English
The movie and film industry has for a long time produced and brought up stars and celebrities across the world. These celebrities excel and improve in their life by selling the movies that they produce. The economic developments of many countries can be based on the movie production and sell. When the internet was introduced and developed to reach many people, it was one of the major boosts that movie stars and producers had on their careers because of the easier access to the fans and potential customers. However, the internet has become a major blow to the movie industries since many people are now copying the original movies and selling to others without permission from the producers and owners of the movies (De Vany, Arthur and David 56). This phenomenon is referred to as movie piracy and has greatly widespread across the world. Not all movies are pirated and sold, musicians have also had troubles with the internet pirates who often download their music and sell them cheaply. In this paper, I discuss the impacts that movie piracy has to the economy and to the producer or owner of the movie, how people pirate movies including the methods they commonly use, and the measures that should be taken to curb movie piracy to prevent future cases of the same.
Movie piracy is an act of theft and the perpetrators need to feel guilty about their unethical activities. This is despite the fact that some people copy movies out of ignorance, just because its easily and cheaply available to them. The theft of a person’s hard made stuff makes the person go through a series of pain and emotional suffering as a result of the loss that he or she has incurred due to the stolen item he or she produced. The movie makers spent many years and money trying to shoot and control a movie with an aim of selling and making profits from their hard work and endurance. However, due to piracy and movie theft on the internet, these individuals end up spending more on the production of the movies and make little profits from the sales. The pirated movies are sold at throw away prices as compared to the originally produced movies. This makes the people in the market to prefer the pirated movies as compared to the original copies of the movie. The person who pirated the movie ends up getting more profits than the producer and the actors in the movie. According to De Vany, Arthur and David (56), it is very unethical to make a living out of another person’s efforts without the permission of the person. It is therefore a crime to involve in movie piracy or purchasing of pirated movies. To minimize such events, there is a need to protect the originality and safety of movies on the market and curb internet piracy of the movies that are produced (De Vany, Arthur and David 56).
Piracy and copying of movies brings economic hardships on both the producer of the movie and the economy of the country. Since the pirated movies are sold at cheaper prices than the original valid copy of the same film, many people will prefer to buy the pirated copy. This means that the producer and movie actors will get less money from the sales of their movie and thus may incur a lot of losses. When the pirated movies are sold at cheaper prices, the economy of the country is affected because less revenue is generated to improve the economy of the affected countries. In the United Kingdom, at least 30% of the movies that are sold to people are pirated and this has made the movie industry to contribute little to the economic development of the country. This has prompted measures that are aimed at reducing this vice to be put in place (Smith and Rahul 23).
The movie industry also risks making a lot of losses owing to the piracy and theft of the movies. This occurs in the times where a movie is released and people hack into the system and download the movie and watch from their homes. Most movies are released to the theaters and cinemas before they are allowed to reach the market for buying. However, most people can access movies before even they are released or provided to the cinemas. This means that people will watch the movies from their homes with few people preferring to watch from the cinemas. This will impose losses not only to the cinemas but also the producers of the movie. This means that fewer funds will be raised from the movies that are released because the pirates and hackers have made their way into the system and began selling the movie before it is made available for the world. The owners and directors of cinemas in turn impose more charges on producers before releasing the movie to the market or advertising the movie. This affects the producers and movie owners to a large extent. This will also impact the general movie industry negatively as many losses will be incurred from the made and released movies (Peuket, Jorg and Tobias 120).
Piracy has also had impacts on the quality of movies that are released in the market. As the producers incur losses in the production and sales of the films, the quality of the produced movies will be lowered, this is due to the little funds that are obtained to maintain the production of quality movies. Piracy has therefore affected the movies to a very great extent and many people are suffering and crying because of this vice that needs to be stopped. The authorities in different countries have to help in the curbing of this vice since it may in the near future kill the movie industry (Peuket, Jorg and Tobias 12).
In conclusion, piracy is an unethical vice that affects many people in the movie industry as well as the music industry. Piracy results in the decline of the sale of the original copies that are produced by the movie producers and actors. This means that the producers and managers of the movie industry incur losses due to piracy. The economic development of the countries is affected by piracy. Therefore, there is need to curb the vice of piracy in the movie industry. Authorities in different parts of the world should work together and stop this vice before it kills the movie industry. The internet has to be managed well to avoid cases of people downloading movies without authority from the owners.
WORK CITED
De Vany, Arthur S., and W. David Walls. "Estimating the effects of movie piracy on box-
office revenue." Review of Industrial Organization 30.4 (2007): 291-301.Smith, Michael D., and Rahul Telang. "Competing with free: the impact of movie broadcasts
on DVD sales and internet piracy 1." mis Quarterly 33.2 (2009): 321-338.
Peukert, Christian, Jörg Claussen, and Tobias Kretschmer. "Piracy and Movie Revenues:
Evidence from Megaupload. A Tale of the Long Tail?." (2013).
