Filmmaker Personally Tracks Down Movie Pirate

[g-thor]

IMO Tor may legitimately feel that the person who uploaded his movie destroyed his chances of making money off of it. But to blame complete financial destruction is not a legitimate complaint. If he is in financial ruins that is his own doing.

I would guess you've never self-financed a movie/video. Just getting the equipment can run $15,000 if you want a decent product by todays standard. A samll commercial video won't sell if it'snot HD, so the ond Sony Hi8 camera won't cut it. Possibly you haven't had to deal with cataloging 30 or 40 hours of video, working through it in detail, making notes, developing your story, spending hours and hours editing to reduce those hours of footage into a 20 or 30 minute coherent, interesting video.

It isn't cheap. I know - I've done it. Sadly I didn't make any of it back yet - not because of theft, but because I wasn't able to get interviews to complete the last half of the video. But I am passionate about my subject, as I expect this guy is.

This completed his work and deserves a chance to get his investment back. Thanks to someone who may think he's Robin Hood (stealing from the rich, etc.), he lost his first shot at it. It definitely could ruin him personally. The "advertising" (as someone so callously called it) he is getting now may give him a second chance, but it shouldn't have come to that.

It's a small market film. I hope he at least breaks even.

 

[Strider-Hiryu_79]

What if the guy was filming a beastiality film? Would the courts care less then?

 

[ordcestus]

[citation][nom]zaznet[/nom]He should make a new hunting film. Hunting movie pirates, showing up on their door step with the gun capable of taking down the moose from his previous film might be more entertaining at least.[/citation]
Now that i would buy

 

[pirateboy]

people who enjoy killing woodland creatures with guns need to die of cancer of the anus

 

[JonnyDough]

[citation][nom]grieve[/nom]I hate when people say this. It's not true at all. Do you think thieves who steal things then return to the store and pay for them? If people want it, and they can get it for free, they will take it for free.Angels and airwaves released an album online for free where you had a choice to pay or not pay. Nobody paid... Coldplay did the same thing and they got an average of like $0.02 per CD. If people can get something for free they will take it. Piracy is a crime!It's especially bad when it happens to small movie makers, but pirating a low budget film is the same crime as pirating Avatar.[/citation]I think in the situation this guy is getting free advertising which cleary he could not afford seeing as 15k busts him. I certainly do think pirating is theft, it is the same as stealing the DVD from a store... .yet i have 1000+ movies pirated and some 200 gigs of music (35,000 songs).At the end of the day, no one would have known this guy made a DVD, now he is getting FREE edvertising. I honestly believe this advertising will in fact gain him more profit then if the movie hadnt been stolen in the first place.Exhibit A - make a movie that no one knows about make X $.Exhibit B - make a movie, get mega free advertising and many thefts = sales.REMEMBER: not everyone knows how to torrent and many people are against it! now those people can go buy the movie because they now know it exists thanks to Mr.Pirate[/citation]

Long winded justification. Fail. Stealing is stealing, a thief who admits to stealing is still a thief. I'm not sorry - why did you even rant when you should be in jail for the same thing?

 

[JonnyDough]

[citation][nom]pirateboy[/nom]people who enjoy killing woodland creatures with guns need to die of cancer of the anus[/citation]

Next time you eat a penned up animal that has been killed and never enjoyed freedom I'll be sure to do worse to you. Hunters balance nature because our ancestors killed off natural predators like wolves. If you'd rather live in a world full of wolf packs that hunt you, be my guest. I hear the zoo is hiring. Climb in the wolf cage and play meat.

 

[pirateboy]

[citation][nom]Jonnydough[/nom]Next time you eat a penned up animal that has been killed and never enjoyed freedom I'll be sure to do worse to you. Hunters balance nature because our ancestors killed off natural predators like wolves. If you'd rather live in a world full of wolf packs that hunt you, be my guest. I hear the zoo is hiring. Climb in the wolf cage and play meat.[/citation]

I was not talking about people needing to kill animals for survival. I was clearly talking about people who spend their free time blasting holes in unsuspecting animals FOR THEIR ENJOYMENT. Some of these retards even go out half drunk doing it.

Imagine a superior species on this planet going out with superior brainpower to shoot your family members, including children, just for a laugh (and as you say, under the guise of "balancing nature").

As for your ancestors/wolfpack comment....listen captain failboat: it's 2010. I kinda suspect you're an iPhone user.

 

[martin0642]

[citation][nom]grieve[/nom]I hate when people say this. It's not true at all. Do you think thieves who steal things then return to the store and pay for them? If people want it, and they can get it for free, they will take it for free.Angels and airwaves released an album online for free where you had a choice to pay or not pay. Nobody paid... Coldplay did the same thing and they got an average of like $0.02 per CD. If people can get something for free they will take it. Piracy is a crime!It's especially bad when it happens to small movie makers, but pirating a low budget film is the same crime as pirating Avatar.[/citation]I think in the situation this guy is getting free advertising which cleary he could not afford seeing as 15k busts him. I certainly do think pirating is theft, it is the same as stealing the DVD from a store... .yet i have 1000+ movies pirated and some 200 gigs of music (35,000 songs).At the end of the day, no one would have known this guy made a DVD, now he is getting FREE edvertising. I honestly believe this advertising will in fact gain him more profit then if the movie hadnt been stolen in the first place.Exhibit A - make a movie that no one knows about make X $.Exhibit B - make a movie, get mega free advertising and many thefts = sales.REMEMBER: not everyone knows how to torrent and many people are against it! now those people can go buy the movie because they now know it exists thanks to Mr.Pirate[/citation]

I don't really disagree with what you said, but I think people forget that there is a deeper problem in the industry working here. Also in most cases the merchandising pulls in a lot of the cash, and can't really be pirated easily.

That being said, no one wants to be a pirate - but also no one is willing to support the previous business model of giant conglomerates who take most of the profit. No one wants to own and maintain a multi-terabyte home server full of stuff they rarely consume. I'd pay $200 to watch/listen/play to whatever I want with a single sign on to all of my devices in real time. They could then apply it to the content owners when I use the media. They are refusing to do that, it's not a technological issue at this point, they just don't want to admit that their big corporate offices and expense accounts are not needed in the world we live in today. They want to get all sue happy - apparently they don't get how the internet works.

Just like the horse and buggy system, there is no use for music studios anymore - at least not on the scale that exists today. We need a concert promotion industry, and merchandising, but anyone with a laptop can make a "good enough" track and load it onto iTunes. If they get enough feedback, they can then hire a sound studio to make Audiophile tracks. They can get 94 cents on the dollar from iTunes in some cases - try that from the music studios.

It's not just music, the movie industry is going down the same path. The series "Sanctuary" with Amanda Tapping of "Stargate" fame is done ENTIRELY with CGI and RED cameras. The production costs are in the tens of thousands, and the profit is in the millions. As time goes on, the entire movie industry will be forced to cut back as the equipment costs come down and the "fan fiction" crowd starts making movies as a hobby that are actually decent.

The company that gives people a single sign-on and omni-media options will the the ones that comes out on top. They need to get their capital properly aligned before they run out of reserves and go bankrupt - claiming piracy but in reality forced to close because they refused to adapt their business model to the technology of the day.

 

[Guest]

Sorry guy, but these days when you invest in film you calculate WITH the pirating that might/will occur, so sorry, he is a moron.

 

[Parrdacc]

A moose hunting film? He should be grateful some one even toke the time to pirate such a thing. Probably ticked off your only customer/consumer you got.

 

[Learn_w_Graffix]

Copying movies might or might not be illegal, depending on the circumstances (fair use, etc.). Think of it: this is a "crime" that only exists because of laws! There is nothing moral about it. We KNOW stealing, lying, murder, etc. are wrong, because our consciences tell us, even without laws. Copying pages from a book was done before copy machines, and nobody thought anything of it (how else would we even have ancient writings?); once Xerox came out, anti-copying laws seemed to matter. All those laws exist to protect the finances of the author. What if movie making became less lucrative because copying was completely legal? Why, the media moguls would have to be satisfied with being millionaires instead of billionaires! (Perish the thought!)
Shouldn't filmmakers be paid for their work? How much? Are you paid when you rake your leaves? When you volunteer to coach Little League? Oh, so not all work is paid. If filmmakers made a lot less, what would they do? Perhaps other work, perhaps they would continue filmmaking because they love it (kind of like pro photographers or pro pilots).
Actually, I appreciate that authors should be paid. I just think technology has overtaken the law, and that the various laws and efforts to enforce them have become far worse (abridging freedom, privacy, and expression, especially) than the problem of copying.

 

[fritter87]

when i pirate something it means i don't care about it enough to buy it, but if i enjoy it i will go buy it. none of my friends know how to pirate so if they like what i show them they go buy it. if it's good it will make money if it's trash it will not(with apple as the exception)

 

[tommysch]

[citation][nom]noodlegts[/nom][citation]BUT! Just like all other pirating, I highly doubt this would have any ill effects on the sales of his movie. If people want it they will still go buy it.[/citation]I hate when people say this. It's not true at all. Do you think thieves who steal things then return to the store and pay for them? If people want it, and they can get it for free, they will take it for free.Angels and airwaves released an album online for free where you had a choice to pay or not pay. Nobody paid... Coldplay did the same thing and they got an average of like $0.02 per CD. If people can get something for free they will take it. Piracy is a crime!It's especially bad when it happens to small movie makers, but pirating a low budget film is the same crime as pirating Avatar.[/citation]

No its not the same, charging 20$ to see Avatar is a crime.

 

[tommysch]

[citation][nom]martin0642[/nom]No one wants to own and maintain a multi-terabyte home server full of stuff they rarely consume.[/citation]

I do.

 

[gm0n3y]

@martin0642

I've been saying the same thing for years. We need a system to pay a flat monthly fee (or even a tiered usage system), where profits get split between the copyright holders based on the relative amount people watched / listened to their media.

I can see why media companies don't want this though. It takes the power out of their hands and puts it into another company's. They can't control pricing. Still, it's the only business model that I've heard of that would work today.

 

[turdfurgussen]

pirateboy :
people who enjoy killing woodland creatures with guns need to die of cancer of the anus

JohnnyDough:
Next time you eat a penned up animal that has been killed and never enjoyed freedom I'll be sure to do worse to you. Hunters balance nature because our ancestors killed off natural predators like wolves. If you'd rather live in a world full of wolf packs that hunt you, be my guest. I hear the zoo is hiring. Climb in the wolf cage and play meat.

Both of you are silly for thinking that animals, whether domesticated or wild, somehow experience life on par with human emotion and intelligence, are capable of the joy and sorrow that we are capable of, or are granted the same rights that we enjoy as humans. Come on! Show a little loyalty for your own species!

Besides, they wouldn't taste so good if we weren't supposed to eat them.

 

[gm0n3y]

[citation][nom]turdfurgussen[/nom]Both of you are silly for thinking that animals, whether domesticated or wild, somehow experience life on par with human emotion and intelligence, are capable of the joy and sorrow that we are capable of, or are granted the same rights that we enjoy as humans. Come on! Show a little loyalty for your own species!Besides, they wouldn't taste so good if we weren't supposed to eat them.[/citation]
I'm going to go out on a limb and say that you don't have any pets.

 

[averagejoe_1984]

Ah piracy, the only kind of "theft" where a product can be distributed infinitely with minuscule cost. Aside from piracy
"theft", in theft you only get what somebody else has lost.

What a greedy culture we have. You may not view/use that infinitely copyable information without paying me a toll so I can get rich. If you dare do so I will bring the law down upon you and ruin you financially. I don't care if you only make poverty wages. You need to be punished, so that I can feel assured that people are scared into paying me their tolls. If they can't pay, they simply shouldn't have access to products that can be distributed infinitely extremely cheaply. Now, make me rich.

 

[grieve]

[citation][nom]martin0642[/nom]I think in the situation this guy is getting free advertising which cleary he could not afford seeing as 15k busts him. I certainly do think pirating is theft, it is the same as stealing the DVD from a store... .yet i have 1000+ movies pirated and some 200 gigs of music (35,000 songs).At the end of the day, no one would have known this guy made a DVD, now he is getting FREE edvertising. I honestly believe this advertising will in fact gain him more profit then if the movie hadnt been stolen in the first place.Exhibit A - make a movie that no one knows about make X $.Exhibit B - make a movie, get mega free advertising and many thefts = sales.REMEMBER: not everyone knows how to torrent and many people are against it! now those people can go buy the movie because they now know it exists thanks to Mr.Pirate[/citation]I don't really disagree with what you said, but I think people forget that there is a deeper problem in the industry working here. Also in most cases the merchandising pulls in a lot of the cash, and can't really be pirated easily. That being said, no one wants to be a pirate - but also no one is willing to support the previous business model of giant conglomerates who take most of the profit. No one wants to own and maintain a multi-terabyte home server full of stuff they rarely consume. I'd pay $200 to watch/listen/play to whatever I want with a single sign on to all of my devices in real time. They could then apply it to the content owners when I use the media. They are refusing to do that, it's not a technological issue at this point, they just don't want to admit that their big corporate offices and expense accounts are not needed in the world we live in today. They want to get all sue happy - apparently they don't get how the internet works.Just like the horse and buggy system, there is no use for music studios anymore - at least not on the scale that exists today. We need a concert promotion industry, and merchandising, but anyone with a laptop can make a "good enough" track and load it onto iTunes. If they get enough feedback, they can then hire a sound studio to make Audiophile tracks. They can get 94 cents on the dollar from iTunes in some cases - try that from the music studios.It's not just music, the movie industry is going down the same path. The series "Sanctuary" with Amanda Tapping of "Stargate" fame is done ENTIRELY with CGI and RED cameras. The production costs are in the tens of thousands, and the profit is in the millions. As time goes on, the entire movie industry will be forced to cut back as the equipment costs come down and the "fan fiction" crowd starts making movies as a hobby that are actually decent. The company that gives people a single sign-on and omni-media options will the the ones that comes out on top. They need to get their capital properly aligned before they run out of reserves and go bankrupt - claiming piracy but in reality forced to close because they refused to adapt their business model to the technology of the day.[/citation]

I agree, well said.

 

[grieve]

why oh why is the "quote" system failing me in this post!