Week 6 Response to Content

Movie Piracy

Piracy of movies and music has become an increasing issue in the past decade (Jacobs, 2010). Until recently downloading movies as been a rarity, people in the past were more likely to download music files due to their small size averaging 3 megabytes. Comparing this to downloading an average size 700 megabyte feature film (Jacobs, 2010), there is no wonder why the trend was swinging towards music downloads. Although, due to recent technology of high speed internet and unlimited downloads home viewers are able to download movies or television shows for free in the time it takes to drive to the video store and back, less the cost of fuel. This, although convenient and seemingly harmless is highly illegal. “Copyright law protects the value of creative work” (R.I.A.A, 2011). “Penalties for first time offenders of the crime can be as a high as 5 years in prison and $250,000 in fines” (R.I.A.A, 2011), while “the minimum fine equates to $75,000 per song downloaded” (R.I.A.A, 2011). There are many clips that have been put together to deter people from illegal downloading such as this;   

 

In contrast to this, a recent trend of independent film makers is to post their films on the internet to be downloaded. The idea of crowdsourcing is becoming a popular means of gaining creative material and free marketing for independent film makers through the internet medium (Mascioni, 2010).  Through this medium independent film makers are now laying their own path to success with websites such as busika.com, which pays independent film makers for content, or Azureus, where aspiring film producers can post their films for free and be discovered by big time movie makers.

Although these two ideas are at different ends of the downloading spectrum, it highlights the highs and lows of “piracy”, and how it can be both beneficial and hindering to film and music makers.

References:


Jacobs. R. S, ‘Digital Movie Piracy; A Perspective on Downloading Behaviour through Social Cognitive Theory,’ University of Twente, 2010 sourced from  http://essay.utwente.nl/59875/ on 04/09/2011

Mascioni. M, ‘Film making through crowdsourcing’, Internet Evolution, 2010, sourced from

http://www.internetevolution.com/author.asp?section_id=709&doc_id=190970 on 4/09/2011

Recording Industry Association of America, ‘The Law’, 2011, sourced from http://www.riaa.com/physicalpiracy.php?content_selector=piracy_online_the_law  on 4/09/2011

http://www.scriptologist.com/Magazine/Interviews/azureus.html

http://www.bukisa.com