MPAA: Europe’s Geo Unblocking Plans Threaten Movie Industry

H

HardOCP News

[H] News
Joined
Dec 31, 1969
Messages
0
Does anyone know what the hell this guy is talking about? How is geo-blocking in the best interests of consumers? Hell, how is it in the best interest of the film industry? Does anyone besides the MPAA benefit from geo-blocking?

MPAA Chairman and CEO Chris Dodd fears that Europe's plans to limit geo-blocking will "cause great harm" to the movie industry. In a keynote address at the CineEurope convention, Dodd warned that broad access to movies and TV-shows will result in fewer films and higher prices for consumers.
 
He's Not wrong.... to spite us they simply could jack up the prices on movies and TV-shows. Charge Hulu, Netflix and all the other sites more to license the shows, it costs paying consumers more and turns more people to piracy which hurts the industry, see it is really a self fulfilling prophecy.
 
Lakados said:
He's Not wrong.... to spite us they simply could jack up the prices on movies and TV-shows. Charge Hulu, Netflix and all the other sites more to license the shows, it costs paying consumers more and turns more people to piracy which hurts the industry, see it is really a self fulfilling prophecy.
Click to expand...

Not if they want to go on existing, jacking up the prices is a way to make sure that alternatives will arise. The film industry may think they can set all the rules but if they do anything really stupid they'll find that they're no longer the film industry when someone else replaces them.
 
Quix said:
Not if they want to go on existing, jacking up the prices is a way to make sure that alternatives will arise. The film industry may think they can set all the rules but if they do anything really stupid they'll find that they're no longer the film industry when someone else replaces them.
Click to expand...
And as cheaper and better alternatives arise it will just cause further hurt and financial harm to the existing film industry. Again he is still correct.
 
Lakados said:
And as cheaper and better alternatives arise it will just cause further hurt and financial harm to the existing film industry. Again he is still correct.
Click to expand...

So you increase your user base by god know what number and it will still hurt. Where the fuck did you go to school? Because that sure as hell is a disaster bigger then some natural ones we have seen past decades ...
 
Lakados said:
And as cheaper and better alternatives arise it will just cause further hurt and financial harm to the existing film industry. Again he is still correct.
Click to expand...
Actually that proves he's wrong. He claimed geo-blocking was good for consumers, you just proved it only benefits the film industry. Alternatives replace outdated and bloated industries everyday.

On top of all that limiting what world news (or other information) I can see using geo-blocking happens everyday and that has nothing to do with piracy anyway as it's free content.
 
If's good for consumers in so far as it prevents me from signing up to services that I'd like to subscribe to...

...this saves me money :/
 
Here's what he's talking about, in a nutshell. Imagine you want to sell your latest movie in America. The agreements they make in America guarantee them a fixed amount of money. Let's say they charge $5.99, making $5 per watch. Now imagine you want to sell your movie in someplace like the Philippines where the median income is much lower. In that region, you're only charging $.12 and making $.10 per watch. Without geolocation, there's nothing stopping people in America from watching the movie on a site in the Philippines, which results in less profit for investors. Since they still make the movies in America where wages and the like are higher, movies then become unprofitable, so you'll see fewer and fewer movies.

Effectively, geolocation provides regional monopolies for the movie industry to enforce pricing at whatever they want to set it at.
 
I believe the MPAA stance on thing can be summed up nicely as: "Everything hurts us, stop doing thing."
 
If banning geo blocking gets me more then the 5% of the us content on netflix go for it.
 
Godlyfrog said:
Here's what he's talking about, in a nutshell. Imagine you want to sell your latest movie in America. The agreements they make in America guarantee them a fixed amount of money. Let's say they charge $5.99, making $5 per watch. Now imagine you want to sell your movie in someplace like the Philippines where the median income is much lower. In that region, you're only charging $.12 and making $.10 per watch. Without geolocation, there's nothing stopping people in America from watching the movie on a site in the Philippines, which results in less profit for investors. Since they still make the movies in America where wages and the like are higher, movies then become unprofitable, so you'll see fewer and fewer movies.
Click to expand...

Although your scenario has some merit, no company sells at a loss just because they want to. If they sell the movie in any location around the world for $.12 they are still making a profit otherwise they would not do it.

All they are doing with geolocation is overcharging in markets where they can get away with it. Rather than charge lower and higher amounts for specific regions, you build a business model to charge the 'correct' amount knowing that anyone on the interwebs can access it.
 
Godlyfrog said:
Here's what he's talking about, in a nutshell. Imagine you want to sell your latest movie in America. The agreements they make in America guarantee them a fixed amount of money. Let's say they charge $5.99, making $5 per watch. Now imagine you want to sell your movie in someplace like the Philippines where the median income is much lower. In that region, you're only charging $.12 and making $.10 per watch. Without geolocation, there's nothing stopping people in America from watching the movie on a site in the Philippines, which results in less profit for investors. Since they still make the movies in America where wages and the like are higher, movies then become unprofitable, so you'll see fewer and fewer movies.

Effectively, geolocation provides regional monopolies for the movie industry to enforce pricing at whatever they want to set it at.
Click to expand...

That's why websites like G2A, Kinguin, etc exist for the gaming industry. You make consumers in one area pay higher prices than other regions. Consumers fight back by going to the other regions and buy the games through shady sources. Gaming Industry cries that they are missing out on sales and consumers are apathetic to them and tell them to "Get over it."

Nowadays I spend more time watching sporting event streams from countries like Spain than anything in America. It started out that the NFL would "blackout" games in my area because of ticket sales. Well that got fixed long ago, but I discovered that I can watch anything if I can find a streaming website. So guess what? I stream everything. I don't even bother to cut my TV on. I'm not sure if it is even plugged in.
 
Denpepe said:
If banning geo blocking gets me more then the 5% of the us content on netflix go for it.
Click to expand...
When netflix announced they're opening for business in my country I was thrilled. Then I realized they're only offering crumbs compared to their US library.

Recently the movie industry realized that delaying movie premiers in some countries only encourages piracy. Why would it be any different with geoblocking?
 
TheBigHead said:
Although your scenario has some merit, no company sells at a loss just because they want to. If they sell the movie in any location around the world for $.12 they are still making a profit otherwise they would not do it.

All they are doing with geolocation is overcharging in markets where they can get away with it. Rather than charge lower and higher amounts for specific regions, you build a business model to charge the 'correct' amount knowing that anyone on the interwebs can access it.
Click to expand...

They subsidise selling the movie for .10 in the philippines from the 5 price in the US. If they sold the movie for .10 everywhere it wouldn't be profitable. But if they didn't sell the movie at all in the philiipines they wouldn't get any income from there.

So selling stuff for different prices in proportion to wages is not a bad idea at all. I have a problem with geo-blocking when the thing is not even available at all. So I should be able to get the content from the US seller, if it's not even sold outside the US. But they block me. That only encourages piracy, nothing else.
 
Godlyfrog said:
Here's what he's talking about, in a nutshell. Imagine you want to sell your latest movie in America. The agreements they make in America guarantee them a fixed amount of money. Let's say they charge $5.99, making $5 per watch. Now imagine you want to sell your movie in someplace like the Philippines where the median income is much lower. In that region, you're only charging $.12 and making $.10 per watch. Without geolocation, there's nothing stopping people in America from watching the movie on a site in the Philippines, which results in less profit for investors. Since they still make the movies in America where wages and the like are higher, movies then become unprofitable, so you'll see fewer and fewer movies.

Effectively, geolocation provides regional monopolies for the movie industry to enforce pricing at whatever they want to set it at.
Click to expand...

Except he's talking about Europe where these things cost MORE than the US. Since you don't strike me as a fool, I'd say you're borderline shilling for these guys.

Here's what the American record music had to say this week in an open letter:
"We ask you to enact sensible reform that balances the interests of creators with the interests of the companies who exploit music for their financial enrichment. It's only then that consumers will truly benefit."
Click to expand...

Are you friends with these guys as well? This is madness.
 
Quix said:
Not if they want to go on existing, jacking up the prices is a way to make sure that alternatives will arise. The film industry may think they can set all the rules but if they do anything really stupid they'll find that they're no longer the film industry when someone else replaces them.
Click to expand...
With what?
 
Godlyfrog said:
Here's what he's talking about, in a nutshell. Imagine you want to sell your latest movie in America. The agreements they make in America guarantee them a fixed amount of money. Let's say they charge $5.99, making $5 per watch. Now imagine you want to sell your movie in someplace like the Philippines where the median income is much lower. In that region, you're only charging $.12 and making $.10 per watch. Without geolocation, there's nothing stopping people in America from watching the movie on a site in the Philippines, which results in less profit for investors. Since they still make the movies in America where wages and the like are higher, movies then become unprofitable, so you'll see fewer and fewer movies.

Effectively, geolocation provides regional monopolies for the movie industry to enforce pricing at whatever they want to set it at.
Click to expand...
Technically, it allows them to sell movies in the Philippines at a price that the people can afford. It is the exactly same reason why text books in India are signficantly cheaper than in the U.S. They can't afford to pay a normal price, so they essentially pay about what it costs to print the book.

in the case of the Philippines, they're pricing it low enough that it's affordable to the local population. This is essentially what they do in every country.
 
M76 said:
When netflix announced they're opening for business in my country I was thrilled. Then I realized they're only offering crumbs compared to their US library.

Recently the movie industry realized that delaying movie premiers in some countries only encourages piracy. Why would it be any different with geoblocking?
Click to expand...
I suspect that some of it is that the rights for a movie in one country are not the same as the rights in the U.S. In some cases, it's not even the same studio that's releasing the movie. The same goes for music. In the U.S., Pink Floyd is on Columbia (post Dark Side of the Moon) and in Europe it's all on EMI/Harvest.
 
M76 said:
I have a problem with geo-blocking when the thing is not even available at all. So I should be able to get the content from the US seller, if it's not even sold outside the US. But they block me. That only encourages piracy, nothing else.
Click to expand...
This is a very reasonable argument (which is uncommon on these boards).
 
dgz said:
Except he's talking about Europe where these things cost MORE than the US. Since you don't strike me as a fool, I'd say you're borderline shilling for these guys.

Here's what the American record music had to say this week in an open letter:


Are you friends with these guys as well? This is madness.
Click to expand...
Music is ridiculously cheap at this point. There has never been a time when music cost less than it does right now. Are you that broke, or do you just like to complain about the music industry (and the film industry) because it's the cool thing to do?

The only exception to that is the price of Vinyl, which is insanely overpriced. Then again, aside from getting it as a collectible, I don't get why people buy it. It's inferior to CDs in every possible way, no matter what Eddie Vedder and Neil Young say.
 
Last edited:
Geo-Blocking is racist. Unless we are talking about those little geo metro cars...blocking those are just good sense:D
 
MPAA: "Squeee.... another way we can get in the news to try and prove we aren't utterly irrelevant!"
 
They keep fighting for the old ways tooth and nail even when common sense and pocket books tell them they should do the exact opposite. It would be funny if it wasn't so tragic. The old dynasty would rather go down in a fiery ball of flaming shit then adapt and would rather pay scummy lawyers every last dime they have vs. becoming more consumer friendlier.
 
Godlyfrog said:
Here's what he's talking about, in a nutshell. Imagine you want to sell your latest movie in America. The agreements they make in America guarantee them a fixed amount of money. Let's say they charge $5.99, making $5 per watch. Now imagine you want to sell your movie in someplace like the Philippines where the median income is much lower. In that region, you're only charging $.12 and making $.10 per watch. Without geolocation, there's nothing stopping people in America from watching the movie on a site in the Philippines, which results in less profit for investors. Since they still make the movies in America where wages and the like are higher, movies then become unprofitable, so you'll see fewer and fewer movies.

Effectively, geolocation provides regional monopolies for the movie industry to enforce pricing at whatever they want to set it at.
Click to expand...


And, by controlling release dates by regions, they control the impact the film can have. Say Ironman4 is coming out and it's going to be a big draw in many countries but in China they are releasing a local film that sure to be a big draw. The industry can either show Ironman4 early in China or late, but they can avoid releasing both at the same time hurting both in the process. Without Geo-Blocking they loose that control.
 
Shotglass01 said:
And with the internet, they already lost that control. :eek:
Click to expand...

Only to a degree. As long as copyright piracy is illegal they will operate under the premise that they will use "legal" means to effect the legally operating world in their favor, and use "legal" means to restrict the illegal world as much as possible.


Face it, they are in the business of making money.

They will make all they can off legally paying customers.

And they will do the same thing, by other means, off of non-paying customers or those who facilitate their entertainment vehicle.

Look, they don't care about anything but making their money. If there are people who, by their own efforts, provide the Entertainment Industry an excuse/opportunity to produce additional income through the courts system do you think they are going to let that opportunity slip through their fingers?
 
I don't mind having to pay a little more...if the quality improves.
 
Only if it's viable. Court 'systems' can be expensive depending on what you're asking for. And, lobbying has to account for a metric ton of cash. Instead, they could just cater to the new norms, forget all this nonsense and move on like any other business. Right now, they're the big tobacco of today and will ultimately lose this as they did back then.
 
HAH geo blocking and all that jazz is a bunch of bull to disguise the true cost of something because these US corporations cannot compete in the global economies without it. Americans pay more for just about everything, especially goods that are "Made in America"

If you really want to see how bull it is, just reverse the argument. If you make a cheap film in the Philippines, and then take it to US theaters, are you going to charge the same ticket prices they did in the Philippines?

Supply and demand is the basis for most economics. Geo Blocking creates an Artificial hindrance to supply while the demand remains the same, thus the prices go up only as far as the local economy is willing to support.

I just find it kind of funny, isn't this "free global economy" what these corporations have always been pushing towards? Cheaper goods better for customers and all? Then why are laws needed to prevent paying customers from seeking out the cheapest prices possible, even if it means waiting 2 weeks for something to be shipped through customs.

A global economy only works if the economy is the same globally.
 
Change your supply model to global, and not regionalised BS, and make it so cheap and easily available that no one would even bother with pirating.

My part of the world, supply, or the lack thereof, is partly why there is a pirating problem. Regions (and limiting supply to a select number of regions) is an extremely archaic form of distribution that has no business in the world where everything is connected by internet.

I see regions as companies basically telling people that they DON'T want our money. If they DON'T want our money, then DON'T expect us to pay it.
 
The MPAA and RIAA should probably hire a publicity firm to help them with their messaging. Any time they make an announcement, it seems to cause hate and anger. I wonder if they could say it in a better way so as not to piss people off. Nah, still won't work as they are greedy bastards.
 
nilepez said:
Technically, it allows them to sell movies in the Philippines at a price that the people can afford. It is the exactly same reason why text books in India are signficantly cheaper than in the U.S. They can't afford to pay a normal price, so they essentially pay about what it costs to print the book.

in the case of the Philippines, they're pricing it low enough that it's affordable to the local population. This is essentially what they do in every country.
Click to expand...

Sure, and it often is a total screw job on the customer. You do know about the supreme court case last year the ruled it was legal for a US company to reimport those books and sell them for cheaper right? You do know that one of the reasons we have out of control health care costs here in the USA is the medical companies are allowed to have monopoly pricing and legally block reimportation of drugs, drugs that are often a factor of 10x or 100x cheaper elsewhere? That it is a felony crime to reimport them? A $100 over the counter scorpion anti-venom dose in Mexico that has a cost of $30k in the USA type of financial rape.

The movie companies in the past few years delay rentals on new movies for 30 days at netflix(dvd) and redbox. Yet they'll rent it via comcast/time warner etc. pay per view/vod for $6 for HD for a 24 hour period. All to drive sales of dvd/blurays and pay per view providers. They have every right to try those marketing schemes and I have every right to laugh in their face and ignore their product. Others will pirate it and I don't care about that at all anymore. Not when these guys are trying to screw me over with a $2 rental via netflix/rebox and a $6 one. It means I care less and less about seeing movies or tv shows.

Hell, Comcast these days charges me to rebroadcast the over the air channels, $2/month.

TLDR, MPAA can go die in a fire. As per usual.
 
Godlyfrog said:
Here's what he's talking about, in a nutshell. Imagine you want to sell your latest movie in America. The agreements they make in America guarantee them a fixed amount of money. Let's say they charge $5.99, making $5 per watch. Now imagine you want to sell your movie in someplace like the Philippines where the median income is much lower. In that region, you're only charging $.12 and making $.10 per watch.
Click to expand...
Does it really work like that anywhere? Because I'm currently in Central America and, from what I've seen, original movie disks cost around 20% more than in the US. People often go to Miami to buy movies cheaper. Original games cost up to 100% more (unless you buy digital downloads which have the same prices as the US).
 
Wiffle said:
HAH geo blocking and all that jazz is a bunch of bull to disguise the true cost of something because these US corporations cannot compete in the global economies without it. Americans pay more for just about everything, especially goods that are "Made in America"

If you really want to see how bull it is, just reverse the argument. If you make a cheap film in the Philippines, and then take it to US theaters, are you going to charge the same ticket prices they did in the Philippines?

Supply and demand is the basis for most economics. Geo Blocking creates an Artificial hindrance to supply while the demand remains the same, thus the prices go up only as far as the local economy is willing to support.

I just find it kind of funny, isn't this "free global economy" what these corporations have always been pushing towards? Cheaper goods better for customers and all? Then why are laws needed to prevent paying customers from seeking out the cheapest prices possible, even if it means waiting 2 weeks for something to be shipped through customs.

A global economy only works if the economy is the same globally.
Click to expand...

Philippine Cinema Price Ticket Rates
I always watch movies at Sta. Lucia theater zone and their price range from php120 -140 for Premiere and php100-115 for Deluxe.
Click to expand...

I'll split it down the middle.

130 Phillipine Pesos = $2.75 USD

This site says the average for 2 tickets in Manila is $11 USD, So $5.50 each.



They say one of the swanky Lazy Boy chair tickets will run you PHP 500 = $10.65 USD

Independance Day 2 is showing here in Sierra Vista, Arizona for $5.25 at Matinee prices and $8.75 regular. The 3D rate is $10.50.

Now I see a difference, but I don't see a huge difference. I wonder how cost of living and wages stack up. It's got to have an effect on this.

Cost of Living in Philippines

In general it looks like;
Cost of living in Philippines is 51.55% lower than in United States (aggregate data for all cities, rent is not taken into account). Rent in Philippines is 81.21% lower than in United States (average data for all cities).
Click to expand...

Now I make $75K as a systems admin in Arizona.
A Systems Administrator earns an average salary of PHP 362,061 per year. Skills that are associated with high pay for this job are Linux and System Administration. Most people with this job move on to other positions after 20 years in this field.
Click to expand...

Which comes to $7,708.79 annually, wages, bonuses and profit sharing included.
Systems Administrator Salary (Philippines)
http://www.payscale.com/research/PH/Job=Systems_Administrator/Salary
Now I am just thinking out loud here sorta, but I am thinking that relatively speaking, it's one hell of a lot more expensive to go see a movie in the Philippines than it is in the US, hell you can triple what they make in wages and I still pay less to watch a movie in the theater.

Anyone want to follow my lead and try this for somewhere else, say .... Ireland. (Rabbit no longer in hat).
 
steakman1971 said:
The MPAA and RIAA should probably hire a publicity firm to help them with their messaging. Any time they make an announcement, it seems to cause hate and anger. I wonder if they could say it in a better way so as not to piss people off. Nah, still won't work as they are greedy bastards.
Click to expand...

So are the people they are talking to. Those big business don't have a monopoly on greed my friend, it's a universal human thing and it doesn't play favorites.

It think the reality of it all falls somewhere in between. I think the industry is right in many ways. I think the customer base is right in many ways. I also think the reason people like Wiffle have ideas like they do is because thy don't think things through for themselves. I think someone else posts some bullshit and it just get's accepted and believed cause it's too much trouble to look at it for themselves to see if it pans out.

His idea that movies are cheaper in the Philippines looks correct on the surface, but as soon as you start digging at it the whole idea falls right on it's face.

And I am not pointing a finger at him on this statement. But I think there are a lot of Americans who believe that we pay more for everything when we actually don't. I live in Arizona, our stores are filled with shoppers from Mexico every weekend and they are not coming here to buy because they can't get these things in Mexico, it's cause it's cheaper.

I think a lot of Americans want to believe they are being taken advantage of because it makes them feel justified in not paying for content that they enjoy. It justifies their own greed. Like I said, greed works both sides of the street.
 
Last edited:
dgz said:
Except he's talking about Europe where these things cost MORE than the US. Since you don't strike me as a fool, I'd say you're borderline shilling for these guys.
Click to expand...

I'm merely trying to explain their position. They sell things regionally at the best prices they think the individual markets can bear. Since the "product" they sell is entirely digital, removing geolocation allows people to buy from the cheapest possible location. You'll note I used the term "monopoly" to describe them, as they are the sole owner and distributor of a specific movie, and control everything about it.

lironmiron said:
Does it really work like that anywhere? Because I'm currently in Central America and, from what I've seen, original movie disks cost around 20% more than in the US. People often go to Miami to buy movies cheaper. Original games cost up to 100% more (unless you buy digital downloads which have the same prices as the US).
Click to expand...

You hit the region thing right on the head when you said, "People go to Miami to buy movies cheaper." Geolocation only really maximizes the movie industry's profits. As I said above to dgz, they are selling it at the best prices the market will bear. If they sell for more, it's because people are willing to buy it, or that's what gives them the best return.

Personally, I think the movie industry needs to figure out either how to profit without laws designed solely to protect them, or let the business fail and allow a replacement to spring up. I'm of the opinion that government interference to protect an industry just invites stagnation in that industry.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top