Lots of people I know have bootlegged tapes of performances and if they play it I will be transported back sometimes with happiness, sometimes with horror.
It's easy to make a pirate copy when you have digital tapes of things. And it was so complicated and complex to go through all the post-production of a movie without ever going digital.
Even if there were no illegal copying, the advent of digital distribution will put a lot of stress on the movie and music industry. When the distribution costs comes down, that puts more price pressure on the rest of the cost.
Anyway, Cat Stevens is never going to make much money out of us.
When I hear the news that the pirated version of my film is doing rounds, I cannot keep quiet.
There are a lot of kids out there copying and distributing movies - not because they care about seeing the movies or sharing them with their friends, but because they want to stick it to the movie business.
It may be a brief interruption - just a few seconds - but what if someone sitting near you is trying to make a decent bootleg? Did you ever think of that? Now all those street-corner copies are permanently defiled by your so-called 'emergency.' Don't be so damn selfish.
I think piracy itself is going to end up going away.
The day my film 'Dum' released, it was available on pirated DVDs and VCDs. They showed the movie on cable channels. It was pathetic. It was so frustrating.
Even if it was a difficult operation to copy a song, it only takes one person to do it. After that the spread of the song via the Internet or other means of propagation is only limited by the honesty of the users.
The amount of piracy is extraordinary. People don't realize how big it is.
I am not saying 'Dum' flopped only because of piracy. But the money which went to the offenders could have gone to the producers of the film.
Actually, attorneys say, copying a purchased CD for even one friend violates the federal copyright code most of the time.
