Legal Commentary

Piracy’s effects on movies and TV

By David Canton

Techdirt comments on a New York Times article that talks about the hardship caused to the industry by the downloading of movies and TV shows.  Techdirt’s position (and i tend to be more on the Techdirt side on this one) is that the arguments and stats used by the industry just don’t add up.  For example, Techdirt says:  But, the NY Times reports, without a hint of skepticism, about the fact that The Dark Knight was so widely available online, representing a huge failure for the industry. You know which important part the reporters left out? That it was also the highest earning movie of the year. In other words, piracy is not the problem. People are plenty willing to pay to go to the movie theater if you give them a good reason to do so.

And concludes by saying:   It’s really sad that the entertainment industry keeps trusting execs who view such opportunities as threats, and that the media takes their word for it.

The bottom line in my view is that in general we spend too much time trying to stop new things from happening, and not enough time figuring out how to use new things to our advantage. 

Full post as published by eLegal Canton on February 06, 2009 (boomark / email).