Comments on: Is There An Upside to Piracy?

By: Call me Al

Call me Al — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 05:23:09 +0000

I completely disagree with you here. A film is a product and when that film is bad it is a defective product. Sure it is subjective but there are various other subjective products that you can still take back and get a refund. The movie industry seems to think it is okay for them to produce rubbish movies and then reap the benefits. The only way to find out of a new film is good or bad is to watch it, and currently that means to pay for it.

Then your comment on people not paying for what they consider to be good. There have been various reports which show that those who use the internet to fileshare on average spend more money on media content then those who don't. These are people who take an interest in movies and buy them… they just want to try before they buy. Personally I often buy the dvd of a film I have downloaded if I like it and think it is worthwhile. I know various other people who also follow this path. We might be the exceptions but if you consider that the others would never have bought the film in the first place there really isn't a problem.

By: Call me Al

Call me Al — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 23:23:09 +0000

By: nyp

nyp — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 15:46:52 +0000

Piracy is stealing you freetards. If you download a movie and liked it then bought it, that doesn't compensate for the movies you downloaded and didn't like and didn't buy. Just because you didn't like them doesn't mean that other people didn't and as a result don't get to see a sequel/further work from the studio/director because their fim didn't make it. If you focus on the downloads you did like and became a success like Ink, it doesn't validate illegal downloading.

By: Sam

Sam — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 14:52:46 +0000

If i download a movie, I GIVE IT LOTS OF WORD OF MOUTH if good. AND BUY IT< if I like it that much.

period. I will also never stop going to the movies. (the wife) would kill me

By: RobHunter

RobHunter — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 06:56:52 +0000

I'm going to be honest here and admit to watching a downloaded copy of Ink. And being perfectly okay with it.

I only like to include films I've actually seen in my weekly DVD column (see! I have scruples!) I had heard such great things about the movie from Cole, and I'm always looking for smaller films that need some love, but as an indie with zero distribution I had no way to see it before it released last Tuesday. So I downloaded it. Watched it. Enjoyed it. Then BOUGHT it. Besides my sale I also got to include it in the column and hopefully encourage some other folks to check it out as well.

And that's not a necessarily unique story either. I've watched other films via downloads, bootleg dvds, and questionable imports only to love them and end up buying the "official" releases when they came available. And I agree with several of the commenters here that the "lost revenue" numbers that are tossed around as fact are complete bullshit. Most "pirates" would never have spent the $ in the first place so the exact amount of lost revenue is impossible to determine but far less than the numbers they give. Piracy is a problem, but it's not the industry killer the suits claim it to be.

By: Cole_Abaius

Cole_Abaius — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 06:19:01 +0000

I'm not sure I see the “upside.” I'll be running a piece tomorrow with a response from the INK producer, but in the mean time, all I can see is that a movie is now more well-known. But it's not any better monetarily rewarded. I doubt that they can buy lunch with all the internet theoretical dollars they made from Pirate Bay. Upped the profile? Sure. But funded their next project? Nope.

Plus, I would argue that it was the buckets of sweat they poured into releasing the film themselves (and paying for all those DVDs) that really pushed the film. Not the piracy, necessarily.

By: TaylorW86

TaylorW86 — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 05:36:01 +0000

My gripe with intellectual property rights is that there is no actual loss, just potential loss. Just because someone downloads a movie doesn't mean that they would have paid to see it in theatres. I have torrented very few movies that I would have paid to see. Pirated movies, especially “Screeners” or “cam” types, filmed with personal cameras, have terrible quality and are not worth making hard copies of.

By: Peter Donohue

Peter Donohue — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 04:57:41 +0000

I can't agree with this viewpoint. This is not a defective product we're talking about here, it's entertainment. It's entirely subjective. To say watching a bad movie is like stealing from you is just silly. There's a certain risk that goes with movies and music. You don't like it? Tough beans, that's life.

Same goes for the whole “up the standards so people will buy it.” Do you go searching for bad movies to watch? Of course not, you're looking for the things that interest you. If all the pirated movies you watched were good, would you go out and pay for them? Of course not.

By: snevets

snevets — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 04:31:25 +0000

One thing that every person taking an anti-piracy stance always overlooks is the fact that most of the people that download a movie, album, or software wouldn't have bought the thing in the first place. So that $20 billion that is always tossed around in the debate is most certainly inflated far beyond the people that actually downloaded something they would have bought instead. That's not to say that piracy should run rampant; I personally will buy and album or movie if I truly think the artist deserves compensation. As someone that has tried both methods for some truly terrible movies I have had less bad things to say about the director/studio/actors when the movie was free; if I paid for something I really didn't like I (and probably most people out there) feel that WE have been stolen from. Possibly the best way to fight piracy would be to up the standards so that downloaders start feeling guilty for their ill-gotten entertainment.

By: Peter Hall

Peter Hall — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 04:25:12 +0000

Piracy is, rarely, a benefit. Years ago I downloaded The Man From Earth, watched it, loved it, tried to find out more about it and came across the official website. On it was a Please Donate button, so I gladly tipped the filmmakers $30, double what I'm typically willing to pay to buy a movie. Then when it finally came out on DVD, I bought it, reviewed it, and recommended it to everyone I know. Every single person I've shown it to or recommended it to have been equally blown away by it, most going on to recreate the cycle with someone else who hasn't seen it.

It was a wildly successful benefit of watching a pirated movie. That is the only time such has ever happened.

By: Matt

Matt — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 04:22:26 +0000

There has always been this upside to piracy, and it's sad that you and others continue to fail to see it, even when you SEE it. I downloaded Ink on a whim because it looked interesting. I wouldn't have bought or rented a DVD that I had never heard of an looked like it went straight to DVD otherwise. But thanks to it being posted, for free, online, I watched it, and enjoyed it. Do you know what I did today, two days after I first saw it? I logged onto the Ink website and I purchased the DVD. I also saw a very nice little donation link for people who weren't interested in buying the DVD but wanted to donate (what they could, not a specified amount) if they had watched it online. Smart move. This isn't a “leech” this is using the internet to its fullest potential. Sadly you and much of the movie industry is failing to see this potential and are instead focused, even when releasing online, on “old media” standards of distribution. It's time to get off the 'piracy is evil” bandwagon and look at these things, these true benefits. The film industry has had a record year, don't tell me they're “hurting” from piracy.

By: Peter Donohue

Peter Donohue — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 03:45:42 +0000

I agree…in a sense. I think for indie movies it's a boon, but overall for the industry it's a leech. Also, I really hate those who champion piracy as some sort of attack against the RIAA and whatever. No it's not, you just don't want to buy a movie. I'm not saying I'm infallible from this (i've watched a couple of pirated movies via streaming) but you really have to realize how this can hurt the industry as a whole, especially if it's a movie in theaters.