It would be great if studios only produced great music and movies.
Until now, a lot of crap has been produced knowingly because all they need is people going into theatres & music videos with scantily clad women waving their asses around.
But in their quest for quality, how could the studios always choose only the productions which will actually rise to true greatness?
A lot of good stuff would never make it through, but maybe that's alright since no one has enough time and money to discover all the music he would fall in love with anyway.
You and I might enjoy high quality entertainment, but what about Most People?
They're the ones buying and liking all that crap that has very little merit other than some random hot guy/girl being fascinating?
It's problematic. Smart people want quality, but most people will settle for whatever's rammed down their throats.
As for me, I actually buy quite a lot of music that I really like, because I want it at maximum quality.
I'm not as innocent when it comes to movies. Sometimes I download them, but rarely go see them in theatres.
Sometimes I start watching a downloaded movie but stop because it's not good enough.
Sometimes, a downloaded movie happens to be really enjoyable, but will I go buy it after watching?
Nope..
The problem is that the re-use value of good music is pretty much infinite, but you'll rarely want to watch even a good movie again, so after seeing it, its value drops close to zero.
In general I agree that music has far greater replay value. I think that's partially because it's something that can be enjoyed basically any time, anywhere. I can't think of the last time I worked in silence for more than a few minutes at a time. That being said, I do my best to "pay tribute" to quality media by purchasing it. I'm sure I own quite a few movies I haven't seen in years, but I bought them because they struck me as worth paying for.
Finally, I think at this stage piracy (well, quality piracy at least) is still something that Joe Public isn't savvy enough to pick up. By the time the people who pay to consume all the horrible media out there (like, 90% of the total), I would hope a sane and intelligent response to the piracy issue will have found its way to "Big Entertainment."
You watch Fight Club several times per week?! I can't understand the motivation, but hey, people are different!
I've seen Fight Club exactly once, in a theatre, but there are movies I've seen many times, and will watch again. One such movie is Leon ("The Professional"). In case you haven't seen it, do yourself a favour.. It has to be the director's cut though.
> Finally, I think at this stage piracy (well, quality piracy at least) is still something that Joe Public isn't savvy enough to pick up.
Maybe, but many Joe Publics are already downloading movies much like you and I, and at least see some of the good stuff in there while looking for Saw XVII.
They might download quality entertainment by accident. Of course, they might just as well stop watching it too, when quality fails to keep their attention.
Anyways, Transformers was legendary for me too, and the movie was enjoyable, with some of the coolest 3D ever. I feared Michael Bay would just totally ruin it.
Somehow, I doubt Prince would care that some baby is dancing to a grainy recording of one of his songs. Except for Metallica, I can't really think of an artist or band who would give a damn. These days many artists are releasing their work online for free or for... whatever you want to pay! The money is in live shows and the same people who go to live shows are generally the people who will pay for an album regardless of cost.
I buy a possibly excessive amount of music. I also still pirate music on rare occasions where a band or artist is new to me and I want to see if those two songs I heard on Pandora were a fluke or they really are that awesome before buying a whole album (or discography, if it comes to that).
What about TV? I pirate TV shows constantly. I pay for cable; I consider that good enough to justify not wasting 1/3 of my life watching commercials for shit I couldn't care less about; when I browse the Internet I don't have to wait for an ad to finish playing before reading whatever I went to the site for. If more TV shows were available for purchasable download, were priced less ridiculously (why should I pay $80 for the whole season 1 ep at a time when the DVD set is $40?), and were always WS HD, I would stop doing it. When I really like a show I buy it on DVD. Movies are essentially the same deal, except replace commercials with "it costs money just to find out if it's worth watching in the first place."
As far as I'm concerned, piracy is such a big thing now only because it's finally possible to pirate this stuff. Society hasn't changed significantly. There's no secret plot. People are just slowly realizing that they don't have to waste time and money just to find out if they find something entertaining or good enough to warrant their time and money. Sure, there are people who are going to pirate everything and never buy it, but those same people had shoe boxes full of tapes they recorded off the radio. Who cares? It's an insignificant minority. If the record and movie companies are failing it's because people have decided that their products aren't worthy of immediate purchase... then they download them and realize they're not worthy of purchase, period.