I reckon you’d absolutely kill the cinema industry if that happened (in the same way people are drinking at home rather than going to the pub).
Well exactly, drinking at home is legal and pubs & bars are still here.
Cinemas will just need to adapt. It used to be that cinemas were pretty much the only place you could watch movies at because consumer video technology wasn’t available. Nowadays the technology is there for anyone to watch 4K movies anywhere, so if cinemas want to survive they’ll just have to adapt by providing a better experience, instead of just freeloading on the artificial scarcity of new movies.
Most of the content is easily available - It’s just expensive, and when people have paid upwards of £60 per month for their Sky Subscription, they don’t want to fork out more money for the one off matches.
It’s not easily available as far as I know. Can I pay 60£ and get one month of Sky with no strings attached? Can I do so on my computer without having to have a TV or their set-top box? Will it work if I go abroad to see my family? “Easily available” to me would mean all those questions are answered with a yes. Until that’s the case piracy will continue to thrive and I wouldn’t feel bad about it.
I’m conscious that this is now well off topic, so I’ll answer this and then we can agree to disagree (unless it gets split into another topic!).
Pubs ARE closing - At quite an alarming rate - Just google it (multiple factors are at work here).
It’s absolutely your right not to buy something (or sign up for a service) - Sky is expensive, and there are elements which are bordering on extortion!
However, if you don’t want to pay the fee, don’t illegally download it.
If you don’t want to watch something at the cinema, wait until it hits terrestrial TV…
I’m yet to see a good reason why people should steal something, because they don’t like the provider, cost, or service.
I wouldn’t walk into an Apple store, say “This MacBook is too expensive, I shall be taking it for free”, and walk out.
Fair enough, let’s agree to disagree (although I’d be happy to continue this discussion if more people want to chime in and posts can be moved to their own thread).
Just one more thing though.
Pubs ARE closing - At quite an alarming rate - Just google it (multiple factors are at work here).
So what? If there is not enough demand then so be it. Nobody is entitled to business or profit. Otherwise let me remind you that I too run a business and you are now required to buy my very overpriced stuff.
The difference with our “streaming a film” scenario is that people have a legal choice when it comes to alcohol - If you want to drink at home with your mates (or on your own), that’s fine.
If that results in the closure of pubs - So be it.
The alcohol companies still get paid as well.
You don’t have a choice when it comes to new film releases - Legally, the only way to watch it is at the cinema (unless I’ve missed something).
If people decide to stream the film for free, then the film companies don’t get paid - Regardless of what you think of the big corporates, if they don’t get paid, they won’t be able to produce more films.
The other option is that you wait for the film to come out on DVD, or wait for it to hit the free TV channels.
No one is requiring you to watch it (and pay for it). You have the choice, as do you have the choice whether to steal or not
Edit - Given Monzo’s forum policy about law breaking - I’m not sure if this would be split into a new thread - But if it’s all good, perhaps it’s worth doing so others can chime in.
Well, yes - There are those (and the one’s on Amazon Prime).
I forgot that you had to cover absolutely every angle on the internet (we were talking about major film releases… Not Netflix exclusives).
A Netflix monthly subscription costs the same as a cinema ticket (just about).
But how many (decent), new movies do Netflix pump out? Not many…
The point sill remains.
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Anarchist
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28
I could have been a bit less oblique.
Back in the olden days people would illegally download music because it wasn’t possible to do so legally. Then iTunes changed that and became very popular.
Now people want to watch new cinematic releases at home, but it’s illegal. The movie industry needs an iTunes (or more likely Spotify) moment. It may result in cinemas closing eventually, but they can stay ahead of the field with better sound, larger screens etc.
There is a limited supply of physical goods and products that stealing would deprive the owner of their property(unable to sell it to someone else) so they’ve lost money. The same can’t be said for digital goods which there are effectively an unlimited supply. Not saying it’s right or wrong I’m just pointing out the difference
This is similar to what happened with the price of CD’s. Everyone thought physical copies of CD’s were too expensive, so a lot of people started just downloading the mp3’s online. To combat it, the music companies invested in streaming services and brought down the price of CD’s. Similar to what happened with PC games and pirating and now they are digitally avaliable and both physical and digital versions are cheaper.
I do not advocate piracy but in some circumstances it has actually led to prices becoming more realistic as those companies did loose out and so brought down their prices and saw the number of people using their services increase
On this, are the digital copies of things really that much cheaper?
I’ve just checked the old classic - “Now that’s what I call Music” - and it’s £12.99 at both amazon (physical copy) and iTunes (digital copy).
I don’t think the digital copies are much, if any, cheaper than their physical counterparts - Same with films, books (this one annoys me) and games.
Sure, there will sometimes be a price difference, but that can work both ways (I’ve seen the physical copy cheaper than the digital copy, as well as the other way around).
Now I completely get the streaming services, and I’m sure having Spotify etc, has helped the industry, with less people downloading illegally.
If the movie industry came up with something similar (£20 per month for unlimited access to cinema releases), I reckon it would be a massive hit!
But I don’t think the illegal streaming of films, is going to have the same impact that the illegal mp3 market had.
Freeview requires a TV license at £150.50/y, Netflix is £95.88/y for HD on 2 screens + download on 2 phones, half the price if you share it with someone.
You could ditch them all, but if you were going to pay for one service, id avoid TV its just not worth it imo, there’s very little good original programs.
Netflix for your TV shows and movies etc., plus YouTube for your “daytime” TV shows you could say and you’ve really got everything you need.
Usually about £54.99 on xbox marketplace… can be had for £35-40 on amazon… I still buy the digital version…
Anarchist
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38
I guess the only obstacle is the studios. They already have much of the infrastructure as the review copies of new releases are often held online for streaming anyway.
Depends, it seems to have moved to a digital/physical price match model in recent years but often you can still find a cheaper digital deal.
Unfortunately a lot of companies have price matched digital services like Music/Film/Games to their physical retailers as they don’t want to undercut them. This is what has happened with companies like Game and Microsoft/Sony, if there wasn’t a deliberate price match, like there isn’t with PC Games, then it would definitely be cheaper to buy digital
