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Sony Can't Make More Movies Thanks to Piracy

By - Source: Tom's Guide US

Pirating and downloading movies means studios can't make more, Sony claims.

Sony plans to release the upcoming film Michael Jackson's This Is It in every country tomorrow. The company said that--based on the multitudes of Jackson fans--it wouldn't make sense to distribute the film any differently. However, the company also has a secret motive concerning the film: piracy. If the movie premiered in the States first, by Thursday it would be "cammed" and distributed via BitTorrent and peer-to-peer networks.

While that will still be the case, whether the movie opens locally or world-wide, Michael Lynton, chairman and CEO of Sony Pictures Entertainment, said that smaller movie companies that generate independent films can't afford to open globally. "When such movies are stolen, it hurts their chances of building an international audience--robbing film-makers of entire markets where stolen versions of their work have proliferated online," he said in an online blog via Times Online.

His personal statement can't be confused with anything else other than a message to those who pirate or watch pirated movies. He clearly states that online theft siphons billions of dollars out of the industry, dollars that could have been obtained had those individuals who watched pirated movies went to the theater instead. Without those funds, there's less money to make movies. Lynton even threw in a few numbers, indicating that top movie studios made 162 films: over 40 less than the number filmed in 2006, and the lowest number in a decade.

"Making a movie takes lots of money and years of effort, and always involves a huge amount of risk," he said. "Film-makers are making a big bet that the story they are telling will appeal to large audiences two or three years down the road. That comes with the territory, but rampant piracy is an additional risk that we shouldn’t have to absorb."

Read the full disclosure here.

There are 118 Comments.
Top Comments
  • 31
    djackson_dba , October 28, 2009 3:02 AM
    The industry that made a movie based on the Dukes of Hazard and is working on one based on The A-Team is wondering where the profits went? I'm thinking that 1 in 3 movies is not even worth the time to download, let alone pay $20 to see in a theater ($20 does not include cost of drinks and popcorn or $7 candy bars)

    LOL!
  • 31
    vorless , October 28, 2009 2:56 AM
    Not like anyone wants to watch this movie anyway.
  • 27
    jalek , October 28, 2009 3:02 AM
    Sony's just angry that they can't add rootkits to camcorders.. yet.
Other Comments
  • 22
    N19h7M4r3 , October 28, 2009 2:52 AM
    Since when does sony give a crap? lol they are only worried about their own asses, plus the really small independent companies who dont have an international audience are probably gona put it up for free viewing somewere to start up those audiences... not that many people think about paying for and indie movie from some place, someone who no ones ever heard of...
  • 21
    ssalim , October 28, 2009 2:55 AM
    Sony is not the only one making movies. Get over it.
  • 31
    vorless , October 28, 2009 2:56 AM
    Not like anyone wants to watch this movie anyway.
  • 31
    djackson_dba , October 28, 2009 3:02 AM
    The industry that made a movie based on the Dukes of Hazard and is working on one based on The A-Team is wondering where the profits went? I'm thinking that 1 in 3 movies is not even worth the time to download, let alone pay $20 to see in a theater ($20 does not include cost of drinks and popcorn or $7 candy bars)

    LOL!
  • 27
    jalek , October 28, 2009 3:02 AM
    Sony's just angry that they can't add rootkits to camcorders.. yet.
  • 21
    nicklasd87 , October 28, 2009 3:03 AM
    A better statistic to show the alleged decline of movie production would be the dollars spent on movie production, not the number of movies produced. A lower number of titles does not necessarily mean a lower amount of money spent. And also, the rise in video games also has a huge impact on movie sales, don't forget about that little statistic.
  • -7
    gerohmygosh , October 28, 2009 3:03 AM
    It sucks that I know that's true... but I still can't help it. =]
  • 18
    megamanx00 , October 28, 2009 3:05 AM
    While piracy is a problem we shouldn't be mislead here. Sony is looking out for Sony, not the small film maker. The internet can help small film makers succeed where they wouldn't have before. Just look at what the internet has done for Red Vs Blue! Rather than evolve and find a new way to make money, Sony is mostly just complaining here.
  • 21
    anonymous@guest , October 28, 2009 3:05 AM
    First off....I'm not in favor of pirating anything but......

    Why does Sony and other think that the people pirating the movie would actually go and pay for it? If you are willing to watch a cam, chances are you WOULD NOT pay for it in a theater. To those that have 1000's of songs....Would you have that many if you had to pay for each one? NO!!

    Again, I'm not making a case for Pirating, I'm just pointing out that there may actually be very little revenue that is lost because many of the pirated files, just wouldn't be paid for.
  • 2
    dheadley , October 28, 2009 3:08 AM
    I've always wondered, is there not a technology that theaters could deploy that would not interfere with a person watching a movie, but would saturate a video camera or in some way render the image useless, especially with CCD based cameras? I'm sure that a great deal of pirating goes on by some of the theater operators themselves, but it would remove the crappy shaky cam budget jobs from taking place.
  • 22
    kutark , October 28, 2009 3:10 AM
    mikemiller7 said it best. The people who are willing to watch a cam version of a movie are certainly not the types who are going to pay 8-20 dollars to watch a movie in a theater. This is just another example of the movie/music industry grossly overinflating the impact of piracy on their sales figures, when the reality is that the economic depression which deeply affected most developed countries is far more likely the cause of the reduced number of films made.
  • 12
    mikepaul , October 28, 2009 3:10 AM
    Look, I paid for Wolverine despite the fact I knew it was available to download. Lots of people did. Hollywood-type need to stop harping on how many fewer Porsches will be in the driveway and concentrate on how many ARE...
  • 9
    tpi2007 , October 28, 2009 3:12 AM
    Sony's comment is blatantly single sided; they forget that nowadays people buy more and more gaming consoles, including the Wii, PS3, Xbox360, Nintendo DS, etc, and PC's; these games have been seling more and more, becoming more and more realistic; I've just read a study from Jon Peddie Research that says that from the second to the third trimester, there has been the largest increse in NINE years un graphic cards sales - 120 million beating the former record of 111 million from the third semester of 2008. - Graphics cards are becoming cheaper, more people are buying them and playing games.

    People are also spending more time online, in social networks such as facebook, and also twitting, blogging, in second life, etc, sending more and more sms, playing games on their iPhones, and Nokias and whatever.

    Sony has to get over it: the day still only has 24 hours and people are having more stuff to spend their leisure time on. Start making games. Oh, wait, you do, you just started with an onverpriced console with a CPU that's hard to program on, Wii and Xbox are only now starting to be at your reach. Well, don't complain so much, adapt. Lowering the price and releasing a slim version was a good starting point.
  • 21
    dark_lord69 , October 28, 2009 3:17 AM
    "...to the theater instead"

    -Well lets see..
    2 tickets $10 each (Ripoff)
    1 bucket of popcorn $7 (Ripoff)
    2 large pops $5 each (Ripoff)
    Total $37 for a night at the movies.
    OR
    $2.99 to rent a movie on the playstation
    ($4.99 at blockbuster)
    2 $1 pops
    $5 for 2 large buckets of popcorn from blockbuster
    Total $14 for a night at home in a comfy couch with surround sound and a big screen TV.

    What the hell would you expect? I stop going to movies a while back. Mostly cause now I have surround sound and a big HDTV. PLUS it's WAAAAYY cheaper!
  • 7
    jalek , October 28, 2009 3:17 AM
    If these dolts at Sony ever saw a cammed movie, they'd know the background chatter's nearly always in Russian, so the comment about releasing in the states being the problem is patently stupid.

    Most theater companies pay a bonus for catching people trying to record movies, like a month's pay for someone earning minimum wage.

    I don't know, I haven't watched one in a long time. None of the new releases are all that compelling, and when they are, I kinda like IMAX if I don't want to wait on the DVD release.
  • 18
    zirbmonkey , October 28, 2009 3:20 AM
    Pixar doesn't have this problem. How about you make movies people want to see?

    They can blame pirating, but that's not true. It's supply and demand. Make good movies, and people will pay to see them. People spend a set amount of money on entertainment, regardless of the season. If your company doesn't entertain, they spend that money elsewhere.
  • 26
    djackson_dba , October 28, 2009 3:21 AM
    Pirating Miley Cyrus is not a crime... it is a condition that requires immediate psychiatric intervention.
  • -4
    bgd73 , October 28, 2009 3:25 AM
    it is really bad. I don't even want to post my silly efforts on you tube. imagine making a career out of movie making...I hope they come up with something. how hard could it be to stop piracy?
  • 5
    trinix , October 28, 2009 3:27 AM
    Maybe, like every other business out there, start spending money wisely and stop overpaying people to show in a movie. Give them a cut of the money, not pay them 1-10 million per movie. Or episode for some of the so called better actors.

    I'm sorry, but why on earth can they complain about how pirates destroy them but never consider lowering prices, reducing costs, lowering too high salaries.

    We have seen enough garbage movies. It's not even worth my time to download them. Stop making junk and blame it on pirates. A lot of movies people just don't even download anymore.

    And a A-team movie without any of the 4 original A-team members is a fail. Don't start with it. Or better yet, even with the original members, don't waste your money. Just put the old eps back on a dvd and sell those. People love to watch those, new a team eps and new A-team movies aren't what we are waiting for.
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