lacklustre sales makes no sense either, as other films are breaking records all the time- Avatar, Toy Story 3 etc. broke new records this year but also similarly suffer the piracy problem.
As you say, there was more to this films poor sales than simply filesharing, see my other post in this thread for one possible reason, your point is also a good reason.
Really this film had such a poor financial showing because of management mistakes, it's as simple as that. Sure piracy problem does take a chunk out of film profits, but nowhere near enough to cause too many problems else if it did the afformentioned films such as Avatar and Toy Story 3 would never have been able to break the box office records they did compared to previous all time record breakers like Titanic that came around before filesharing movie piracy was even a problem.
Let's be honest, the executives responsible for the management fuckups behind this films lacklustre profits know full well they fucked up, these lawsuits are just about ass-covering so that these execs can fool some other gullable film maker into running the business end of their production in future. "Oh, yeah, the Hurt Locker, it wasn't abysmal marketing that led to it's poor showing, it was the file sharers. Honest.".
Re:Culprit ? (Score:5, Insightful)
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>Well, to be fair, they may have a point. As soon as people started watching it, I'm sure that word of mouth started to circulate about the quality of the film.
Isn't that better for the consumer, they didn't get ripped off by the film company trying to use advertising to make their product look better then it actually was.
Re:Culprit ? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Sure piracy problem does take a chunk out of film profits
I don't know of any studies about movie piracy, but studies I've read about concerning music piracy that weren't paid for by the major music labels show that music pirates spend more money on music than non-pirates.
With books, it takes 2-3 weeks after a book hits the shelves for copies to show up on the internet. One publisher commissioned a study to see how badly the piracy impacted sales, and was astounded to find that after the initial sales spike
Re:Culprit ? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Culprit ? (Score:4, Informative)
The lawyers are not trying to get 5000 trials. They are trying to do one trial with 5000 defendants. And so far, they just might be successful at this.
Re:Culprit ? (Score:4, Interesting)
They wont get 5000 trials... if you read the summary they are offering to settle for $2,900.
Assuming that 80% of the people choose to "settle" soon... they will have gained $11,600,000 ... assuming EVERYBODY settle, they would have recouped more than the cost of the film.
So I definitely think this is their new business model.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Plus, if it were any good (and it weren't) then those sharers would have become evangelists for seeing it at the theatre.
FFS, studios actually give free screeners to generate buzz. 3000+ people saw Scott Pilgrim for nothing, said great things about it, and then it totally crashed and burned at the box office anyway before it even had a chance to leak online. So, what, it failed to make money because the screener audience stole all the potential gross, with their filthy thieving eyes?
Go after fileshare
Re:Culprit ? (Score:5, Insightful)
Note that I am not advocating the abolition of all IP law. I am simply stating the fact that the law does not define morality.
By the way, your claim that "making your own currency is stealing" is obviously false. Passing off the currency is fraud, not theft. Same goes for stock. However, sending someone a copy of a movie without making any claim that it is legally licensed for such distribution is not fraud. Making your own U.S. currency would certainly be illegal, but the definition of the crime and the reasoning behind it is nowhere near theft.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
For that matter, the definition of bittorrent use as copyright infringement is a little contrived itself. Are you making a copy, or receiving one after consenting to have one be made? And is it really a copy at all? If I duplicate the data from the completed download on my own hard drive 100 times...how many copies do I really have? And why is it substantially different from loaning a DVD to your buddy, or showing it while you're throwing a party?
The ethics are a bit ambiguous because we're a bit new to the
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Quite frankly I thought the film was dull anyways. I know it was a huge hit with the critics, but I never saw what all the fuss was about.
Extortion (Score:4, Insightful)
When are they going to make extortion illegal?
Oh wait...
Re:Extortion (Score:4, Insightful)
When it stops being so profitable.
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Seriously, if someone proposed "Lets update our copyright/piracy laws so that skimping out on a less than 10 dollar cinema ticket isn't worth a few thousand in lawsuit" the law would die in congress so quickly that you'd smell the rot from Europe. Probably the media will go on a "Would you like your property to be protected? The GOVERNMENT wants to take that away from us" smear campaign, and the backfire would be negligable.
Maths ? (Score:5, Insightful)
So they want 5000 filesharers to pay the ENTIRE production cost of the movie (5000 * 3000) = 15m, then the 40m is clear profit ?
So, you payda money and maybya dont fall down da stairs ? Bunch of corrupt bastards. Sorry, bunch of government santioned bastards.
Re:Maths ? (Score:5, Insightful)
This will be the new Hollywood business model.
a) Make movie
b) Hype it
c) Release it on P2P
d) Wait six moths, release in theaters
e) When it bombs, sue 10,000 John Does because you know they can't afford to defend themselves.
f) Profit!
Anybody see a flaw?
Re: (Score:2)
'months', not 'moths'...duh!
Re: (Score:2)
That was the only flaw in that business model.
Re:Maths ? (Score:4, Insightful)
Its a very viable plan, the only thing you lose is some public respect.
But as the past has shown, the 'general public' is a bunch of morons who don't mind if you put rootkits in their cds or bankrupt college students for a few songs.
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More importantly, you can just keep making up new company names forever with little or no repercussion. Who the hell are voltage Pictures? I've never heard of them before, and I suspect I'll never hear of them again. The next project funded by the same people could be released by Amperage Pictures instead, and nobody would be the wiser.
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The fine therefore is about $ 8000 per person, if they want to make the 40 million back (or less - I admit I didn't read the article).
Anyway... in a next case, what happens if they manage to track down 1 million people? I bet that some really popular movies got shared that much. Do the movie companies get $ 8,000,000,000 from suing and winning a case??
I mean - with such profits possible, why even put the movie in the cinema, or DVD? Just make it really, really good, and totally unavailable in mainstream mov
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You didn't even read the summary. They spent $15m on the movie, grossed $16m in the US, made $40m total.
Re:Maths ? (Score:4, Informative)
then the 40m is clear profit?
You're neglecting Hollywood accounting [wikipedia.org] when you think about this. On paper, I'm sure this movie lost the studio billions somehow.
$25 million (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
There is no profit (Score:2)
Movies never make a profit due to the famous Hollywood accounting.
Re: (Score:2)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollywood_accounting [wikipedia.org]
Great (Score:5, Interesting)
Marketing fail. (Score:5, Insightful)
First I heard of this film was when it won it's Oscars, by which point it'd been out 6 - 9 months, and seeing as most cinemas drop films after a couple of months then there's no wonder it got poor showing.
Perhaps if people actually knew the film existed, it'd have done better at the box office. Not advertising the existence of a film whatsoever then wondering why the hell no one went to watch it, despite it being popular post-Oscars is the real reason this film did so miserably financially.
Blaming file sharers wont fix a marketing mistake, and by the time they've gone through the courts, dealt with the claims they're entirely unable to prove, it'll probably have cost them far more in man hours than they can expect to earn back through strong arming people with settlement threats.
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And I honestly had never heard of it until this article. Looking it up on IMDB and Wikipedia however, it sounds like a bore. See? My preemptive filtering of media works like a charm.
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[quote]Blaming file sharers wont fix a marketing mistake[/quote]
True.. However, suing file sharers will fix a revenue mistake.
[quote]... prove ...[/quote]
hahahahahahaha
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The pre-release file sharing was the marketing campaign. Its ok though, because its cheaper than real advertising and you can always sue the people you gave the film to if you don't make enough money.
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Precisely because, unless you're sat witnessing the individual carrying out the file sharing or have some equally damning evidence, then you can't actually match 5,000 IPs to people. You can at best match them to an internet connection which may or may not be shared amongst multiple people, and where the subscriber to the connection may or may not be victim of a trojan horse, wifi hijacking, or other unauthorised use of his/her system(s). There's also the question as to whether ISP logs are reliable and val
I like the part where (Score:2, Interesting)
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It was actually pretty decent. Certainly not Oscar worthy, but at the very least rental/Netflix worthy. If you like war movies that focus more on human psyche rather than combat (although there are a couple of good combat scenes in it), you should watch it at least once.
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What 'good' combat scenes? The sniper scene was 'cool' but it felt completely out of place for a bomb disposal unit SOLO out in the desert (WTF?). The bomb defuse scenes were all cowboy, edge of the seat but viewers simply don't get the foreboding terror involved, felt like something was really missed. The whole presentation and marketing of this movie was about the realism it portrayed, the premise from the directors and producers was realism. This simply wasn't a good movie. Let's split up so we can
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I personally had found it randomly while browsing through Comcast On-Demand while spending a weekend at my Wife's Uncle's house. I hadn't heard of it, nor had I heard of the realism they were pushing in their limited marketing, so I went into it blind.
As a war movie, it was pretty entertaining. Realism is quite commonly thrown out the window in war movies, so when I watch war movies, I don't expect it. I think a combination of no knowledge about the film and my low expectations regarding realism is why I
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Actually, illegal file sharing had a huge part in the movie not making any money. People could see just how bad it sucked for free before shelling out the cash to see it suck in a theater.
Ugh. (Score:3, Insightful)
Look...I understand that piracy is wrong, and if something can be legally obtained it should be.
That being said, this is freakin' insane. All 5,000 Does rolled up into one case? A case filed in Washington, DC...where almost none (if any) of the Does live? Fining these people so much money that the entire movie's budget is literally payed for by SUING people?
If this isn't abusing the justice system, I don't know what is.
Re:Ugh. (Score:4, Interesting)
Well hopefully it will get broken up into separate actions. I mean, the alleged wrongdoing and the alleged proof may be similar, but the defenses will vary wildly from plain denial to family, tenants, guests, open wifi, trojans and so on. I don't see how one judge could possibly make the decision they're all guilty or not guilty, and so it doesn't fit as a class action the way I think of it. But I imagine for most it's about the fear and collecting settlements, if everyone simply said no and asked for their day in court this would stop. Even if you just showed up yourself and gave your layman "I have no idea what they're talking about" defense. If you just keep the spending at an absolute minimum and assume you'll lose, I doubt you'll be out more than $2500 anyway. The statutory minimum is $750, and if you don't piss off the judge or jury you'll likely to get that.
Re:Ugh. (Score:4, Insightful)
Look...I understand that piracy is wrong, and if something can be legally obtained it should be.
Basing a moral argument on what the law says is probably not the best strategy, especially considering that the relevant law in this case constantly changes (usually to subvert the interests of commoners and to favor the interests of corporations).
I would like to perform poorly (Score:4, Insightful)
Voltage Pictures has blamed the movie's relatively poor domestic performance on illegal file sharing.
...took in $40 million overall. According to reports, the film's production budget was $15 million.
They made $25 million and are blaming file sharing because it performed poorly? I think that possibly their standards are a bit skewed because they have been gluttonous bastards for so long. In the REAL WORLD, if a product's return is more than twice what it cost them, I'd say they are doing pretty good.
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Hollywood accounting. Y'see, after the upfront production costs, there's still a bunch of ancillary companies to be paid for their services, for marketing, PR, the DVD, Oscar promotion... Those companies belong to the production company itself, sure, but that all drains away money.
You'd be amazed at how few movies actually make a profit. It's incredible that Hollywood stays in business.
A historic moment (Score:2)
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In the REAL WORLD, if a product's return is more than twice what it cost them, I'd say they are doing pretty good.
You would be wrong. It is remarkably poor performance for a film that won the Best Picture, regardless of its production value.
2900? (Score:2)
That sounds reasonable.
On the other hand defending a lawsuit would probably cost more irrelevant of how innocent you are. It's still legal extortion.
Occam's Razor says... (Score:3, Insightful)
...maybe the film didn't do all that well because not that many people were interested in it. I know I had absolutely no interest in watching it.
Avatar (Score:5, Insightful)
The Avatar DVD is currently #51 in the Amazon sales charts despite being released in April. I bet it was way more pirated than The Hurt Locker will ever be.
#6 in the Amazon sales charts is a movie made in the 1960s that has been available for piracy for many years.
Occam's Razor: The movie isn't as good as they think it is.
Re: (Score:2)
See, now that's insightful... but I've already posted and cannot mod as such...
Re:Avatar (Score:4, Insightful)
Seems to me, they're spending too much! (Score:5, Insightful)
Regardless of whether or not someone leaked out a copy of the movie months before its release, the *real* problem seems to be that they're spending WAY too much to make a movie, and then complaining when their return on investment isn't what they hoped for!
The average motion picture is roughly 2 hours long, right? (Often shorter, and sometimes a few minutes longer, but let's just say 2 hours for the sake of picking a number.) That appears to be about $125,000 per MINUTE they spent to make it, given a $15 million budget!
I haven't even watched Hurt Locker yet, but as I understand it, it's a contemporary movie about the war we're STILL fighting right now! It's definitely not a film that required a lot of painstaking effort to accurately re-create events of the distant past. All the costuming, props, etc. should have been readily available. So WHY can't this type of story be told for FAR less money?
Personally, if I was producing a movie in Hollywood today, I'd pass on any of the "big name" actors and actresses that demand huge salaries, and concentrate instead on having a really good script. Then I'd find some talented but under-appreciated/utilized actors/actresses and see what I could do with them instead. In the last 5 years or so, I've seen much more "in depth" and interesting stories coming out of foreign films with exponentially lower production budgets than the garbage we keep cranking out here in the USA. It's time for Hollywood to rethink how they do business ... not to blame file-sharers for their problems and try to continue the status-quo!
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Re: (Score:3, Informative)
You need to pay for:
The camera package.
Lighting package.
Grip package.
Costumes and makeup.
Props.
Crew which consists of grips, gaffers, the DP, an AD, and the director at LEAST. Often times you need hair and makeup, as well as stunt and visual effect co-ordinators.
You need to pay the producers, the editor and assistant editor, the sound editor,
Worst Part (Score:3, Insightful)
If this had been over Inception or another really great film, I could understand better. This? Please.
Re:Worst Part (Score:5, Funny)
The worst part, in my opinion, is that this isn't even a good movie to pirate. I mean, it was okay to watch on Netflix, but there's no excuse for pirating such a mediocre film. Yea, it won an Oscar, but it was basically just Minesweeper: The Movie.
If this had been over Inception or another really great film, I could understand better. This? Please.
FTFM.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
The worst part, in my opinion, is that this isn't even a good movie to pirate. I mean, it was okay to watch on Netflix, but there's no excuse for pirating such a mediocre film. Yea, it won an Oscar, but it was basically just Minesweeper: The Movie.
If this had been over Inception or another really great film, I could understand better. This? Please.
FTFM.
Mhmmm... I saw [youtube.com] that trailer.
Unfortunately as it is now common, after watching the Hurt Locker I realized the only good scenes were the ones in the trailer...
14.5M if everyone settles (Score:2)
The Oscar was guilt award provided by the academy to show their support for the troops. The movie, even if it never hit the p2p networks, would have never grossed more.
The movie wasn't a public hit because it didn't appeal to a broad range of movie goers. If they feel they need to sue for this - then so be it, but 5,000 cases in one DC court? What the fuck was this judge thinking?
I never downloaded Hurt Locker... (Score:2)
...and now I'll never rent it or buy it! Congrats on the lost sale!
The real reason ... (Score:4, Funny)
Academy masturbation aside "zomg, a WOMAN made a WAR movie about IRAQ!!!", the real reason it had a poor box office showing was that the movie, frankly, sucked.
The people who downloaded it were the lucky ones.
Anyone ever heard of... (Score:2)
What do you expect... (Score:3, Insightful)
...from a movie that only opened in "art houses"? At least where I live (largish metropolitan area), the movie opened in *two* indie theaters. I don't exactly know how this works, whether the movie producers steer their movie towards indie or mainstream theaters, or if the theaters can pick and choose the movies they show. At any rate, it's no big surprise that a movie that opened in a city of 2 million+ in only two movie theaters would have been short-lived, over-hyped (as these types of movies often are), and revenue-deficient.
$2900 Price Point (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Haven't even heard of it (Score:2)
Interesting (Score:3, Interesting)
This seems like the most equitable form of extortion I've ever seen come out of the entertainment industry, so at least I'll have to give the producers credit for not being complete pie-in-the-sky assholes ("We lost potential billions for the rest of time!")
I'd love to see this the other way around. Before a film begins shooting, I pay them $2, just me Joe-Blow consumer. I can pick whatever project I want to give cash to, though I have no input on the content. In exchange for the $2, I get a license. I can copy and past the movie wherever I want to after it goes through the initial theatrical release. I also get to keep the license for an indefinite period, as it is MY license for a movie I invested in with my money (the average consumer isn't going to throw it out on to torrents, because dammit, they already own a copy). If done right, you could create an environment where movies are pure profit.
Regret (Score:3, Insightful)
I really enjoyed the movie and was happy to see it earn some Oscar recognition.
Now that they are backing this sort of action against people, I regret giving them any of my money. I will no longer recommend this movie. I regret supporting this movie if they are so willing to participate in a legal action that I find offensive. The copyright laws, as they exist, were designed to combat _commercial_ piracy and that's a battle I support. Suing individuals for the same monetary damages that are designed to discourage commercial infringement is abusive.
Fuck them.
Re: (Score:2)
The Hurt Locker was an amazingly good movie.
Intense, interesting.
Re:Barely heard of it... (Score:5, Interesting)
The Hurt Locker was an amazingly good movie.
Intense, interesting.
Well, this vet says it's crap.
http://www.newsweek.com/2010/02/23/when-cin-ma-v-rit-isn-t.html [newsweek.com]
I'll go with the vet.
Re:Barely heard of it... (Score:5, Insightful)
No, it fucking wasn't. And I watch a LOT of movies. A LOT. Especially crappy movies. And it was definitely in the nonsense bullshit category. Black Hawk Down was a good military movie. The Hurt Locker was ruined by DUMB fucking plot line twists. And I mean REALLY REALLY FUCKING DUMB.
Men Who Stare At Goats was more accurate portrayal of military life than Hurt Locker.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The Hurt Locker was an amazingly good movie.
Intense, interesting.
I found the characters to be contrived caricatures. The film almost seemed like a parody of itself, filled with the kind of overly stylized, cliched, and rather shallow scenes South Park would show to make fun of an overblown director.
**/****
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Avatar was 10 times better? Hurt Locker must have been truly awful then.