Over the weekend my friends and I had a movie marathon. For three consecutive nights we watched Saw II through Saw IV. On Saturday night, the Blockbuster we rented Saw III from accidentally put Saw II in the wrong box. It was past closing time and we couldn’t go exchange the movies. We were bent on watching the movie and didn’t know what to do. We asked neighbors and called friends to see if they had it, but had no success. Finally an idea popped into our heads. We had all heard of websites that had full movies posted on them for free, but had never really used them. We quickly called a friend for a recommendation of sites. We had a lengthy list of websites that offered illegal, free movies online to search for our movie. We had success with the very first website out of 7 we tried, and watched the entire movie, in amazing image quality, on a computer screen.
I couldn’t believe how easily we found an illegal online version of an entire film. I had never really visited a site that offered these, and I was surprised with how many movies were listed. It is very tempting to just watch these movies for free off the Internet instead of paying for them, but it brings up ethical questions. We all felt guilty for “stealing” this movie, and the next day we felt so guilty that we rented the next movie of the series. If there are so many movies available online, it is easy to see how movie companies are losing money. I would much rather watch movies for free online that pay to go see one in theatre or rent one. Being in college, we have a shortage of money and can’t always spend it on frivolous things such as movies. I have explored the websites and watched a few parts of movies. I know it is illegal and wrong, but at the same time I would rather watch it online than pay for it.
It is interesting to me that people risk legal ramifications to post these movies. While I watch these movies, I would never upload one myself. I can’t see what their motivation for uploading these are. I don’t think sharing a movie with many people is worth the potential punishment that can be given for spreading copyrighted material. It is too risky. We hear about people being sued every day for stealing movies and music, and I wouldn’t risk it.
I am also fascinated about the amazing quality of the movie we watched. It was almost as good as a real DVD. At times I even forgot we were watching it off the Internet. It fascinates me how advanced technology has gotten to be able to allow regular people to upload such lengthy and high quality movies. I have uploaded personal videos to YouTube, and it takes what seems like ages for them to upload. I can’t imagine how long it takes to upload a whole movie.
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