STOP THE PIRACY COMMERCIAL

[joker_927]

I just saw a commercial to stop CD and movie piracy on the tube and wondered if you had seen it.

There was a web site that they told you to go to but I didnt catch it. It was <something>thepiracy.com.

In case you don't see it. It said something toward the following:

Do you download your favorite music, maybe some movies. Well, there are a lot more people you are ripping on than you think.

Then they go through a list of people it takes to make a movie like director, casting crew, makeup artise, extras. In you pirate software, you rip ALL these people off. Then it says to do your part to stop piracy.

WOW! This is different... I didn't have any real opinion on it other than spechlessness. Who is paying for this? I hope the RIAA is (lol).

Will it work? I have only seen one of these commercials once. I'm in California, USA. We usually get commercials and songs here before the rest of the country so they may be "testing" them here or something.

your thoughts?

[Atomic Rooster]

I saw that commercial once. Thought it was a joke at first. Didn't pay much attention to it though.

[Chuckiechan]

It's the carrot and the stick ploy. What you are seeing is the carrot. They are trying to appeal to your sense of honesty and asking you to stop stealing stuff. If you think about it when you copy a movie, you are stealing the intellectual output of several hundred people.

The stick is the RIAA lawsuits.

[Cruez]

I caught part of it yesterday..

[Epidemic]

Is it a fair assessment?

AFAICT this is exactly what piracy does.

Piracy steals from all those people.

An appeal to someones morality might be in order based upon what I see in attacks on RIAA. Everyone is so tied up in their desire to get what they want they they get defensive in order to justify their theft. These are normally good people who steal based upon flawed logic of "no one gets hurt except the evil RIAA".

[Solid Snake]

Makeup artist??? HA, I asked for some decent music, not a fashion show. I haven't bought a CD since 1996. When the RIAA breaks away from their trend of surrounding a 'hit' with 12 other crappy songs and forcing you to pay $18 for it, then I might reconsider.

[originel]

Piracy steals from all those people.

actually piracy does NOT steal from all those people.

I've seen these commercials and what they are claiming is like saying by buying a used car you are hurting the assembly workers at a Ford plant.

Those people are paid ONCE for their services, and that is upfront BEFORE the product even goes on sale. they do NOT get part of the profits. The people that piracy affects are primarily the studio owners and, to a much less degree, the artists.

I'm not condoning piracy, but these commercials are flagrantly misrepresenting the facts and even flat out lying in an attempt to win over people through pure emotional appeal, not logic.

EDIT: one argument is that by pirating we are reducing the number of products made which would lead to layofs, blah ,blah ,blah. i think that's also bs. The recording industry has seen a decline in sales, but i don't think it's due to piracy. i think it's due to A) products becomgin worse and wores, B) prices going up and up for said worse products and C) it's a recession and in such times auxiliary spending (such as movies and cd's) are the first things people cut back on.

[Epidemic]

Buying an old car allows the person to acquire a new car.

I don't mind if you buy a CD from your friend after they no longer want it. But to take your money out of the equation is stealing. The same as copying the geometry book at your school. You are getting something for nothing. You enjoy the music that you desire but do not invest in the industry which made the music you like.

as far as the 18 dollar per cd thing with only 1 good song and all fillers. That is getting old and tired. First off that is your choice not to buy it. But you can now go on line and buy per song for a dollar so for 18 dollars you get 18 songs. So by your own words you will not pirate any longer.

When the RIAA breaks away from their trend of surrounding a 'hit' with 12 other crappy songs and forcing you to pay $18 for it, then I might reconsider.

I find it amusing when people say that they would not buy it but copy it for free. If there was no alternative for downloading material you would buy the crappy CD's when they came down in price or when they first realeased at 18 bucks.

[Mike]

Too bad the RIAA doesn't really like iTunes, or whatever company are selling songs for $1.
They want the whole CD to be sold, not just one hit.

[SiliconJon]

I caught a similar commercial recently as well. Though I don't recall the one I say mentioning music, bet it definately covered a lot of different jobs between you and the movies. I believe I caught a tag line saying it was a message from the MPAA.

I can say there is one job/business that can be completely wiped out by the use of downloading movies, and that is movie rentals. I'm surprised I haven't seen any such messages sponsored by Blockbuster, Hollywood Video, and whoever else is big out there.

But I still don't believe that downloading movies does any damage to anyone else in the industry [at present], and in fact does just the opposite. But there does come to mind what would happen should the public sharing of such films go rampart and uncontrolled. If it continues to advance to the point where obtaining a movie online is as easy as putting in a DVD, then it will truely become massive. And the only way this is going to do any damage to the film business is if they don't find a way to harness it, or completely abolish it. The latter is a bit obsurd, and the only way they could accomplish such a feat would be to take away a lot of rights people aren't willing to give up. The first would be the first intelligent step in eliminating any financial problems that may arrise from the digital distribution of professional productions. And with the amounts of money being spent on fighting it, it would be insane to tell us it would cost to much to make such a drastic change in the business.

Silly folks, sometimes the simplest of ideas are overlooked for the silliest reasons.