Jamming camcorders in movie theaters
As someone who occasionally downloads movies from Kaazaa from time to time, I’m totally confused by how this is such a big deal. The article says: “According to Cinea’s grant abstract, the motion picture industry loses some $3 billion a year due to piracy, including the sale of illegal copies made using camcorders in theaters. The company predicted that its efforts could cut movie piracy by 50 percent” okay, I’ll be honest. I downloaded 40 Days and 40 Nights because I was midly curious to see it. Mildly curious as in, “Not curious to spend $12.00 at the theatre, and not curious to go to the video store and rent it out.” mildly curious. I MIGHT (and I emphasize the word might here) have watched it if I stumbled on it on City TV in a couple of years when it comes to free TV. I saw it one night while I was searching for divX movies…I downloaded it. I burned it to CD, and it’s sat in my desk for the last two months. I haven’t watched it, other than to make sure I didn’t download porn.
I don’t even have the impetus to watch the damn thing. So how exactly did the movie industry lose any money on that transaction? How have they lost money on any of the other DivX movies I’ve downloaded? I saw Star Wars Episode II in theatres twice. One night I downloaded it because I wanted to watch it again (and it was out of theatres by August). I watched it a couple more times. When the DVD comes out will I buy it? HELL YEAH! Geez, would I rather have a state of the art Dolby Digital 6.1 surround sound mix, or my crappy little CD that you can hear the dude who filmed the movie eat popcorn? Do the math. Lucas didn’t lose dime ONE on this transaction (unless the movie studios are so naive as to believe that the two times I watched Episode II on the VCD that I burned I would have gone to the theatre…once in the middle of a work day, and the other time at 12:00 at night when I was stuck at work).
Geez, you know, now that I think about it, I estimate that I lose about $600.00 a year in movies that I see in a theatre which should really be experienced on the small screen (see “My Big Fat Greek Wedding” as an example), and probably another $100.00 a year in late fees, and movies that I just return without watching them through because the movie isn’t compelling enough to watch in one sitting, and I don’t get through it.
Where’s my cash Hollywood?