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Re:Swiss Copyright Law: Downloading Stays Legal, No Site Blo... by m000 on Thursday September 19, 2019 @09:53AM (#21016157)
Essentially repeating the same BS analogies with the "would you steal a car" campaign 20 years ago.

The commercial success of movies is measured at the cinema screenings. This is implicitly accepted even by studios. When a film is labeled as a failure, it is because it didn't break even at the cinema. Given that, I'm all in for heavy-handed crackdown on pirating content still screening at cinemas.

Whatever comes after cinema screenings, is just milking the cow for as long as the current laws permit it. The problem in the case of USA, is that the law permits this virtually forever. So this is a case where the law is being antisocial, enforcing copyright protection of works that should have been in the public domain long time ago. Good for Swiss people that they're not living in a USA protectorate and they can have their own laws.

Re:Swiss Copyright Law: Downloading Stays Legal, No Site Blo... by tptacek on Thursday September 19, 2019 @02:12PM (#21018909)
Isn't this, like, the opposite of the truth? Theater revenue is a small fraction of the total revenue from a film. From where did you draw the impression that it was otherwise?
Re:Swiss Copyright Law: Downloading Stays Legal, No Site Blo... by likpok on Thursday September 19, 2019 @05:22PM (#21020887)
I've seen some industry insiders talk about how box-office takings effectively "snapshot" later earnings. So the TV syndication rights or streaming rights will pay out based on the box office (and possibly even just the opening weekend).

Certainly this isn't always true: The Room has been running for a long time, and is now presumably much more valuable than its initial box office would suggest. But I don't think that most movies become cult hits, and their revenue is probably closely related to initial box office.

I don't have a source for this beyond reddit comments though.

Re:Swiss Copyright Law: Downloading Stays Legal, No Site Blo... by m000 on Thursday September 19, 2019 @03:25PM (#21019708)
"In the film and media industry, if a film released in theatres fails to break even by a large amount, it is considered a box office bomb (or box office flop), thus losing money for the distributor, studio, and/or production company that invested in it." [1]

Also keep in mind that Hollywood typically inflates costs to avoid taxes and royalties [2].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_biggest_box-office_bom... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollywood_accounting

Re:Swiss Copyright Law: Downloading Stays Legal, No Site Blo... by tptacek on Thursday September 19, 2019 @03:59PM (#21020085)
Yeah, you haven't answered the question. A box-office bomb does badly at the box office; that's all it means.
Re:Swiss Copyright Law: Downloading Stays Legal, No Site Blo... by m000 on Thursday September 19, 2019 @07:27PM (#21021751)
Yeah, you're not very good at reading. What part of "thus losing money for the distributor, studio, and/or production company that invested in it" did you miss? Would "box office flop" even exist as a term if the box office was not the main source of revenue for films?

And since we're here, from where did you draw the impression that it was otherwise?

Re:Swiss Copyright Law: Downloading Stays Legal, No Site Blo... by tptacek on Thursday September 19, 2019 @08:01PM (#21021976)
From a source that actually broke down revenue from movie releases between box office and home viewing, thus refuting your original argument?
Re:Swiss Copyright Law: Downloading Stays Legal, No Site Blo... by ryandrake on Thursday September 19, 2019 @12:28PM (#21017791)
It's also the old "nothing would exist without scarcity and profit motive" argument.

If Star Trek style replicators were invented today, there'd be people trying to ban them.