Re:Pirated Courses on Udemy
by vacri on Saturday November 28, 2015 @02:51AM
(#10640407)
> Movies cost tens of millions to make and employ hundreds if not thousands.
Couldn't have put it better myself: movies are a pretty small part of the economy, despite the spectacle. Box office takings in the US in 2014 were only about $10B in total - that's really not that big an industry, and high tech in particular eats those numbers for breakfast (insubstantial things like Instagram get bought for $1B, for example). Even if you throw in licensing and merchandising, it doesn't move the needle all that much.
Some comparative examples from other industries - the NYC Port Authority budget for 2015 was about $8B in size; Lowe's hardware has about a $50B turnover annually; the University of Pittsburgh had $2B in revenue for 2014; John Deere had $40B in revenue in 2013. All of these are single-company examples from larger industries, but the numbers give some context to the actual economic oomph of Hollywood.
And not only that, but when you see a movie and see all those names scroll by at the end? Those folks aren't all in full-time jobs. It's not like a movie keeps all the employees in permanent full-time employment. Most of the money that movies make don't go to employing people, but to the profiteers at the top.
So, in short, movies don't make that much money in context, and aren't the wide-ranging employers you're painting them as. They do however make a lot of noise and have an unbelievable amount of political power, given their relative lack of economic might. We don't see Lowe's pressuring the government to enact treaties on their behalf...
> I guess "move fast and break things" is a great motto until it's your stuff getting broken.
Ah, you're right. SV should enhance its integrity by adopting the moral values of Hollywood...
Couldn't have put it better myself: movies are a pretty small part of the economy, despite the spectacle. Box office takings in the US in 2014 were only about $10B in total - that's really not that big an industry, and high tech in particular eats those numbers for breakfast (insubstantial things like Instagram get bought for $1B, for example). Even if you throw in licensing and merchandising, it doesn't move the needle all that much.
Some comparative examples from other industries - the NYC Port Authority budget for 2015 was about $8B in size; Lowe's hardware has about a $50B turnover annually; the University of Pittsburgh had $2B in revenue for 2014; John Deere had $40B in revenue in 2013. All of these are single-company examples from larger industries, but the numbers give some context to the actual economic oomph of Hollywood.
And not only that, but when you see a movie and see all those names scroll by at the end? Those folks aren't all in full-time jobs. It's not like a movie keeps all the employees in permanent full-time employment. Most of the money that movies make don't go to employing people, but to the profiteers at the top.
So, in short, movies don't make that much money in context, and aren't the wide-ranging employers you're painting them as. They do however make a lot of noise and have an unbelievable amount of political power, given their relative lack of economic might. We don't see Lowe's pressuring the government to enact treaties on their behalf...
> I guess "move fast and break things" is a great motto until it's your stuff getting broken.
Ah, you're right. SV should enhance its integrity by adopting the moral values of Hollywood...