In his Forbes article “You Will Never Kill Piracy, and Piracy Will Never Kill You”, Paul Tassi argues that piracy is an inescapable reality so long as media companies refuse to acknowledge that they must reevaluate their own business practices. Tassi writes, “As long as technology continues to evolve, the battle between pirates and copyright holders is going to escalate, and pirates are always, always going to be one step ahead.” Timothy J. Seppala’s examination of the case of the torrent file-sharing website Pirate Bay illustrates the truth in Tassi’s claim. In the days prior to its shutdown, Pirate Bay saw a surge of 102 million downloads. While the number of torrented movies and TV shows decreased slightly after the closure of the site, they ticked back up even higher in the weeks after, as people turned to LimeWire, which quickly took Pirate Bay’s place. Seppala attributes this activity to the “hydra-like nature of piracy outfits in general” – that is, the idea that once one avenue for piracy has been eliminated, more will inevitable sprout up to take its place. Unless copyright groups take action to make the media they provide more appealing than that which is offered for free by file-sharing website, piracy will continue to hurt the profits of these companies.
Movie ticket prices are continuously rising, and the act of physically going out to buy a movie or go to a theater is not always practical. People want things to be easy, and streaming pirated media can be done within minutes if one has access to the internet. Tassi addresses piracy as first and foremost a service issue. He cites Netflix as an example of a business which has made strides in increasing user accessibility to media content. In my experience, going to the movies simply isn’t feasible due to economic constraints. Tickets alone can cost upwards of $17 each in New York City, and concession stand items are pricey, too. Of course, you can try to sneak cheaper outside food into the theater, but random bag checks might result in you getting escorted out of the theater, and not being allowed to even use the ticket that was paid for. A date night for two can easily become an $80 excursion. Tassi expresses that he believes in “paying for products that earn it”, and I agree that right now Hollywood isn’t offering a fair price for the media it is providing. The “movie theater experience” is highly overrated, and most movies are just as satisfying to watch at home as they would be in theaters. With Netflix and other streaming services’ commitment to providing movies as near to their theater release date as possible, I believe that in the future we will only continue to see them act as a buffer to media piracy.
1 comments
Great response!