"Taking a Piece of What Has Already Been Taken"
Sunday, October 11, 2009 by Maria
In this weeks article Yar discuses the topic of the lack "of resonance in public sentiment about either the inviolability of intellectual property rights or the harmfulness of their traduction", which also brings about the question as why it is that if hypothetically having to steal from a store a moral individual feels the actual shame of the crime they are committing, whilst not feeling an inch of the same shame in response to the crime they are committing on-line through the act of piracy. Is it perhaps that we choose to be les aware of the idea of right and wrong within the privacy of our own home? This seems to be a strange and fascinating tendency in our nature, which isn't afraid to break the law as long as its in secret.
Perhaps it is that some of us keep in mind that when we are performing the acts of piracy we are not robbing the actual cast or crew of the film who may be our celebrity hero's. We are simply robbing the investors of the film forgetting that they in fact made the film possible for us to watch in the first place. But because online access provides us with the chance to get something for free which we would normally have to pay for we siese the opportunity to save as well as get faster access to a new release which we would commonly have to wait to first be provided for us in the cinema. After asking certain people the question as to why they download or bye pirated films one of the most interesting answers that I recieved was "after all it is the person who stole the film from the film studio, who is the real criminal, we are simply taking a piece of what has already been taken." In this case we are similar to the voucher's who are simply eating the remains of an already dead corpse. However our 'minor' individual participation further encourages the massacre of the film industry's budget, slowly lowering film production in both quality and quantity.
Perhaps it is that some of us keep in mind that when we are performing the acts of piracy we are not robbing the actual cast or crew of the film who may be our celebrity hero's. We are simply robbing the investors of the film forgetting that they in fact made the film possible for us to watch in the first place. But because online access provides us with the chance to get something for free which we would normally have to pay for we siese the opportunity to save as well as get faster access to a new release which we would commonly have to wait to first be provided for us in the cinema. After asking certain people the question as to why they download or bye pirated films one of the most interesting answers that I recieved was "after all it is the person who stole the film from the film studio, who is the real criminal, we are simply taking a piece of what has already been taken." In this case we are similar to the voucher's who are simply eating the remains of an already dead corpse. However our 'minor' individual participation further encourages the massacre of the film industry's budget, slowly lowering film production in both quality and quantity.