Violation Of Copyright And The Motion Picture Industry

Piracy has become a major issue in the United States. For every motion picture that has been featured in theaters also has been pirated onto the Internet the next day, and for every new musical album that is released, yet there is a free torrent file of the album within the same hour. Even though these online pirates steal music and movies from other companies and make a drastic profit, yet these “rogue” websites receive 53 billions visits a year from across the globe according to Creative America. The persistence of the thieves that break copyright laws of the productions has lead the entertainment business to place a definitive complaint to the U.S. government of the constant notion of piracy. While the notion of piracy was not left

There are basically six technology-driven threats to the traditional rental model: (1) Cable companies offering Video on Demand (VOD), (2) online movie downloads, (3) online movie rentals, (4) disposable DVDs, (5) illegal movie downloads and DVD copying, and (6) Digital (or Personal) video recorders (DVR). (Jackson) One could also consider traditional pay-per-view (PPV) as and additional substitute. Only one of these seven, online movie rentals has proven to be a major competitive substitute for traditional movie rentals. All other areas, except traditional pay-per-view are expanding rapidly, but some face significant challenges.

Motion pictures are a key driver of the market for entertainment products, one of the largest export markets in US. Motion picture industry consists of three stages: studio production, distribution, and exhibition. The studios produce the lifeblood of the industry, the films that are its content. The biggest players at this level are the majors, big studios which integrate production and distribution, as do the slightly smaller mini-majors. The next stage is distribution. Distributors are the intermediaries between the studios and exhibitors. Distribution entails all steps following a film’s artistic completion including marketing, logistics, and administration. Distributors coordinate the manufacture and distribution of

After reading “Dear Piracy Apologist: Downloading unreleased films is not cool”, the author expresses that he does not torrent films with the reasoning of, ‘because I can does not mean that I should.’ He states opposing arguments with bias for anti-piracy and defends reasons not to pirate.

The law that the defendant is accused of violating is the United States Copyright Act. Copyright liability for peer to peer (P2P) developers include infringement, vicarious, contributory, liability, and inducement. Copyright law applies to every form of expression. In this case it is file sharing, music and videos. Copyright is the exclusive legal rights reserved to the owner their right to produce and distribute their material.

risen 20% -- an average of 2% a year -- over the past 10 years.

Interactive media and studio entertainment are currently generating the least revenue. This is due to the high cost to produce films for studio entertainment and the fact that interactive media is a relatively new business channel for Disney. However, out of all business lines, these two have the most potential in their industry and are therefore very attractive. Interactive media is a hot trend that Disney will be able to capitalize on due to its acquisition of Playdom. While films are very expensive to produce and distribute, the profit potential from Marvel and Pixar make the industry very attractive overall.

Piracy first and foremost is an attempt to copy or make use of what was not originally produced by the individual without right permission or authorization by the sole owner of this product for profitable means. This is a huge problem in even the most advanced of countries as a lot of individuals don’t see the damage or wrong in taking part in the buying and selling of these movies. As time and age has become more technological so has the art of piracy blossomed because of the easy access to technology there are different kinds of piracies, there is the video piracy, DVD piracy, cable piracy and many others. While strict laws have been put place to manage and prevent the occurrence of this event. Regardless of this it still is rampant and occurs.

According to Fritz Attaway, one of MPAA’s top executives who works to develop the movie industry’s anti-piracy policies, “We have no illusions that we will be 100 percent successful. Piracy has always been and will always be with us.” Continuing he talks about what their alternative goal is, “Our goal is to keep it under a reasonable level of control where we can make enough revenue in a legitimate market to recoup expenses and continue to make new movies” (Van der Sar, 2010). There is no way to eliminate every pirate in the world and so Attaway’s proposal is the only remaining thing to

Movie studios have gone to great lengths in stopping pirated movies or channels that distribute their movies without consent from the producers. Fair use is another tricky subject and many people are content with snippets of a popular series or are fine with watching an entire visual novel or listening to an book audio instead of purchasing the novel from a store or website. Thus, best cost has become more nuanced and allowed for more tricky approaches to attracting customers with free material that is bundled with priced add on or free material that is kept afloat with volunteer payments or optional payed bonus extras. For example, a studio may create a movie and have the ticket be valid for watching in a theater but also later viewing at home. It dissuades customers from illegally purchasing the movie due to the cost strategy being convenient and flexible to consumer taste. The strategies are different yet today are being utilized and evolving with the pressures of new competition along with customer perception. Knowing how to appeal to a customer's perception of pricing while offering a quality product are the key to sustaining a proper strategy in our changing

Perhaps one of the greatest modern issues concerns piracy and the legality of copyright infringement imposed upon acts of piracy. There exists a gray area with the laws that regulate cyber interactions. On one hand, the debate that the act of illegally obtaining copies of work or fiction falls under fair play. Inversely, the other side portrays the argument that piracy damages revenue and intellectual progression of artist, directors, and producers. The latter reigns more true in the case of the American justice system and presents an argument of mutual fairness. Piracy, in all its forms, should be treated as an illegal and punishable activity. Writers and designers must expose themselves to the risk of lost royalties due to piracy.

Most people, no matter what social class they´re in, have watched a pirated movie. By definition, movie piracy is the illegal duplicating of movies for sale or any personal use. Or in other words, if you want to watch a movie, you have to pay for it. No matter, if you pay for a movie ticket, a D.V.D. or pay to stream it online, that payment goes to many different levels of people who help make the movie. The latest movement to attack the American society is movie pirating. In any city, it is easy to find individuals selling pirated copies of movies illegally. A great number of the world´s black market business is represented by pirated movies. The use and invention of the internet allowed for creation and expansion of downloading, sharing files and editing files. Pirates around the world used this innovation in technology to their advantage. Movie piracy has become a plague to the world´s economy because of the theft of over millions from the film industry.

Julian Sanchez, research fellow at the Cato Institute, provides an interesting outlook on the issue of piracy, and what should be done. He compares the actions taken in the movie and television industry to prevent piracy by stating:

Filmmaking is an increasingly popular form of creative expression, and with expression comes offensive material. Because of this, films have a long history with governments all around the world. In the United States, this presents a unique issue. One of our government’s attributes that we are most proud of is our right to free speech, granted to us by our first amendment. This means that citizens can say whatever they would like about anything or anyone, including their federal, state, and local governments, without fear of legal retaliation from those governments. This grants a tremendous amount of power to the citizens, and as we all know, with great power comes great responsibility. In the filmmaker’s case, this responsibility, in the federal government’s eyes, was to create films suitable for all ages and mental capacities. Film producers had contrasting views, as one might expect. Filmmakers believed that their work should be protected under the first amendment, as it is a form of speech, but as Albosta says in his paper, “The Supreme Court has held that this does not protect all forms of communication” (Albosta, 2009, p.122). Unfortunately for film, they were originally excluded from the protection of the first amendment.

A new emerging view has also arisen out of this predicament. This stance argues that piracy has had a positive effect on all of the industries it has affected. One idea is that those who pirate materials and enjoy them are likely to advertise via word of mouth. Those people who pirate materials are likely to spread good word about them, if they are truly good, and therefore other may hear these reviews and go and purchase the content for themselves. Sometimes piracy leads users to a “try before you buy” mentality which helps consumers decide whether or not they want to purchase an item. For example, someone might pirate a movie to see what their first impression is, then go see it in theaters for the experience. This is true for other media as well.