this post was submitted on 06 Jul 2023
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Piracy: ꜱᴀɪʟ ᴛʜᴇ ʜɪɢʜ ꜱᴇᴀꜱ
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Says who? You? MGM?
Says the “free market a-holes” I mentioned in the comment you replied to… In this case, they’re also right if we’re being honest and acknowledging that piracy is depriving the creator of income for their work.
In most cases the creator doesn't hold the IP anymore, they signed it over to the platform. I don't think it's cool to pirate indy games when you can afford them because in that case the money is genuinely being withheld from the content creator, but in a lot of cases depriving Amazon of $5 for a TV show isn't going to impact anyone.
It's more complex than that - You aren't wrong, but there's a lot more going on. Almost anything made by an employee as part of their job belongs to the company. If Amazon licences your work to make something based on it, that's one thing, but if you are a jobbing writer who gets assigned to develop a new series, Amazon will own everything. You get paid in your salary, not in royalties. And, frankly, a lot of creatives are quite happy with that arrangement (since it's so rare to make money at all).
And that's why it's... Odd. Because the "creator" is some dude who has already been paid; literally has received his salary. But the performance of his show does impact him, at least to some degree. Low ratings don't mean he gets paid less, but it means he's unlikely to earn more in future.
Royalties is part of the music business. In TV, everyone gets paid per episode.