Tuesday 22 July 2014

Movie and Video Game Piracy and Copyright theft: What should the Christian's attitude be?

Anyone who was a kid growing up in the 90s or an older generation living through the 90s are aware of when VHS tapes were still in usage. But also some individuals among these groups should probably remember some of the piracy commercials at the beginning of Disney Videos.

John Sachs or another announcer would speak and tell us to look for the holographic sticker on a video cassette or the spine of the video cover if you want to be sure you have an authentic Disney video for your viewing pleasure. People who were kids in the 90s or older will remember these commercials and some of these VHS commercial openings end up on YouTube (A lot of things end up on YouTube these days).

What is my point in raising this? To put it simply, Movie Piracy is stealing, which is not only against the law of the land, it is ultimately a sin against God. See Romans 13:1-5 and 2 Peter 2:13-17 with respect to obeying the government.

Movie Piracy, be it a poor quality VHS Tape, DVD or Blu-Ray disc or even downloaded off an unlicensed torrent, is just as bad as robbing a bank or stealing from anywhere.

Even Video Games are subject to piracy as well, namely with games either being downloaded, or the questionable usage of emulators, programs that function as a copy of a particular game, be it old or new. The subject of emulators are indeed a controversial one.

Downloading a video game of a pirated website is and will always be illegal. The only time a game should be downloaded is if they are found on the Playstation Network, Nintendo Wii Shop Channel, Xbox Live or any reputable network such as these.

What Movie and Game piracy can and will lead to if continued is the end of those industries, as getting an illegal copy or filming a movie on your camera phone or camcorder can jeopardise future productions of these games and movies.

The budget on a video game and a movie is very expensive for the most part, not to mention the man hours it takes for the CGI to be implemented and properly rendered, shaded etc, as well as set pieces, storyboards, costumes, screenplays, actors etc.

Movie and Game piracy is effectively stealing from the companies hard work to create entertainment for families across the globe.

Copyright Violation is also a very serious crime too, namely since it ties into the issue of causing money to not be paid to the original industry who created a particular franchise. If you want the game or the movie, go pay for it, don't download it illegally or watch it where it shouldn't be posted.

See these articles on the subject of Usage of others work and Fair Use in the UK:
http://www.copyrightservice.co.uk/copyright/p27_work_of_others
http://www.copyrightservice.co.uk/copyright/p09_fair_use

Take a look at this page on the myths and realities of UK Copyright Law:
http://www.ihaveawebsite-nowwhat.co.uk/copyright/

Thanks for reading.

Answering Judaism

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