Peter Jackson re: movie piracy. WTF?
Recently, Revision3 & Digg held a Digg Dialogg with Peter Jackson. It was pretty cool, but his answer to one question kind of shocked me.
“How do you feel about movie piracy?”
“Movie piracy is a very dangerous situation. It's literally - it could lead to the death of films. It's that serious, because you have to realize that [...] they have to make sense financially. You have a studio or a company that makes the film, it costs a certain amount of money, and they're only going to continue make those movies if they can earn their money back. And piracy, literally, threatens the ability of those studios to earn their money back. and if we get to a point where the studio makes a movie, and the pirates take most of the money, instead of it going back to the studio, there's only going to be one result. And that result is there will be no more films made. Because it wont make sense anymore, financially. And the pirates will have destroyed everything that we love, which is movies and film entertainment, and it'll be gone. So to me, it is a profoundly disturbing and worrying crime. Because apart from the criminal aspects of stealing money from other people, which I can understand that people think, ‘well, the studio has lots of money, what damage does a little pirate guy do for $10?’ It's actually the real problem that's threatening the entire industry and there may be no more films made as a result." (emphasis mine)
Watch the video here
Um, wow.
This coming from the guy whose first movie was shot as a side project while he was working full time, with the cast consisting of his friends who worked for free.
You can’t kill film. You can’t kill storytelling. It’s human nature to tell stories, and I don’t know if you’ve noticed - but everyone has a camera these days. With the amazing affordability of some pretty decent equipment, and, ironically, the internet, anyone can easily make a film and get it out there.
The most extreme result of piracy would be that maybe Hollywood will have to start living less extravagantly. Actors can have 2 Ferraris instead of 5. Salaries can be 5 digits instead of 7. Because if they won’t, there are plenty of independent filmmakers doing it already. And, maybe quality will be the deciding factor for which movies are successful, instead of wealth. People will start making movies because their hearts are in it, instead of just as a get-rich-quick scheme.
It reminds me of this post by DemonBaby regarding the music industry - this is a must read for anyone on the internet. And the same applies to the movie industry. They need to figure out digital distribution quick - before the pirates hand control over to the indies.
“How do you feel about movie piracy?”
“Movie piracy is a very dangerous situation. It's literally - it could lead to the death of films. It's that serious, because you have to realize that [...] they have to make sense financially. You have a studio or a company that makes the film, it costs a certain amount of money, and they're only going to continue make those movies if they can earn their money back. And piracy, literally, threatens the ability of those studios to earn their money back. and if we get to a point where the studio makes a movie, and the pirates take most of the money, instead of it going back to the studio, there's only going to be one result. And that result is there will be no more films made. Because it wont make sense anymore, financially. And the pirates will have destroyed everything that we love, which is movies and film entertainment, and it'll be gone. So to me, it is a profoundly disturbing and worrying crime. Because apart from the criminal aspects of stealing money from other people, which I can understand that people think, ‘well, the studio has lots of money, what damage does a little pirate guy do for $10?’ It's actually the real problem that's threatening the entire industry and there may be no more films made as a result." (emphasis mine)
Watch the video here
Um, wow.
This coming from the guy whose first movie was shot as a side project while he was working full time, with the cast consisting of his friends who worked for free.
You can’t kill film. You can’t kill storytelling. It’s human nature to tell stories, and I don’t know if you’ve noticed - but everyone has a camera these days. With the amazing affordability of some pretty decent equipment, and, ironically, the internet, anyone can easily make a film and get it out there.
The most extreme result of piracy would be that maybe Hollywood will have to start living less extravagantly. Actors can have 2 Ferraris instead of 5. Salaries can be 5 digits instead of 7. Because if they won’t, there are plenty of independent filmmakers doing it already. And, maybe quality will be the deciding factor for which movies are successful, instead of wealth. People will start making movies because their hearts are in it, instead of just as a get-rich-quick scheme.
It reminds me of this post by DemonBaby regarding the music industry - this is a must read for anyone on the internet. And the same applies to the movie industry. They need to figure out digital distribution quick - before the pirates hand control over to the indies.