A sideways view of the film economy in an age of digital piracy

Abstract

Understanding the dynamics of the movie business has been a priority for film scholars since the earliest days of academic cinema studies, as well as for filmrelated researchers in other fields like sociology, organisational studies and management. There are many different templates for film industry analysis, including the box office bean-counting that we see in trade papers like Variety, the ambivalent fascination with ‘the genius of the system'3 that characterises much work on studio-era Hollywood, and the dirigiste policy analysis practiced in Europe, Canada, Australasia and other areas with state-subsidised industries. The terms upon which these inquiries proceed are geared towards industrial and technological contexts that are historically specific rather than universal. Hence, we need to ensure that the lenses through which we approach our objects of analysis are indeed appropriate for said objects.