I am not all that active of a poster here on this forum but I am fairly passionate on my beliefs concerning piracy. There is no way anyone can deny that you are a thief if you make illegal copies of movies. I think alot of people justify it because there is no one person that they are stealing from. It really doesn't matter. Would you steal a car off a car lot? Would you take a candy bar from a store? Would you steal a DVD from Wal-Mart? I assume the (most of) you would answer no to those questions.
I have a few friends that have huge libraries of pirated movies and music. What really bother me is that rather than feeling embarrased or ashamed about being a criminal, they feel proud that they were able to pull one over on "the man". I have to say that it certainly lowers my level of respect for them. Furthermore, it kind of pisses me off when I think about the fact that I am subsidizing their villenous behaivor when I pay for a legal copy of a movie. How would they feel if they provided a service or product for someone and then were simply stiffed on their bill? IT IS NO DIFFERENT! How would they feel if they owned a small movie or music production company and people were making illegal copies of their movies rather than buying legal copies?
To all people who justify piracy because the corporations make plenty of money anyway, can you honestly tell me that if you are successful in your own chosen career, that you are going to tell your employer and/or customers, "it's ok, I make plenty of money, you don't have to pay me that much"? Are you going to lower your prices once you get a large enough bank account balance? Are you going to lower your prices because a segment of your customer base complains and says you are charging too much? Or, if most people are willing to pay what you are charging, are you going to take their money and maybe even ask for more?
Movie prices are set fairly. There's a very proven concept that anyone who has taken a basic economics class should understand - it's called supply and demand. If the movie companies are selling enough movies at the prices that they are offering them for, than it is the fair market price. There is a point of equillibrium where the supply curve and the demand curve meet which generally dictates what the market price is. I can gurantee you that the companies know perfectly well what that point is and understand the effect on their bottom line would be if they lower thier prices. They would in fact lower their prices if they thought that their additional sales would offset the lower per unit price. It is pretty apparant to me that lowering their prices is not going to make them more money.
Doing the math, if they sold a movie for $10 when it normally sells for $30 they would have to sell three times as many copies just to generate the same revenues. Plus, this doesn't take into account the additional production and distribution costs involved for producing and distributing three times as much product. I seriously doubt that their sales would triple by lowering the price to that level. Furthermore, I would be willing to bet that the number of people who pirate movies would not change significantly either until the price for a movie was so low that it wouldn't even cover their variable costs for making and distributing that movie.
Piracy is not a tool to send a message to the media companies to lower their prices because they're too high. It's a message to them to increase their prices because they have to make up for their lost revenues from not receiving payment from the thieves. As previously mentioned, if you want to send a signal to the movie companies, don't buy their movies. Better yet, start a campaign to stop other people from buying their movies.
Finally, I don't personally approve of many strategies used by media companies. I am sure they use many aggressive tactics in many parts of their business to increase efficiencies and reduce costs. Most large corporations have methods that, while maybe not illegal, are likely unethical. However, the bottom line is that the movie companies are not using illegal tactics to make us buy and watch their movies. It is our choise to shell out the cash to do so. I personally am not going to break the law and behave in an unethical manner no matter how greedy or selfish I think they are. If I act in that way then what seperates me from them?
And as a closing thought, when you really consider the cost of a movie at the theatre, paying even $100 for a DVD is a great deal. Think about how many times you can watch that DVD and multiply that by how many people can watch that movie and then multiply that by the price of a ticket at the theatre. For example, if my family of five watches a movie three times and movie tickets cost an average of $8, that comes out to the equivelent of $120 (5x3x8=120). This does not even factor in additional costs of food, gas and possible babysitting, not to mention the value of being able to watch the movie in the comfort of my own home and start and stop it at my convenience. And that $120 could be much greater if I have friends and relatives who watch the movie as well or if it is a classic that will be watched over and over again. So, one could argure that the intrinsic value of a DVD could be several hundreds of dollars depending on how you look at it.
I'm sure this post will be polarizing and won't change anyone's mind but, like I said, I am fairly passionate about this topic.
Matt
