How much money must a man - or a company - make to create an outstanding work? My commonsense of justice tells me that the big corporate music and film industries are taking excessively from society compared to what they are giving us in return.
But how can we measure what a movie's really worth for the pleasure it gives us? It's impossible to say, of course. What percentage should the theatre keep, how much for the production company, how much for the distributors, and how much for the artist?
They should all be rewarded, indeed, with more than enough to cover their basic needs. But the truth is, they make a hell of a lot more. The truth is that, as Valenti says in his article, "the copyright industries are responsible for some five per cent of the GDP of the United States. They gather in more international revenues than automobiles and auto parts, more than aircraft, more than agriculture. They are creating new jobs at three times the rate of the rest of the economy. The movie industry alone has a surplus balance of trade with every single country in the world. No other American enterprise can make that statement."
Thanks for letting us know how much we're been ripped off! Valenti speaks the cold hard truth. The American film industry makes money from every single other country in the world, most of them, by the way, poor countries. Most of them are continually drained of resources by an unfair world distribution and economic system. Or should we not take into account this small detail?
There are countries where some inhabitants hardly have enough for the day's meal, but who fall for the illusion of wanting to go to the movies or buying the latest smash-hit pop album (investment in publicity, even in these poor countries is outrageously high).
So, how cynical can we be? We create the need to buy these products, but we strengthen a system that makes it virtually impossible for millions to consume those same products. Piracy is the poor's response to unfairness.
Pirates may not be poor - they make good money. But what they do doesn't seem that unfair from the perspective of the marginalized majorities. Pirates may create losses for the big rich emporiums, but they make products accessible to the poor.
And then there's technology. If with technology I can make a copy, why shouldn't I? From what moment does YOUR product suddenly become MINE?
Then there's philosophy. Do we really OWN anything in this world? Honestly not. But ok, we still need property laws to organize ourselves. However, to what extent should a person or a company hold the rights to copies of intellectual matter? If I invent a joke, should I charge for every person who repeats it? All right, let's not get so radical; but still, shouldn't there be a limit to the control of the copyright?
Valenti says the film industry is losing. I doubt it. It's still alive and making money. Probably still more than it deserves. How many of the people who watch the pirate version of the film actually will go pay to see it in the theatres? Not all of them, I guess. But theatres will not disappear, not yet. Maybe the film industry will make a bit less money and the citizens of the world will be able to save a little more, but maybe that is not completely unfair, or is it?
And finally, we won't beat technology. The industry has to think of completely new schemes, even in philosophical terms, of what copyright is. Maybe films will simply be thrown out into the free network at such accessible prices that there'll be no much difference in downloading the original than trying to steal it. Or, as some years ago, the industry will survive from the theatre screenings themselves, which still will be spectacular and attractive, not from the private viewings.
Films will not disappear. The number of downloads reveals that people still want to watch them. That's the guarantee. Likewise we also still want to listen to music and get software.
I don't think actors or filmmakers will lose their jobs. There will probably just be less people ripping off the filmmakers.
If the industry wants to survive as it is, its only solution is to adapt to the new reality. The solution is not to persecute like in the old witch-hunts. For the copyright defenders have indeed turned into the New Inquisition!
