Impacts of illegal downloading of wrestling

[Forrest]

I think the perfect example for me to cite is EVOLVE. I have always been interested in what they're doing but they have no free online presence. They are really militant about shutting down illegal downloads, to the point where they reward people for grassing others in, which I don't agree with. I have never seen an EVOLVE match, even though I want to. The problem is their DVDs are too expensive, and that's not including postage, and I don't want to splash out on something I know very little about that could potentially be rubbish. If they had a big clearance sale like the old Silver Vision ones, I'd probably buy some to try it out, but I'm not going to buy them at full price, much in the same way I very rarely buy WWE DVDs at full price.

[Chest Rockwell]

I see your point now Khemical, and I do agree somewhat in theory.. as far as WWE's specific PPV pricing model, I always assumed that the pricing structure is based on the assumption of multiple people chipping in, which is how I always used to watch them when I watched them live..

[Dead Mike]

Well of course it affects business. One pirate stream is one lost sale to the vendor

 

This assumes that those watching a pirate stream would've purchased if the stream weren't available. This is the (flawed) logic used by music companies when prosecuting illegal downloaders. If the product appealed then the benefits associated with people watching streams/downloading would be realised in their live attendance & merch sales. Just like with music, you've not bought the album but now you're aware of the product & you like it you're more likely to buy a ticket when they're in town. The fact that Smackdown reportedly put 6k in the Manchester Arena suggests that it's not illegal viewing habits that's the problem, but either the pricing or product itself (or more likely a combination of the two).

[CTXRussomark]

Well of course it affects business. One pirate stream is one lost sale to the vendor.

 

It's not really though, is it? I wouldn't pay for any of the things I download. If they weren't available to download (or stream for those who watch PPV's) I just wouldn't watch them. Same with music. I must have downloaded at least 90% of the albums I've listened to in the last 10 years but I wouldn't have paid for any of them. If downloading wasn't an option I just wouldn't have listened to them. I'd say the vast majority of those who watch illegal streams still wouldn't pay for the PPV's even if the illegal streams were taken down.

 

*EDIT*

 

Or what Dead Mike said above ^^^

[Up Chuck]

How much impact downloading has on anything is really muddy, near-unprovable territory, but the common theory that matches my experience is that the vast majority of people who illegally download stuff wouldn't have bothered paying for it if they couldn't get it for free. Seeing it in terms of lost potential money would thus be a massive fallacy. Ian covered the rest.

 

How do you measure this? Both in terms of the common theory and your anecdotal experience? From people saying that to you? It's a common excuse that people throw out to justify piracy, but I don't really think it completely stands up.

 

A few things, none of them especially definitive (which is why I made sure to mention how nigh-on impossible it is to measure) - my own experience of things I may or may not have done, what other people have told me about their habits (which, yeah, could've been excuses, but most conversations I have about stuff like that aren't accusatory in tone so they could just as easily be honest), and loose bits of evidence like, for example, Cory Doctorow's giving away of his books for free under Creative Commons licenses. Doctorow has outright stated that his making a living pretty much hinges on the number of later purchases gained by giving it away outnumbering sales lost by giving it away, and that he believes most of the downloaders wouldn't have touched the print book in any event.

 

I'm aware that's fluffy, anecdotal and very apples-and-oranges in places, but the general argument rings much truer for me than the idea that piracy does any significant harm. WWE's problems lie far more in the fact that they're often a couple of beats out of step with mainstream pop culture, their TV is a little bit crap most of the time, and they don't have any proper box office stars outside of Rock and Cena. But I don't think anyone's arguing against that, really.

[Michael_3165]

I am not sure how much impact it will have.

 

For example, if I were to download a wrestling product illegally (which I don't anyway) I would be doing so because I don't have much invested interest in the product. I would never illegally download WrestleMania for example because I want to be able to watch it live, in good high quality in the comfort of my living room on my big screen TV. Now given I am shit with technology so maybe I am one of few.

 

If it came down to it that I had to pay for something legally because I had no alternative I probably just wouldn't bother. So for me, even if I were to download something illegally, chances are I wouldn't pay for it if I didn't have that option.

 

If that makes sense!

[Benno]

If a show is on PPV and the card is not absolute gash, I'll tend to buy it more often than not, to watch it live and in HD. It's a somewhat impulsive decision but it seems to happen a lot.

 

I won't pay for Sky Sports though - there's no real moral justifaction, I'm just too cheap to get the extra HD sub when I have my PC hooked up to the telly anyway and can download Raw the morning after so easily. If illegal downloads weren't about - there's a chance it might force my hand to get Sky Sports for a bit, but they are and I won't.

 

As far as other wrestling goes I'll download Impact purely because Sundays are inconvenient for me, it looks shit on Challenge and because I'm too lazy to fast forward the adverts if I recorded it. Old shows, NXT and the rare ROH, I'll download too (Although I'll justify downloading ROH because of the hundreds of pounds, possibly thousands I spent on them in 03-07 when I was a massive fan boy and wasn't such a dickhead...or was more of dickhead depending on your point of view).

 

I'm probably a bad example though, I'm the kind of guy who'll torrent a film I already own rather than get off the couch, get the DVD out the case and turn on the DVD player....this generation eh?

[History of Wrestling]

We had some of our work distributed really in a massive torrent of wrestling books (WWE licensed ones, other independent ones etc.) that a couple of hundred people snatched. After about 5 minutes of discussion, we just figured there wasn't much we could do about it, it was going to happen and it wasn't worth kicking up a fuss about.

 

For the most part, we figured people who downloaded them wouldn't have heard of them previously, wouldn't have bought them anyway, or wont even get round to reading them given the amount of other stuff in the torrent. Not that we want to promote that kind of activity because otherwise there's no worth to what you do (and we do have a free sampler out there, and are starting to post individual matches), but we just look at that kind of thing as exposure.

 

Speaking of exposure, we paid for advertising in FSM and on the Observer website recently, and while we don't really have any numbers specifically related just to the torrent getting out, we've done our best sales figures ever. How many of those downloaders *would* have bought, or bought our newest book after "discovering" us through that torrent we don't know, but it's worth remembering that illegal downloads don't always necessarily have to be a negative thing.

[JamieDrink]

My take on piracy for wrestling is same as that of music.

 

Get the music for free illegally but pay for the gig, the tee and (if you're a collector like me) the vinyl. More money is going directly to the band that way too which is nice.

 

With wrestling, watching the smaller companies (especially the American ones) helps awareness of the wrestlers involved. So when they do come over, more ticket sales for uk events as well as more tshirt sales etc for the wrestlers involved.

 

Its not right piracy, but if its illegally downloading and spending loads of money on DVDs, Shirts and tickets, for me its better than buying everything to watch and have empty seats at the shows?

 

Just to add: I not a fan of streaming illegally. I would always buy for quality alone. However if im at work the next day and cant watch the ppv live.. i cant fathom spending 15 quid.

[History of Wrestling]

That's the one thing that smaller companies don't seem to ever grasp or understand. I can understand them all wanting to protect their content, but without giving a bunch of it away, how can anybody "discover" it? WWE put out 9-10 hours of first run content every week, YouTube shows, classic matches etc. I'm not saying indies could (or should) give away an excess amount, but there seems to be this fear that people wont buy DVDs if good matches are made available for more people to actually see. Hence Uncle Gabe blowing his top when anything but his stingy Creative Commons MOVEZ~! clips hit the 'net.

 

To carry on the music analogies, it's like bands releasing their best singles ahead of an album, they act as samplers, an entryway into the main piece. When we were talking about what content to put in our samples, one of the guys on the team argued that we souldn't put our best stuff in it. Obviously there's a line you draw where you don't give ALL your best stuff away, but it was the bands analogy I went back to - they release their most commercial stuff, their best songs. They don't put the filler material out there because nobody would even pay attention.

 

I don't know, maybe it's just me but I've thought for years that too many promotions are missing the boat on modern technology because they're too scared to put anything but squash matches or clipjobs out there in case they lose that precious handful of DVD sales, not considering the potential for hooking a lot more viewers.

[Teedy Kay]

IF WWE was readily available for a reasonable price online, I'd sign up.

 

It's not so I don't.

 

If I miss PPVs I don't really care that much, if I can get a stream I'll do that, if I can't I'm not fussed.

 

If the companies offered me an easy access to their product with excellent quality I'd be all over it.

 

I'd compare it to TV shows more than anything, I had NO access to Lost when it was on (barring the 1st series) I 'illegally' downloaded the lot, I adored it, and I bought the lot on boxset.

 

If I hadn't have downloaded it, I'd have never have watched it and they'd have got no money off me at all

[The Invisible Boy]

Well some bands I listen to have actually said at gigs I was at that they would rather people hear their music and if that means through illegal downloads then so be it, they have already made their money and fame and are happy for fans and people to hear their new work. I am a bit of a collector though and like with the Radiohead album they put online, which a lot of people downloaded for free, I did download it for free but when it came out I bought the album for my CD collection.

 

On a similar note, Breaking Bad wasn't even available over here, so I'd never watched it, heard some people say it was good, so I streamed it, got engrossed in it and rather than download the episodes off Net flicks I watched the whole lot on a website and knew I'd buy it when it came out, since it has come out, I bought the deluxe BluRay box set in the barrel for

[King Pitcos]

Technical bods: If the WWE Network app is US-only, will there be any way of getting it over here via DNS settings trickery etc? I'm well up for paying $60 for WrestleMania, the Raw/Smackdown archive and six months of PPVs, but I bet the Sky deal blocks it.

[PowerButchi]

If it's anything like Netflix then Hola app will get around it.

[JNLister]

The problem won't be the geo-blocking, but paying for it. If it's not available in the UK at all, chances are you won't be able to pay for the subscription with a UK issued card.