Tonight I watched a bootleg copy of X-Men 3. I don’t feel bad about it. I would have rented it at some point anyway.

I subscribe to Netflix. I can get any movie or TV show in the mail at any time. Downloading a movie or a TV show is simply a more efficient means of me getting what I normally would have received in the mail anyway.

Now, I’ve been a Netflix customer for many, many years. I’m on the plan where I get to have four DVDs out at once. The turnaround time for me getting movies is about three days. I mail one back and two days later a new one arrives. Theoretically I could stagger my DVD rentals so that I would have a new one coming in every single day. I don’t do this for a few reasons, but mainly because there is not that much stuff I want to watch.

My understanding of the movie rental business is that the rental companies buy each copy of a DVD from the studios for hundreds of dollars because they are expected to recoup their expenses with many rentals. The movies are already paid for and my monthly bill to Netflix takes care of me paying them. I’m paying for at least one DVD per day by that logic and the studios have my money in their pockets.
I certainly do not download and watch that many shows or movies in a month. Even if my method of getting my Hollywood entertainment doesn’t conform to the industry’s preferences, the ones who are in the business to profit are still coming out ahead with me.

I do not really see any problems with my way of thinking about this, but I would love to hear another take on it.

technorati tags:netflix, filesharing, downloading

Blogged with Flock

It looks like the ball has started rolling to get Ayn Rand’s epic made into a film after almost 50 years in print.  The word is that Angelina Jolie really wants to play Dagny Taggart.  I’m really not a huge fan of hers, but I can easily see her playing that role extraordinarily well in my mind.

[via The Liberator Online]