I was reading this post on CrunchGear during my lunchbreak, and it occurred to me that the MPAA and the RIAA are even more retarded than we thought, but even moreso, I’m wondering why no one has picked up on this and presented it in court. The MPAA is suing The Pirate Bay, a torrent indexing site, for $15.4 million, citing that The Pink Panther movie (yeah, that one with Steve Martin) has been downloaded 50,000 by users following the torrents found on The Pirate Bay. Aside from the disbelief that so many people would download that movie, let’s do some math here.
The MPAA is claiming $37-44 per download of each movie from the site, and is also claiming nearly $70 from the download of TV shows such as Prison Break. According to IDG News Service (via CrunchGear), the MPAA thinks this makes sense because, “the distributed files didn’t include copy protection, and were made available before the release of a DVD or a legal download.”
Now, correct me if I’m wrong (and I’m not), but the MPAA sells the DVD of The Pink Panther for $12.99 on Amazon.com currently. DVDs are relatively unprotected, seeing as how I can bring a DVD from my house over to yours and pop it in the DVD player, and it’ll work. So how did this $12.99 movie end up costing $37? Prison Break, likewise, offers the entire first season for $30, or you can buy each individual episode for a measly $2. So how did these episodes go from being worth $2, all the way up to $70?!
The RIAA does this, too, claiming that each song is somehow worth $500 when pirated, but only $.99 when purchased legally. Can someone PLEASE explain to me how that happens?
At least once a week, either the RIAA or the MPAA does something new that makes me completely wonder how they’re still in existence, and how they’re even allowed in a court room.
Ricky Cadden 