The various entertainment corporations, in their feeble attempts to limit the amount of file-sharing and piracy that occurs, have repeatedly ignored, to detrimental effect, an important aspect of the psychology of downloading. McArdle hits on it:
Reflecting on this problem, the computational neuroscientist Anders Sandberg recently noted that although we have strong instinctive feelings about ownership, intellectual property doesn’t always fit into that framework. The harm done by individual acts of piracy is too small and too abstract. “The nature of intellectual property,” he wrote, “makes it hard to maintain the social and empathic constraints that keep us from taking each other’s things.”
I find this to be a compelling insight. It’s very difficult to see something as property you are unlawfully stealing when it’s completely divorced from its physical presence. This is the main problem with those absurd warnings at the start of most DVDs which say, “You wouldn’t steal a television,” etc. “Piracy is stealing,” or something to that effect. Obviously the studios are trying to draw a connection in people’s minds between breaking into a shop and taking something without paying and downloading a movie through a file-sharing site. The problem is I find it hard to believe anyone is going to watch that and have a light bulb suddenly switch on.
To explain my personal stand on piracy, I’m against it. I think it’s wrong. However, this certainly hasn’t stopped me from illegally downloading both music and movies. But I, like anyone else who knowingly does wrong, find a way to justify it in my head. Now, this is perhaps only coincidental but I never downloaded music before moving to Spain four years ago. That event happened to coincide with my receiving an iPod. So perhaps downloading was the natural progression after that step and I would have engaged in it regardless of having left the country.
Why did leaving the country cause me to begin downloading? Well, it started small with songs that I missed hearing on the radio while driving. Then artists I liked started releasing new albums that I wanted. I always had the intention of eventually returning to the US. So on the assumption that I would one day buy the CD, I didn’t want to spend money on iTunes. I refused to buy CDs here for two reasons: I had very little expendable income in my first two years here and I didn’t want to burden myself with more possessions that would have to travel back with me.
As far as movies are concerned it’s a matter of downloading films or (for the most part) not seeing them until they are released on DVD in Europe. This is because all films are dubbed in cinemas here (another post on that at a later date) with the exception of the odd Original Version cinemas which show them subtitled. There is one such cinema in Seville. It is basically an art house cinema with 5 screens. They rarely have the big Hollywood films unless they have some artistic pedigree like Alice in Wonderland because it’s directed by Tim Burton. Basically I’m impatient and don’t want to wait several months to a year to understand why everyone thinks that Oscar contender is so great.
Occasionally something I’ve already downloaded will play at that cinema. If it was something I thought was worth seeing a second time I will pay for it (No Country for Old Men, A Serious Man, The White Ribbon, Precious). I do this because I am a bit of a purist and I believe cinematic films were made to be seen in the cinema and also because I want to support artists like the Coen brothers because I want them to keep making movies I enjoy.
Now I doubt there are many people like me, who have such strict rules when it comes to downloading. Most people surely do it because they don’t feel like spending the money at the cinema. But I seriously doubt that people are choosing to see a pirated copy of Avatar in place of seeing it in the cinema, especially in light of its box office totals. Maybe that’s a bad example because 3-D may have been the main draw. But you need only look at the box office takes of most big event action/adventure movies to realize that piracy is not hurting that market. Films smaller in scope and focusing more on story and character with little to no razzle dazzle are perhaps the films most hurt by piracy.
McArdle wonders if people will continue to produce music and movies and books if the revenue to be drawn from it continues to dwindle. She ultimately concludes that they will but that the business model has yet to be realized. I feel confident that the advancement of better and cheaper technology for making movies will only increase the number of movies made. Whether we see them all in a cinema or even on DVD is another story. If I had to guess, I’d say that eventually the majority of the films we see in cinemas will be big budget special effects extravaganzas with the lower-budget films (including dramas, comedies, romantic comedies, relationship dramas) relegated to what, until now, have been considered lesser media (direct to video; cable TV; Internet). These are changes that I think are being driven slightly by piracy, but much more so by technology. I will cover that in a future post dealing with the travesty of 3-D.
No comments:
Post a Comment