To run a wrestling event, you need advertising, which costs money. I ran commercials during Monday Night Raw and SmackDown, as well on radio. In all, promoting the show cost me roughly $5,000. I also had to choose whether to do an Internet pay-per-view (IPPV) or showcase the show on DVD, or both. I chose to do just a DVD, which was made available a month after the show. The IPPV costs about $1,500, while my DVD post-production costs were about $1,000. You can see how the costs climbed long before even one ticket was sold.
The DVD was released and I consider it mildly successful, having sold about 400 units. I was alerted to a website where it could be downloaded illegally and saw that my show was viewed more than 600 times, which ripped my heart out and made me very angry. This was just on one website. I know this is a huge problem, not just for me, but worldwide. I'm fairly easygoing, I don't mind clips on YouTube, but quick math tells me that 600 times $20 $12,000 well that is money that could have been used for future shows, advertising or other budgetary things. I'm just a small-time promotion. I can only imagine the mass pirating that WWE must deal with.
I even hired a firm that goes after these types of websites and I was told that there is basically nothing I can do because most of these sites emanate from foreign countries, where there are no laws governing the Internet and piracy yet. However, these illegal sites offer users zero protection. They are in it strictly for whatever revenue they get from advertisers or sponsors, and will give up any and all the information they have on the people who are ordering from their site or downloading from it.
In time, this will be stopped as foreign governments are slowly getting involved, but in the meantime, if you are ordering or downloading, please remember that it is all traceable and illegal. I personally know two people who were charged for pirating-related crimes. I personally wouldn't go after the little guy, but other companies can and do. I was, however, disappointed at some people's responses on Twitter when I alerted them to it.
The bottom line is it is illegal to steal, whether it be movies, UFC, WWE or little old House of Hardcore. That annoying blue screen at the beginning of DVDs with the government anti-piracy label is to protect those rights of content. Now you know how the little guy feels and how it affects future business. It is taking money out of someone's pocket and putting it in someone else's hands who will sell you out in a heartbeat because they have amnesty for now, but you don't.
Because of all of this, I will probably just not make House of Hardcore 2 available on any format and go old school. Thus, I will cut my costs and make it a must-see, live only event. If you are not there, you'll miss out.
I look forward to 2013 I want to thank everyone for reading and supporting my column. Happy new year and make this year better than last. We aren't guaranteed time, so make it last.
Thanks for reading.
dont forget
dammit man
Well he can't be mad at me. I never cared enough to watch his show illegal or legally.
