I have to bring attention to this article that I found on Daily Tech - Link.The MPAA has been so relentless on it's stance against piracy, you'd think these Swedish nerds were clubbing seals. After the numbers came in, however, it turns out that despite this rampant piracy, Hollywood still had a banner year... but let me rephrase that to make sure you understand what I mean by 'banner year' - the box office grossed more in 2007 than it has in any other year in the history of film. So then, how, exactly, is piracy bringing down Hollywood? I don't know... you tell me.
The fact of the matter is, the only reason anyone looks down on P2P file sharing is because of the negative press that Hollywood has given it and let's be honest, Hollywood is a powerful marketer. If they want to make a point, you'll hear it. "Piracy", "Movie theives" and all this breaking of copyright laws... It's a lot like that line from "True Lies" - "Why do you think they call him The Sand Spider?", "Probably because it sounds pretty scary..." The point? They're making P2P file sharing sound a whole lot worse than it is.
After the nasty strike, all this piracy and all the other problems that Hollywood's faced over the last year, what was the end result? They had the highest grossing box office in history. Well, cream cheese on a shit biscuit, how'd that happen? The way I look at it, P2P file sharing isn't taking a bite out of the box office and it's really helping a lot of indie and lesser known films actually build awareness and reach an audience, which will eventually help their sales. Also, flip to that, a lot of people are now watching those lesser known and indie films when they probably wouldn't watch anything at all. So, it doesn't hurt Hollywood that bad and it's really helping out the little filmmakers, as well as introducing new films to the masses.
So, really... who's losing here and what's the big deal? Just let it go... let it go.
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