There exists no IP law. A talented director, called James Cameron shoots a film called Avatar which cost more than $ 200 million to produce and $ 150 million to market. The production company sells a copy to a cinema owner. Now other cinema owners approach him and ask him to make copies of the film and sell it to them for a lower price than the production company charges. (Okay, now you will tell me that the production company could have made a contract with the cinema owner, forbidding him to make copies of the film. But then suppose that an employee or someone else who didn’t make a contract with the producers made the copy.)
The production company just sells three copies to cinemas, all the rest are copies made by cinema owners. So millions of people come watching the film in cinemas all over the world but the production company won’t profit from it. The company gets bankrupt, and no one ever dares to shoot such an expensive film again. Since then, there are only extremely low-budget productions on the market.
Many of the elderly often tell their disbelieving children and grandchildren of the “Golden Age of Movies”, when films cost hundreds of millions and entertained the masses.
One could argue, that the costs to produce films would be lower on a free market; or that there was a breach of contract somewhere, so they could sue for damage, but there is a better point:
How Antitrust Ruined the Movies
The article points out a very logical solution for a movie company - to own (or co-own) the cinemas in question, and so profit directly from their movies with little risk of a copy getting out. But as the article’s name hints, this may not be possible.
It’s already being done: the difference is that copies are posted on the Internet free of charge instead of being sold to other cinema owners for a profit. What’s the point of paying a cinema ticket when you can see it free of charge in the comfort of your own home?
Well, watching a movie in cinema is a totally different experience from watching it at home. I mean, why should people ever bother to go to cinemas, when they can wait a year until they can watch the film at home for free? Because it’s just not the same.
Yeah, and the move towards using more 3D (like surround sound before) is part of that tactic - to make the movie experience more worth in a cinema. In the end, it resembles what the Linux companies do - even if the product itself is available for free, they earn for providing services with added value.
Hmm, IP is legit so long as it is voluntarily agreed upon, so that if you bought a CD that said “copying this is a breach of contract” it would be illegal to do so. However if i downloaded the songs from that CD from you, I haven’t agreed to any contract with the record label and am not in violation of any laws.
Just for kicks… I hate Hollywood movies. Pi was made for 50,000 dollars. Sorry it doesn’t have jessica alba riding a motorcycle while shooting backwards at America’s enemies.
That’s how the theatre makes money, not how the movie production makes money. Why would a theatre ever pay for movies when it can just bribe the production company’s employees for a perfect copy?
That’s not prevention; that’s punishment. Even if the pirates get punished, the production company (or whomever) will still go bankrupt (as you say they would). Anyway, why should production companies (or whomever) deserve to be protected? Is it because, otherwise, they would go out of business? Should we have also protected the horse and buggy industry?
Humans in general think of ideas and information they possess as being property that is owned by them…how are you going to force them to stop thinking like that and force them to agree with you? Your desire to defend the hacker against the company that has had data stolen is contradictory to liberty and property.
No, not competitors. Every competitor is free to shoot his own movie and distribute it to cinemas. I wouldn’t call someone who copies a film and distributes it himself a competitor.
Because actors, directors, and everyone involved in making the movie avatar were grossly over paid. If james cameron was making the same amount of money as say a janitor like he should be, given that the tired predictable drivel that leaked out of his brain still made it to the big screen, then who gives a crap if someone copies your movie. The major expense would be in the creation of a theater not the creation of the movie.
You don’t need to ride on a horse and buggy to arrive at that idea (otherwise how would the first horse and buggy company have done it?), and anyway that’s not protectionism of outdated industries, which was your prior argument.