Vanity Fair had a piece in their latest issue, “Pirates of the Multiplex.” It detailed the raids against Pirate Bay headquarters in Sweden and talked about “piracy” in general.
It quoted a statistic by the MPAA (don’t even get me started on them) about how much money the entertainment industry has lost. According to the MPAA, the movie industry lost $18.2 billion to movie piracy in 2005, and $7.1 billion of that in file sharing. Those statistics are troubling….not because they are staggering numbers…but because they are inaccurate.
Just because $18.2 billion dollars of media has been downloaded or copied does not mean that $18.2 billion dollars of media would have been bought in stores or on websites. I download and buy media (but mostly download). The television shows or albums I download….I would NOT buy in stores (especially from companies like Wal-Mart or Blockbuster…which I think hurt creativity and artists in favor of the “industry”). If a band is great, or there is a show I love, I’ll buy the CD or the DVD box set….but if I miss an episode of South Park…I’m probably just going to download it.
While these companies are playing the pity card, executives and “Stars” are still making way more money than they know what to do with. Warner Bros. lays off hundreds of workers, but Ben Affleck got $12.5 million for Gigli.
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