The protest last month by movie moguls and glitterati highlighted the continuing problem of piracy, but as usual the industry is going about it in a mendacious way. If it wants to curb piracy, belly-aching to the Government about enforcement is only a half-measure.
Piracy thrives because there is a powerful demand for the stuff. That demand is produced by scarcity. If the scarcity of legitimate products and titles was eliminated then demand for pirate copies would drop like a stone. And that being the case why in the world would the movie industry support a law which cuts the supply of legal titles? It actively lobbied the Government to make the importation of legal copies of movie titles a criminal offence. These parallel imports were undercutting the industry's iron grip on supply. By cutting off this source of legal titles to the consumer it has created a stronger demand for pirate goods.
The industry wants piracy eliminated, but it wants to keep its control over product, too. The public wants to watch movies and it will watch pirate copies if legal titles are not in the shops. The industry should stop these protectionist practices and concentrate on making better movies.
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