1 knew you would pick up on this John so I didnt bother sending you the link. ;-)

I think you are not off base at all. I hate movie piracy with a passion in any way its reproduced.

Agree 100%. take the guy to the cleaners(or whatever the law suggests where he was caught).

I'm sure the guy had to sign all sorts of NDAs before they even let him near that film, so yeah, he broke a contract, punish him to the extent that the law allows.

There are two sides to "piracy". On the one hand there are a lot of people out there who are simply movie fans. They'll watch it at the cinema, and buy the DVD when it comes out, but they just simply want to watch the film again between the cinema and DVD release. On the other hand there are those who won't spend a bean on the cinema or DVD and will just buy a pirate Video CD/DVD.

Hollywood et al are inevitably going to try and stop piracy, but they also need to realise that the slight fall in cinema numbers is also due to lack of quality films. Similar to the issues with music piracy.

The guy should be lynched (not really, but, yes, I'd be that upset). He violated everyone's trust by doing what he did, and he deserves every ounce of punishment that comes his way.

Mark, I know what youre saying, as I too have been offered to watch so many bootleg versions of films I have enjoyed seeing in the cinema but I will never buy a pirated film, never have, never will. And even if thats the excuse of what other people do thats why they resort to buying pirated film, well it's still stealing.

Lack of quality films is a good excuse to resort to stealing? Oh well,
I dont mean to be self-righteous, its just that I personally wont do it.

I agree with you John.

Whats up with all this "Crucify Him" stuff...piracy is piracy is piracy period...whethere there is a contract involved or not. Sure you need to punish these people...but you dont just punish one and let the others get away with it simply because there was no contract or some other excuse...if you punish one then you must punish the rest. I really dont think piracy will ever stop unless they put extreme restrictions on the internet, which will probably never happen, but that doesnt make it right either way.

Simone, try living in a third world country where the CDs/DVDs get broken in the mail before reaching you, where the price of a DVD is one third of the national minimum wage per month, where asian movies and even some minor Hollywood ones are never released in theaters and the only way to survive as a movie fan is by downloading movies or buying them from pirates. Yeah, it's stealing, and given the situation I have absolutely no problem with that.

Now, there are some things I really hate about movie piracy. One of them is the quality of the movies. Most of the pirated movies are incredibly low quality. I really hate the ones filmed in theaters, the bad VHS rips or the ones simply compressed beyond belief. Some of them even have subtitles that are totally meaningless. They are really damaging the actual movie. The people who are releasing this crap should really be stopped and punished.

Fortunately there are also high quality DVD rips available (some of them difficult to find, though) and I'm grateful to the people who release them.

Concerning the people who are betraying the trust of the filmmakers: if we were talking about a movie with a very limited release, which I knew it would never screen in my country, couldn't afford the DVD and knew that HBO probably wouldn't pick, I would be grateful to a guy which would made the movie available on the Internet or in some other way after the movie was officially released. But we are talking Revenge of the Sith here and an online release before the large scale official one. I have no sympathy for the ones involved in this.

Also, a question for the people who buy DVDs of movies they haven't previously seen (foreign ones, direct-to-DVD or simply movies that they didn't catch in theaters): what do you do with the DVDs of the movies you hated? I usually read the reviews and know what to expect, but I still stumble frequently upon movies I don't like or when I just feel one view it's enough and don't want to keep the movie. So I just erase it from my hard disk and go on. There are some movies I thought I would like but I ended up totally disliking, and I'd hate to think that I would have bought the DVD and then get stuck with it. So what do you do with the DVDs you didn't like? You just throw them somewhere in your room? Isn't their number increasing, in time?

The information and material these guys were entrusted was proprietary and subject to a lot of laws. Wheter internet piracy is bad or not, this was the agreement they put themselves in. Whether your jaywalking in a crowded LA street or a small rural town with no cars on the street..its still jaywalking. A lot of people get away with it. They didn't. Considering that 'Revenge' is such a big movie with a lot of guard dogs around, They should have known better.

Bobby says, "Simone, try living in a third world country where the CDs/DVDs get broken in the mail before reaching you, where the price of a DVD is one third of the national minimum wage per month, where Asian movies and even some minor Hollywood ones are never released in theaters and the only way to survive as a movie fan is by downloading movies or buying them from pirates. Yeah, it's stealing, and given the situation I have absolutely no problem with that."

Brian, I came from a third world country, and I watch new films when theyre released in the cinema, where it's still cheap to watch movies, saying that I never had to resort to buying pirated films, for stealing, in any way, shape of form is NEVER justified. I am not here to judge anybody who wants to buy pirated films, that's their business, I am just saying I wont do it.

MechoPower, I agree with you on that, regardless of how it was produced, whether you work in that company who produced the film or whatever it is they do to make pirated copies of these films, it doesnt make it a lesser crime. Who are they kidding???

Ooppppssss, typo there, I meant Bobby, not Brian.

Who's Brian??? LOL

To Simone: I understand your point, but I just don't have such strong moral issues. I try to go to the cinema when possible, but a lot of movies I'm interested in are just never released, and if you could see what crap they show on TV... You say you came from a third world country; I assume you don't live there anymore. If I moved somewhere else where most of the movies are released in theaters or on TV/cable and I could afford buying the DVDs I probably wouldn't even need to resort to piracy anymore.

Youre right Bobby, I dont live there anymore, but going to the cinemas though is still affordable where I came from. But even here in the UK, piracy abounds, so its not just a problem in 3rd world countries, but its everywhere. And it grows because people buy it, who doesnt want cheap stuff anyway? Imagine getting a newly-released film just for £8 (US$14)?

Just today from the Metro newspaper (London's free paper) it was reported that a family from Manchester ran a £1.5M piracy racket, officers seized 4,600 DVDs, over 6,000 CD's and 5,430 computer games. The defendant was sentenced to serve imprisonment for 21 months, I say he got what he deserved, I even think its a light sentence.

"What exactly is LEGAL theft anyway?"

Legal theft is the amount of money cinemas charge you for movie tickets and for snacks.