One perk of being a movie critic is getting screeners to films that haven’t hit theaters yet.
The screeners are often watermarked or otherwise stamped in order to prevent piracy. It’s annoying to watch a movie in which the words “Property of So and So Pictures” or, worse, “Christian Toto” routinely flash across the screen. But it’s easy to ignore after a while, especially when the film in question is good.
WWTW would never, ever dream of pirating a movie. I wouldn’t even know how. But others clearly don’t have much of an issue with it.
Most people may not illegally distribute a film, but some might download it from the web for free and not lose a wink of sleep over it. I couldn’t … I work too closely with films and feel like it’s robbing the people in the industry. But I suspect many decent folks have little issue with downloading an illegally obtained movie.
Music lovers routinely download songs for free. Are films any different?
Would you watch a pirated movie? And why?
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{ 14 comments… read them below or add one }
I am strongly opposed to this, and I am strongly opposed to people stealing photos off my blog, or content off my blog. Yes, Hollywood makes a lot of money, but stealing is stealing.
Just because you steal from a rich guy doesn’t make you better than the person who stole from a poor guy. Of course, this doesn’t seem to be the opinion of our government right now… but that’s a different topic.
I don’t think people should steal music either, although years ago I may or may not have had a Napster account, so I guess I’m a hypocrite.
If it weren’t for a lot of new media sites that fill me in on lefty sucker punches, I would probably have learned to pirate films just so I wouldn’t run the risk of investing in a film that took cheap shots at me personally, or people like me.
I’ve learned to accept that a significant portion of Hollywood resents most of the things I hold dear- culturally, religiously, etc.
I watched a pirated film that a friend brought over…the quality sucked and I haven’t watched another. But I have used torrent sites to download programming not available in the US. I watched Poland’s “Katyn” before you could get it here and I recently finished the original Danish production of “The Killing” known as “Forbrydelsen”. I saw it before they did on BBC.
I did the same with Australia’s “Underbelly” before it was available in the US. The reason I do this? Because they aren’t available here and there’s no timetable for when they will be. I buy used books too…but that makes me feel more guilty for some reason.
It depends. I have watched pirated films and hated the quality of the production so I take them with a grain of salt.
However, given the fact that some films haven’t been released (such as Path to 9/11) or are older and harder to find I can see the benefit. For example, and I know it’s television, but you can’t purchase later seasons of WKRP In Cincinnatti yet nor do we know when these episodes will be available, so in lieu of that I can see why people do.
Plus if I like a film well enough I’ll buy it anyway because I want the good version instead of a lame copy.
Where’s the “or why not” in the title?
It *is* a pretty safe assumption that people do watch them (and “stealing” means watching a pirated movie, even if it’s only online and you never download it). There are all sorts of justifications: mine include the “only a little” excuse (there is that one scene in “PoTC: Curse of the Black Pearl” where Jack and the two British soldiers interact for the first time that I find so funny I have to seek it out online over and over again as I’ve seen but have yet to buy the movie–yes, it’s theft and I haven’t done it in quite a while, as a scene that good should indeed sell the movie); and for MST3K original episodes, that they told everyone to spread the tapes when they were starting out.
Practically speaking, I have never installed Bit Torrent in its many incarnations and never will. Why not? I have a serious gripe over the tendency of Netizens to take stuff for free because they can and it’s supposed to be liberating for one and all (this, because I gave ScribD a try a few years ago when I was trying to sell some writing for the very first time and have no rep or contacts to help me sell it: got over 7,000 hits and not one blasted purchase of my supposedly encoded documents–had a happy ending, though, as I eventually discovered Helium, where everybody lifts everybody else up: that is the Net at its best).
And it helps to have a moral code: this is not boasting, rather, admitting you have a limp and need a crutch. More than once I’ve been seriously tempted to steal a movie and got drawn up short by the Buddhist precept not to take anything not offered. We’re only human. We need something like that to carry around with us; it does help. Things like the RIAA lawsuits, not so much.
I think people do it because theaters and the studios have been sticking it to the consumer for years. Remember when Blu-ray wasn’t out and they used to hit you up for about $20.00 for a DVD purchase? How do you like it now that they are giving them away with a Blu-ray purchase and many times the Blu-ray includes a digital copy? So what we used to pay $20.00 for, the studios are handing out free with a Blu-ray purchase. If the industry would show some more respect for the consumer, they might be respected more and this wouldn’t happen.
Disclaimer- I do not watch and do not encourage anyone to watch pirated movies. It’s just my opinion on one of the causes of it.
Wow! Once again, you give us a good topic to comment on. WWTD?
I have a nephew-in-law (married to a niece) who steals (that is how I see it) movies all the time and brags about it. He was telling us at a BBQ how to do it, how to download the rip(?) software, etc.
I went to my sister-in-law’s beach house and in the DVD collection was one stolen (ripped?) flick given to her and my brother-in-law as a “thank you” for a weekend stay from my afore mentioned “nephew-in-law”.
The movie? “Blood Diamond”.
I don’t know if he was giving a “gift” to my sister-in-law or a “slap in the face”.
Either way, I am so against STEALING films and I have always been.
As a child, I was given too much change at a local theater for my ticket. I went and told the manager and gave him the change back that he offered me a free popcorn or candybar…which I refused since I told him “Doing the right thing doesn’t need to be rewarded”. He was stunned. I remember this to this day.
Currently I like to spend a lot of time during every DVD my wife and I watch at home pointing out the penalties from the FBI and Interpol. I always joke I would gladly be witness for the prosecution at my “nephew”-in-law’s criminal trial when they finally “get him”.
(He is an obnoxious twenty-something who constantly lips off about the joys of socialism and his hero and god, Obama, so I feel it is my civic duty to see him behind bars).
Wait, it’s OK to steal music now? When did that happen?
Totally agree. As an artist myself, I don’t want people stealing my images off the web or scanning and printing them at home either. We need to remember that just because we CAN do something doesn’t mean that it’s OK or the right thing to do. Whether it’s movies, music, ideas, blog content, whatever, stealing is stealing.
I’m at a point where I feel this issue has become grey. Its getting more fuzzy to me as I continue to work in entertainment. I invested a great deal of time and $$ to work in this field, only to see what I wanted to do the most eventually fade away because of the internet and the mp3 format.
My colleagues who are musicians, recording engineers and producers only shrug now at the issue because many of them are part of the equation. They make a living creating portions of what eventually becomes a record or movie. But they download and trade files of entertainment left and right. Aren’t they biting the hand that feeds? I ask them this constantly and get a dizzying amount of answers.I can preach copyright law all day and they come back with “part of the evolution” and “look at the big picture.” I’m trying, believe me.
I guess its easy to feel the moral road driving you towards of “don’t do it.” But let me throw this out there. Every time media companies come up with a new distribution method techie folks find a way to make it even easier to make a copy of it. Sometimes the company who makes the distribution is the company creating the entertainment. Think Sony. Cassette recorders and VHS always comes to mind. Entertainment companies cried foul when folks made copies via cassette but eventually made a deal about making copies. You can do it but not for profit. Isn’t this the same thing except in a much bigger quantity? Didn’t you use your parents or your own cassette stereo player to record songs from your friends copy (dub) or call the radio station to request a song and record it exactly when you know it was coming on? Your VHS recorder did a lot of work if you had cable or followed a certain tv show back in the 80’s. Don’t tell me your friends didn’t come over to watch, listen and ask if they could have a copy and you said no because that would be wrong. You did and so did I. If companies didn’t figure out the disc or digital format, we would be watching grainy movies and listening to music with a bit of feedback or static still. And making copies with the best dual cassette recorder money can buy.
Tell me what is the difference. I’m asking because this is the fuzzy part. The digital age may be just part of the evolution and the entertainment industry has yet to come to terms of the correct answer. I don’t think the MPAA or RIAA need to bankrupt or cause jail time for people. I think they need to figure a better method of distributing a better product that folks are interested in paying for. I want someone to give me a timeline that exceeds a couple of months where the film, or music, industry distributed a constant level of excellence and never pushed garbage to to the consumer. Hit after hit, rubies and diamonds, everyday is Christmas. If you can’t come up with even one year where the entertainment industry brought constant hits then maybe you understand what I’m asking.
There are millions of folks across the planet downloading illegally and nothing is stopping them, not the MPAA or RIAA, even though a few folks get busted and some swedes go to jail, there are way more than you realize. I’ve been researching and I’m astounded.
Maybe for us who don’t participate in “the free”, as I call it, having a clear conscience is more important that getting a stolen copy of the latest Academy Award winner. But I don’t exactly feel sorry for companies who have merged to become closer to being one giant distributor of low quality films and music either. Maybe this is just a way to tell these companies that you keep giving us more useless information that costs more I’m going to get what I want for free to spite you.
Well, I watch anime that’s subtitled by fans (sometimes badly) for free, but if it comes out in America I try to buy it (if I like it, I mean). I figure that’s probably no different from watching an acquaintance’s Tivo, or the old days of “tape trading” that were often the only way of seeing anime here in the states. Plus, hey, lately they’ve been working in product placement, so even if the ads are stripped out, their advertisers are still getting bang for their buck (or, uh, their hundred-odd yen).
Watching movies for free would bother me, unless it were a movie that’s not available for purchase—which list has been shrinking lately. It’s one thing if you could legally purchase a movie, and don’t; quite another if doing it for free were the only way to see it.
I have watched some old stuff that I couldn’t find available anywhere else online, but if a movie is new, or still making money, this seems really crappy.
This is theft, regardless of whatever rationalizations one can make about sticking it to the big media companies. And taking the cost of illegal movies (both here by entitled nephew-in-law types and in places like China where it’s a free for all), this impacts the decisions these companies make about movie availability and the methods for viewing. There are so many ways to see movies cheaply nowadays (provided they’re made available) – on demand over the internet via Netflix, Amazon, etc.- there really is no excuse.
With the internet people have lost sight of the difference between what you CAN do vs. what you SHOULD do.
No, I never have and I never will steal a movie off the internet.