In case you are uninformed, “Intellectual Property” is the term copyright holders use to describe their legal monopoly over ideas. An example is that the recent film Avatar is the intellectual property Fox. At least that is the view of the copyright holder and the law(being their puppet).
However, I don’t believe in intellectual property at all. I don’t believe that anyone can “own” an idea. Some would say making a copy of the fore-mentioned film is stealing. I disagree. If you’ve not deprived someone of something, you’ve not stolen anything. I’m certain that no matter how many times I copy an idea, a movie, music, software, etc, that the creator is not deprived of anything. They retain their copy. If I walk into a convenience store and snap a picture of a candy bar and then walk otu I’m sure you wouldn’t say I stole something. So why all the confusion when it comes to copyright? Why all the “you wouldn’t steal a car” crap from the MPAA?
Money. That’s right, the driving force behind almost everything. The millions(and even billions) of dollars that the film studios make from simply making a thousand copies of a 2 hour block of entertainment, simply isn’t enough I guess. They make it sounds like they make pennies as they drive around in top end cars and are all over TV spewing about how we should support this or that international effort. blah blah blah. You hear the sob story “the people who work backstage need these jobs..”. I call bullshit. They get paid, in advance, long before the movie hits theaters. If they don’t meet their meaningless quota it’s poor planning on their part.
Record studios realized this a little while ago and have given up all hope of stopping people from copying. Instead, they were smart enough to adapt. They now focus on several other things to ensure income. One of which is selling individual songs online, easily, at affordable prices, in guaranteed quality.
People now, as they always have, download what they want when they want. I doubt the idea of intellectual property will ever go away, but I’m sure the day will come when the movie studios will wise up and take the path the record studios have.
For an interesting documentary on this very topic check out Steal This Film
