American Hustle

Quote: TheWolf713

If you want to talk about criminals, lets talk about the highway robbery being committed and the concessions stands in these theaters!!!!! 500-700% mark up!!!

Quote: gpac1377

I'm still not awake yet, but I think teliot was making a funny.

Quote: teliot

Of course it was a joke. The first reference is to hot buttered pop corn.

Quote: pacomartin

Carmike Cinema lists Revenue from "Concessions & Other" at $196.2 million, and "Concession cost" at $23.2 million (which is 846%).
Average admissions per patron ....................... $6.85
Average concessions and other sales per patron.......... $3.91
Average attendance per screen ........................ 22,032 (60 people per day per screen)

The corporation makes it very clear that they wouldn't have a business unless people payed those ridiculous prices for concessions. You simply can't make enough money by having a theater with over 100 seats, that shows 4 to 5 screenings per day, and has only 60 people per screen per day.

You do have the right to not buy candy, popcorn or soda. However, the company would go out of business if too many people were that thrifty. It does not give you the right to watch a pirated copy of the film.

Quote: teliot

One is a necessity for day-to-day life, the other is used to power cars.

Quote: AxelWolf

Everyone has their own values and beliefs unless it's something terrible I don't judge. I don't think streaming a movie is even close to being something worth pointing out. I just cant stand hypocrites, I know dam well people who are respected including Teliot break the law probably on a daily basis.

Have you ever thrown out some junk mail that came to your in someone else's name? That’s a violation of federal law

have you ever connecting to an unsecure wi fi network? possibly you have your device set to look for the nearest open network or logged on at a restaurant.

I don't know if its true but I hear singing happy birthday in a public place may be copyright infringement

Teliot: if you have ever used a stock photo from online in any of your posts or online on Facebook or anything, you may have been breaking a law in the same way you say streaming is. I see stock photos being used on this site all the time, I'm sure Bob dose this once a week, that's probably a copyright infringement

Quote: LarryS

This is why our society is deteriorated. The idea that everyone breaks the law by going even 1 mile over the speed limit.......and then we all agree murder is illegal....therefore anything inbetween is reasonable.

Respect for other people and other peoples property(including the property of big business) has deteriorated...with that kind of attitude..."well its not murder""well its not as bad as the 9-11 killings" "at least I am not raping women"..."its not as bad as the corrupt politicians selling their votes" "its not as bad as what bernie madoff stole" "people jaywalk...therefore its ok for me to steal this pack of gum" "people speed without consequence, therefore its ok for me to sneak into a movie theater without paying" "people throw out someone elses junk mail...therefore its ok for me to take a waitresses tip from another table when I walk by it".
Geez...people can rationalize theft very easily,

Quote: AxelWolf

Have you ever thrown out some junk mail that came to your in someone else's name? That’s a violation of federal law

Quote: TheWolf713

Ok larry here's one....

There were millions of Native Americans here and they were annihilated by a foreign invader. Is that not theft... Should the country be returned to its rightful owner? But I bet you can rationalize that as well...

Quote: LarryS

yeah..even better...the country stole from and slaughtered native americans....therefore I can steal this pack of gum....excellent

this country put asian americans in camps during wartime...therefore I can go to a movie theater, pay for 1 movie...and stay and see 2 other movies without paying extra

tHis country had legalized slavery......therefore I can skip out on this meal without paying

Bill clinton cheated on his wife while in office....therefore I can stream a new movie without paying

it all makes sense.

There were some atrocities in vietnam...maybe i can rationalize and parlay that into being able to steal and old ladies purse

Quote: wudged

Is that true?

Not that I believe it, as I don't understand how this could be the case, but I've always heard that any mail coming to your address for somebody who does not live there is rightfully yours.

I still get Christmas cards for people who lived at my address 10 years ago!

Quote: LarryS

yeah..even better...the country stole from and slaughtered native americans....therefore I can steal this pack of gum....excellent

this country put asian americans in camps during wartime...therefore I can go to a movie theater, pay for 1 movie...and stay and see 2 other movies without paying extra

tHis country had legalized slavery......therefore I can skip out on this meal without paying

Bill clinton cheated on his wife while in office....therefore I can stream a new movie without paying

it all makes sense.

There were some atrocities in vietnam...maybe i can rationalize and parlay that into being able to steal and old ladies purse

Quote: boymimbo

Regal's numbers are comparable.

Note that the cost of concessions is strictly raw goods and not payroll. So the markup on food is somewhat tempered by payroll.

Quote: AxelWolf

I never said I should do something illegal because someone else is doing something illegal. I said I don't like people being hypocrites.

If i do something I shouldn't its on me and me alone. I have my own morals and lines. I don't need others pushing their values on me especially if they are are guilty of crimes themselves.

You can't compare what I consider victim-less crimes to stealing old lady's purses

Quote: pacomartin

Top U.S. Circuits As of July 1, 2013
Circuit Headquarters Screens Sites
1. Regal Entertainment Group Knoxville, TN 7318 (574)
2. AMC Entertainment Inc. Leawood, KS 4988 (344)
3. Cinemark USA, Inc. Plano, TX 4434 (332)
4. Carmike Cinemas, Inc. Columbus, GA 2476 (249)

Carmike gets about 60 patrons per theater screen day, Regal is close to 90, AMC is higher, and Cinemark is much higher (many screens in Latin America where theaters are not as common).

I believe that of the four circuits, only Cinemark gets enough money from the tickets to cover day to day operation of the theater (salaries and utilities).

Year - Screens - Drive In
2012 39,056 - 606
1987 20,595 - 2,084

It is possible that without the gouging for concessions, that screens would have to be reduced to the numbers of 30 years ago.

Although it's been predicted for a long time, eventually movies aimed at adults are basically going to bypass cinemas. Most adults don't want to drive somewhere and overpay for popcorn to watch a movie. They would rather pay $20 and watch a pay per view and make their own popcorn.

Quote: Buzzard

Doing drugs is victimless. Well, except for the kids. Poor unlucky little bastards.

Quote: boymimbo

Axel, ..., That's hypocrisy!

Quote: teliot

+1. Exceptionally well argued.

Quote: boymimbo

Axel, you saw the movie at home, did you not? You're a part of the population who streamed the movie. You won't be going to the theatre to see it, you won't viewing it on HBO, won't be going to RedBox to rent it, and you won't be loading it via on-demand. And you won't buy the Blu-Ray. Why? Because you saw it for free. Try walking into Walmart and taking 10 chocolate bars and see what happens to you.

And you're not the only one. You're one of hundreds of thousands or perhaps millions who will watch the movie illegally, taking away a small but significant portion of their revenue, taking away money from big business and from the capitalist engine.

Yet people on this site complain about handouts to the poor and needy, ObamaCare, and raising minimum wage, saying it will hurt businesses. They have no problem denouncing those suckling at the government's teats, but have no problem with software piracy and stealing music, tv shows, and other intellectual property directly from the big business who is supposed to be trickling these jobs down to those who can't afford it. That's hypocrisy!

Quote: AxelWolf

I thought a few of you may like this movie.

Quote: AxelWolf

Not sure if its loosely based on a true story or not.

Quote: JohnnyQ

Yep, I saw it at a movie theatre recently and it was pretty good. In contrast, the Wolf of Wall Street was a DOG.



Yep, based on ABSCAM but I think all the details were highly embellished in movie-land.

Quote: teliot

Just by chance, there is going to be 60 minutes episode about "megaupload" -- one of these rogue sites, and the U.S. effort to bring this guy to justice. "U.S. authorities call this guy a copyright thief."

http://www.cbsnews.com/videos/preview-hollywoods-villain/

Quote: boymimbo

I think that the folk who deal with intellectual property (the selling of ideas) and not selling goods or services would be sensitive to this issue.

As for me, before Itunes or Rhapsody came along, I would download for free because there was no way to download music without borrowing it from a friend or buying the entire CD.

When I got my first IPod back in 2004, i started using Itunes and still do, so I haven't pirated anything for years, and I've purchased much of what I downloaded for free.

I also had (and have) absolutely no problem downloading stuff that you used to own for free. That cassette tape of police's Synchronicity that you misplaced? Download it. That DVD of Grease that you had on VHS. Download it. That Barenaked CD that no longer plays track 5 because it's scratched up? Download it. Don't pay for it. The artist has already been compensated for your previous purchase. There is no material cost for downloading. At least that's where my line is.

Quote: AxelWolf

Yet, from what others are saying, that is technically stealing and your justifying doing it. You are taking food from rock stars and movie stars mouths and helping take down a suffering industry. looks like we may have to compare you to a mugger for that.

Quote: RIAA

Music theft is a real, ongoing and evolving challenge. Both the volume of music acquired illegally and the resulting drop in revenues are staggering. Digital sales, while on the rise, are not making up the difference.

Consider these staggering statistics:

-In the decade since peer-to-peer (p2p) file-sharing site Napster emerged in 1999, music sales in the U.S. have dropped 47 percent, from $14.6 billion to $7.7 billion.
-From 2004 through 2009 alone, approximately 30 billion songs were illegally downloaded on file-sharing networks.
-NPD reports that only 37 percent of music acquired by U.S. consumers in 2009 was paid for.
-Frontier Economics recently estimated that U.S. Internet users annually consume between $7 and $20 billion worth of digitally pirated recorded music.
-According to the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation, the digital theft of music, movies and copyrighted content takes up huge amounts of Internet bandwidth – 24 percent globally, and 17.5 percent in the U.S.
-Digital storage locker downloads constitute 7 percent of all Internet traffic, while 91 percent of the links found on them were for copyrighted material, and 10 percent of those links were to music specifically, according to a 2011 Envisional study.

While the music business has increased its digital revenues by 1,000 percent from 2004 to 2010, digital music theft has been a major factor behind the overall global market decline of around 31 percent in the same period. And although use of peer-to-peer sites has flattened during recent years, other forms of digital theft are emerging, most notably digital storage lockers used to distribute copyrighted music.

Q: How much money does the music industry lose from piracy?

There are two categories to consider here: losses from street piracy – the manufacture and sale of counterfeit CDs – and losses from online piracy.

One credible analysis by the Institute for Policy Innovation concludes that global music piracy causes $12.5 billion of economic losses every year, 71,060 U.S. jobs lost, a loss of $2.7 billion in workers' earnings, and a loss of $422 million in tax revenues, $291 million in personal income tax and $131 million in lost corporate income and production taxes. For copies of the report, please visit www.ipi.org.

Quote: Kal Raustiala and Chris Sprigman

...These numbers seem truly dire: a $250 billion per year loss would be almost $800 for every man, woman, and child in America. And 750,000 jobs – that’s twice the number of those employed in the entire motion picture industry in 2010.

The good news is that the numbers are wrong — as this post by the Cato Institute’s Julian Sanchez explains. In 2010, the Government Accountability Office released a report noting that these figures “cannot be substantiated or traced back to an underlying data source or methodology,” which is polite government-speak for “these figures were made up out of thin air.”

More recently, a smaller estimate — $58 billion – was produced by the Institute for Policy Innovation (IPI). But that IPI estimate, as both Sanchez and tech journalist Tim Lee have pointed out, is replete with methodological problems, including double- and triple-counting, that swell the estimate of piracy losses considerably.

So what’s the real number? At this point, we simply don’t know. And this leads us to a second problem: one which is not so much about data, as about actual economic effects. There are certainly a lot of people who download music and movies without paying. It’s clear that, at least in some cases, piracy substitutes for a legitimate transaction — for example, a person who would have bought the DVD of the new Kate Beckinsale vampire film (who is that, actually?) but instead downloads it for free on Bit Torrent. In other cases, the person pirating the movie or song would never have bought it. This is especially true if the consumer lives in a relatively poor country, like China, and is simply unable to afford to pay for the films and music he downloads.

Do we count this latter category of downloads as “lost sales”? Not if we’re honest.

And there’s another problem: even in the instances where Internet piracy results in a lost sale, how does that lost sale affect the job market? While jobs may be lost in the movie or music industry, they might be created in another. Money that a pirate doesn’t spend on movies and songs is almost certain to be spent elsewhere. Let’s say it gets spent on skateboards — the same dollar lost by Sony Pictures may be gained by Alien Workshop, a company that makes skateboards.

As Mark Twain once wrote, there are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics. However true that may be in general, statistics can be particularly tricky when they are used to assess the effects of IP piracy. Unlike stealing a car, copying a song doesn’t necessarily inflict a tangible loss on another. Estimating that loss requires counterfactual assumptions about what the world would have been like if the piracy had never happened — and, no surprise, those most affected tend to assume the worst.

Quote: djatc

Axel just go pay for the movie you have tons of money

Quote: AxelWolf

This coming from a guy who admittedly downloads illegal gay porn and steals hotel towels.

Quote: AxelWolf

This coming from a guy who admittedly downloads illegal gay porn and steals hotel towels.

Also I never said I streamed it, I just gave people the link.

Then I got a lecture from people who probably break the law weekly if not daily. I see people posting stock photos on here all the time. Please lecture them as well. Glass houses, Glass houses

Everyone has there own personal place they draw the line and morals. I draw mine at what would my parents think. They would be disappointed if I was stealing from individuals, stores, or conning people and many other things.

Quote: djatc

I am borrowing them and besides it's just like you said everyone has a line. Also I don't know where you got that I download gay porn, btw I don't know the difference between legal and illegal ones so maybe you can explain the difference lol :)

Quote: AxelWolf

I would be willing to bet $1 Teliot has some illegal content on his website.

Quote: DRich

How may towels are necessary while watching illegal gay porn?

Quote: teliot

I may, but if so, I don't know about it. As far as copyright, just two days ago I contacted a publisher about an extended quote from a book. He wrote back, "... You can paraphrase and quote reasonably without violating a copyright." I quoted from the book in a recent article. That's how you do it. "Fair Use" is a good friend of the academic.

Quote: US Code, Chapter 17, Section 106

Subject to sections 107 through 122, the owner of copyright under this title has the exclusive rights to do and to authorize any of the following:

(1)to reproduce the copyrighted work in copies or phonorecords;

(2)to prepare derivative works based upon the copyrighted work;

(3)to distribute copies or phonorecords of the copyrighted work to the public by sale or other transfer of ownership, or by rental, lease, or lending;

(4)in the case of literary, musical, dramatic, and choreographic works, pantomimes, and motion pictures and other audiovisual works, to perform the copyrighted work publicly;

(5)in the case of literary, musical, dramatic, and choreographic works, pantomimes, and pictorial, graphic, or sculptural works, including the individual images of a motion picture or other audiovisual work, to display the copyrighted work publicly; and

(6)in the case of sound recordings, to perform the copyrighted work publicly by means of a digital audio transmission.

Quote: AxelWolf

Since you have a website you are obligated to correct all the situations according to what I perceive your ethics to be.

Quote: teliot

Perception of the law is not the same as the law. You broke the law. You then advocated that others do the same by posting the link. There is no where to hide. This is what you did.