

Researchers find Megaupload shutdown hurt box office revenues - derpenxyne
http://thenextweb.com/insider/2012/11/24/researchers-find-megaupload-shutdown-had-a-negative-effect-on-box-office-revenues/

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paulgb
Direct link to paper:
[http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/Delivery.cfm/SSRN_ID2176246_code...](http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/Delivery.cfm/SSRN_ID2176246_code1545989.pdf?abstractid=2176246&mirid=1)

Someone more statistical than I can correct me on this, but by using on
average 21 observations per movie (presumably for different weeks), aren't
they creating dependence between observations which will artificially increase
the p-values and r-squared?

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1337biz
Am I understanding this right, that this papers hasn't even been peer-reviewed
and are just 3 pages uploaded by the authors to ssrn?

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iamben
Haven't read the paper, but just based on the article I'd be curious to see
the affect on blockbusters compared to say, their rotten tomatoes scores (or
whatever). It'd be interesting to see whether the opposite of the reasoning
applied for the smaller movies people may not have heard of ("I saw xxxxx, it
was great you should see it") applies to the blockbusters with a lot of
publicity and promotion behind them ("Yeah, I downloaded xxxxx, it was
dreadful..").

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darrencauthon
If this was true (and I'm dubious of the "find"), it should be something for
movie makers to consider when it comes to distributing their movies.

What this shouldn't be used for, though, is the default excuse by pirates when
stealing intellectual property. "My theft actually helps, see?!?!?" Even if
there is some financial gain, more is lost when the fundamental IP rights are
stolen.

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klibertp
I refuse to acknowledge the word "steal" as appropriate here. "Intellectual
property" stealing was known for ages and described the process of depriving
someone of attribution of his work. I can steal a poem if I recite it as my
own. This is stealing, theft, and was recognized as such since really long
ago.

OTOH, if I print, or make a handwritten copy of this same poem, preserving the
name of the author, I'm not stealing. It may be debatable what I actually did,
but I did not steal.

Every time I see well defined concept being reused to mean something different
than it meant for hundreds of years I'm cautious. I think everyone should be.

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johnchristopher
If one prints copy of "this same poem" and sells it or distribute if for free
(and there is no free lunch) then one stole the printing rights that the
author granted (for a sum of money or a regular paycheck) to the official
printer (the one who has a contract with the author). Regarding books, ideas
are more or less free, the materialization of that work of thought into our
physical realm (be it dead pieces of cellulose or bits on magnetic support),
however, is not.

Kant wrote a bit about it.

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driverdan
I really wish HN had a rule against blogspam like this. How about the original
post: [http://torrentfreak.com/megaupload-shutdown-hurt-box-
office-...](http://torrentfreak.com/megaupload-shutdown-hurt-box-office-
revenues-121124/)

Or maybe the paper itself?
<http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2176246>

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runn1ng
I am too lazy ... ummm busy to read the paper right now, but well, is it
really causation, or some very, very weak correlation?

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jbri
For massive blockbusters they do find a negative effect, the positive impact
is mainly for lesser-publicized movies without the massive advertising budget
funneled into them.

It's always hard to tell with statistics, but I don't think it's a stretch to
suggest that the extra publicity from file sharing outweighs the negative
effects for those smaller movies.

~~~
aptwebapps
I imagine that most of the people who would want to see a blockbuster will
know about it due to the overwhelming marketing. At the other end of the
marketing budget spectrum the movies probably rely on word of mouth which
would probably get a boost from file-sharing.

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brackin
Why don't film makers put the first 10 minutes of a film on Bittorrent a week
or month before release? This could offer many of the advantages and still
allows them to earn direct revenue. I know some have tried similar models and
other studies have shown leaks help the success of a film.

~~~
runn1ng
Well, they already make trailers and put them to every videosharing site
possible.

If you add all footage from the trailers, it can be about 10 minutes, maybe
more.

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pbhjpbhj
Movie trailers are awful now. They generally show you all the important points
of the movie and all the best SFX. Sometimes the movie is worse than the
trailer. First 10 minutes sounds great - you'd know if you want to see more or
not from that but it wouldn't [in most cases] give the whole plot away.

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MojoJolo
Agree. I assume some of the trailers of the movies are automatically
generated. There are these groups in my university conducting research of
generating trailers / sound effects / background music. Choosing the best
scenes in the movie automatically and combined them in a good way.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
What inputs are they using to chose the best scenes. Is it based only on the
movie? Audience reactions at screenings? Sounds interesting.

You could presumably then tailor trailers to particular groups to emphasise
desired attributes.

Downside to that is that if you sit through a few trailers you could literally
have seen a-third of the movie before you go to watch it.

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Empro
The story's title is different, but I guess it doesn't fit on HN?

