Piracy = Theft? Movie Industry Workers Speak Out

[HardOCP News]

Do filmmakers support the argument that piracy equals theft? You might be surprised by what these four industry veterans had to say.

The mantra often heard from Hollywood's leaders is that pirates are thieves. However, not all people in the industry feel that way. Today we present the views of four regular filmmakers on this controversial topic, what the impact is on the industry, and what can be done in response.

 

[NeghVar]

I am working on a bachelor's degree in digital forensics and one of my classes this semester is Criminal Law. In the book, theft is defined as the unlawful confiscation of tangible goods. In other words, physical items. To illegally download a digital file and be able to take that one copy and easily make millions of copies of it is deemed as having non-tangible and having no value.

 

[sfsuphysics]

Come on Steve, don't change the title of the article. ≠ makes a huge difference in whether or not you get a ton of people jumping in the thread to give their opinions without reading the article.

 

[dr.kevin]

on the flip side, you can argue that hollywood's leaders are stealing from us by tricking us into seeing shitty movies..... you know, the ones that make you think "what a shit movie. I would not have paid to see this. where's my fucking refund?"

 

[bigdogchris]

I am working on a bachelor's degree in digital forensics and one of my classes this semester is Criminal Law. In the book, theft is defined as the unlawful confiscation of tangible goods. In other words, physical items. To illegally download a digital file and be able to take that one copy and easily make millions of copies of it is deemed as having non-tangible and having no value.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure downloading movies and games is considered Copyright Infringement. You're duplicating work without permission; i.e. no "right to reproduce".

Legally it's not considered theft but that doesn't mean that there is no financial loss associated with it.

If you take a camcorder into a movie theater and live stream the event or record it for your friends to see, it's the same type of CI. There is an argument for financial loss since the people may of instead chose to pay for a ticket if the streaming/cam was not an option. Of course there is no way to ever prove that.

Moreover, this has been an issue even back in the 70's and 80's with home movies and recording started coming out. It's just become easier to do now because of the Internet.

 

[Ashbringer]

Piracy is something that consumers needs as a method to regulate pricing. Same goes for used copies. WITHOUT THESE TOOLS THE PRICE OF SOFTWARE GOODS WILL STAY HIGH. The only other method to lower prices of software is to simply wait. Overtime the interest of consumers of those products begins to decline and prices are adjusted accordingly.

When it comes to entertainment goods it's more difficult cause there isn't a competing product in a sense. Each game, movie, or song is unique and nothing like it exists. Therefore the content creator has more control over the pricing of their products. Go back to the 360/PS3 release and both companies announced games to cost $60. Regardless of quality and consumer reactions of the games the price is always going to be $60. That's the reason why movies and games both suffer in quality, cause that's the expected price. There's no incentive to create a better game or movie if the going rate is STANDARD PRICE. The only way a consumer can vote with their wallet is not buying the movie on DVD and waiting a while longer to buy a game.

How many of us pirated a game or movie and then like it so much they bought it? Why? Cause you wanted to try it before you buy it, cause otherwise you'd be stuck with a sub par product.

 

[Carouselambra]

Everything comes down to ease of access and reasonable pricing. If you have both of those, piracy would be significantly diminished.

I think steam is an excellent example. Prices are low and very easy to access.

 

[ManofGod]

I am working on a bachelor's degree in digital forensics and one of my classes this semester is Criminal Law. In the book, theft is defined as the unlawful confiscation of tangible goods. In other words, physical items. To illegally download a digital file and be able to take that one copy and easily make millions of copies of it is deemed as having non-tangible and having no value.

Cool man, thanks for giving me the go ahead to take any digital stuff I want and use it any way I want. WooHooo!!!!!

 

[Ur_Mom]

Not that it justifies things, but what they say in the article is about what the same way that I feel. A few notable quotes:

It’s much easier to think of a ‘thief’ as being an inherently bad person who must be punished by the law. Not to say that those who infringe upon copyright aren’t subject to consequences, but as a creator, I think of them as audience that we just haven’t been able to capture yet.

Piracy in and of itself is not theft. It’s also not a loss. Studies have shown that people who pirate often spend far more money on media than those that do not. Now if you make money because of your piracy well that’s a gray area where I do not know what to think.

My personal stance and practice is that if a film or television show is available from the legal owner for a fee, it should be paid for.

I mean, /Film recently posted about how 70% of moviegoers don’t plan on a specific movie when going to the movie theater. It’s really, really difficult to equate a free download to a lost sale. There are just too many other factors. But piracy is an easy target for blame specifically because no one really knows.

It’s become a scapegoat. People blame dwindling sales on it. The studios use it as an excuse to pay the crew and talent less. Producers use it in negotiations to have shittier contracts with the unions. Has it had a truly negative impact that doesn’t have to do with its perception? Probably not much.

 

[DocSavage]

Some good opinions, but one guy is upset that we now have Netflix:

"DO YOU THINK PIRACY EQUALS THEFT? ... Kevin Koehler: No, they are not equivalent. Piracy is copyright infringement. I know this is a boring, pedantic answer. Sorry. However, while it is not theft, it is taking compensation from the folks that make the content and shifting it to the folks that distribute the content – not just piracy sites, but also legal streaming sites (Netflix, Spotify, iTunes, et cetera) who can leverage the threat of piracy into more favorable deals."

Dude is upset that people can legally watch more variety at a lower cost.

 

[steakman1971]

Everything comes down to ease of access and reasonable pricing. If you have both of those, piracy would be significantly diminished.

I think steam is an excellent example. Prices are low and very easy to access.

Great point. I have a huge Steam collection. Most of the software I have purchased is with Steam. In my past, I may or may not have been on the other side
I currently can say I do not have ANY pirated software on my computers. I purchased all of it or am using a licensed version.

Movies - still to expensive. Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu+, etc kind of make it pointless to pirate movies. The only issue is you have to wait a while to watch recent releases.
The other side of the coin: how many movies are actually worth owning? I'm getting to the point where most moves are barely watchable. I do have some that I will definitely watch multiple times - these make sense to buy. I could probably create a list of 20-30 movies that fit this category (and already own all of these).

 

[Darunion]

Great point. I have a huge Steam collection. Most of the software I have purchased is with Steam. In my past, I may or may not have been on the other side
I currently can say I do not have ANY pirated software on my computers. I purchased all of it or am using a licensed version.

Movies - still to expensive. Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu+, etc kind of make it pointless to pirate movies. The only issue is you have to wait a while to watch recent releases.
The other side of the coin: how many movies are actually worth owning? I'm getting to the point where most moves are barely watchable. I do have some that I will definitely watch multiple times - these make sense to buy. I could probably create a list of 20-30 movies that fit this category (and already own all of these).

I feel very similar to you on this. As a kid I may have made bad decisions, many of which were because $4.75/hr didn't pay for much lol. Now that I can afford them I find myself more willing to pay for things like netflix and prime and just browse the movies for something to watch.

Yes, I love steam, some games I get guilted into buying because of the sale and may not even get around to playing it. So they have found a way to not only distribute and easily manage games but get people to buy stuff they aren't in a hurry to play. Now if the movie industry can develop that kind of model....

 

[Ashbringer]

Movies - still to expensive. Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu+, etc kind of make it pointless to pirate movies. The only issue is you have to wait a while to watch recent releases.
The other side of the coin: how many movies are actually worth owning? I'm getting to the point where most moves are barely watchable. I do have some that I will definitely watch multiple times - these make sense to buy. I could probably create a list of 20-30 movies that fit this category (and already own all of these).

With movies it's about getting people to the theater. Once they do that there's no need to go further. Even if the movie was good would you go buy another ticket? You'd probably wait until it's on DVD or on cable TV. So therefore there's no incentive beyond getting you to the theater. Never mind that the idea of theaters are outdated and pointless besides forcing you to pay standard pricing. Especially when everyone has HDTVs and computers that give you that theater experience without the annoying audience.

Franchises help maintain an expected level of quality but that means you'll see Batman 1,2,3,4, Forever, Extreme, Dark Knight and etc etc. Same thing with videos games. What's that? Halo Forever? Take my money!

 

[wizzi01]

on the flip side, you can argue that hollywood's leaders are stealing from us by tricking us into seeing shitty movies..... you know, the ones that make you think "what a shit movie. I would not have paid to see this. where's my fucking refund?"

On the flip side of what? It's not like they forced you to go see the movie.

 

[pcjunkie]

On the flip side of what? It's not like they forced you to go see the movie.

WUT?

 

[dandirk]

Great point. I have a huge Steam collection. Most of the software I have purchased is with Steam. In my past, I may or may not have been on the other side
I currently can say I do not have ANY pirated software on my computers. I purchased all of it or am using a licensed version.

Movies - still to expensive. Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu+, etc kind of make it pointless to pirate movies. The only issue is you have to wait a while to watch recent releases.
The other side of the coin: how many movies are actually worth owning? I'm getting to the point where most moves are barely watchable. I do have some that I will definitely watch multiple times - these make sense to buy. I could probably create a list of 20-30 movies that fit this category (and already own all of these).

+1 Used to pirate tons of games... Part of it was income, most of it was ease of access and use (download + no CD cracks).

I, like you pretty much only buy games via Steam. Price isn't a factor for games I really want to play, good reviews. Questionable maybe games waits for a steam sale.

Movies same thing maybe 20 I could see "buying" as a yearly watch or something.

Otherwise I would be happy to pay netflix 50-80 a month for more current/expansive content. I would even be willing to wait a year for current shows... if they at least had last season and earlier available.

 

[Carouselambra]

I bet if they reduced ticket prices they see more people going to the movies. When It's more than $20 for a couple to go to SEE the movie without any snacks, this becomes an issue.

I can safely say that I would NEVER go see a movie in the theater if I didn't have access to $6 movie tickets from my union. My wife and I go out to the movies a few times a year now.

 

[Ashbringer]

I bet if they reduced ticket prices they see more people going to the movies. When It's more than $20 for a couple to go to SEE the movie without any snacks, this becomes an issue.

I can safely say that I would NEVER go see a movie in the theater if I didn't have access to $6 movie tickets from my union. My wife and I go out to the movies a few times a year now.

The flip side is that now consumers now expect that price drop to never go higher. Look at apps on the Android market. Free is what everyone now expects and now nothing moves unless it's free. So now we have Free2Play apps that aren't free and are crap until you spend money.

I've always wondered why Blizzard never reduced the monthly price of WoW cause it would increase their subscriptions. But going from $15 to $5 would barely net them a gain that would out do the loss of $10 per month per customer. They'd have to go down to 3 million subs before they would consider doing something like that.

 

[H-street]

Everything comes down to ease of access and reasonable pricing. If you have both of those, piracy would be significantly diminished.

I think steam is an excellent example. Prices are low and very easy to access.

This actually has been shown to not be the case, at elast as far as Games go..

World of Goo is probably the poster boy for why what you say isn't even close to being right.


World of Goo - Great A+ TItle, Priced Low: <15$, ease of access: Steam and many other digital distribution networks.

Piracy Rate: 90% (As reported by them)


As to the title of the topic, every time this comes up - is Piracy Theft or Not - it always gets rationalized into the.. "its not theft, its copyright infringement" and somehow that makes everyone feel better..

I think a better question and discussion is...

Is it right, or is it wrong?




Either way, if someone is has accepted that they are OK with piracy then there is very little that can come with any type of discussion here. And typically by someone's Point of View you can tell what side of the fence they sit on.

 

[nakedhand]

Making better movies would certainly help nudging people in the required direction.

And stop ruining otherwise good movies with "Hollywood" endings, while you are at it.

 

[Ashbringer]

World of Goo is probably the poster boy for why what you say isn't even close to being right.

The what now? Never heard of the game.

World of Goo - Great A+ TItle,

Subjective

Here's an example. Look up Megas XLR and you'll see it's a show that got great ratings but not a lot of demand was for it. It's one of those situations where you know you want it cause it appeals to you. You also know you don't want it cause you know it won't appeal to you.

World of Goo is just one of those games I can just look at it and not think twice about it. Therefore I won't play it or comment on it. Where a game like Far Cry 4 falls into my radar of games I would like but I have to trend careful cause First Person Shooters are just full of crap quality games. Therefore I may look into the game and rate it and comment about it.

Priced Low: <15$,

Not really. It's another physics games like Angry Birds. It's $5 on Google Play for Android and that's still too much for a game I may not like. I bought Dark Souls for $15 for comparison and couldn't get enough of that game.

ease of access: Steam and many other digital distribution networks.

About the only thing going for the game.

Either way, if someone is has accepted that they are OK with piracy then there is very little that can come with any type of discussion here. And typically by someone's Point of View you can tell what side of the fence they sit on.

Everyone at some point has pirated. Instead of punishing the person, maybe a better way to look at it is to try and see what can be done that doesn't make you alienate them.

Bad games get little to no money. It's theft Daikatana style.
Good games get money but shouldn't expect anywhere near the $60 price range. Like ID's Rage.
Exceptional games will not only get $60 but get much much more. Skyrim for example.

 

[Spidey329]

I liked the part where one of them mentions the SCOTUS and legal standing regarding piracy by backing his comments with facts. Then you get John Kent who clearly needs to read what the others said, as he's pulling things out of his ass.

 

[w4ffles]

One of my professors once posed the question, "If you could make an exact copy of your friend's car and not have to pay for it, you wouldn't do it right?"

Hell yeah I would. It's a free car.

Not that I'm condoning piracy, but all of the arguments given by the MPAA and RIAA are shaky.

 

[JeffDC]

One of my professors once posed the question, "If you could make an exact copy of your friend's car and not have to pay for it, you wouldn't do it right?"

Hell yeah I would. It's a free car.

Not that I'm condoning piracy, but all of the arguments given by the MPAA and RIAA are shaky.

It's a bunch of lawyers making themselves rich. This has been the case since the "BSA" "Don't copy that floppy" nonsense, and Lotus' implementation of copy protection on 1-2-3 in the mid 1980s. There has never been a single credible study, and by credible I mean funded by people who didn't have a vested interest in specific outcomes, that shows piracy does anything other than increase both sales and market share for supposedly victimized companies. People who buy software always buy it, and people who don't buy software never buy it. Copy protection accomplishes nothing except to limit and inconvenience legal users.

 

[Megalith]

I'd rather look the other way, but how can anyone believe that piracy doesn't affect sales? We would absolutely see higher sales if there was no way to obtain something other than to buy it legally.

 

[JeffDC]

I'd rather look the other way, but how can anyone believe that piracy doesn't affect sales? We would absolutely see higher sales if there was no way to obtain something other than to buy it legally.

It's about distribution and market share. One pirated copy of anything eventually equals two to three legally sold copies, to families, friends, co-workers and others.

 

[Ashbringer]

I'd rather look the other way, but how can anyone believe that piracy doesn't affect sales? We would absolutely see higher sales if there was no way to obtain something other than to buy it legally.

It does effect sales but not the way you think. A lot of people probably wouldn't buy it if they couldn't pirate it. On the other hand people wouldn't try it. After a year or two things tend to fade away.

Think of music. Would you buy a song you didn't already hear? Course you wouldn't cause not every song would appeal to every person. Would you buy a movie or game you haven't seen or tried? What you do? Why? Best movie of the year? Game of the year?

Even then would you pay for the going rate? Back in the 90's people paid $25 for a music CD and now it's piratically free. Why? I thought inflation would drive up prices? Cause piracy forced the music industry to rethink their pricing. Movies and games are going through the same process today. Movie industry is producing so much crap that people have given up on even pirating their movies. It's really that bad.

Games are also going through their evolution differently with piracy. Consoles are used as a walled garden for developers. This is going to be the last console generation. Why? Cause PC is the future and developers hate PC gaming. Because it's a hard market to please and full of competition. Crappy games get pirated. Only the best games get bought. People don't realize that consoles from the 80's and 90's were the alternative to $4000 PC's. But today a game console and PC are roughly the same in price. So why are we buying consoles? Same reason why we go to theaters to watch movies. Too damn stupid.

Piracy has become a tool for people. You like it you buy it. We've all done it. It effects sales cause for consumers it weeds out the crap. Punishes those who would make a sub par product. Otherwise we'd go back to the 1970's video game crash. Why did it crash? Cause the industry was pumping so many crappy games that people just stopped buying. Sounds familiar? Just look at the movie industry. It's happening in slow motion.

 

[Deleted member 204526]

My stock in trade is in digital goods—prepackaged website themes to be specific. One of my themes is one of the most popular premium vBulletin themes—the software this site is running on—and it is installed on waaaaaay more sites than I've had sales. You can't tell me that some fraction of those illicit installs would not have been a sale for me were the theme unavailable on warez sites. It's money out of my pocket, and fuck every last one of you who tries to justify it.

 

[Comixbooks]

Modern Movies = Theft yeah lets Ride the Box Office all the way to the Bank.

 

[JeffDC]

My stock in trade is in digital goods—prepackaged website themes to be specific. One of my themes is one of the most popular premium vBulletin themes—the software this site is running on—and it is installed on waaaaaay more sites than I've had sales. You can't tell me that some fraction of those illicit installs would not have been a sale for me were the theme unavailable on warez sites. It's money out of my pocket, and fuck every last one of you who tries to justify it.

Almost all of the whining about piracy comes from people who're trying to sell products that aren't worth buying. As in virtually all major studio films and recordings made in the last 20 years. And countless millions of people around the world who really don't understand the internet, and do stuff like design web themes and expect to make money from it. It's your delusion and ignorance pal, nobody else's. Please stop blaming your customers.

If anything is worth buying, IT'S WORTH BUYING and it will be successful. Everything beyond that is greed.

 

[SGA76]

I went and saw GotG THREE TIMES. That's right. I paid to see it 3x. I also paid for for 3 nieces, 4 nephews, my mother and my uncle to see it. It was really that good.
If what you make is worth it, people will buy.
If you make a crap product, well, it's going to fail.
If you make a product and overcharge, people will pirate or wait till it's on sale.
If you load your product full of DRM people will pirate or just pass all together.

BTW, I've bought World of Goo twice, once on Steam and once in the Play Store. I will admit, I did pirate it first because it didn't have a demo and I didn't want to pay and wind up throwing away $15.
I used to pirate heavily when I was supporting my mother, 2 of my nephews and 2 of my nieces, but now that I've no longer shouldering those responsibilities I've got damn near 600 Steam games plus nearly another 100 games and movies through GoG.
And for developers that complain that Humble Bundle, Blink Bundle, Bundle Stars and Steam sales are killing you, 1. There is a glut of games and we can wait until the price hits what we feel we should pay and 2. About half of what I've bought I never would have bought or even played unless it was bundled with something I wanted, you got lucky your game became a rider and you got a sale on something that just sits in my library unplayed.

 

[david_]

People who argue pirating is anything other than stealing are deluding themselves. How is this still a dicussion?

 

[Biznatch]

I bet if they reduced ticket prices they see more people going to the movies. When It's more than $20 for a couple to go to SEE the movie without any snacks, this becomes an issue.

I can safely say that I would NEVER go see a movie in the theater if I didn't have access to $6 movie tickets from my union. My wife and I go out to the movies a few times a year now.

LOL it's 20$ for a single ticket here if it's 3d/'imax'. Regular tickets are 15$. That, combined with almost nothing but shit being released from the studios are why I see maybe 1 movie a year in theaters. Oh, lets not forgot 15$ for nachos and having to suffer through the movie with a bunch of loud inconsiderate assholes.

 

[Ashbringer]

Almost all of the whining about piracy comes from people who're trying to sell products that aren't worth buying. As in virtually all major studio films and recordings made in the last 20 years. And countless millions of people around the world who really don't understand the internet, and do stuff like design web themes and expect to make money from it. It's your delusion and ignorance pal, nobody else's. Please stop blaming your customers.

If anything is worth buying, IT'S WORTH BUYING and it will be successful. Everything beyond that is greed.

Most entertainment goods today fall in the category of MAYBE WORTH IT. Companies love this purgatory system where they try their best to make a bad product look good. Every movie or game is movie or game of the year. Every reviewer is biased.

Look at the top 3 new highly anticipated games that came out this year. Assassin's Creed Unity gets a user score of 2.3. Far Cry 4 got a 6.4. Dragon Age Inquisition has a 5.8. Those are some really bad ratings but they do fall into that purgatory system. The games have both good and bad ratings so should you buy it? Better yet should you pirate it before you buy it?

Right now Ubisoft and EA and hoping that their advertising team did such a good job that despite reviews you go buy their games. There's a reason why some of these games were held off from early access reviewers. They want as many idiots to be buying their games for $60 before they have to drop prices. They want you to buy the hype.

Don't be surprised if a lot of people end up pirating those games to try them first.

 

[JeffDC]

IMO the eventuality is that the classification for internet traffic will be corrected. Once it happens the DMCA is headed for certain and probably very quick overturn or repeal. Along with it will go about 98% of our problems related to copyright nannyism by governments and ISPs.

 

[Deleted member 204526]

Almost all of the whining about piracy comes from people who're trying to sell products that aren't worth buying. As in virtually all major studio films and recordings made in the last 20 years. And countless millions of people around the world who really don't understand the internet, and do stuff like design web themes and expect to make money from it. It's your delusion and ignorance pal, nobody else's. Please stop blaming your customers.

If anything is worth buying, IT'S WORTH BUYING and it will be successful. Everything beyond that is greed.

This makes no sense. If it is worth being watched—or in my case installed—then it is has worth to the thieves (because they sure as hell aren't my customers). The greed is purely on their part for taking what is mine and giving nothing in return.

And I take umbrage to your statement of my not understanding the internet. I'm not a fly-by-night designer as I've made a living doing this for over ten years. The particular theme I created which I used as an example is one of the most successful themes for the most successful forum software—you've probably seen the theme in various iterations yourself if you ever visit other vBulletin forums, as it is used on several thousand forum installs, including some big name sites. I've made quite a lot of money of this one theme alone. I suppose your argument is I should be satisfied with that? Assholes like you probably think I make too much, which is another justification for thievery—a sort of Robin Hood douchiness.

 

[heatlesssun]

I am working on a bachelor's degree in digital forensics and one of my classes this semester is Criminal Law. In the book, theft is defined as the unlawful confiscation of tangible goods. In other words, physical items. To illegally download a digital file and be able to take that one copy and easily make millions of copies of it is deemed as having non-tangible and having no value.

A lot of people would probably feel more violated if they had copied their medical records or other sensitive information copied than if someone broke into their house and stole a TV. Information can be just as or even more value than physical goods otherwise so many wouldn't take costly and burdensome measures to protect it.

 

[JeffDC]

This makes no sense. If it is worth being watched—or in my case installed—then it is has worth to the thieves (because they sure as hell aren't my customers). The greed is purely on their part for taking what is mine and giving nothing in return.{/QUOTE]You don't get nothing in return. You get market share, free distribution and eventually, according to every study ever done on the question, multiple legal sales of your product.

And I take umbrage to your statement of my not understanding the internet. I'm not a fly-by-night designer as I've made a living doing this for over ten years. The particular theme I created which I used as an example is one of the most successful themes for the most successful forum software—you've probably seen the theme in various iterations yourself if you ever visit other vBulletin forums, as it is used on several thousand forum installs, including some big name sites. I've made quite a lot of money of this one theme alone. I suppose your argument is I should be satisfied with that? Assholes like you probably think I make too much, which is another justification for thievery—a sort of Robin Hood douchiness.

Never underestimate the human ability to first create a problem and them make themselves victims of it.

 

[ManofGod]

This makes no sense. If it is worth being watched—or in my case installed—then it is has worth to the thieves (because they sure as hell aren't my customers). The greed is purely on their part for taking what is mine and giving nothing in return.{/QUOTE]You don't get nothing in return. You get market share, free distribution and eventually, according to every study ever done on the question, multiple legal sales of your product.

Never underestimate the human ability to first create a problem and them make themselves victims of it.

Like when you are a victim of Microsoft?

 

[H-street]

People who argue pirating is anything other than stealing are deluding themselves. How is this still a dicussion?

As to the title of the topic, every time this comes up - is Piracy Theft or Not - it always gets rationalized into the.. "its not theft, its copyright infringement" and somehow that makes everyone feel better..

Thanks David_ I feel better already..

I think a better question and discussion is...

Is it right, or is it wrong?

I guess its easy to say theft not theft (hey that makes everyone better if we stop there), funny how no one wants to tackle the big question..


More and more as these discussions rage on, I really am convinced it comes down to a personal integrity.

Are you the type of person that would keep the extra dollar change the cashier gave you in mistake? or do you give the money back? - I mean they aren't going to know, Walmart is a huge corporation so they can afford to give you a dollar, and whats it really going to hurt anyway?