Do Pirates Hurt The Movie Business?
When I say pirates, I don’t mean the swashbuckling type – I mean those individuals that sneak camcorders into the local cinema and record movies or distribute “cracked” copies of DVDs on the street or over the Internet. For years, Hollywood has claimed that “pirated” movies would ruin the industry and keep people out of theaters.
A recent article from the Electronic Frontier Foundation suggests that the cries of studio executives are blown out of proportion. The article says that Star Trek, the most downloaded movie of 2009, still made a net profit of over $100 million. The article also states that in a year when “internet piracy” was at its highest, Hollywood broke records at the box office.
As 2009 comes to a close, there is no evidence out there that “Internet piracy” is leaving us with fewer creators or fewer copyrighted works, even if you limit yourself to considering works being created by “professionals” employed by movie studios. And once you factor in all the new, noncommercial or semi-pro creators who have been empowered by the very same Internet technologies that Hollywood is blaming for “piracy,” well, it seems clear that creativity is alive and well, and that Hollywood’s demands for drastic overhauls of copyright law and broadband policy are disconnected from reality. (Full article).
Don’t get me wrong. I am NOT suggesting that anyone go out and record movies and post them on the Internet or try and sell bootlegged DVDs out of the back of a car. What I would like to see is a less draconian approach to digital rights management (DRM). There is no reason people should have to violate the law just to make backup copies of movies or music that they own.
What are your experiences with DRM? Tell me about it.
