How to End the Distribution of Illegal Copyrighted Content
The internet has been buzzing the last several weeks in a mounting frenzy over the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), a bill that has recently been pulled by House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Texas). The bill was created as a favor to the entertainment industry and related businesses which lose billions of dollars every year due to the distribution of pirated copyrighted content. At first glance, any relatively moral person would agree that it is wrong to pirate anything. Stealing is stealing, end of story. But the issue is far more wide-reaching than at first glance, and in my opinion, it is not primarily an issue of censorship, but an issue of the greed of the entertainment industry and even in the U.S. Government. In other words, they have created a monster, and they refuse to kill it.
For decades now, Hollywood has enjoyed its major cash cow, which in essence is the distribution of the content it creates and owns rights to. While the flow of content is more complex than this, in essence it is:
- Make a killing opening weekend at select theaters, creating media buzz and demand from the masses
- Release film to theaters everywhere, increasing profits
- Issue film onto DVD and make it available via digital file for downloaded purchase and rental, as well as to subscription and pay-per-view cable specialty channels
- Six months to a year later, film is released to general cable channels, where advertisers pay for spots in the content
- Two or more years later, film is released to streaming services, who must broker an agreement with the entertainment company for the rights of the content (which incidentally the entertainment companies make very difficult because they are in cahoots with pay television companies who get the majority of their profits from advertisers)
- Film finally makes its way to free television networks (although the most profitable films may never make it there), where it continues to make money through advertisers
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