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MPAA: Piracy is NOT Theft After All

For decades the entertainment industry used the word “theft” to refer to piracy.

Most famous is probably the “You Wouldn’t Steal a Car” ad. But virtually all press releases of outfits such as the MPAA refer to stealing or theft.

All of a sudden, however, MPAA boss Chris Dodd is whistling a different tune.

After the SOPA revolt earlier this year the movie industry group realized they have to position themselves better.

“We’re going to have to be more subtle and consumer-oriented,” Dodd says.

“We’re on the wrong track if we describe this as thievery.”

Technically MPAA’s boss doesn’t say that piracy isn’t theft, but just that it’s bad PR to keep using the term.

The real problem with the theft metaphor is that it’s not only inaccurate, but also widening the gap between people’s norms and copyright law.

theft

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  • Bobthenob

    inb4 they say “thats not what we REALLY meant to say”

    • Supreme Commander Thor

      No, no… I think they’re actually as sincere as they are going to be in this. Apparently now that this “logic” stuff has caught on with the public, they have to pretend to be able to use it enough to look good…

      • OgresRuleTrolls

         Well sincere or not I do not want him tortured and dead anymore, just dead will be fine.

        • Danny

          I still want him tortured.

        • Guest

          When I open the link shows: 404 Error! Page Not Found

        • Guest

          I’m not picky, one or the other is fine.

  • CHRISDODD FAILS

    Won’t make it any different or justify their actions of getting the US Government to do their dirty laundry.

    MC DOT TT

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Brent-Alan-Newton/1355656399 Brent Alan Newton

    Worst possible thing they could call it is perhaps counterfeit. Fuck Hollywood anyway. If they were gone tomorrow I wouldn’t care. People will always express themselves. They may not always get 100m for one movie but there will always be movies as long as there is the ability to make them. 

    • http://profiles.google.com/zerianis10 Christopher Kidwell

      Ah, but the law says that things are only ‘counterfeit’ when they are cash or are sold for cash as something else, usually higher end.

  • http://www.twitter.com/echoman74 echoman

    Fail what “Dodd” should mention is his criminal past “AS THAT SHOULD BE MENTIONED” Bribery and bank fraud and millions if not billions of dollars yet his fucking ass isn’t in jail. Here’s a suggestion STFU!! STFD!! GTFO!!

    I thought i would never say this but Chris Dodd puts jack valenti to shame. Mpaa is a movie ratings and watch dog organization they should be looking out for artist etc..

    But not be harming the fans of movies and entertainment, instead look for new ways to innovates instead of legislate. Remember what you do to the public karma within time will bit you right back in the ass.

    Personally i don’t trust this scumbag what so ever it’s another publicity stunt.
    Kickstarter is the new industry haha!! :P

    • afig23

      I hate my state, we gave the US Bush and Dodd, sorry…

      • http://www.twitter.com/echoman74 echoman

        Aww don’t hate it lol it’s not your fault.

  • Dodd the Corrupt

    Dodd in a moment of sneaky faggotry…..
    “”bad PR to keep using the term.“” .. “”lets be sneaker malicious faggots“”

    Well guess what … Dodd ….. We good , kind , sharing people, won’t let it go.

    All your good PR belong to us

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Zach-Despain/100001199749891 Zach Despain

    Oh look, someone trying to recover their image while doing nothing different; What are the odds?

    • HaHa

      Shouldn’t that be

      What are the Dodds ;-)

  • Sunflower

    The word Piracy is propaganda as well– nobody is getting hurt… it is not the moral equivalent of attacking a ship to make a copy of something…

    From:
    https://www.fsf.org/blogs/rms/its-not-the-gates-its-the-bars

    Microsoft would have us believe that helping your neighbour is
    the moral equivalent of attacking a ship.

    • Mwhahaha

      Words often have different (if sometimes similar) meanings.

      They’re called homonyms. 

      • Anonymous

        piracy (yarrgh!) and piracy (got bieber?) is not “two different meanings which incidentally are spelled the same way”. It’s the same word both in origin and use. It’s not a new word invented to describe digital copying of copyrighted content. It’s the same old word stolen from its old meaning and applied to the new one. Which itself is piracy.

        • Guest

          Actually, a homonym is when two words have the same *pronounciation* but a different meaning. 

          Doesn’t stop Mwhahaha from being wrong as fuck, though.

  • 7seven85

    MPAA ! We dont believe you and we dont TRUST you , you will need more people.

    Dont fall into that trap guys !

  • Anonymous
  • 3c905b-tx

    “We’re going to have to be more subtle and consumer-oriented,”
    Yes, much!

  • Yop

    Making a copy of a record or a movie is not illegal, at least in my country… Are they trying to say that downloading is fine ?

  • Code cracker

    “more subtle” = more sneaky.

    “consumer-oriented” = pretend to be on their side.

    “We’re on the wrong track” = they know we’re lying.

  • Andrew Lee

    I wonder how long it will be till they start calling it digital forgery “Maximum fine 837 billion dollars and life in prison and/or lethal injection” lol… Different name but it’s still the same game :/

  • http://twitter.com/Anime4PSP Anime 4 PSP

    He just said “there is no limit to our lies and actions if that results in more sale and your liking us”

  • http://northierthanthou.com/ northierthanthou

    Lol, what a crock!

  • Asfa

    i downloaded the whole internet should I let the MPAA know?

    • Mwhahaha

      you owe me tuppence for all my comments on TF!

      • U….know…

        no… you owe us Mwhahaha.

  • Pingback: MPAA Undercuts Its Own Message: Piracy is Not Theft | The Underground Multiplex

  • Rockets

    Nice try Dodd, but April Fools was over a month and a half ago.

  • Pingback: Morning Reads for Monday, May 21st — Peach Pundit

  • Mwhahaha

    I wish they’d stop showing me those fucking ads on shit I PAY FOR. 

    Also – I would steal a car, if it was a really nice one and I knew I could get away with it as easily as ppl get away with movie piracy.

    • Changelingz

      Ah, but you /can/ download a car assuming you can find the torrent files for them.

      • Anyone

        and a 3D printer big enough

  • Mwhahaha

    I think your issues with the theft argument are either trollishly pedantic or childlike in their nativity.

    You know, I know,  everyone knows that *some* sales are lost due to piracy. This, if not theft, is a loss of income due to illegal activity, which is what they’ve labelled theft up to this point.

    Personally I think what they lose in some sales they make up for in others and the amount of lost sales is nowhere near what they claim, most people still want to own things they like. Piracy also brings them a new audience they might never have had. It evens out.

    That said, this semantic pedantry is getting boring now.

    By both the MPAA *and* the pirate defenders.

    If you feel most people don’t know how stupid the MPAA sound calling it theft then you’re as bad as them in assuming we all be idjits.

    • Admires5

      I will download a song or movie or Game of Thrones and when it is released to the public or I or my wife likes it I will go out and buy it to support the idea that they need to make more items like it so I get more of what I want. So yeah it evens out and piracy does bring in more of an audience that the industries didn’t have before.  I am surely not the only one that samples the entire original item before they buy the “store bought – legal” item.  I don’t like wasting what little $$ I have on something I don’t like.

      • Guest

        Try that at a restaurant with a plate of food. How many places would let you sample the whole thing and have you decide “Wasn’t that great, I don’t want to pay for it.”

    • Anonymous

      > 
      You know, I know,  everyone knows that *some* sales are lost due to piracy.

      How do you know? Do you also “know” that God is watching over your family?

      Recent research has pointed more towards the fact that people spend money on other movies and music than the ones they are pirating. So if I pirate A and buy B and you pirate B and buy A, doesn’t that mean that you’re back to square one? No. It turns out, the big studios actually make MORE money even though pirating stuff is more popular than ever. How can that be? Answer that, you who know everything.

      • Guest

        Your math and your logic sucks.
        The choice of Movie A and Movie B for two different consumers amounts to a total of 4 possible purchases. If each consumer only buys one, that is….wait for it….2 total purchases! So, 50% of the possible purchases have been made. When you think about it, that’s like half of the possible income! Take a minute and toss that around in your mind. If it helps, get four quarters and pretend each movie costs 25 cents (that’s one quarter).
        Now the only thing I am trolling here is your reasoning. I could care less who buys or pirates what. Not hurting my wallet any.

    • Guest

      “You know, I know,  everyone knows that *some* sales are lost due to piracy.”

      Sorry, but there’s no actual evidence to suggest this.

      You want to talk about being similar to the MAFIAA? Go look in a mirror, because making unsubstantiated claims and pretending like they’re the incontrovertible truth is exactly what they do. Congratulatons on acting like them.

      • Bla

         Hm. There was an article the other day on forbes. Disney was shaking because Avengeers was downloaded like 500.000 times before official relase. Didn stop them from making a 200M$ cut the first week. Even higher than Harry Potter. So yes, pracy = advertisement. Didn keep them from loosing millions on green lantern. Which was a crappy movie to beginn with. So TPB gives us a choice to check the movie before we go out and see it with our friends. and donwloading does not mean your not going out there to actually watch the movies. it? a social thing. you don wanna go out and spend like 20$ for an evening and whatch a shitty movie!!!

    • 7th_Guest

      Is this Normal!Mwhahaha or another OffMeds!Mwhahaha post? Can’t really tell ‘em apart these days, unsure what to answer; let’s err on the side of caution for now and point out two, simple but obvious facts:

      - Only reason we’ve been employing pedantry so much on the piracy terminology issue is because accuracy’s the best weapon against sensationalist propaganda.
      - Whatever the actual lost sales percentages might be (and research on this is sorely lacking), other effects associated with file sharing such as ad-free discovery and potential subsequent brand loyalty very likely counterbalance the losses. You’ll never hear that latter part mentioned in any so called evidence Big Content usually presents society with while making its case for harder copyright enforcement laws and tools.

      • Anonymous

        I’m not the same guy as the one that posted above lolz

    • Ray N. Mann

      a minor editing point here for Mwhahaha…I think the word you were going for there at the end of your first paragraph was actually naivete.  Although the use of nativity in that space actually was quite interesting:)  The MPAA definition of Naivete: the state of being in which cognitive dissonance meets collective ignorance and they spawn a state of consciousness which simply repeats the phrase: “Fuck You, pay me”. 

  • Pirate

     Wait, did MPAA finally pull their heads out of their ass?

    Can’t tell if serious, trolling or a clever ruse?

    • http://twitter.com/happyizpunjai happy

      No they didn’t they just had to take a breather then there going back it…. lol :p

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  • Krosis

    Still ain’t got it.

  • Oz

    I believe Movies and Music should be free (by law) to the under 25s.

  • Guest

    They’re only saying this because they really think the public will buy their bullshit if they are more “subtle” and “consumer oriented”. 

    You know what would be the most “consumer oriented” thing to do? STOP SUING YOUR CUSTOMERS AND LET THEM ACCESS CHEAP, LEGAL DOWNLOADS. Fuck you, MAFIAA. We’ll never buy your bullshit claims.

  • Anonymous

     http://bit.ly/KpDKUP

  • joannmcdvtt

    I think of it as being like taking a picture of the Mona Lisa.

  • https://openid.org/lulaladrao LulaLadrao

    is Cary Sherman really gay ?

  • BTGuard - BitTorrent Anonymously

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