

File ‘sharing’ or ‘stealing’? If IP is property, where is the property tax? - nickb
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oew-healey18feb18,0,5092348.story

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kajecounterhack
Heres the problem I see: should it ever come to a point where ripping DVDs and
downloading ripped movies is totally legal, will studios then have an
incentive to produce quality movies?

Won't it hurt _us_ if they stop making movies we like to watch, because they
can't turn a profit?

I see the guy's point, but it could prove to be an unfortunate truth.

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bayareaguy
"An inconvenient truth" was one of the better movies I've seen recently. It
didn't cost all that much to make and has turned out to be quite profitable.

The big studios would like us to believe production expense is related to
quality, but I doubt that's the case.

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pchristensen
Bingo. It's hard to predict things like story quality or actor chemistry, so
those things are not good investments (from the POV of the studios), even if
they can have bigger effects on earnings. This is why so many sequels get made
- it takes the unpredictability out of story and screen chemistry.
Unfortunately, the only way to find the limit is to beat the story/characters
to death.

Things that do provide predictable financial returns are:

\- big stars (basically a marketing expense, although they can affect
chemistry in unpredictable ways - see DaVinci Code, The)

\- visual effects, since given the same story, a pretty movie will do better
than an ugly movie. But everyone has chased this one to the point of
diminishing returns, and the audience expectation here is through the roof.

\- production quality (things like editing, lighting, etc) - but this is so
universally high quality that it's now more of an expense of doing business
than a differentiating quality.

Basically, expensive movies tend to do well because studios throw money at
areas with more predictable returns. And since the studios have quarterly
earnings reports and shareholders, etc, that's what they focus on.

