“A crime is a crime. Either you commit a crime, or you don’t. If you do commit a crime, then you are a criminal. Surely that is logical.” – Thomas Keneally, from his stage play, “Our Country’s Good”.
Every time you put a DVD in the player, it’s the same. You can’t watch your movie without first sitting through fifty seconds of irritating footage guilt tripping you about why movie piracy is so wrong, whether you’re actually guilty of it, or not, right? Yes, it’s the “Piracy Streetpeople” campaign, that annoyingly loud, and cumbersome campaign that has been running for years now to little or no avail. It has done little, if anything, to stop movie piracy, in Australia, or anywhere else for that matter.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HmZm8vNHBSU&w=560&h=315]
But the faceven that wast is, piracy is a serious problem, not only for the film industry, but for everyone, whether they realize it or not. And it will only get worse if things remain the way they are. I had this driven home to me not long ago when I learned that the long-awaited remake of Sam Raimi’s cult horror classic, “The Evil Dead” would be receiving a very limited release in Australia, news which sparked outrage in fans Australia-wide, particularly in cities other than Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, and Perth, the four cities in Australia where the film would be released, at just once cinema in each. I must confess, I am somewhat of a wuss when it comes to excessive blood and gore. I attempted to watch the trailer for the remake on YouTube and too much for this soft-shelled Sci-Fi nerd. So, you will understand when I say I was not too disappointed by this news. But plenty of people I know, including most of the other writers on FAFMM, are horror fans, and were suitably dumbstruck at this idiotic decision.
It doesn’t take a genius to work out what will happen if you decide on a limited release for a film with thousands of rabid fans eagerly awaiting it: they will see it. One way or another. And if they can’t see it legally, they will see it illegally. The implication of this is twofold. Firstly, and most obviously, the film will lose money. And secondly, a barrier will be broken. People who download the film illegally will realize just how easy it is, and how seemingly (note I said seemingly, not actually) harmless it is, and will quickly become desensitized, and do it again, and again. The virus spreads its insidious venom, and there is practically nothing that can be done about it. But the fact that it is easy does not make it okay to do it. It is illegal for a good reason, but because it is nearly impossible to enforce anti-piracy laws, not only does it go on and on, but those who do it can often talk about it quite freely, without fear of legal ramifications. I got into an argument online with some such people recently, and was inspired to write this article, explaining once and for all why piracy is wrong, and must be stopped. So here, dear reader, is a list of some of the more frequent excuses I have encountered, offered by people who download movies illegally, and some cold hard facts to answer them.
EXCUSE: Movie tickets are so expensive. Much cheaper to just download it for free.
This is probably the most common excuse I have encountered offered by people who illegally download movies. There are two major contributing factors to the rise in ticket prices. The first is inflation, which is a simple, basic fact of life when it comes to economics. Prices will rise, and there isn’t a lot one can do to stop it. The other is, of course, piracy. Piracy forces ticket prices up, as film companies and cinemas attempt to make up for revenue lost to piracy. Of course, this is a vain effort to recoup losses, as it only encourages more people to download movies illegally in the belief that it is just a harmless way of saving money, which we all try to do. According to FightPiracy.org, “College students are one of the most avid illegal downloaders because of the pricing syndrome. They are usually unemployed and have limited budgets. However they are one of the most active viewers of movies, whether it is illegal or not. As basic economic theory outlines, lower prices will increase demand, and fill more seats at movie theatres.” Indeed this is indubitably so. The cinema chain for which I work does Cheap Tuesdays, offering adult tickets and children’s prices, which seldom fails to draw a crowd. But the fact is that with the ever present burden of inflation, no business in their right mind is going to drop prices, as it would mean disaster for their profits, and would ultimately force them out of business. I’m sorry, but being on a limited budget does not justify stealing movies on the internet. If you stole a car, and claimed that you did it because you are on a limited budget and cannot afford to buy one properly, you’d still be arrested. It is no different for movies.
EXCUSE: Downloading movies is okay because I don’t want to give my money to some corporate bigwig who doesn’t need it!
The mini-Marxists are out in force in the online piracy community, it seems. The leaders of the next great red revolution, liberating the world from the corrupt forces of capitalism, one film producer at a time. Well, for all you wannabe commies out there, I have some news for you. It is not the corporate fat cats you’re robbing. It is the people. Little guys like you and I, working tirelessly to pay their rent and put food on their table. You only need to look as far as the credits of any movie to see this. Every single one of those names, from the A-list celebrities at the top of the cast, to the lowly runners, to the obscure nobodies in the accounting department, to the guys with all those funny job titles like Best Boy, and Dolly Grip. They are all real people, with lives, families, and bills to pay. These are the people you’re stealing from, Robin Hood. And there are a lot of these people out there affected by this. According to the website of the Directors Guild of America, piracy results in an average of around 375,000 film industry jobs lost each year in America alone, costing workers a total of around $US16 Billion in earnings. According to the same website, the problem is similar in Europe. It is estimated that unless there are significant policy changes with regards to dealing with movie piracy, by 2015 there may be as many as 1.2 Million jobs lost in European film industries, with financial losses of around €240 Billion! It is the same case here in Australia, with film piracy costing our economy around $1.3 Billion per year according to the Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft (AFACT), and costing around 6200 full-time jobs in a 12 month period, according to a 2010 study conducted by IPSOS and Oxford Economics on behalf of AFACT. I am sure I will get plenty of people countering this by claiming that the statistics are not really that high, and that AFACT and other groups like it are simply adjusting the figures to suit their agenda. To them I say, well, maybe you’re right. Maybe they are. I do not know. They could well be doing just that. But seriously, whether piracy costs ten jobs or ten thousand jobs in a given year, it is still not fair, it is still theft, and it is still a crime.
Not that kind of movie piracy, you idiot!
EXCUSE: The internet has changed everything. The film industry needs to get with the times, adapt and learn to use the internet to its advantage as a means of distribution, or it can live in the past and die.
Yes, I have seen this argument used, and yes, it is bullshit. “The film industry needs to get with the times”?! Oh please! Blaming the film industry for copyright theft because it has yet to figure out how to viably use the internet as a profitable means of distribution is like blaming shoplifting on a shop owner because he didn’t employ a security guard. It is the same as blaming rape on the victim because she was dressed provocatively. It doesn’t justify the crime.
To be fair, they do have a point that the film industry does need to adapt. Darwin himself talks about survival of the fittest in the natural world. It is no different in business. The advent of streaming movies via sites like NetFlix, or downloading films legally from places like iTunes Music Store are examples of how the film industry has begun to adapt. Unfortunately there are fine lines, and at times even the legal channels can prove to be a liability. YouTube is an example of this. According to the Directors Guild of America website, approximately one third of all content on YouTube is clips (and at times full movies) uploaded by fans illegally, ie: without obtaining copyright approval. Yes, these clips can be taken down if they do represent a copyright infringement, but it would be nearly impossible to get them all. According to YouTube’s own statistics, seventy-two hours of footage are uploaded to YouTube every minute! Even if only a third of that breached copyright laws, it would still be impossible to weed them all out. But it does happen. It just needs to be made more efficient.
Seriously flawed logic.
EXCUSE: Piracy is not theft. It’s piracy. Theft removes the original. Piracy makes a copy. Imagine your car gets stolen, but it’s still there in the morning.
This is, without a doubt, the dumbest argument in defense of piracy I have ever heard. For starters, and perhaps most obviously, it is impossible to steal a car without removing it, thus rendering this line of reasoning highly illogical and invalid, but just for fun, and for the sake of argument, let us assume for a moment that this was possible. Go on, humour me. Imagine if you will that someone invented a device tomorrow that made it possible to steal a car by making an exact copy of it which you could then drive away, leaving the original standing there untouched, with the owners, manufacturers, and the police none the wiser. Would this still be theft? Of course it would be! You might not have stolen from the owner of the car (or at least, not directly) but nonetheless, you have obtained a car for free. A car that cost thousands, if not millions of dollars to develop and build, and into which many hundreds of man hours were poured, each of which had to be paid for by the company before they could make a profit on the car. If the company’s profits were to drop due to thefts of this nature, they would have to either raise their prices considerably or lay off workers in order to make up the difference. (Or possibly both.) How is this fair? How is this not theft? How is this justifiable? It is not. It is as simple as that. To suggest that it is not theft simply because you have not physically removed anything that you can pick up and hold in your hand is a cop-out.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGM8PT1eAvY&w=420&h=315]
At the risk of repeating myself, piracy is illegal for a good reason, and it will only get worse if nothing is done about it. But what can be done about it? The most simple thing: don’t do it. Just plain don’t download illegal copies on BitTorrent, or any other such means of illegal file sharing. If you already don’t do it, thank you. We need more people like you in this world. The next thing we can do: report it. It is very hard to weed criminals out of they are not reported. So report them. If you see illegally uploaded material on YouTube, click the report button. (Note: Before you ask, the video above was uploaded legally by the artist. Check the link if you don’t believe me.) If you know of someone who makes illegal copies of films for download, report them. If you are at a cinema and notice someone filming the screen with their smartphone, or a camcorder, inform the cinema staff, who are duty bound to report such offenders to the police. Yes, we do live in a society where it is considered unsporting to dob people in, but if it is not done, the consequences could be far worse. It will drive cinemas and film companies out of business. It will leave good, honest people out of work through no fault of their own. It will cost our economy billions of dollars per year. We all pay for piracy in one way or another, whether we realize it or not, whether we want to admit it or not. So let’s do something about it.
