Dick Tracy & Movie Piracy

Tvindy tipped me off that recent Dick Tracy comic strips deal with movie piracy. Here are a couple of the panels from different days:

I wonder if the MPAA paid for this.

Comments

[Zach]

I have no doubt.

Perhaps it's because we're seeing things out of context, but that almost looks like a parody of itself.

I mean, it seems as if Dick is saying that one guy's living is costing the movie industry 5 billion. And 'store wares', while probably a play off of Star Wars, could also be taken as 'retail warez'. It isn't clear if the double meaning is intentional or not.

[CJ]

It's satire i.e a spoof or joke... The intent is to show how ridiculous the MPAA claims have become in a "serious" context.

Movie Piracy does not cost the movie industry any loss of revenue from me because I would never purchas or go to any movie house and pay to see the movie. Never understood why anyone buys the movies of goes to a movie house when it will be on TV and you most likely pay for cable to see it there.

[PlungeBob]

The funny thing is that he always looks stoned.

Where are our eyes.....Dick?

;0)

[Weiner Gallo]

Talk about being paranoid and myopic.

Whaaa!

If I see a movie on sale for 20$, I won't buy it, I'll just rent and burn, or download it. If I see a $1 DVD (they have those you know, I purchased 20 of them in the past 2 weeks) that catches my fancy, I'll buy it. I won't have to bother downloading it. What I'm saying bring the prices down (perobably not to 1$) and we'll buy more.

[Brandon]

The way I see it, the same people who download or buy pirate copies aren't going to be too likely to buy the movie or even see it in the theater. I can't see how someone who downloads "Wedding Crashers" with a detached interest in the film would also go and pay 10 dollars to see it on a big screen for two hours. I'm curious to know where this 5 billion figure is coming from. I'm aware that there is a large & bustling piracy trade in places like China and Korea, but I don't imagine there being any sort of pirate film racketeers around here, racking in that dirty dirty piracy dough. It's propaganda.

I can imagine Dick Tracy chasing after some notorious hoodlum, some deformed villain. Toss this fellow in with the legacy of past villians like The Brow, Flat Top, B.B. Eyes, The Mole.....here comes the evil Movie Pirate. ARRRRRRRR.

[Hillary Rosen]

The primary motivation of pirates ON AVERAGE is to save money. Most pirates are in denial about this, so they come up with other more 'respectable' reasons such as:

1) I don't want to pay for something with all that advertising and pre-menu crap.

Ok, so buy the DVD then make a clean copy...

2) I want the movie earlier then I could otherwise get it.

Ok, so watch the jerky theatre filmed version but buy the DVD when it does finally come out..

It's about saving money.. To deny this is simply dishonest.

To make the claim that piracy doesn't negatively impact the studios is farfetched and self-serving. This is a POSSIBLE hypothesis, but highly unlikely.

It's like conjecturing that eating McDonald's all day could be healthy. Well.. it's POSSIBLE. But no reasonable person is going to assume this is true.

The only OBVIOUS benefactors to piracy are the buyers and sellers of pirated material.

And if you feel like your moral anguish is lessened by reading the satire of some other random pirate on the internet, then that's your prerogative, but it's simply a signal of weak character to me.

[Joe D.]

I am just surprised that Dick Tracy is still around :-)

"And if you feel like your moral anguish is lessened "

Sure thing, Mrs. Pat Robertson

[PlungeBob]

Screw you Hillary.

People making illegal copies are not pirates.

They pay for access to the movies they copy.

I may not be illegal, but it is not piracy,
unless they sell the product of their activities.

Now, here, you will respond with "it still hurts
the movie industry". Yes, to some extent it must,
but this is NOT what is happening in the Far East,
where piracy is an industry.

You need to smoke some of Dick's weed, or
just smoke ####.

[Vinny Gallo]

"smoke some of Dick's weed"

Bunny likes the sound of that.

the real Hillary Rosen would not have written:

"The primary motivation of pirates ON AVERAGE is to save money. Most pirates are in denial about this, so they come up with other more 'respectable' reasons..."

Rosen the former head of the RIAA knows that the term "pirate" is NOT applied to downloaders, uploaders or individual "saving money." it is literally impossible to use this term such.

the person pretending to be rozen, by using the phrase "save money" (vs "make money") is refering to consumers. It is impossible for consumers to be pirates. the term is long used legally in in vernacular to mean people who SELL stolen material (making money).

Mike K correctly identifies the vendor selling as a "pirate."

Incidently the RIAA was NEVER once successful in going after a single music downloader or anyone cipyign an RIAA disk. they were only successful in getting people who had uploaded material, nd never any of the large uploaders.

What is funny is the hourse is so far out of the barn in terms of the torrents/p2p. Music torrent now accounts for 70 times (at least and probably 200 times) that of itunes and all other industry sactioned schemes. DVD torrents at full definition and quality already exceed total distribution by Netflix and BB combined and are growing at 2x per month (inclduing since the so called kazza victory, which is acutually more of a riaa/mpaa loss than victory.

with a propert timed distrbution system that allows consumer choice there are myriad revenue streams.

look at this statement:
"1) I don't want to pay for something with all that advertising and pre-menu crap.

Ok, so buy the DVD then make a clean copy.."

Excuse me, thanks to the RIAA, doing that has A HIGHER PENALTY FOR THE CONSUMER AND IS MORE ILLEGAL than downloading off the torrent!

The industry fought to make sure that buying your own copy and making a safe copy or a copy to use on your arcoos, is just as illegal as downloading or copying a netflix!

Rosen would never ever say such a thing since she made sure that cutting the forced commericals or evem keep an owned copy on your laptop hard drive was just as illegal as getting a free copy!

holy sh!t, dick tracy is still around?

[Hillary Rosen]

Rosen the former head of the RIAA knows that the term "pirate" is NOT applied to downloaders, uploaders or individual "saving money."

Supply me an alternate term that has the richness of negative connotation deserving of this practice.

"Excuse me, thanks to the RIAA, doing that has A HIGHER PENALTY FOR THE CONSUMER AND IS MORE ILLEGAL than downloading off the torrent! "

Legality and\or illegality was never my point and is a red herring. Torrent users et al clearly care little of these things. My point was that their primary motivation was to save themselves money, however much rhetoric they spew to the contrary.

[david]

Ya i want to know where i can download for free the movie 1990 dick tracy please email me back with an answer.because the one i downloaded it don,t have any sound but it has excelent picture.

[Advanced Torrent Search Engine]

Well, there is piracy for movie since ages. And ony single effeort is not possile to stop it