05 Dec Piracy Talk

So I came across a video today, and it really made me think about what the world…scratch that….the USA has come to. I won’t give a long introduction, I’ll just go right into it. Title pretty much explains it

November 29, 2011
A commercial is launched which was paid in American tax dollars…this happens a lot, but what kind of commercial is this one in particular? An anti-piracy commercial…now I don’t mind that, they’re just raising the awareness of piracy…but it takes a turn very quickly.  If you can, please take a quick minute to watch the commercial via Youtube

Now that you’re back, you are probably thinking the same thing I was. But for those of you who didn’t watch it, I will explain briefly what the video is. A couple is walking down the street, and they come up to a little market shack type of place. Kind of like the newspaper stands in the city kind of place. It’s a stand for pirated movies, but the whole video takes a huge turn when the couple is about the buy this movie.  The turn isn’t even relevant to pirating forms of entertainment! It turns into an anti-drug campaign for a second, then it becomes an advertisement to aware the watchers of unemployment, then it starts to become an anti-Nike campaign (Child Labor for those of you who didn’t get that joke).

Let’s evaluate this video…How does piracy relate to drugs? Well, it doesn’t…Please explain how me pirating a movie promotes drug trafficking or usage…there isn’t any. It’s like one of those “Everytime you touch yourself, god kills a kitten” but this one is “Every time you download a movie, someone becomes a drug addict because of it”.

Moving on…the next part of this video goes into unemployment, or how they word it “lost jobs”. Now, this I had to think about for a little while to really connect the two, and there is a small connection. I don’t think, however; the connection is nearly strong enough for an entertainment company of any kind, especially music and movies, to lay someone off because of pirated forms of entertainment.  Even in this world’s economy, I haven’t heard 1 person say “I lost my job because the company I worked for had too many of their movies downloaded illegally”. That’s because the industry of music recording and sales does not require a lot of people. Especially in the age of digital and internet. So does pirating really effect “lost jobs”…no. Although I could see it affecting some people, but not to an amount that would be nearly significant.

Last but not least, the children…oh the children and piracy. Apparently, piracy promotes child labor in some way “Every time you download a song, Nike hires a new kid in Taiwan”.  Seriously, that was my firs thought when I saw those big letters “Child Labor”. The funny part is, the kid in the commercial isn’t even dealing with anything related to piracy…he’s sewing a shirt or something. How the hell are you even going to come up with a way to explain this for the people who created this (PSA, MTV, and CauseWay Agency). I would really like a solid explanation for all of this and don’t even get me started on how you’re going to explain the link between piracy and gang violence (which is also in the video).

For anyone that is anti-piracy, stop being the corporate American, and actually think logically. Money isn’t everything in this world. I honestly think that these people would make a bigger deal about me downloading a movie illegally, and ignore the Mona Lisa being stolen.