It has actually been a really nice weekend weather wise so I haven't watched too much television. That is making it a little difficult to come up with something to complain about but as you can guess, I found something. The motion picture association of America (MPAA) has constantly said that piracy is killing their business and they are losing millions of dollars. Something that came out today contradicts that drastically!
So today it was mentioned that the movie The Avengers has made $1 billion! I'm going to assume that is the total sales and not profits. Let's assume that it was an expensive movie to produce, that would put it around $150 million, but why not splurge and say that it cost $200 million. That puts the profit margin at $800 million in just 2 weeks! How could piracy truly hurt this?
I'm not saying that I agree with piracy, I'm saying that I hate everything that the MPAA makes us go through to take advantage of our fair use rights. That's right, when you buy a copyrighted movie (or music or book) you have rights. Those rights give you the ability to watch the movie as often as you like and even make copies for your own personal use. Not to distribute, whether for profit or not, but to make backup copies. But the MPAA doesn't feel you should have that right because a few people have decided to share these copies with others for free or profit. The worst part of the whole thing is that the courts are backing the MPAA with huge fines levied against individuals. I know there have been some huge levies against people but I haven't seen what those awards were. I know that in the case of the music industry they have awarded fine of $40,000 per song. These are just outrageous! Where is the protection for the people and their rights?
At some point, the government is going to have to step in and do what they are supposed to do, protect the people.
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