Piracy is a crime. There's no doubt about that. We can debate all we want, but when "pirates" get caught, they get charged more than 7 THOUSAND dollars per item they pirated. So if the authorities find just 100 pirated songs, that "pirate" is fined a minimum of 700 thousand dollars. They realize that, (or at least that it's a crime) when they start downloading, so I believe the important question is: Is it wrong?
The main contributors to piracy are the incomes of the producers and the wages of those pirating. Would people be pirating if a copy of a new movie cost 5 bucks? No. But they're not, and it's become standard in this day and age to be well-informed on various types of media, and if you're not, you get laughed at. So, say they don't pirate it, say they just want to see it once to be informed and not get laughed at. One viewing costs, on average, 8 dollars at a theater or 4 dollars at a rental place. Many people (from low-middle class income) only end up with between 100 and 200 dollars to spend each month after taxes, bills, and expenses. That means they're being charged nearly 10% of the money they have to spend on entertainment in an entire month to "view" a movie "once."
Now, let's look at the income of the producers. James Cameron's Avatar had grossed $2 billion dollars on February 4th. A month and a half ago. Off of movie tickets alone. Now, that didn't all go to James Cameron. They do need to make up the amount it cost to create (which, btw, it cost them $300 million to make) and make a profit so they can pay everyone who worked to make it. But $2 billion. That's 667 times the amount they paid to make it. that means they had a gross income of 66.7 thousand percent of the cost of making the movie. Imagine if you were able to turn a month of income into a 66.6 thousand percent profit. Say you earn $3000 a month after taxes. You would have 2 MILLION dollars. And they have yet to release the movie in SD, HD, and blu-ray. And then they intend to release the movie AGAIN in 3D later this year (for, I'm sure, a whopping price somewhere in the 60 dollar range). Now, Avatar is the highest grossing film of all time, not all producers can get a money wheel spinning that fast and that hard, but the worse movies also cost less after release, and go down in price faster. So the ratio is maintained.
Now, is piracy legal? No. Is piracy right? No. Products are made and sold to turn a profit, and their creators deserve remuneration. However, is it also right for James Cameron and his crew to turn a 66.6 thousand percent profit when they've only received HALF the income they're going to get from this movie? In my opinion, absolutely not. Even for Avatar. (Though that is a great movie.) That's enough money to buy several countries. They have enough money to buy multiple countries out of their pocket cash. And we have to pay 10% of our monthly entertainment budget to "view" their product once? No, it's not right. But it's the law.
So the question facing all of us is do we stand up for what we believe? Or do we follow the law?
Or, in my case, both, and coincidentally I usually end up making no impression at all because I take my stands on youtube and tomshardware in comment boxes. And I shell out my 10 percent. -sigh-
Oh, and by the way, that's how much Avatar made while being pirated by half the internet. 1.2 million jobs will be lost my big fat jigglin' butt. Piracy doesn't "make it impossible to earn money" it just reduces the amount of small countries they can purchase, so they whine about it. Well they can keep whining, because even while being pirated James Cameron and his crew are in a position to buy Italy.
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