Hollywood loserism
When I watched the movie “Sideways”, I couldn’t help but yell at the opening of the DVD. The opening was essentially a commercial about downloading movies from the internet, calling anyone who downloads a “pirate”.
First off, pirating and bootlegging have to do with people making money from selling illegal copies of movies. Copyright infringement is illegal, it’s covered under the United States code, USC 17. However the movie studios and the musical recording industry (mostly the music industry) have turned to suing Suzy Downloader claiming thousands of dollars in “losses” due to illegal file sharing. The fact of the matter is Suzy would have never bought the songs she has on her hard drive or if she would have it would be far fewer than she actually downloaded. Truth be told they only “lost” a few hundred dollars in revenue, if that. Of course they use a different accounting style to figure out how big their losses are. Even Enron and Worldcom were not as creative with accounting as the record industry is. Of course no one is snooping into their books because they are showing losses instead of propping up income.
These companies continue to add software, restrictions on use of music and movies, hard coding of our DVD players and collect a small royalty on each and every blank CD sold whether it will be used for music or data. The companies that continue to treat me like a thief, reminding me not to “steal” their “Intellectual Property” will see fewer and fewer of my dollars. I don’t download music or movies. I like buying the DVDs with extra features as opposed to downloading screeners (copies specifically for reviewers and Academy voters) but the legal copies are the ones calling me a criminal.
To the music industry I say, stop ripping of the artists and stop turning out “boy band” crap. The movie studios have not been as bad yet - presumably due to the long download times, but you keep running ads showing all the people who will “lose their jobs” due to Pirates and I will stop watching movies too. Put more of those don’t steal ads at the beginning of your DVDs and I will return them. Accuse me of stealing and I stop buying. Next time I actually go to the theater I’m going to ask for my money back if you play a “don’t be a pirate” commercial at the beginning of the film. I will tell all my friends to not go to this film as well. I am not paying to be accused of stealing. I am paying for content, the right to enjoy the film while I’m watching it, to take a break from reality for a while. You keep calling your customers thieves they will eventually begin acting like thieves or drop you from their lives. Either way you lose.
Older copyright rant
