20 million people pirated "Black Widow"

[melm00se]

https://comicbook.com/marvel/news/black-widow-pirating-disney-600-million-mcu-marvel-movie/

"Deadline claims that Black Widow was pirated by more than 20 million viewers, which translates to about $600 million worth of eyeballs."

While we can argue about the dollar amount, the 20 million number, if accurate, would certainly have a significant financial impact.

(Also, please don't down the "superhero movies suck" path. The MCU, arguably, has been watched by more people world wide than just about any other franchise so if they suck, I want to put something out that sucks 1/10th as much).

[FakeNoose]

1. The file-sharing activity on bit-torrents reaches around the world

Probably Americans are the least likely to do it because we have high-speed internet, cable movie channels, On Demand options, etc. that other parts of the world don't have access to. In many countries the current hit movies don't get released for several months, or maybe never. Also theaters are closed or have curtailed hours because of Covid in many countries. I'm not excusing file-sharing because it is a form of theft, but there are many reasons why people do it.

[USALiberal]

3. Most reason is that they want something for free!! Nt

[JI7]

11. Not really, many people actually want the theater experience or some other big screen when watching

these movies .

[OhZone]

2. I would bet a large percentage of the peeps who saw it that way -

would not have paid to see it anyway.

[Amishman]

4. Agreed, claiming $30 loss per instance is BS

I don't even pay half that seeing it in the theater (when I used to go to theaters)

[melm00se]

7. it is the price that is added to

Disney+ to see it.

This is why the dollar amount is something to be argued.

Regardless of the dollar amount/viewer, Disney has been financially injured by piracy.

[Amishman]

14. The interesting consideration is how much they hurt themselves by setting the price that high

Now that you say where the $30 comes from (I missed that part), the figure makes more sense.

But at the same time it raises a different question. How many people pirated simply because that price was too high and they knew the odds of getting caught were essentially zero? Would Disney have been better off with a lower price and making more sales? Not excusing piracy, just debating the business model, as that price point might have encouraged widespread piracy.

[melm00se]

19. $30 was what was added to a

Disney+ subscription and you can have as many folks watch it in your house.

[Emile]

5. Damn, I thought this was about a cannabis strain.

[Earth-shine]

13. I think you are referring (reefering?) to White Widow, which is a Sativa.

[Emile]

15. Actually it's a hybrid 50% Indica 50% Sativa. The high starts out

with an energizing sativa which later mellows out with a relaxing indica. Nice overall strain.

[obamanut2012]

17. No, they mean Black Widow

Which I get from Curaleaf and which is awesome.

[Ohio Joe]

20. Never heard of either but...

Weedmaps has a neat little history on it:

Black Widow is an Indica-leaning hybrid of Brazilian and south Indian landraces that was originally cultivated by breeder Scott Blakey -- aka Shantibaba -- under the name White Widow.

When Blakey and breeder Howard Marks -- aka Mr. Nice -- left Green House Seed Company in the late 1990s, they changed the name to Black Widow to distinguish their plant from White Widow strains sold by other seed banks.

https://weedmaps.com/strains/black-widow

[Emile]

21. So other seed banks pirated the White Widow strain, forcing the

original breeder to change the name to Black Widow to distinguish his strain. Very interesting, I learned something.

[TlalocW]

6. Man...

I've been selling eyeballs for too low of a price. I'm gonna have to raise them.

TlalocW

[brooklynite]

8. Saw it on my last plane flight; didn't grab me.

[cinematicdiversions]

9. I have a hard time believing that many people would bother. NT

[Dial H For Hero]

24. It's part of the most successful film franchise in history.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

10. I watched this film on Disney+ after there was a settlement between Marvel and Johnanson

[Earth-shine]

12. I bought the 4K disk off ebay for $12 a few weeks ago.

Great movie. Lots of fun and action.

[SKKY]

18. 20 Million and 1...

...

[ForgedCrank]

22. The ticket price is

why we always just wait a couple months and pay a couple bucks to stream it. We never go to the theater anymore because of the expense. I've also never really understood why it's even worth the effort to steal movies from the internet. The download sizes must be massive and then you are just watching the thing on your computer which would suck.
If we like a movie enough we'll eventually buy the b-ray disc when it comes out, but that's pretty rare these days. There aren't many movies anymore that are worth owning.

[SYFROYH]

23. It would be nice to know how this compares to other MCU releases.

Theft is baked into almost every business.