Former Disney Digital Boss Says He “Loves Piracy”

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This is a bit of an odd stance for a former movie executive to take when it comes to piracy but he does have a point about piracy being an indicator of content popularity. I think that once Hollywood accepts the fact pirated movies do not necessarily equal a lost sale, they can work toward converting casual pirates with better content pricing and availability.

Entertainment industry workers usually speak about illegal downloading in the harshest of terms but for one former Disney executive, it has its upsides. Speaking at the huge All That Matters conference, Samir Bangara admitted that he "loves" piracy as it's a great indicator of content popularity.
 
In the Netherlands playboy "leaks" their own pictures to create media attention in the hope they sell more print. Those pictures aren't very good and you know it creates interest.
With films it is the same one of that last Tarantino flicks was the same it was out because it could create some attention and draw people in.
What is sad is that the same movie industry is saying piracy is killing their business and make record profits the same year.
 
Guess who won't be having a long career with the Disney corporation.

Edit: Reading comprehension failure. Title says Former.
 
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Makes sense, some are going to pirate just because, others might go "holy shit that Pixar flick was off the hook, I need to see that shit in the big screen" and a pirated copy turns into a future sale (or multiple future sales)
 
Pieter3dnow said:
In the Netherlands playboy "leaks" their own pictures to create media attention in the hope they sell more print. Those pictures aren't very good and you know it creates interest.
With films it is the same one of that last Tarantino flicks was the same it was out because it could create some attention and draw people in.
What is sad is that the same movie industry is saying piracy is killing their business and make record profits the same year.
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If the Tarantino flick you're talking about was the H8teful Eight. That leaked because of the Sony hack and wasn't intentional. A ton of movies leaked before their theaterical release.
 
I thin he's right, piracy would actually create markets and fans, when there where none I would think.
 
Steve said:
I think that once Hollywood accepts the fact pirated movies do not necessarily equal a lost sale, they can work toward converting casual pirates with better content pricing and availability.
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How dare you use common sense when the current policies are working so well........ Off with their heads!
 
Steve said:
I think that once Hollywood accepts the fact pirated movies do not necessarily equal a lost sale, they can work toward converting casual pirates with better content pricing and availability.
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I believe that Louis CK has already demonstrated that principle. Reasonable price for a product, people are willing to pay for it. Be greedy, everyone will know it, and your customers will be greedy too. Sort of one of those 'for every action, there's an equal and opposite reaction' type of things. Which greedy people refuse to accept. They want to be the only ones who are greedy, and will work continuously to try to make it that way. Because.......they are greedy.
 
nightfly said:
I believe that Louis CK has already demonstrated that principle. Reasonable price for a product, people are willing to pay for it. Be greedy, everyone will know it, and your customers will be greedy too. Sort of one of those 'for every action, there's an equal and opposite reaction' type of things. Which greedy people refuse to accept. They want to be the only ones who are greedy, and will work continuously to try to make it that way. Because.......they are greedy.
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Yes. Louis CK. I pay for his work. Very worth it, excellent price. I watched his videos on why he does it and how, and I was sold. I go out of my way to buy and support him.

Piracy can be hit or miss. Don't advertise that it's out there and you're just letting it be. But, don't go all out to destroy it.
 
sfsuphysics said:
Makes sense, some are going to pirate just because, others might go "holy shit that Pixar flick was off the hook, I need to see that shit in the big screen" and a pirated copy turns into a future sale (or multiple future sales)
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Really? Maybe, I can say that isn't me.

But I have bought content that I had seen previously as pirated content, but it's only with series where I have already started collecting it, so I know I am going to finish the collection. But I do not think I have ever seen a movie on removable media, file format, or streamed, and then decided I just had to go see it at the theaters.

For me, the theaters are reserved for very special shows, for instance, Fury. Fury was the first move ever produced with an actual German Tiger tank from World War 2. I've always been a military buff and anyone who is into tanks and such realized that for over 60 years Hollywood has used everything in the world to portray a Tiger tank except a real Tiger tank. Sometimes it's painting black cross on old American tanks, sometimes it's building a fake mock up on old Russian T-34 tanks, but it was never a real Tiger, until Fury. So hell yea, when Fury released I went to the theaters to see it as big and close as possible.
 
At some point, they need to simply fess up to the fact that they need to sell digital copies that users can keep in their libraries for a reasonable small fee, and the volume of sales will add up. There's no reason they couldn't still make a fortune on $1 regular movies, and $2 blockbuster A-class type films. Yes, the revenue would be way lower than the $30 BluRays, but the distribution can cost you nothing if they adopt a bittorrent type distribution system, and the sheer volume of people pumping out $2 at a time would result in massive revenues.

Instead, we see $100 Bluray kits for a couple seasons of Game of Thrones, or some such nonsense, and they wonder why some people resort to piracy.
 
Ducman69 said:
At some point, they need to simply fess up to the fact that they need to sell digital copies that users can keep in their libraries for a reasonable small fee, and the volume of sales will add up. There's no reason they couldn't still make a fortune on $1 regular movies, and $2 blockbuster A-class type films. Yes, the revenue would be way lower than the $30 BluRays, but the distribution can cost you nothing if they adopt a bittorrent type distribution system, and the sheer volume of people pumping out $2 at a time would result in massive revenues.

Instead, we see $100 Bluray kits for a couple seasons of Game of Thrones, or some such nonsense, and they wonder why some people resort to piracy.
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It can even be higher than $2.

Seriously, give me blu-ray downloads that I DON'T need to be on-line to watch and charger me $5 a pop, I'd be all over that. The problem is that they want me to stream the damn thing over and over at worse quality, or shell out $10-15 for the disk and split that with the retailer, etc.

Heck I might even bite at $10a pop as much as I do now on disks, and they'd keep more of the pie.
 
Steve said:
This is a bit of an odd stance for a former movie executive to take when it comes to piracy but he does have a point about piracy being an indicator of content popularity. I think that once Hollywood accepts the fact pirated movies do not necessarily equal a lost sale, they can work toward converting casual pirates with better content pricing and availability.

Entertainment industry workers usually speak about illegal downloading in the harshest of terms but for one former Disney executive, it has its upsides. Speaking at the huge All That Matters conference, Samir Bangara admitted that he "loves" piracy as it's a great indicator of content popularity.
Click to expand...
I wonder what the true ratio is. The idea that it is a 1:1 ratio is ridiculous. While it does impact sales in a small way, piracy also has an intangible affect of drumming up curiosity in certain movies and music. I have know people that end up buying the real deal after pirating a movie, but not so much music. I think this is true for people who watch telesync'd copies. Part of the experience is the quality of the medium.
 
nightfly said:
I believe that Louis CK has already demonstrated that principle. Reasonable price for a product, people are willing to pay for it. Be greedy, everyone will know it, and your customers will be greedy too. Sort of one of those 'for every action, there's an equal and opposite reaction' type of things. Which greedy people refuse to accept. They want to be the only ones who are greedy, and will work continuously to try to make it that way. Because.......they are greedy.
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The music industry is noting the trend and some are providing similar services. Bandcamp offers a lot of similar services where you can listen to music for free, but choose to pay for it. A lot of bands offered varying pricing much like humble bundles where you can pay what you want for the music. Bandcamp - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 
Take it to two extremes and see what the effect is on sales;

1st, It's completely impossible to pirate a movie in any manner.

2nd, Piracy is legal and you can get any movie you want on release date, free.

Anyone want to make any predictions on these two cases?
 
raz-0 said:
Heck I might even bite at $10a pop as much as I do now on disks, and they'd keep more of the pie.
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Amen brother, at least cut out all the middle-men that add no value and only cost and complexity and headache.

Simple. Fast. Cheap.
 
In the us we have this thing called a public library system... most people that grew up in the last twenty years do not know what they are. But they proved that most people want to know they are getting a good story before they spend money on something that may cut into their food or game budget. piracy would go away if enough of the content was actually appealing. Something that is appealing you want to see more than once. So you buy a copy so you don't have to hope to find a free copy at a library... or maybe you don't want a copy handled by other people. Thing is Intelligent people know that if you don't pay the people creating the good stuff no one makes anymore good stuff.
 
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