Content Theft Quotes

One thing that we have learned is that piracy is not a pricing issue. It's a service issue.

So DeCSS didn't introduce anything new for pirating and had already been available.

There was a time when not many people had access to Malayalam films. So those who did have access went on to copy the films, add a few bits, and present it like it was their own.

Writers are also sort of like vultures, but with fewer ethics.

I understand the worries of many - not only here in this auditorium -, and some have already written to me to say that technical progress has lowered the threshold that stops people from helping themselves to protected works without the slightest embarrassment.

Stand-up comedy is tough right now. Anybody can come to a concert, tape you, and put you up on the Internet. You either fight it or embrace it.

It's just hard. I wish the studios felt there was more value in these themes and these pieces of material - that they're worth protecting more. Because then it just wouldn't happen. If the studios cared, the stuff would be stopped in a second.

I have seen books made of things neither studied nor ever understood ... the author contenting himself for his own part, to have cast the plot and projected the design of it, and by his industry to have bound up the fagot of unknown provisions; at least the ink and paper his own. This may be said to be a buying or borrowing, and not a making or compiling of a book.

One of the things that drives me crazy is the belief in Hollywood that bittorrent exists solely for stealing things.

I have myself always been terrified of plagiarism - of being accused of it, that is. Every writer is a thief, though some of us are more clever than others at disguising our robberies. The reason writers are such slow readers is that we are ceaselessly searching for things we can steal and then pass off as our own: a natty bit of syntax, a seamless transition, a metaphor that jumps to its target like an arrow shot from an aluminum crossbow.

It's the big boys, the Googles of this world, that are already benefiting from piracy and not paying the artists a dime.

Online theft has changed the business model of filmmaking because the DVD market is very soft. So, more ambitious, compelling, character-driven narrative of a certain budget level isn't really a viable business model in the eyes of the studios right now.

People feel entitled to take whatever's online without paying for it.

Today, we see some "file sharing" sites that rely on fans uploading cracked copies of ebooks, and which then make money off those books by charging for downloads (via cash subscriptions or advertising). Again: I take a dim view of this. They're making money off the back of my work without paying me.

If you give the audience what they want when they want how they want it, they won't steal it.

It's one thing for the industry to lose half its revenue to piracy; it's another to destroy it emotionally.

The amount of piracy is extraordinary. People don't realize how big it is.

Online piracy needs to be dealt with itself, because people are just wholesale stealing people's work and not paying for it. It's very hard to figure out a way to fix it.

Books are so cheap and easy to get that people don't bother stealing them, which is the essential rule of piracy that the music business learned much too late.

Piracy doesn't bother me that much, to be quite honest.

I always say this, but I'm saying this again. Do not encourage piracy.

We have seen the damage already caused to the music industry and we have to continue to make the public and government bodies globally aware of the damage that will happen if DVD piracy is not brought under control.

Most authors steal their works, or buy.