When I was a teenager several decades ago I had a friend who know a kid who was a compulsive shoplifter. This kid whom I never met apparently didn't believe in paying for anything. My friend's attitude was that so long as the kid was stealing from places like 7-11, it was cool. But if the kid chose to steal from a Mom and Pop shop, then he was a jerk. What my friend failed to get about this kid is that the kid, like most thieves, didn't care who he stole from. This kid wasn't Robin Hood.
Hollywood has done a very clumsy job with explaining why piracy of films, music, etc is wrong. I hope this article does a better job.
Full disclosure before we begin: I am no angel. I have bought and traded for plenty of bootleg DVDs in my time. The bootlegs I have obtained have been movies that were otherwise unavailable, however. That means a lot of serials and some vintage 3-D titles like Jaws 3-D and House of Wax. However, as those same titles became available on legit sources, I was happy to throw the bootlegs out and get the legit version. I had a bootleg field sequential version of House of Wax for ten years. I had it for the very reason that Warner Home Video refused to release it that way. When they finally did in 2013, the bootleg went in the garbage and the 3D Blu Ray was purchased. It would be my delight to continue to do so as these things continue to come out.
I suspect, however, that I'm a bit of an extraordinary case. I sadly know people, in particular in the serial community, who are like "meh" when it comes to getting a legit version of something they've had in a bootleg for years. I personally find that attitude odd since the legit version will clearly look better than the bootleg. Going back to House of Wax, I'd much rather watch a restored 3D Blu Ray of that movie than a faded DVD-R with Japanese subtitles.
Of course, Piracy among classic movie fans usually is driven by the desire to see something that Hollywood just won't release on video. You can't get too uptight with serial fans, I suppose, if they throw their hands in the air and decide that the only way to see a serial like The Spider's Web is to buy a bootleg off some jerk on the internet.
But the issue of Piracy goes way beyond classic movie fans buying Song of the South bootlegs because Disney won't release it in this country. Piracy is all over the place. I don't need to tell you that, since probably there's a decent number among you reading this engaging in it. I myself know a shocking number of people who brag about downloading torrents and who own jailbroken Firesticks or similar boxes so that they don't have to pay for cable. The rational varies from "sticking it to the man" or "movies/cable are too much money". "Besides," they go, "what does it matter if I download Star Wars before it comes out? That movie's going to make money hand over fist anyhow."
Yes, movies and cable are a lot of money. If you're a family of five and want to go to a 3-D showing of Star Wars on a Saturday night, yes, it can run you upwards of $100 depending on where you live. Then again, if you're downloading Star Wars, you're not watching it in 3-D anyhow. So why not just go to a 2-D matinee where it's cheaper? AMC has movies before noon at $6 or something like that. Want to know when I try to go the movies? That's right, AMC before noon. Especially for a 3-D movie. Back in the day, AMC would have $3 five o'clock shows. That was literally the only time I would go to the movies.
I don't have cable. I have an antenna, Netflix, and Hulu. A whole lot cheaper than cable. "Yeah, but you gotta watch commercials!" they'll say. Yeah. And??? I've watched commercials my whole life. And Netflix doesn't have commercials, nor does my Hulu subscription. Your argument is fail.
As I've said in this blog before, it's not 1985 anymore people. We have options that don't involve stealing. If you can't afford/don't want to see Star Wars or Justice League in the movies, it's not like you have to wait years for them to come to video or show up on TV. They'll both be on DVD by next Spring, probably for $20 or less. If you have cable, you can rent them for a few bucks on On Demand. You can get them from Redbox for $1. You can watch them on Netflix as part of an $8 a month subscription service. Yes, in the 1980s we would have to sometimes wait years for a VHS release of a movie. Yes, those VHS releases were $90 at first. But it's the 21st Century, not the 1980s.
The problem is it's not just a matter of downloading Star Wars or some old serial Sony refuses to release on DVD. Go back to the story of the shoplifter. That kid didn't care who he stole from: Mom and Pop Shops were the same to him as the Big Chain Store. And it's literally the same with people who commit and/or support piracy. They don't care who exactly they're stealing from so long as they get it for free.
I know small independent filmmakers who have to troll the internet to make sure bootlegs of their movies aren't available. Because people will bootleg those movies and make them available for download. And people will download those movies rather than pay $15-$20 to the guy who made the movie. I've made independent films and it's happened to me, so I know what I'm talking about. Small independent filmmakers have to make movies often with their own money or the money of investors. They have to pay for props, locations, sometimes actors--everything the big Hollywood guys have to pay out. So when you dear downloader decide you're not going to pay money for their movie, you're going to download it instead because "what if it's no good?" otherwise known as you're just a cheapskate, you are taking away money from those filmmakers. You are making it harder for them to make their investment back.
God forbid I actually defend the porn industry, but those guys know the effects of piracy as well as the small independent filmmaker. They spend hundreds to thousands of their own dollars to shoot content, offer it for sale, one person buys it then distributes it for free on sites like Pornhub. You probably think every person who works in porn makes billions of dollars and lives in a McMansion. I know a couple of people in the industry who are walking away because they are losing their shirts due to the piracy epidemic.
What the downloaders and bootleggers don't seem to get is that ultimately they will be on a self-destructive path. If content producers, be they big Hollywood studios, small independent filmmakers (like me for instance) or pornographers can't make money at something, they won't/can't continue to do it. Paramount, for instance, has openly stated that they won't release the Republic serials on DVD and Blu Ray because of the rampant piracy. They've finally released a few, but if serial fans want more it behooves them to actually buy the releases and not download the bootleg.
Go back to the porn industry for a moment. Let's say you have a favorite porn star. That porn star either makes their own clips or works for other people. If, instead of buying those clips you go watch them or download them on a torrent site, the porn star doesn't make money or the person they work for doesn't make money. They can't continue to make clips if they aren't making money and so they leave the industry. The self-righteous among you may say "Great!" but then trade out the porn star for the Mom and Pop Deli down the street. The one who makes those sandwiches you love to eat at lunch? If people rip off that Deli all the time, what happens? They go out of business and you can't get those sandwiches you love anymore from them. If you like the movie the small independent filmmaker makes but you download it for free instead of buying it, he can't afford to make another movie you might like. It's all the same principle.
Am I suggesting that piracy is the same as shoplifting? Yes, yes I am. You might not have considered it shoplifting, but that's exactly what it is. Downloading a movie---I don't care if it's Star Wars or The Gangbang Girl Part 967--is exactly the same as walking into a store and sticking a candy bar in your pocket and walking out without paying for it because $1.25 is too much for a Snickers bar. To not put too fine a point on it, you're not "sticking it to the Man". You're being an asshole. You are stealing money from someone. Just because they're in the Entertainment industry doesn't mean they're rich.
Let's break this down by numbers for a moment. I make a film for $6,000 say. If I self distribute the movie, I have to buy all the materials to make the copies--the DVD-Rs, the cases, the covers. Incidentals like electricity and mailing supplies come into this, too. If I sell the disc for $20, It's going to cost me roughly $10 to self distribute the disc. That means I need to sell roughly 600 copies just to sort-of break even. Over 600 to make a profit. If one person buys the disc and puts it up for torrent on the internet, and 599 people decide that rather than buy the movie, they'll just download, guess what? I just lost $5,990. If I sell it on Amazon, I get roughly $6 a copy, which means I have to sell 1,000 copies to break even.
Let's go back to the porn model for a moment. Porn producer hires porn star for content. The producer spends $500 for that shoot. He sells it on something like Clips4Sale for $10 a clip. I asked a friend who does this what he makes off those clips. He says Clips4Sale takes 40%. So the producer then makes $6 per clip. Theoretically, to make a profit the producer only has to sell 84 copies of the clip. 84 copies might not sound like a lot, but if one person buys it and posts it to Pornhub and nobody else buys it, that producer just lost money.
Trade the porn producer out for a low low budget horror filmmaker. He makes a film for $500, only has to sell 50-80 copies to make a profit but loses money because the film instantly pops up on Pirate Bay. Maybe that $500 horror movie is as awful as you think it will be but the horror filmmaker still has a right to make a living the same as the Deli down the street. If you don't think that, then the problem is with you and not the filmmaker.
I'm talking about films, but the same goes for musicians. They pay money out to a studio to record a song. If you download that song off whatever free music downloading service there is and not to the musician, then you are killing that musician's livelihood the same as killing the Deli's livelihood.
Let's put it this way: if you owned the business, would you want people stealing from you because they were too cheap to buy your product? Would you want someone breaking into your home and taking your money? If the answer is no, then think before you hit that download button.
