Friday, January 20, 2012

Internet Freedom vs. Digital Pirates

This article is not edited yet :).

I just read article about Wikipedia blackout, against Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and Protect IP Act (PIPA). Wikipedia is not alone, many big Internet-player such Reddit and Google also take part. Most of SOPA/PIPA supporter are movies and music industry association. You may also read about SOPA and PIPA at Wikipedia.

So, whats wrong with SOPA and PIPA? Suppose you googling with term "download pirates of caribbean", yeah, you want to download an illegal copy of the movie. Uncle Google than give search result that point to a online share server, say, megaupload.com. The movie producer want the law authority to take down the megaupload and also Google, or at least Google must erase the search result that point to megaupload.com. The worse, the movie producer may take legal action against Google. That only one example. What if a Wikipedia contributor write an article that point to a site that contains pirated/illegal copy of digital works (ie. they write article about megaupload.com)? And the internet freedom will die!

Movie is precious commodity of US. Hollywood make billions dollar. But now, you don't need to buy DVD or go to cinema to watch movie. You only need to go to Internet to watch it streaming or download illegal copy. And the most downloader is foreigner. Sooner or later, Hollywood will collapse or event closed. They can't make big money anymore, since their product stolen easily.

Distributing movie in digital format,ie. DVD, is problematic and dilemma. By using this format, the producer may double their income. A movie that hit box-office, or event movie that fail in cinema, re-distributed in DVD format with additional feature (uncut version, director/actor commentary, soundtrack, etc...). And now, home-theater is common. Moviegoers may enjoy their favorite again and again at their home.

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