Copyright and Movie links shut down

[Freya]

I like some of these sites. I can watch a show that's on a channel I don't have. Otherwise I can't watch them at all! When ninja video went down I had to find other ways to watch trueblood :/

[Miriel]

OH PUH-LEEEEEZE, you know what I meant, you aren't stupid. Okay, fine then, it's like giving prescription drugs to junkies who don't have a prescription for them. It's still illegal, and, in the case of copyrighted media, it's still distributing something that's not yours against the wishes of it's creators.

I always find these threads of people trying to make a moral argument in defense of what equates to stealing (notice, I didn't say is stealing) hilarious. Carry on.

My work deals with copyrights, and it's against copyright for anyone to take my images and use or distribute them without my consent. That includes using my images as avatars on a Final Fantasy forum. I'm sure Disney has similar copyrights. But sometimes people take my images and put 'em up on blogs or whatever and I just shrug it off. Is it hurting me? No? Ok then, carry on.

Is anyone arguing that pirating isn't illegal? Cause that's silly, it IS illegal. But legality aside, people are just giving reasons as to why they're pirating, not why pirating should be legal. Why should people stop giving their reasons? Isn't it important to understand the reason why people do what they do? And it's probably in the best interest of studios and movie makers to know the reasons why people are pirating since that's the only way they're ever going to properly address the issue. Shutting down sites will never work, because there will never be an end to these sites. Or to torrents. Or whatever comes after torrents. Someone can say, "I stole this because I don't have money to pay for it" and you can say, "Well that's a stupid reason" but it doesn't change the fact that it's THEIR reason. Just cause you don't approve of it doesn't make those reasonings disappear.

We're living in a new kind of world, where instantaneous access if becoming increasingly important. Everything about how we access and share information is changing, but the entertainment industry is lagging behind.

Look how long the music industry railed against mp3 downloads and the smart folks at Apple thought, "hey we could make money selling individual mp3s!" and now they've got a monopoly on the market and they're making bank while the music industry is still scratching their heads.

[Ouch!]

What I find disgusting about pirating isn't the act itself; it's the attitude of entitlement that so often accompanies the act. While reasons aren't important, most reasons are provided as excuses and justifications meant to mitigate the reality of piracy.

In the manifesto Miriel posted, the speaker asked when leisure became a luxury. When did the cost of a family going to the movie become $50? I understand the plight, I do, but why shouldn't it cost that? It's ridiculous to suggest that we are entitled to go see a movie when we feel like it. This isn't something we are making for ourselves; it is not something of our creation. Movies are the product of the collective efforts and work of a number of other people; you have no more right to their work than they to yours, and people need to learn to stop pretending otherwise.

I don't mean to stand up for the movie and music industries. They're most certainly digging their own graves and price gouging has undoubtedly only contributed to making their own problems with piracy worse. However, I believe that if someone is going to pirate something (personally, I have and most likely will again in the future), they should acknowledge what they are doing for what is it and not try to hide behind justifications. Miriel suggested that providing reasons are important to understanding the motivations and thus solving the problem; I agree. Let's be honest though. Most of the time when someone says, "I downloaded the movie because I can't afford to go to the theater," they're trying to justify their decision as acceptable; they're not trying to create a useful dialogue to solve a problem which is a plague upon the entertainment industry.

[Del Murder]

But if we solve the problem then stuff won't be free anymore!

[Freya]

When I worked at a movie theater the theater only saw a small percentage of the profit. They made all their money on the concessions, not the movie its self. It's sad that even the place that shows the movie for consumers doesn't even see money from it. Sadface.

[Miriel]

What I find disgusting about pirating isn't the act itself; it's the attitude of entitlement that so often accompanies the act. While reasons aren't important, most reasons are provided as excuses and justifications meant to mitigate the reality of piracy.

Yeah, the entitlement thing is pretty prevalent and silly. When my fav sites got shut down, I wasn't like, "HOW DARE THEY?!" I was like, "damn... now I need to find a new site."

If people didn't have a reason to steal, they wouldn't steal though. For a lot of people, the reason for piracy is: it's easy, so why not? And not so much: I deserve this, so I'll take it.

[Jessweeee♪]

Okay fine it was a poor analogy.

[Rye]

I pirate pretty much everything, except for books. I very rarely will buy a movie if it is literally SO good that it deserves my support, but I do it on principle.

I honestly just don't care. Nothing is so good to me to justify me spending my money. It doesn't shake me or make me, so why should it break me, or my wallet, rather?

I'll admit I have that "ENTITLED!!!" attitude somewhat. I also feel much more of an emotional connection, and therefore a "I will support you" connection, with literature. More so than I think I will ever feel regarding movies or TV, and especially music.

With that said, none of what I've put forth has any real rationality to it. As I said, I just feel a great amount of apathy towards the industry at the moment. It's been a long time since a movie has come out that I loved, and the few TV shows on nowadays that I like are supported by my bill to Showtime/HBO. Don't care.

Also, I was pretty much raised on cam'd bootlegs - all of my Disney movies growing up were bootlegs bought on Jamaica Avenue in Queens - so the quality doesn't bother me unless it's absolutely awful. I died laughing when I downloaded a cam'd version of Toy Story 3 where everyone was freaking out about the quality, when it was seriously not that far off from perfect. People are spoiled by BlueRay.

[Peegee]

Apple is a good example (as much as I don't like their branding) - they sell a la carte mp3s so I don't have to shell out 20$ or whatever ridiculous price for a cd that's full of songs I don't like, just to get my own copy of a single.

That said, as internet speed improves, legitimately stopping transmissions of digital data will be impossible. It's a fight that is pointless to contest just like fighting cds when cassettes were around - digitization of information is inevitable.

The best way is to embrace it and find a new market niche. I will never, ever buy a cd (music) ever again. Haven't done it for 10 years (and the cd I bought was bad) and don't see why I ever will.

[Depression Moon]

I know I wouldn't really do it unless I wasn't going to pay for the said thing anyway or if I was still going to pay for it in the future. There's also the reason of trying to find something old that you can't buy a new copy of. The company wouldn't make money from it anyway if it was something that old that they don't produce anymore like say somebody wanted a copy of Pokemon Blue or Yellow rather they buy it used from someone or download it Nintendo wouldn't make any money from it anyway because they don't even sell copies of that game anymore.


As an artist myself I do like to support my fellow artists when they do a good job. I would only like for the same to be done for me. I would not support them if they were not good, but I would still be curious about it.

I remember back when I was in high school I got some shirts made of some copyright material, one being a mystique comic and the other being an FFVIII T-shirt. my third time that I tried getting a shirt made I was rejected I guess the teacher was getting scared saying something about copyrights. I would doubt Square would be upset with me getting a shirt made with one of their images on it. I am simply just expressing my love of their game and it would be free advertisement for them as well. I remember seeing Janet Jackson fans on TV wearing obvious scanned pics of her photo album on their Tees. Janet didn't seem to be upset about it. I wouldn't be either if I was a musician or when I'm a game developer.

[Madame Adequate]

They need to distribute movies in a different way in this day and age. DVD releases needs to be quicker, releases should be as close to eachother across the globe.

If only distributing were that simple.

Bull. Unless you're some indie outfit, distributing is that simple. For New Line, it's that simple. Or for a company like Disney, distributing is that simple. But look at the release dates of anything by Pixar between the US and UK. I saw Finding Nemo on a plane ride back from the US before it was even out in England in theaters. No need to translate in any way. They can treat the UK and Ireland as other 'states' for most purposes in the entertainment industry, no further away or more awkward than Hawaii or Alaska, probably less so in fact. But no, they fanny around for who-knows-what reason and then I pirate instead of putting up with their bull Heck, even videogame companies have learned this one. You don't see a PC game released more than a few days apart worldwide anymore, unless it's real obscure, and it's pretty rare for console games to have a big gap now too.

[Shiny]

Sure, it's easier when you have larger companies like Disney backing you, but if you're a independent filmmaker working on your own company or a smaller company, distributing is a difficult process. Convincing theaters to play your movie even inside the country it was created, can be a pain.

Also, there is the thing of reformatting DVDs for other countries. European countries do not play NTSC which is one of the reasons why it takes longer for Europe to get American films on DVD. There is also the thing of dubbing and/or subtitling the movie; which can also be time consuming. And of course, there's shipping. I know video game companies that still take a while to release and ship out their games to other countries. It doesn't look like this is going to change very soon.