About on-line film piracy. in OD

In the past few days, a debate about on-line film piracy, using such sources as P2P and Kazaa, has started on the Ain’t It Cool News website (http://www.aintitcool.com). This was due to a rant posted by one regular contributor and reviewer going by the name Moriarty. Harry Knowles, who set up the website, has even chipped in his $0.02 on the subject.

But I don’t think that things are as serious as Harry and Moriarty claim they are. Lets look at the two major points raised by them both.

1) Piracy affects the amount of money made by films at cinemas.

I can’t really see this one being true. One of the big arguaments against Napster (an obvious comparison that I will keep making) was that it would affect album sales, as people would just download albums instead for buying them. But the majority of people who used Napster used it to download a few tracks by artists who had been recommended to them, or that they had heard a song by in a nightclub that they liked, and, if they enjoyed those tracks, they would buy the albums. The same goes here. People (if the AICN talkbacks are anything to go buy) will download a film, watch it and then decide if it is worth their hard earned money going to see on the big screen.

Not to mention the limited release films which, if you are unlucky enough not to live in an area with a cinema which’ll show these films (thankfully, I do), you may never get the chance to see.

2) Downloading films will affect the sales of the DVD’s.

It’s one of the beautiful things DVD has over video’s that you do not just buy the film. In fact, most of the time when I buy a DVD it’s because of the extras which are on offer, and which you cannot access on-line (as far as I know). People who are hard of hearing might buy the DVD because of the subtitles options. If studios are worried about the sales of DVD’s all they need to do is make the extras so appealing that people will buy them, whether or not they have the film downloaded from the net.

The other comparison which is to be made with Napster is that of the young, up and coming filmmaker can upload a film, or a short, onto one of these sites and get feedback from others. This can be a useful and important tool in helping these potential filmmakers get where they want to bee.

What’s my take on the whole thing? I don’t see people who download films so they can make up their minds whether or not to pay the (at times over-the-top) cinema prices to see a particular film. The ones who need to be clamped down on are the people who copy these films onto video or DVD and then sell them at car boot sales. These are the real pirates.

You can read Moriarty’s rant here and Harry’s comments here

Since writing this article, Moriarty has posted a further piece, explaining why he said what he said. You can read that here<