Piracy: Are you really pirates?

Few days back DOT (Department of Telecom) blocked a number of music and file sharing sites. My first reaction was “This government is a dictator. It’s trying to block freedom of speech etc”.  After my aggression was down I tried to think over it. The government is just trying to block some sites which are violating copy right and doing piracy. This brings to bigger question are we pirates?

                The Internet has given us a feeling that anything that we see in internet is free and that we can download each and everything. The click of a mouse button does not seem like a crime does it?

                Its not like we are not paying for what we download from the net. If you do the maths you will come to know we are actually paying more in some cases.

                A high speed internet connection would cost around Rs 100/ GB of data. A normal movie has typical size of 700 MB and considering we pay for both upload and download. A movie download will cost as around Rs 80-90.

                Thanks to high piracy rates cost of CDs has come down to Rs 50 (Mosearbear CDs).

        But is it really about money? I feel below are the reasons why people find it easier to download then to buy a CD.

1.       Large Collection: One has an endless collection of pirated movies available on the internet. Even if you are looking for those age old classics, you most probably will find someone seeding it.

2.       Easy availability: One can download a movie with just a few clicks and within hours he is ready to watch the movies. And the best part is it can be done at any time of the day at any place. Provided you have an internet connection.

3.       Choice of Quality: Most of the time you download a movie you have choice of what quality you want to download (Blueray , DVD, CD). Everyone may not have that choice in conventional movie purchase.

4.       Cheap preview of new Movies: Considering the quality of some recent movies, one has to think twice before watching a movie in a multiplex. Even though the quality is not good people download watch movies. It gives them a better offer then wasting both money and time in a multiplex.

5.       Habbit: People has just become used to downloading movies for free.

                If movie industry is really serious about bringing down piracy then they will have to address all those issues. For merely blocking of sites is not going to help. Today Internet has become too big to be controlled by any organization or government.

So what can the movie industry do?

1.       Make complete collection available on the internet: It’s very important that the film industry come together and put all the movie collection under a single umbrella.

2.       Easy download: People should be able to buy a CD should have the option of both soft copy and hard copy.

3.       Quality: Most people today watch movies on High Definition so it’s important to have HD quality of all movies possible.

4.       Price: People are already paying for internet connection. So it’s important soft copy purchase should be relatively cheaper.

5.       Publicity: It’s very important that the model is fully publicized in such a way that people find purchasing Movies as the way of life rather than downloading pirated version.

                For all those people who think there is nothing wrong in piracy, know this that if piracy is not stopped it’s going to eat up all our creations. And then it does not matter whether you have drawn picture, made a song, made a video, software, a game everything will be pirated and there is nothing you will be able to do about it.