Boot the Bootleggers: Part 1

I’ve made it clear before that I’m not a fan of bootleggers and their practices. There have been some really weird instances in the movie industry where something that the general public would not have considered bootlegging that did end up getting pretty far. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, there was a girl who recorded a small clip of the movie Transformers so that she could show her little brother and get him excited about the movie as well. You can read the story here.

Now do I think that Regal may have gone a bit far with that? Yes I do. However, I also feel that the theatre was justified in taking the action they did. When you are not consistent with the rules, it really makes it that much harder to enforce. Think of how many times your parents or teachers or bosses bent the rules for you. Didn’t that make it easier to bend and then break other rules?

The first part about breaking the law is to know the law:

Whether you download a movie from an unauthorized source or sell counterfeit DVDs on the street, you are a movie thief whose crimes carry serious legal consequences of which you should be aware. Federal and state laws and international treaties exist to stop people from stealing valuable copyrighted material. Pirates all over the world should know that law enforcement entities are committed to protecting copyrighted material because creative works such as motion pictures and television are as valuable as any other type of property.

Source: MPAA

A lot of people gripe about the high cost of going to the movies, and so they turn to bootlegging. They shouldn’t do this for several reasons. Besides the fact that it’s illegal, the industry gets hurt pretty badly.

Movies are Expensive to Make

Yes, movies are very expensive to make. How does bootlegging affect this? Well, when you bootleg a movie, you are not paying for admission or the DVD, which in turn does not get to the studios. Modern blockbusters can cost upwards of $100 Million to make, and it can be really difficult to turn that into profit. In fact, many movies don’t hit the green until they turn to DVD sales. When that money doesn’t get to the studios, there is much less incentive to spend money on a project, knowing how difficult it will be to turn a profit.

Less Money to Studios = Worse Movies

Bootlegging’s most direct effect is to take money away from the studios. Yes… people can be overpaid and sometimes the stars make way too much money, but like I said before, when less money is being made on movies, there is less incentive to spend money on a project. Without spending money, you can’t have all the cool special effects or the big stars to make the movies…. good. When studios decide to spend less money, the theatre audience is the one to get hurt. It’s a domino effect, because if movies aren’t as good, then less people will go, which again means less money and then even worse movies.

We’ll further explore the consequences and other things about the MPAA that you may not have known later, but…………….

Now that you know the law and a couple reasons why you shouldn’t bootleg… follow the law! Or I’ll sic Judge Dredd on you.

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