Pirated Movies

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Pirated Movies

        It remains a fact that piracy hurts the economy by discouraging the innovative and creative entrepreneurs and companies, though this may not stop film and music production. However, the society has the potential of stopping the practice by working on anti-piracy measures, politics of internet and internet censorship.  The cloud of piracy is perceived as the escalating practice of stealing and executing illegal business, which entails smuggled goods. Piracy is not creativity as far as some parties may argue that piracy is parent to small businesses and it is part of creativity. Based on this, the context will centrally focus on debatable and agreeable arguments supporting the sense of the economic harm brought by piracy and pirated movies.

        The first way movie piracy hurts the economy is by threatening jobs for the middle class workers, which in turn ruins the impact of creative minds in different music families. The harm is further felt by struggling artists and production crews believed to have anchored startup media companies among other large movie studios (Shiu 607). Based on this, online piracy is currently a real problem affecting the American economy. Under the Protect IP Act (PIPA) and Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), it was noted that online piracy costs the economy of United States by almost $250 billion in a year and movie piracy has led to a loss of over 750000 American jobs under annual terms. Through online piracy, the economy seems to substantially deteriorate and strict measures should be deployed (Gates 71).

        The second way movie piracy hurts the economy is by selling counterfeit DVDs from faked affiliate business thereby making income, which could not be traced by the government. Regardless of the copyright infringement, pirates have consistently dominated markets thereby selling copies at a lower price compared to the original copies released from the legalized company (Fisk 839). This means that movie production companies remain with a small market share to serve thereby earning low revenues that can be taxed by the government. Under such circumstances, the economy may not feel the impact of the movie production firms and this implies a heavy deterioration that may bring long term economic problems. Apparently, Phil Clapp, the CEO Cinema Exhibitors’ Association once noted that the film industry is consistently losing £220 million every year as a result of piracy and a heavy sale of counterfeits in the United Kingdom’s market (Mason 53). This has raised an alarm with measures set aside to protect major movie production companies. Therefore, the heavy sale of counterfeit DVDs reduces the income earned by legalized movie companies and the revenue collected by the government thereby hurting the economy.

        Lastly, piracy largely contributes to a retarded economy with large firms trying to absorb the content released by young artists thereby reducing competition in the market. Struggling young companies keep on making use of young talents thereby bridging a new taste in the market. This aims at expanding the movie industry and tables a challenge that may compel dominating firms to produce content due to competition. However, piracy has reduced this health competition making the mushrooming movie production firms to fail in withstanding the competition. At some point, big firms pirate movie projects from small firms and release the movies before they are released by the genuine company. At some point, Hollywood faced a big threat of piracy transactions due to pilferage of its content by unknown members. However, it is true that piracy reduces the bargaining power of small production companies thereby reducing competition, which may later harm the economy (Castells 34).