Miramax CEO says Apple a bigger threat to movie industry than piracy - Page 2

Handbrake + (insert disc rental service here) = worse threat than Apple.

And those kind of comments tempt me to prove it...

Isn't that what Bugs Bunny says?

This man is nuts. Apple has made it easy for people to watch movies via iTunes. Additionally, Apple has carefully curated a demographic that is willing to spend the money on movies where as other platforms do not have an audience who is proven to spend the amount of money Apple customers will for a given product. \ If they don't want my business I'm happy to spend my money elsewhere.

This guy is just upset that he is no longer the distribution channel ... if he focuses on good content, it will get distributed to a wide audience by Apple and others.

Quit whining.

See, I'm so sure about that.

Sorry, I'll clarify: just the very beginning. I'm not so sure about that.

Apple's 720p stuff is generally 4GB and, from what I've read, heard, and seen, not the best quality, even for 720p.

However, I encode my 1080p stuff at 4GB and, to me, it looks great. I'd love to provide screenshots for comparison with other people's 720p stuff, so if that's desired, we could find movies in common and compare qualities.

I dunno. 1080p won't be a huge deal (either in file sizes or migration thereto), but that's what I think.

precisely!

I don't see how that's Apple's fault. The use of ridiculous hyperbole doesn't exactly help their case. The music industry was fruitlessly trying to push the $10-$15/mo "buffet" model. Also, start-ups found the media industries to be hard to work with, so who knows how many opportunities they scuttled by being obstinate?

Take a hike, Mike.

It's so clear now how the entertainment, technology and financial industries have lost their way. Well, you reap what you sow.

The movie industry makes films. Apple wants to distribute them. What's the freakin' problem? The movie industry needs to move out of the 19th Century.

The only reason Apple dominates the music industry is because of momentum and ease of use. If the music industry hadn't had its collective head up its ass, they could have banded together to make a distribution system that worked as well as iTunes.

Similarly, the movie industry (and TV) could come up with a unified distribution system with a unified DRM schema across the industry that would negate the need for Apple, but again they cant seem to come to grips with what consumers want.

How can you blame Apple for filling a void that you refuse to fill?

Traditional Distribution Channels are crapping themselves knowing Studios and Artists will soon be able to distribute directly with Apple.

That's what scares them to death.

Artists will control the process.

Apple sets a rather firm cut on things and has tried to influence pricing. They never adopted blu-ray. I think these guys are worried about losing control with distribution being funneled primarily through one company. There is most likely a fear that without more distribution channels they will have little negotiating power.


It makes sense. They want to make money like any other company (Apple included). Margins are always a consideration.


Just to state it once more, these guys fear one large company having too much control. If Apple becomes the primary method for distribution and the others wither, Apple will be able to dictate whatever terms it likes. Keep in mind if the situation was in reverse most of the people on this board would still take Apple's side on the matter. I'm really not sure this article gives a full context anyway.

Ok, now they say its better to pirate their films than buy from iTunes?!? Okay dokey! Im of to pirate some Miramax film that I would otherwise have bought!

Even if the iTunes store would dominate movie sales/rentals, which it doesn't right now, it is not the competition between suppliers that counts, but the competition between and the popularity of productions. Especially good productions will benefit.

Sure, the movie theatres may suffer if everybody starts watching movies at home, but the movie industry as a whole can only benefit from the bigger accessibility of movies to the masses. If there is any disequilibrium between movie pricing, it is the tickets in the movie theatres that are way too expensive. You usually don't go to the movies alone, transportation and parking tickets are not free either, beverages and pop corn at ridiculous prices all add to the bill of one night at the flicks. The consumer's decision is quickly made.

People who go to the movies (e.g., a mall with 12 theatres) often haven't decided on what movie they intend to see. If they can't get into one of their favorites, they will buy a ticket for a lesser grade movie, much like what happens with buying music CDs, where the lesser tracks are bought because they come together with what people are really interested in.

Increased competition may mean better quality, not something Miramax seems to be worrying about.

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One more thing: What exactly is the Movie Industry (which needs to survive, obviously) ? Check all that apply.
- The movie studios
- Some (or every possible) middle man
- The consumer

So... Apple offering movies gets in the way of movies reaching a wider audience, and the movie companies desire to offer lower prices.

I am skeptical

The problems of the American entertainment industry have nothing to do with communications technology and everything to do with their their product. They've very little to offer beyond a hyper-conservative, formulaic, rehash of 20th century clichés, sensationally degraded beyond recognition in a futile attempt to inject novelty into what has long since become as tediously uniform as the dripping of a leaky faucet. Both the film and music industries have been aesthetically, intellectually, artistically, ethically, and spiritually bankrupt for so long that it's financial failure is a consummation devoutly to be wished. They're parasitic, sapping the vitality out of an entire culture by depriving it of art, which - all bombast aside - is a basic human need up there with food, companionship, and a reasonably safe place to sleep.

Their obsession with short-term profits and form over content has finally caught up with them. Their market now treats their products and their producers with all the respect due disposable trash. Given that the primary goal of the industry is duping people into paying to be targets for advertising, stealing their product, giving it no more than the 30 seconds of attention it deserves, throwing it away, and forgetting about it is not just the only sane approach to it, but a decidedly moral one.

After all, what would we call someone who avidly purchased a $25 bag of potato chips and treated it as haute cuisine? A chump.

Damned, I bought a movie yesterday. Maybe I should request a refund from Apple on the base Miramax prefers piracy?

I was channelling Bugs.

Except that he then goes on to declare, "May the best service win." WTF is that supposed to mean? It's the very fact that the best service is winning that he doesn't like!

What's even more disgusting is that he waited for Steve Jobs to pass away before he gathered the balls to speak his mind. What an asshole.

This article is completely mis-titled.

He's not suggesting Apple is a threat to the movie industry, he's suggesting that a the complete lack of competition and options for digital distribution is the threat. There's a huge difference.

What I truly don't understand is how on earth media companies STILL haven't got their act together to sort this out. Why is iTunes still the only digital store of any note?

I think it's completely erroneous to suggest iTunes has harmed music. Music companies make money from iTunes sales. They pay Apple their cut, but that cut isn't being paid to Walmart or Amazon or HMV etc., they also don't have physical media costs.

I wish these companies would stop moaning about a perfectly legitimate enterprise like iTunes and do something about it if they hate it so much. The last time I looked, Apple don't make movies. The world doesn't owe you a living!

I agree. Unless Apple demanded and received exclusivity, Apple is not hindering wider distribution. And if there was increased distribution of such movies with more vendors, that increased competition might actually hurt the studios because prices would tend to fall. And even if the above poster is correct and the exec is decrying the lack of digital distribution options, I think that's ridiculous as well. There's Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, Sony's service as well as all the VOD services provided by the cable and satellite providers. My recently acquired TV (as well as my BD player and receiver) are all net connected and they provide a wide array of services, from those mentioned above to rent or purchase movies from. And you know what? Apple is not even among them. If anything, the wide array of services available is overwhelming to the average consumer, although certainly a consumer could have accounts with only one or two.

An argument could also be made that the ever-shrinking windows and wider distribution, while helping the studios' cash flow in the short term (and it also reduces some marketing costs), hurts them in the long term because it turns their movies into commodities. IMO, the current very short theatrical windows are going to slowly kill the movie theatres over the long term and without the movie theatres, movies will become "direct to video' disasters. Also, since they tend to now release to non-pay Cable and to DVD/Blu-ray at the same time, they're also hurting physical sales because my experience is that many times when I'm considering purchasing a movie on BD, I've just seen it on cable and therefore, don't bother with the purchase.

And when this Miramax exec talks about "parity in the marketplace", he is coming dangerously close (IMO) to implying price fixing.

Disney and others do a lot of digital work on movies to bring them up to blu ray standards when releasing on blu ray. the picture/sound quality won't be as good as a new release but it's way better than the original movie

Apple killed the music industry only indirectly. It's not the concept of iTunes or the 99 cent downloads that's killed the music industry. It's the fact that the industry has changed from an album model back to a singles model. (And one could argue that Apple saved the music industry from services like Napster, in which most people weren't paying for anything.) Singles were viable in the 1950s and early 1960s because an act would go into a studio and record three songs in a single session. They'd be mixed (if they weren't mixed live) in a few days and the record would be released within a week or two. Today, artists screw around in multiple studios with multiple producers, recording and mastering engineers and take a year to record the equivalent of an album (but sold as singles). That's not sustainable economically when you're only selling a single. And as a result, the music business is half of its 1999 peak and that's not even including inflation. And remember, a single (albeit a two-sided single) listed in the mid-1960s for $1 and generally sold at retail for 66 cents. That's $4.61 in 2011 dollars. And yet we're still buying singles (online) for a dollar.

Back in the progressive rock era, the music labels didn't suddenly decide to try and sell more albums -- consumers wanted those albums because artists were producing quality as well as album concepts. Singles largely became the province of 12-year-old girls and people who still listened to top-40 AM radio as opposed to the album oriented stations on FM. (Which brings up another issue which is that the deregulation of radio and the conglomerate "fast food" radio that has resulted has also helped kill the music industry. Music radio used to drive tremendous sales. Now hardly anyone listens to it.)

The way the music industry can turn this around is to develop artists who are good enough to make an entire album interesting.

But having said that, I would maintain that services like Pandora are actually a bigger threat to the industry than services like Apple's. At least you're still paying by the track with Apple.

You're assuming a lot, I think you need to gather the facts before making such a bold assumption. This story was posted before news of Job's death broke, so I highly doubt your accusation is true.

The biggest threat to movie industry in my view is the movie industry itself. There seems to be more and more movie companies popping up everyday, giving us more and more movies. More movies means the money gets divied up between more movies or movie companies.

As well, I've noticed that movies are going to DVD faster which means they go to the movie channel on TV faster where they can be watched for FREE. Yes, I can actually watch your movie for FREE guys!

There are more movie channels which also hurt the movie industry.

Apple iTunes hurting the movie industry? Yeah, right! If nothing it's helping them by giving everyone easier access. And the only reason no-one can compete with Apple is that no-one can seem to get the same big catalogue as them. As Pokemon says it best, "You have to catch them all!". You need to get all the movies you can in your catalogue.

Well, you're paying for the 'movie TV channel'.




But I'm pickier than most. I've seen far more than this; these are the ones I felt were cinematically worth allocating my (currently) limited space.

I agree to some extent. There is a lot of garbage out there.

Add to that the copycatism. No Strings Attached comes out and a year later, it's Friends with Benefits. Of course, this isn't recent - It's a Bug's Life comes out and a year later, it's whatever the silly copy was called. There is too much tendency to simply copy successful movies.

Then there's the issue of cost. If I take my daughter to see a movie and get drinks and popcorn, we're out nearly $30. Even the discount theaters (with their more limited selection) will set me back $15 for the two of us. For that price, I'm perfectly happy to wait 6 months and watch it on Netflix.

That said, there are occasionally good movies. Avatar was exceptional by almost any standard. If you like the genre, I really enjoyed The Blind Side. No Strings Attached was pretty good, again, if that's the type of movie you like.

I think the problem comes down to the movie theaters never understanding the concept of supply and demand. They have a philosophy of "If you film it, they will come". There seems to be more focus on getting lots of movies out there rather than spending the time, energy, and money releasing a smaller number of very good movies.

Of course, that problem is completely internal to the industry. They can't blame it on Apple or anyone else. Until they learn to focus on quality rather than quantity, their situation isn't going to improve. (BTW, my own view is that the music industry had some of the same problems. Even if piracy hadn't been a problem, I suspect that the music industry would have eventually faced the same problems. The fact that it's much cheaper to make a movie slowed the process down, but didn't stop it).

Apple dominates the music industry, but they got there the hard way. By building the best infrastructure and products and by winning consumer mindshare one person at a time. Not by competing unfairly or by acting in an anti-competitive way.

And what insight did Apple gain to help them design the best infrastructure and products? One of Apple's greatest strengths as a competitor is the ability to analyze another company's business model. Or an entire industry's business model. They analyzed the music industry, understood the old business model, and designed a better business model. Apple, and Steve in particular, knew the music industry better than anyone else, including old-school insiders. And they built an entirely new and better music industry.

Looking at the old-school cronyism, archaic distribution model, and technological backwardness in the movie industry, I can see why Mr. Lang is concerned. Mr. Lang knows that Apple has big plans for movies and TV. That's the next area for disruptive innovation, Apple style, and there's not much Mr. Lang or anyone else in Hollywood can do about it.

iTunes paved the way for Apple's evolution over the past decade. iCloud and media distribution to home and mobile will pave the way for Apple's evolution over the next decade. Movies and TV are going to be a major part of that. It's inevitable.

Has anyone else noticed who is conspicuously missing from the rolls of those acknowledging Steve Job's passing? As near as I can there hasn't been a word, let a lone a tribute from Disney/Pixar, the other company that Steve Jobs saved/founded. Even if the Disney Corporation (which also owns Miramax) is too arrogant to admit they needed "saving," or that the Pixar purchase was a Hail Mary pass, Steve Jobs was still their largest stockholder (right?). The silence from Emeryville/Anaheim/Burbank would seem to be in poor taste.

You are spot on here. Which is why I think that comparing what happened to the music industry to the movie industry is dumb. Unless Apple starts selling scenes from movies, people are going to buy the whole movie.

Keeping Apple out of the game won't increase competition, it will decrease it. But the studios know that. Who would want to buy a blu-ray DVD for $35 if you could stream the movie for a couple of dollars? What would happen is that the price would have to drop on physical media to the point where having the disc was worth the extra money.

When these companies complain that something won't be good for competition they are full of crap. Competition lowers prices. How do lower prices help studios? They don't. He is right though that iTunes would cause them to lose control, but only of control to charge ridiculous prices for mediocre products.

this just in: 'miramax run by idiot'

Someone already pointed out earlier in this thread that Disney sold Miramax last year. But the Disney response is conspicuously absent, they don't even need to say anything about needing saving to throw some accolades onto the pile, though ESPN is 80% owned by Disney. But if bitter rivals join in the game, Disney should but its name in the ring.