The MPAA claims that artists lose millions because of piracy. A lot of the time, the only reason I’ve seen a movie is because I was able to watch it for free. Piracy facilitates discovery of quality content that people otherwise would have missed. Anyone tech savvy enough to pirate a copy of a movie or TV show is most likely active on social media and influential in non-digital social circles, where they discuss and recommend what they came across. Just like I watched screeners that were given to a SAG-AFTRA member friend of mine to be watched for awards consideration. I watch American Sniper or Birdman and love it. Then I tell five people during the next few weeks or even months that it’s worth seeing, then they end up consume that media in one way or another. The smart studios don’t really care how many people see these screeners now and they distribute them with iTunes passwords. It’s also 100% true that some content and even brands have experienced a huge amount of success directly from internet piracy. In that case, are the artists really losing as much as the MPAA claims? Would it be even more beneficial to embrace technology and this new model of distribution? The CEO of HBO gets it and is setting the example for embracing where technology has led us. Napster was a trailblazer, and if so many forward thinking people like myself hadn’t used Napster back in the day, services like Spotify wouldn’t exist today. Piracy encourages technological innovation. Netflix, Hulu and Spotify (which I now happily pay for out of convenience) are all a direct result of successful “illegal” technologies.
