Terry Gilliam on piracy

[yendi]

Perhaps this explains why he has little sympathy for the Hollywood studios' current drive against DVD piracy.

"It's hard for me to worry about the studios losing money. I'm not very sympathetic to their money problems, because they certainly haven't been sympathetic to mine.

"When you look at one of their accounting sheets you realise you're never going to see a penny, so if someone wants to rip them off that's fine with me.

"If you're going to pirate, though, make sure the quality's good. Have some respect for what you're pirating!"

Note that this doesn't imply that piracy is legally defensible. Don't break the law, ok?

Ethically, however? You're not taking a meal out of a baby's mouth; you're taking custom rims off the company's fourth stretched Humvee.

(note: That probably doesn't apply to indy films as much).

(note two: Ganked from sweinberg

Comments

[jeff-morris.livejournal.com]

I'm reading a fascinating book called Darknet: Hollywood's War Against the Digital Generation by J.D. Lasica which looks at the digital culture and the idea of "fair use" versus the current media mogul mindset. I think you'd find it interesting. Same issues are brought up with different perspectives.

JSM

[yendi]

Thanks -- added it to my wishlist.

[unwilly.livejournal.com]

Hey, Gilliam can't say that! Coming to America is gonna make a profit any day now!

[yendi]

Heh.

[seabat.livejournal.com]

yeah, but downloading and such is sometimes the only way to see some indy films. Not that I'm advocating it, tho.

[yendi]

True.

[fings.livejournal.com]

Indy films probably stand more to gain from exposure than from they lose from piracy.

[yendi]

*nod* That's true.

[litch.livejournal.com]

when you pirate a movie the primary company feeling the pain is the distribution company, for the most part they've paid the artis/producer what they are going to pay and try to make up what they parted with on the back-end.

http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/movie-distribution1.htm

[yendi]

Except that site leaves out the fact that the distributors often are studios (or subsidiaries thereof), and as often as not, are major players in the financial shenanigans that Gilliam was talking about.

[chris-walsh.livejournal.com]

And no one's commented yet on the possibility that Gilliam might do a McMurtry Western? That news could get greygirlbeast to vibrating with the potential coolness. I know I'm smiling at the prospect, and I hope that works out; it's been a little too frustrating to be a Gilliam fan (or, I'm guessing, to be Gilliam himself) these last several years...

Chris
(who still calls Baron Munchausen one of his favorite films of his flippin' life)

[yendi]

I refuse to get my hopes up over any Gilliam film until I see it. I call it Watchmen Syndrome.

[chris-walsh.livejournal.com]

Agreed; hence the noted frustration. Still, I'm wading through Lonesome Dove right now (I'm yet another person to call it a great book) and McMurtry has taken over my brain. It's a good change of pace from the horror-fantasy novel I'm a first reader on, so I can keep a part of my mind devoted to the horror-fantasy thing and not have other horror-fantasy stories getting mixed up with it.

If only Michael Kamen were still around to score Anything For Billy, if it happens. I miss that guy.