This is just another in a long-line of poorly reasoned reasons against SOPA.
I don't know if this article touched on the entire "we'll pay for cheap streaming thing", but I've heard it enough times and think it's relevant enough to discuss in this topic.
I'm curious to how much time people are really spending thinking about things from the perspective of the movie studios. For users, it's easy to say "charge me $10/month and I'll gladly pay". From the movie studio's perspective, that probably sounds AWFUL. Does the music industry really like paying fractions of a penny per play on Pandora, Spotify, etc.? Absolutely not. For them, however, it's better than the alternative. For the movie studios, it's not. At least not yet.
The movie business model is designed to price discriminate. They charge consumers on a sliding scale. When a movie first comes out, it's only available in theaters at the cost of, let's say, $10 per person. Then it moves to the second-run theaters at $5 per person. Then it goes to video for $20 to own, or $5 / household to rent. Then it goes to on-demand/redbox/itunes/etc. for $5/6 to rent. Then it goes to premium cable, where money is distributed via pre-arranged agreements. Then it becomes an "archival" video and can be rented for $2/3 at a store or on-demand.
The movie studios are going for maximum profits by attempting to charge people the exact price they're willing to pay, when they're willing to pay it. Of course, they have to settle for inefficiencies because they cannot create a perfect discrimination model.
Regarding the pedants of the "stealing" thing, what you're stealing when you pirate something is missed revenues. Just because you're taking a digital good instead of a physical one should have no effect on the outcome of your actions. If you steal a physical CD that normally costs $12.99, you're not stealing $12.99 worth of stock from the music industry. The margins are purposefully high on CD's, and you're stealing those margins, not $12.99 worth of a physical product.
I don't know if this article touched on the entire "we'll pay for cheap streaming thing", but I've heard it enough times and think it's relevant enough to discuss in this topic.
I'm curious to how much time people are really spending thinking about things from the perspective of the movie studios. For users, it's easy to say "charge me $10/month and I'll gladly pay". From the movie studio's perspective, that probably sounds AWFUL. Does the music industry really like paying fractions of a penny per play on Pandora, Spotify, etc.? Absolutely not. For them, however, it's better than the alternative. For the movie studios, it's not. At least not yet.
The movie business model is designed to price discriminate. They charge consumers on a sliding scale. When a movie first comes out, it's only available in theaters at the cost of, let's say, $10 per person. Then it moves to the second-run theaters at $5 per person. Then it goes to video for $20 to own, or $5 / household to rent. Then it goes to on-demand/redbox/itunes/etc. for $5/6 to rent. Then it goes to premium cable, where money is distributed via pre-arranged agreements. Then it becomes an "archival" video and can be rented for $2/3 at a store or on-demand.
The movie studios are going for maximum profits by attempting to charge people the exact price they're willing to pay, when they're willing to pay it. Of course, they have to settle for inefficiencies because they cannot create a perfect discrimination model.
Regarding the pedants of the "stealing" thing, what you're stealing when you pirate something is missed revenues. Just because you're taking a digital good instead of a physical one should have no effect on the outcome of your actions. If you steal a physical CD that normally costs $12.99, you're not stealing $12.99 worth of stock from the music industry. The margins are purposefully high on CD's, and you're stealing those margins, not $12.99 worth of a physical product.