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Downloaders pay for movies too

25 February 2005 14:59 by James "Dela" Delahunty

There's an interesting article at nyunews.com written by Matt Buchanan that debunks the main claim made by the Motion Pictures Association of America (MPAA) in their fight against file sharers. He first opens with mentioning how LokiTorrent was shut down and forced to hand over logs to the MPAA (which by the way, turned out to be useless) after attempting to battle the MPAA with funds (over $25,000) gathered from donations.

He then explains that the MPAA use lost revenues as an excuse to sue file-sharers who have traded copies of movies online. He gives an example first of the movie Hero, which was delayed in the U.S. by Miramax and how he managed to get his hands on a copy of the European release of the movie before it's U.S. theatrical opening. He enjoyed the movie so much that he went on to drag friends on three separate occasions to theatres to see the U.S. cut of the movie because he enjoyed it so much himself.

So his argument there is that the MPAA lost no revenue from him, in fact, they gained revenue from his friends also. The next example he gives involves the movie Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle. A friend of his refused to go to see the movie in theatres until he saw a downloaded copy of it (perhaps in lesser quality) then went to see it on the big screen after enjoying the downloaded copy so much.

He goes on in the article to mention Downhill Battle's efforts to save Eyes on the Prize, a 14-part documentary on the civil rights movement. Because of licensing issues, Eyes on the Prize cannot be broadcasted or sold on DVD. Downhill Battle began offering Internet users the chance to download and share this series using BitTorrent and organised many public screenings. This is just one of many examples of how file-sharing can save works like Eyes on the Prize from silly licensing issues.

The article is excellent but unfortunately it's one of many that Hollywood would prefer to ignore instead of really pondering on. Unfortunately the movie industry is seen as a multi-billion dollar market now more than it is seen as an industry that creates memorable motion pictures for positive reasons. Still though, it's nice to see people stand up to the claims instead of just sitting back and letting the propaganda machine pound claims into your head through the media.

Source:
Washington Square News

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