A Message From RiffTrax

[impnoid]

I wonder if they've even been bothering to read this thread? Can we get some responses to this "officialrifftrax"?? Are you even still there? Will you have the courage to stand by your identity and ACTUALLY identify yourselves to us? Conor?? Sean??? Jason????? Zach???? Is that you?? Or is this someone else entirely????? Who are you really, and what are your thoughts and opinions on what we've said???

I thought Erik was usually the one to do web stuff. I forget if he's the one that handles the Rifftrax Twitter or if I'm misremembering.


I don't know the point of him responding, though. I mean, if we're honest with ourselves, we all probably know our distinct reasons for not always paying for RiffTrax and they probably don't all necessarily align, even if we're being completely honest with ourselves about what they are. For one member of the company to try to debate everyone on their various lines of thinking isn't a good use of anyone's time. His goal is simple: to remind us all that they're a small company and maybe make us feel guilty enough to stop what we're doing and pay for what we're using. It's all he really can do: appeal to our humanity and hope for the best. It's not an unreasonable request, the company has never been unfair about the way it provides its products, and - while we all may get varying levels of enjoyment out of it over a period of time - we're still here looking at the forum. But I think most, if not all, of us realized it was a small company already and will continue to give as much money as we feel comfortable giving, whether our reasons are good, bad, honest, or self-serving.

I agree with blurg and jimmy_breeze that there's an inordinate amount of pearl-clutching that someone would have the audacity to embarrass us by pointing out what we're doing directly to our face. Some take that in stride, recognizing their position as being reasonable; others will use that as an excuse to exclaim how right they are to not pay because look at the terrible, self-righteous attitude of these people who want to be paid for their work, because art should be free, maaaan and who can really own data and we were going to pay you in exposure and blah blah blah.

Most of us are here for one of two reasons: we can't or we won't pay for something that we want, perhaps rarely or sometimes or all the time. We aren't depriving anyone of their physical goods or directly stealing from their pocket, but they aren't making all the money they could on their endeavor and we are providing a place to make that easier. This is a very fair point, however you want to argue or justify that fact. If you own it and understand their point of view, I don't think there's anything to argue about. The point is clear and you make your own personal reckoning with how you feel about that fact. Those of us who share also aren't doing so out of malice any more than you were when you were a teenager and wanted to play an album by a new band you just found for your friends. People want to share the things they like with others. It's an important part of human connection, but you still know what you're doing. You can justify this forum's existence with "Just The Jokes" syncs and no-longer-for-sale VODs, but we know what this place is for and what it does. You probably won't spend any more or less than you did before, but some people can definitely stand to drop the childish, ill-formed attitudes.

I completely agree BadFilms.  Full stop.

[Iwata]

@RiffTraxOfficial

You're barking up the wrong tree here bud.  Chances are you make a lot more money per person from the people here than you do from any random sample of your other customers.  Not even counting large contributions to things like the Donate page, your Kickstarters, Patreon, attending Live events and RiffTrax Friends, I've easily spent thousands of dollars on Rifftrax over the years.

Because I respect you and just think you're being incredibly stupid, here are some resources:

https://www.ivir.nl/publicaties/download...-Study.pdf
https://cdn.netzpolitik.org/wp-upload/20..._study.pdf

Essentially, the largest, most highly-funded and wide-ranging academic studies on Internet piracy have shown that even in the worst-case scenarios of heavy piracy for huge blockbuster films with large audiences, that around 4% of sales/revenue might in some way have been affected by piracy and that 95%+ of the people who pirate the most are also the ones who spend the most on media through legal means.

Now those studies also found a large correlation between the overall cost of things vs people's buying power and how much they pirate.  This seems pretty obvious, as what is a super-fan supposed to do if they can't afford everything they'd like?  The simple fact of the matter here, Mr. RiffTraxOfficial is that it has become very expensive to be a Rifftrax fan over the last few years.  I did the math for you here comparing what it would cost to be a Marvel Cinematic Universe fan vs a Rifftrax fan.  To be extra generous, I'm doing a highest-cost scenario for the MCU fan to bump up the costs as much as possible and lowest cost scenario (no HD upgrades or Patreon/Donations/Rifftrax Friends) for Rifftrax.

MCU Fan Costs (2019) + Disney Plus for associated shows:

3 major movie releases:  Captain Marvel, Avengers: Endgame, Spider-Man: Far From Home

3 x movie tickets:  $10 US + snacks ($15/visit) = $75 US
3 x digital movie purchases:  $20 US on iTunes = $60 US
1 year Disney Plus = $80 US

Year:  $215 US

Rifftrax Fan Costs (2020):

Main commentary movies:  25 from Sunset Strip on Jan 17 to Merlin's Shop on Dec. 29:  4 x $4 Just the Jokes + 21 x $10 commentaries = $226 US
Rifftrax Presents: 12 from Sherlock Holmes: Terror By Night on Jan 3 to Baby of the Bride on Dec. 11:  12 x $10 = $120 US
Shorts:  25 from Squeak the Squirrel on Jan 21 to Santa's Spaceship on Dec. 23:  25 x let's call it $1.50 = $37.50 US

Year:  $383.50 US
(not counting 2-3 Rifftrax Live shows we usually get per year ($75) or the $65/year for Rifftrax Friends, or the cost of buying the actual movies for the Just the Jokes releases ($80), or even the associated costs of MST3K releases/access across multiple platforms)

Not everyone here lives in the US either, $384 US is, for example, 272 GBP, $494 AUD or $464 CAD

So yeah, sorry not sorry that a media company of any size expects at least $400-$500/year from its fan-base and then comes to where they congregate to help collect, maintain, and celebrate their work while making ends meet to whinge at them.

Rifftrax Friends is a start, but if you had a full Rifftrax collection available for streaming online (including perhaps even synced Just the Jokes releases), I'd happily pay $80 US/year (Disney Plus prices) for access to it even though you can't begin to compare the size of the catalogs to one another.  You can see that that would present a big savings to spending $400/year on individual releases.  Your best bet to "combat piracy" and get your precious 4% "back" is to continue to provide a better value proposition where the ease of access and convenience of your official offerings competes with what we can do here.  That's how the likes of Apple Music/Spotify made it so that millions of people don't need to torrent their music much these days.

Until then maybe just be glad that you have fans that still like and support you enough to donate via the site/Patreon/Kickstarter when we're getting what in comparison to most other media offerings these days is quite expensive.

[peephalk]

Iwata, perfectly said. The Rifftrax folks, if they see your post, are probably right now shaking their fists at the screen saying "Why You, I ata...". Thanks for awesome commentary

[Miss Martian]

Perfectly stated Iwata! Thank you!

[DingusMcGee]

Well said, Iwata.

[knowMATTER]

Thanks for this Iwata!

Btw: I'm not clutching my pearls over their disingenuous attempts to shame us. Sure, they've every right to try. But if business is so bad, then why do they own the company now? Why did Bill & Kevin actually move to San Diego, once they did? All of their success has occurred during the torrent/file-sharing era. Doubtless, we all know this; but if business was so bad that they have to turn emotional thumbscrews on us, then riddle me this, RiffTrax: Who owns your company?

[BadFilms]

Thanks for this Iwata!

Btw: I'm not clutching my pearls over their disingenuous attempts to shame us. Sure, they've every right to try. But if business is so bad, then why do they own the company now? Why did Bill & Kevin actually move to San Diego, once they did? All of their success has occurred during the torrent/file-sharing era. Doubtless, we all know this; but if business was so bad that they have to turn emotional thumbscrews on us, then riddle me this, RiffTrax: Who owns your company?

Mike, Kevin, and Bill have all been back in Minnesota for years now.

[Zoomer123]

@RiffTraxOfficial

You're barking up the wrong tree here bud.  Chances are you make a lot more money per person from the people here than you do from any random sample of your other customers.  Not even counting large contributions to things like the Donate page, your Kickstarters, Patreon, attending Live events and RiffTrax Friends, I've easily spent thousands of dollars on Rifftrax over the years.

Because I respect you and just think you're being incredibly stupid, here are some resources:

https://www.ivir.nl/publicaties/download...-Study.pdf
https://cdn.netzpolitik.org/wp-upload/20..._study.pdf

Essentially, the largest, most highly-funded and wide-ranging academic studies on Internet piracy have shown that even in the worst-case scenarios of heavy piracy for huge blockbuster films with large audiences, that around 4% of sales/revenue might in some way have been affected by piracy and that 95%+ of the people who pirate the most are also the ones who spend the most on media through legal means.

Now those studies also found a large correlation between the overall cost of things vs people's buying power and how much they pirate.  This seems pretty obvious, as what is a super-fan supposed to do if they can't afford everything they'd like?  The simple fact of the matter here, Mr. RiffTraxOfficial is that it has become very expensive to be a Rifftrax fan over the last few years.  I did the math for you here comparing what it would cost to be a Marvel Cinematic Universe fan vs a Rifftrax fan.  To be extra generous, I'm doing a highest-cost scenario for the MCU fan to bump up the costs as much as possible and lowest cost scenario (no HD upgrades or Patreon/Donations/Rifftrax Friends) for Rifftrax.

MCU Fan Costs (2019) + Disney Plus for associated shows:

3 major movie releases:  Captain Marvel, Avengers: Endgame, Spider-Man: Far From Home

3 x movie tickets:  $10 US + snacks ($15/visit) = $75 US
3 x digital movie purchases:  $20 US on iTunes = $60 US
1 year Disney Plus = $80 US

Year:  $215 US

Rifftrax Fan Costs (2020):

Main commentary movies:  25 from Sunset Strip on Jan 17 to Merlin's Shop on Dec. 29:  4 x $4 Just the Jokes + 21 x $10 commentaries = $226 US
Rifftrax Presents: 12 from Sherlock Holmes: Terror By Night on Jan 3 to Baby of the Bride on Dec. 11:  12 x $10 = $120 US
Shorts:  25 from Squeak the Squirrel on Jan 21 to Santa's Spaceship on Dec. 23:  25 x let's call it $1.50 = $37.50 US

Year:  $383.50 US
(not counting 2-3 Rifftrax Live shows we usually get per year ($75) or the $65/year for Rifftrax Friends, or the cost of buying the actual movies for the Just the Jokes releases ($80), or even the associated costs of MST3K releases/access across multiple platforms)

Not everyone here lives in the US either, $384 US is, for example, 272 GBP, $494 AUD or $464 CAD

So yeah, sorry not sorry that a media company of any size expects at least $400-$500/year from its fan-base and then comes to where they congregate to help collect, maintain, and celebrate their work while making ends meet to whinge at them.

Rifftrax Friends is a start, but if you had a full Rifftrax collection available for streaming online (including perhaps even synced Just the Jokes releases), I'd happily pay $80 US/year (Disney Plus prices) for access to it even though you can't begin to compare the size of the catalogs to one another.  You can see that that would present a big savings to spending $400/year on individual releases.  Your best bet to "combat piracy" and get your precious 4% "back" is to continue to provide a better value proposition where the ease of access and convenience of your official offerings competes with what we can do here.  That's how the likes of Apple Music/Spotify made it so that millions of people don't need to torrent their music much these days.

Until then maybe just be glad that you have fans that still like and support you enough to donate via the site/Patreon/Kickstarter when we're getting what in comparison to most other media offerings these days is quite expensive.

Some of you folks are a trip...I don't like how much you charge so I have every right to steal it!

We all know what we are doing here, stop trying to pretend you have some moral or other high ground. We are thieves, it's OK...just stop trying to justify it. If you don't like it cannot afford it you aren't FORCED to steal it. You choose to do that, which again is fine, but let's call it what it is.

And mad because Rifftraxx have (assuming it is them) asked you (rather nicely) to donate if you have gotten anything without paying...that's just silly. Grow the hell up.

[Meat Trademark]

"If you don't like it cannot afford it you aren't FORCED to steal it."

---

I try to agree to that.

[Miss Martian]

No one said they were forced to steal anything.

But there is a strong argument to be made for the RIGHT TO CULTURAL LITERACY. This is why we have libraries. Many of us just want to watch a show , much like one would read a book. We do not care about owning our own physical copy or having our own library. Most of the tv and movies that I pirate I delete after watching, unless they are obscure and tough to get a hold of. Which brings me to my second point, MEDIA PRESERVATION, which I'll get back to.

1) Cultural literacy - the argument there is "how are we supposed to make informed decisions about the world we live in, without knowledge of that world?" Media informs us about the world we inhabit. As many threads here have shown different arrtists have different views abot subjects like morality and inclusion (to name just 2 that have been discussed here). These subjects are explored at great length in many dramas, and often the viewpoints expressed change over time (which is why it's imprtant to also watch older media for cultral literacy). So if one didnt watch Falcon & the Winter Soldier (for example), one would not be fully prepared to discuss or understand how some facets of our society currently feel about certain subject matter, and how those viewpoints may have changed since 1945 (for example). 

I personally used to work in a comic book store - so it was absolutely necessary that I watch things like Falcon & The Winter Soldier (and often right away) - so I could be able to discuss with clientele, and more importantly - potential clientelle, the differences between the tv show or movies and the comics they were derivative from (and sometimes vice versa, in cases like Harley Quinn or X-23). I needed this cultural literacy in order to be good at my job. Which is why I often wrote off those as business expenses. But even unemployed, if i wish to stay in the business, I need to stay up to date if i wish to continue working in that field. My job was selling disney/marvel & wb/dc media. For yeeeeeears both Marvel and DC used to send comic retailers a batch of store comics an entire week in advance of the actual release date. This was so we could read them and be prepared to talk about them or hype them to potantial customers before or when they were released. They didnt want us to pay for reading them. Because they understood that cutural literacy was an important aspect of the job. (This only stopped in recent years because jerks would digitally share them BEFORE the release date - which is a whole different can of piracy worms we arent going to address). So the same is applicable to their movies and tv shows, which I considered a tax write off business expense. I was employed for my cultural literacy, and to have cultural literacy, and to utilize that knowledge in the service of helping others. This sold books. So you can see the value of cultural literacy, especially if the content pertains to your field of employment. 

2) Media preservation. We wouldn't even have some of the KTMA episodes if it weren't for piracy. The same goes for Dr Who episodes from the 60s and Old Radio Shows from the 30s to 50s (and even recent BBC radio dramas). The same goes for sooo many comics that had limited print runs. Plus there are countless lost television interviews and specials from the 50s - 2000s that network executives didn't feel the need to preserve - and thusly we've lost golden media treasures. I cant tell you how many times I wish I had kept some of my pirate vhs recordings of things I incorrectly ASSUMED would be available 20-40 years later. Many of which I could sell for BIG $$$ on ebay. The BBC has made plenty of dough off of pirate recordings of dr who made by fans.  So never under estimate the VALUE OF PIRACY. Even to the people who originally produced it.

TLDR:  No one is "forcing" us to pirate things, but media pirates have been proven again and again to be unsung heroes in the world of education and historical records. We catalog and label and retain vast amounts of information that might otherwise get lost to time.