Hypothetically, two movies come out on the same day: The
Wolf of Wall Street and the new Transformers. You are allowed to see one in an
IMAX theater and you will illegally download the other one online. Most people
would choose Transformers over The Wolf of Wall Street due to the fact that
there are robot dinosaurs and everyone else is going to see it in theaters.
Those robot dinosaurs will look a lot cooler in a theater rather than on a
laptop. Many people then realized how lacking the movie really was after
walking out of their local theater’s showing of Transformers: Age of
Extinction. Meanwhile, many of the same people went on to watch The Wolf of
Wall Street online to realize that it was actually a really good movie. Most
people don’t realize that this is at all a problem, and at first glance it’s
not. However, after more in-depth research, the problem soon becomes apparent.
Transformers: Age of Extinction only gained an 18% rating on Rotten Tomatoes
(Transformers, Rotten Tomatoes), one of the most critical and most trusted
film-review sites online. The Wolf of Wall Street, however, gained a 77% rating
on the same site (Wolf of Wall Street, Rotten Tomatoes). It was also nominated
for five different Academy Awards. The Wolf of Wall Street is clearly the better
film. Yet, besides the fact that Transformers was clearly not a great film, it
somehow managed to be named the highest grossing film worldwide of 2014 and
earned over one billion dollars in the Box Office (2014 Worldwide Grosses). The
Wolf of Wall Street went on to be the most pirated film of 2014 with over 30
million illegal downloads (Spangler, 1) and didn’t even gross $117 million,
giving the producers and the studio under $17 million after the production
cost, which is not a much of a profit at all for such a high-budget film.
Piracy has become more of a problem in the past decade than
it ever has before, specifically movie piracy. In fact, a study from Columbia
University came out recently that said at least 45% of US citizens pirate
movies actively, but that number bumps up to 70% if you include the younger
demographics as well (Mick, 2). This act of pirating is growing more and more
common every year and most people do it mindlessly, not realizing what it
costs. Everyone has seen the text at the beginning of movies saying “Piracy is
not a victimless crime,” and this is completely true. Piracy is extremely
harmful to the movie industry and its effects are larger than anyone could
imagine.
But Where Do These Pirated Movies Come From?
There are many different ways that people pirate movies. One
of the most classic ways people pirate is by “leaking” them. This involves a
person going into a movie theater with a camera or a phone and recording the
movie as it plays. It is usually a poor quality, but many people still download
these recordings anyways instead of going to see it in a theater. This usually
occurs when it is only in theater since that is the only version most people
are able to see. Sometimes these leaks occur before the movie is even
premiered, often because it is filmed during a special premier before the
opening night. This is referred to as a pre-release, and they tend to result in
a 19% decrease in how much the movie makes at the Box Office (Hart, 2). Many
people defend pre-releases because it gives a movie more publicity so more
people would want to see it, but the facts state otherwise. Leaking a movie
that’s in the theaters always tends to decrease how much the movie makes
regardless of when it is released and sometimes even leads to the movie not
even making as much as there was put into it.
One of the other common ways for a movie to be pirated is
for it to be digitally hacked. This one has become more common lately as
technology improves. One of the most extreme and recent examples was the Sony
hacking. Though some people will claim that Sony faked the hacking, evidence
shows that they were legitimately hacked. During this hacking, many of Sony’s
movies were released illegally online, such as Annie and Fury (Note: Annie had
not even been released yet). A hacking involves someone digitally cracking into
the studio or company’s computer system and taking the movie from their files.
This logically would actually decrease a movie’s Box Office revenue by even
more than someone’s recording of the movie would because it’s a better quality.
There are more ways to watch a pirated movie other than just
downloading it online. In fact, some people tend to start their own pirating
businesses. It’s very inexpensive and easy for a person to start one of these
businesses. More recently, people only need to buy a bunch of blank DVD’s, the
same amount of DVD cases and a computer that can burn a DVD. From there, they
must find a source to get the pirated movies from. Sometimes they will
personally film them in a theater, or find a hacked or leaked version online
and download it. After that, all they need to do is download the stolen films
onto their blank DVD’s and sell them to anyone who is willing to purchase it.
Within a short amount of time, this person has made a great deal of money that
should have gone to the movie studios.
What Kind of Effect Does it Have?
Most people would just say that pirating has a small effect
on the industry and that the studios already have enough money. They believe
watching a movie online isn’t going to hurt anyone. The Motion Picture
Association of America looked into this belief and discovered that piracy costs
around $20.5 billion annually in the United States alone (Plumer, 2). In fact,
a study back in 2005 estimated that a 10% decrease in worldwide piracy,
including both film and music, over the course of four years would add 1.5
million jobs, $64 billion in taxes and $400 billion in economic growth
(Kai-Lung). That, however, was ten years ago and is outdated. Those numbers are
likely to be much higher today due to inflation and an increase in popularity
of the film industry. This means that the studios are making much smaller
amounts of money than they should be making from their films due to piracy.
Quit Talking Numbers. How Does it Effect My Movie
Experience?
The decrease in money from studios will often decrease the
quality of other movies and even sequels, but more often it will decrease the
quantity. A studio is much more likely to throw all of their money into the
next big franchise sequel than give half of it to the franchise and the other
half to a movie like Twelve Years a Slave simply because Twelve Years a Slave
won’t sell as well in theaters as the franchise movie will. Movie studios and
production companies don’t look at reviews and DVD sales nearly as much as they
look at the Box Office Revenue, or how much it makes in the theater.
In many cases, piracy of a film will even damage the
likeliness of a franchise sequel. For example, the Kick-Ass movies came to an
end due to lack of funding from piracy. According to Chloë Grace Moretz who
stars as “Hit-Girl” in the series, Kick-Ass 2 was one of the most pirated films
of 2013 despite having an extremely low Box Office Revenue (Highfill). Because
of this, the plans for the third movie in the series have been cancelled.
Whether or not you like the Kick-Ass series, it is clear that piracy has become
a serious problem and will only continue to damage the film industry.
What About New Movies That Aren't Franchises Yet?
It is not franchise movies that need to be worried about,
though; it is the movies by the independent filmmakers. Due to the increase in
film piracy, production companies and movie studios are now much less likely to
loan money out to an independent filmmaker with an idea than they are to a team
of writers and producers working on a Harry Potter spin-off. When people think
of the term ‘independent filmmaker’, they think of a man in his 20’s with an
Associates Degree in Theatre that wrote a screenplay in two weeks. Though these
people are independent filmmakers, I refer to the higher kind of independent
filmmakers that actually make Oscar nominated films, but take out enormous
loans to do so. Now, due to piracy, no matter how many Oscars their movie is
nominated for, many filmmakers are having to foreclose their houses or take out
further loans from a bank to make up for the losses in the Box Office for their
film due to piracy. It also means that the studios do not get their money back
that they invested with and therefore stop funding films without promises of
success like Birdman or The Theory of Everything, both of whom won Oscars this
year.
Now Let's Think More Economically...
The loss of money affects more than just the filmmakers and
studios, however. It helps the entire economy grow due to tax and job increase.
Pirating less films will mean that the studios will get more money, which leads
to more movies, which employs people like hairdressers, electricians, actors,
costume designers and countless other occupations. This will add more jobs to
the United States and will also add more tax money to help the country.
But Is It Really Stealing?
Many people argue that piracy is not illegal because they
are not technically stealing anything. Though they are not physically taking
away anything from anyone, they are stealing intellectual property. Just
because you can’t hold a movie file in your hands does not mean that it is not
someone’s property. Downloading a film online is the equivalent of stealing a
movie from a movie store. It may not come in the same fancy case as a movie at
the store, but it still carries the same contents. By pirating a film, you are
stealing the money that should have been paid had you watched the movie
legally. You do not have a right to watch whatever movies you want to watch
without having to pay for them just as I do not have a right to walk into the
local Dollar General and eat their candy bars without paying first. As much as
people may argue it, film piracy is stealing. It is not your property, so it is
not yours to take without paying for it first.
Going Back to my Original Example at the Beginning of All of
This...
The Wolf of Wall Street was 2014’s most pirated movie with
over 30 million piracies worldwide. Let’s do the math to see how much money
piracy actually robbed this movie of had these people gone to see it in a theater
instead. In 2014, the average price of a movie ticket in the United States was
$8.17 (Linshi, 1). When a person goes to see a movie in the theater, the money
spent on the ticket goes to two different places. It is split between the movie
studio and the movie theater, with more going to the theater the longer the
movie has been out (Campea). For the purposes of now, let’s average that
overall the theater and the studio would each get 50% of the ticket price. Now
for the part with the actual math. If each illegal download of The Wolf of Wall
Street, which more specifically evens out to around 30,035,000 downloads
(Spangler, 1) equals one movie ticket that costs $8.17, and the movie studio
only gets half of the amount from each movie ticket, that results in about
$122,692,975 that was robbed from Paramount Pictures for just that one movie.
That amount stolen was more than the movie actually made in the Box Office, and
that is assuming that only one person watched each illegal download. Several of
those downloads were most likely copied onto multiple different blank DVD’s and
given out to others to watch illegally. That is even more money that was robbed
from The Wolf of Wall Street. In the Box Office, the movie barely broke even
out of how much they spent making the film. These numbers would have helped the
studio, the filmmakers and the crew a lot more in order to make even more Oscar
nominated movies. Unfortunately, these thirty million people seemed to overlook
that.
Now the Real Question: How Do We Stop Piracy?
It all starts at home, just like it takes a spark to start a
fire. Many people argue that “everyone is watching movies illegally online, so
why is it different if I do it?” Well the same argument could again go for
people that steal candy bars from a store. It may cost more than you like and
others may do it, but it is not your property to steal. Like voting, if just
one person takes a stand against piracy it will make a difference. Simply quit
pirating movies or watching them online. There are many different excuses
people use about watching movies online illegally, but it does not override the
fact that it is illegal. Even streaming movies online is illegal if it is not
authorized by the studio that made the film. If you aren’t willing to pay to watch
the film, you aren’t allowed to watch it. This is the way the industry works.
What Can The Theaters Do?
A way for movie theaters to prevent piracy is to change
their types of projectors. In the past, the government came up with a way to
prevent the filming of a movie in the theaters. They did this by projecting an
infrared spectrum over the projected film. This infrared image was not visible
to the audience, but it would make the video on the camera someone brought into
film the movie into a very low quality that would make the video almost
unbearable to watch. Since then technology has improved to attempt to improve
the quality of the filmed video regardless of the infrared. Though this has
worked to an extent, film pirates have not yet fully recovered from the
addition of the infrared. Only more research will be able to help improve the
projectors so that this does not happen anymore.
What Happens if Someone gets Caught?!
When it all comes down to it, one of the major reasons you
should avoid pirating movies is that its an enormous risk. Since it is illegal,
there are certainly punishments for those that choose to break this law. These
punishments are severe. For example, if a person is convicted of a misdemeanor
in piracy, as in they only downloaded or uploaded a small amount of movies
without the owner’s consent, the person would be punished with up to a year of
prison time and would have a fine of up to $100,000, depending on the extent of
the piracy. That, however, is just for a small offense. For someone that
downloads or uploads movies illegally without the owner’s consent in large
amounts will be charged with a felony. The punishment of this crime is up to 5
years of imprisonment and up to $250,000 in fines. The fine, though, can be
more. In some cases, the fine is set as double what the person gained for
pirating the films if they made money off of it, or it set as double the amount
of money the person cost the studios he or she stole from (AlanS). In any of
these cases, it is clear that movie piracy is not worth the risk.
Piracy is Clearly an Enormous Threat
Filmmakers are in danger of losing their jobs and the movie
theaters are in danger of only showing films like Transformers sequels and
Terminator reboots. Helping the film industry does not just entail not
illegally watching a movie, it also entails going to see those movies in a
theater to reverse the mistakes made by those who don’t realize the
consequences. Some of the greatest films do not get the proper credibility in
the theaters because people are too distracted by other films or because people
would think it’s smarter to illegally watch it on their computer than paying to
see it in a theater. As stated earlier, this has many more consequences than
these people would think, such as taking away jobs, taking over $20.5 billion
from the US film industry and decreasing both the quantity and quality of the
very movies they are downloading. In addition, is it really worth spending five
years of your life in prison just because you didn’t want to pay to watch a
movie? It’s time to stop pirating and to stop making excuses for watching a
movie illegally online. Film is a form of art. People use it to tell their
stories.
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