NZ film and video market robust despite alleged high-levels of piracy
I’m loath to draw too many conclusions from PwC’s media outlook survey for 2012-16, released today.
For the most part, it takes the trend of the past few years and gently extrapolates them into the future.
And while Chorus CEO Mark Ratcliffe is a smart guy with great company track record, I see him as an interested party rather than a neutral commentator. Same goes for Sky TV boss John Fellet and other exports quoted in the report.
But anyway, for what it’s worth one section caught my eye: the film and video market.
Recent history doesn’t seem to reflect much of an impact from piracy.
And if PwC’s forward figures are correct, it’s going to remain healthy. I don't pirate music or movies. It doesn't sit well with me, even when content is not made available to the NZ market. Instead I choose to buy online content – albeit direct from a commercial North American provider (iTunes US), rather than going through a threadbare official NZ source.
But even when people are out-and-out pirates, the "cost" is often distorted. I know many who download content peer-to-peer, yet also pay full whack to Sky TV each month, and buy commercial content. It's not like if they didn't a dozen movies on the sly they would have spent an extra $100 to rent them.
Click to enlarge.
It's great to see more and more commercial download options available. Given the opportunity, most people will do the right thing.
Similarly, the figures for online music through until this year make interesting reading. This year, it seems with digital music closing in on physical sales, the total market will have a slight uptick:
Click to enlarge.
I don’t hold much truck with the report’s boosterish comments about copper, or predictions of slow fibre uptake.
This is the last Olympics that will be dominated by traditional broadcasting.
Four years from now, everybody will want to watch the Olympics via broadband (which could be feeding a regular TV). There is not a prayer of doing that over copper (which can be fast at quiet times, but not when it gets contended at peak times). And the UFB will reach a tipping point much sooner than that.
I don’t think we’re looking at slow, incremental changes to broadband and mobile data by 2016. Things will be turned on their head.
PwC does not want publications to put its survey on their websites, but you can download a copy from PwC's site if you're willing to fill out a registration form here.
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Comments and questions3
Thus proving that not only do PwC not understand the internet but have no idea about the subject they're writing on either.
The content industry is booming despite (or possibly even because of) piracy, which is a badly misnamed version of something they've been doing for years - offering the content for free so viewers will put up with ads. Instead, they make us criminals for wanting to watch television, movies or sport on our laptops.
morons.
"Given the opportunity, most people will do the right thing."
It depends how you define most in this case (over 50%?) but I'm not so sure a revolution in content provision will be the panacea that is often indicated. To a large degree we already have examples where the content provision is reasonable. Music is readily available through either traditional straight purchase or 'freemium' services (Spotify, etc).
The extreme end of this is software, specifically Microsoft Office. Open Source alternatives are freely available. Extension of the logic that piracy is driven by lack of alternatives to paid content would suggest that illegal downloading of the Office suite should be almost non-existent. Evidence would suggest that this is not the case.
It's hard to take your articles for fact when you make such glearing incorrect statements.
"Four years from, everybody will want to watch the Olympics via broadband (which could be feeding a regular TV). "
Not everybody will want this. Many people like yourself maybe, but your statement is too broad to be correct.
"There is not a prayer of doing that over copper (which can be fast at quiet times, but not when it gets contended at peak times)."
If you think contention only happens on copper then you really have no idea of how networks function. Contention affects all networks not matter what the physical layer is. Fibre is not immune to contention and certainly isn't the majic bullet you think it will be.