Piracy, what piracy? Avengers smashes box office records - 3 lessons
The Avengers had a $US200.3 million opening weekend, smashing the previous all-time record set by Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 ($US169.2m), says Box Office Mojo
And that was just North America. Overseas, it pulled in another $US441m, says The New York Times.
Congratulations to Disney.
What can we learn?
1. While piracy is out there, it evidently is not killing the motion picture industry.
2. Let people pay to watch a movie. The Avengers didn't quite get simultaneous worldwide release, but it hit screens in many countries, including New Zealand, at the same time. Fewer frustrated viewers in the colonies means less opportunity for pirates.
Alas, on past form, this philosphy is unlikely to apply to the movie's release schedule on commercial download services - with predictable results.
Pity. Netflix, iTunes US and others have shown that, given the opportunity, a big majority will pay to download (Netflix alone now accounts for more traffic than pirate favourite BitTorrent).
Lawmakers' priority should be to protect copyright, not traditional broadcasters' and distributors' outdated business models.
3. Make a good movie. With Joss Whedon as director.
Separately, congrats to the guys at Syrp - who are now up to $US249,000 on Kickstarter.com.
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Piracy, what piracy? Avengers smashes box office records - 3 lessons
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