Movie Piracy is Stealing Essay -- essays research papers

With the growing number of internet users participating in movie piracy, this creates a network of users who no longer need to go the movie theatre or video store to watch a movie. Movie piracy has grown enormously in the past few years making it easier than ever to find box office releases with the simple click of a button. This creates a world where it is okay to steal billions of dollars from movie producers, because most of those participating in piracy see nothing wrong with it. Although there are consequences for downloading copyrighted content, it is nearly impossible to prosecute each user who is downloading a particular movie. Instead of relying on punishing those who are downloading the content, it is most important to make this content unavailable getting rid of this problem altogether. In a recent survey conducted on 3600 internet users in nine countries, it was reported by the Motion Picture Association of America that twenty-four percent of internet users have downloaded a movie over the internet, and seventeen percent of those who hadn’t said they expect to start within the next year (Pruitt). Just about any internet user can easily find and download a movie within a few hours by typing its name into a search engine. With this method being more convenient and less costly than going to the movie theatre, it should not be a surprise that so many people are doing it. â€Å"Only two years ago, it took 72 days to get a highly watchable version of "Finding Nemo" online.† (Hernandez) Today, in the world of movie piracy this would rarely happen though. Most box office releases are available online within a few days or even hours of the box office release. â€Å"Last summer's blockbuster "Spider-Man 2," for example, was downloadable in first-rate form within seven hours of its premiere to the public†¦Ã¢â‚¬  (Hernandez). This shows that movie piracy is becoming more important to internet users, and piracy will continue to grow unless something is done about the problem. With the availability of pirated movies being so great, you cannot place all the blame on those who are downloading the files, or buying the bootlegs. The problem is those who make these files available. The website vcdquality.com lists releases of pirated movies, and the source of the release. The most common source for movie releases is CAM or telesync (VCDQuality). This means th... ...g hands, making it almost impossible to determine the source of piracy. For this reason copy protection must be implemented into DVD screeners. With the growth of technology and the other forms of copy protection currently available it is a surprise to me that this has not already been implemented. Napster currently uses a form of copy protection on their music file that does not allow them to be copied or played without the license. If this was implemented into screeners and DVDs in general this would cut down on piracy drastically. With the problem being so widespread and the solution being so straight forward it is a surprise that barely anything has been done to prevent piracy. Security is used in just about every aspect of life, and the problem of piracy is just as extensive as that of shoplifting, Even to use the same security in a movie theatre as you would in a department store makes perfect sense. With security in movie theatres currently being next to nothing and copy protection on DVDs being unheard of, the amount of piracy that occurs should not surprise us. We are living in the digital age where we should expect these types of activities and take the proper action.