Forever there is a fight against piracy by the music and film industry. For some time I was even inspired to stop piracy and do things the legal way by buying original stuff. But many a time, my thoughts have taken a hit.
For example, V and I went to landmark and bought 3-4 Moserbaer homevideo DVDs. There are supposedly original DVDs that are licensed by Moserbaer to replicate and distribute. However, we watched the movies and in one movie, the last 15-30 minutes which was the climax of the movie was cut. In the other DVDs, the print was horrible and the movie kept skipping. Why should I waste Rs. 50 -100 on such low quality ‘original’ DVDs, when I can get much better print and full content for free off the internet?
If this was prevent me from switching to originals, the cost factor make it an even tougher decision. I and many friends of mine own PSPs. We love to play games on it too. But each of those damn game CDs costs between Rs. 1500 to 2000 a piece. Am I crazy to buy games for it or what? If it costed Rs. 200-300, then I would gladly buy the original game, but no way I am going to spend 2000 on a game CD. Especially irritating considering that 4 PSP games cost as much as the PSP console itself.
The last straw was yesterday when I got to know the movie ticket price of the soon-to-be-released hindi film Ghajini. The tickets costs an insane Rs. 400 each. If movies costs this much then how can a normal person watch new movie releases each week. I would rather spend Rs. 20 and get a DVD from my local video parlor then blow 400 bucks in a theater. Plus the additional expense of insanely priced food and beverages. A trip to the cinemas will cost easily about Rs. 700-800 per head.
If the industry complains about piracy and want people to enjoy music and movies legally, then they should have some legal process in place that will regulate the rates charged by these multiplexes. What they are charging is daylight robbery and we people should lobby against this sort of extortion. The sad part however is that even if they charge Rs. 1000, there will still be people who go to watch the movies and the shows will still run housefull.
Anyway, I think there will soon come the time when piracy will take on unstoppable proportions and that is when the film industry will realize the folly of its ways.
No Trackbacks
You can leave a trackback using this URL: http://blog.prashu.com/2008/12/piracy-for-the-common-man/trackback/
10 Comments
Completely agree with you…
Same with the software price too…
15000 for a MS Office full edition!!!! Isn’t it insane !!!!
I can assemble a descent computer system in 15k
seriously… they price it like that and then complain about piracy.
I think the concept of piracy is inherently very skewed. The fact that the artists place a predetermined price for a piece of work and expect everyone to pay it, is at best unfair. Not to mention the geographical problems (Rs 2000 for a game dvd in US maybe not such a bad deal)
Personally I never buy pirated CDs/DVDs, I understand that most of the money makes its way to the mafia or terrorists. Downloading stuff off the web seems more acceptable as I dont see anyone profiting illegally from it (of course other than me
) But if I do like something immensely I would go and buy the original CD/DVD when it was out.
The tickets costs an insane Rs. 400 each
That is a ridiculous price. And we see the same thing for Bollywood movies that release outside of AMC theaters being charged huge. AMC theaters release Hindi movies and charge the same as English movies…Gosh! That is pure robbery!
> ..Gosh! That is pure robbery!
It is.
And Prashant: about The tickets costs an insane Rs. 400 each. I
There is this huge problem if the movie lousy like Sawariya.
With PC games same problem, you buy something for 2000 thinking it will be nice. If it is not lousy you will find that it will not work unless you download a patch. And so in the days when the internet and patches didn’t exist, you were a big loser!
OMG!
Many Many Happy Returns Of The Day!!!
May all your dreams come true and wish you a wonderful year ahead!!!
thanks a lot dude