by Andrew Einspruch
Filmmaker Andrew Einspruch recently attended the Australian International Documentary Conference and wrote a series of articles for the event, which he’s graciously allowed us to reprint here. These articles originally appeared in Screen Hub, the daily online newspaper for Australian film and television professionals.
It comes down to money.
Ultimately, money is the reason most people steal (or “pirate”, “borrow”, “find”, “preview” – call it what you will) digital content, although other factors can come into it, like not wanting to wait for something to become available legally.
And money is the reason there is a problem with those people who are doing it, since it represents potential lost revenue to the content creator. “Piracy takes distribution out of your hands,” said Lori Flekser, from the Motion Picture Distributors Association of Australia. “You can’t control how you distribute it or how you monetise it. That is the worst thing about piracy to me.”
Flekser cited research from the Intellectual Property Awareness Foundation, who anonymously surveyed 16,000 people over 18, saying the the myth that “everybody does it” is just not true. While the survey missed the crucial under-18‘s demographic, it still showed that only 73% of those surveyed said they had pirated material. Of the 27% who do pirate, the vast majority (86%) said they do it because it is free. The bad news is that of those who regularly pirate, they would still do it even if a paid option were easily available.
