Hollywood had its best year ever in 2009. It made more money than ever before, yet piracy is killing the business?It wasn’t too long ago that Hollywood went on a massive campaign stating that piracy is killing the movie business and they HAD to raise prices. Well if we judge by the numbers we can plainly see their pants are on fire.Further more, Hollywood and Apple (iTunes) seem to be redundantly charging us for things we have already purchased.
What else helped to pad pockets? 3D movies are clearly Hollywood’s latest anti-piracy tactic. Avatar really raked it in as many of you may know. The fact that they are charging $10-$15-$20-$27 for the various movie “experiences” clearly helped that bottom line as well.
So if you were driven away from the $5 Bootleg DVDs at the flea market, at least don’t walk away out of guilt or sympathy for the industry. In fact, do a little math and find out how much Hollywood’s lie cost you. How many movies did you see last year 12? 15? 20? at $10.50 (minimum) a piece that is $120-$200. $30-$50 of that is the price you paid for that lie(based on $7.50 admission of yesteryear). That seems to be worth a few guilt ridden $5 DVD purchases. Take those numbers and multiply them by the hundreds of millions of people and account for those who saw a movie multiple times on the big screen (Avatar 3x for me) and you’ve got yourself a little more than spare change.
These numbers don’t include DVD purchases which would further justify your frugality when it comes to shopping the media market. Capitalism is cut-throat. Why should we bail out the industry for the hoax of a loss from what amounts to competition to the consumer? So if guilt or shame are no longer factors when it comes to entertainment purchases, save for the law (cough) that hasn’t been so nice when it comes to fair use anyway (end cough) the question comes down to simple economics. Do I want to buy a $5 DVD or pay $10-$25 plus who knows what for all the digital versions for a movie experience? So- I’ll wait til I find the movie I wish to see on display- in some market place for $5.
I certainly won’t feel guilty about the cut-throat media market place or legitimately- backing up and porting purchases to mobile devices.
