Here I am, stranded inside a small box in one of the most popular internet cafe. Haha well not actually stranded. My brother told me that there's an internet cafe offering a pretty decent promotion, IDR 10.000 for 3 hours with a cozy couch and place and fast connection. And another important thing he said, "It has a LOT of movie and television series collections that we can
steal!". So for that reason, I said yes.
While waiting for the copying process of my movie stealing mission, an interesting topic suddenly crossed my mind. Yeah, it's about the movie stealing itself. Piracy. No, it's not the criminal action of robbery and stealing committed by pirates above the ocean, it's about copying and multiply a copyrighted 'creation' without authorized and appropriate permission.
This is such a common case in the whole world. I don't know if we categorize it as an international crime, because it surely has spread
everywhere. It has a lot of forms, either digitalized or the tangible products. If you asked me which one is the victim then it would be the person whose creation is spread around without her/ his permission, which means he/ she won't get any profit from the disposal. Worst fact is that the pirated version is usually more popular than the original.
Why? Of course because it's way cheaper. The common price of original DVD is $ 16 - 24 (about IDR 160,000 - 200,000), depends on the exclusive features. While the pirated version only cost IDR 8,000 - 15,000. Pretty significant, huh? Upper-class people might be able to collect the original ones—but people like me? My family isn't either wealthy or poor, I can say I'm in the middle class. To buy something above IDR 150,000 without a real and basic functionality (DVD and other entertainment stuff are absolutely secondary stuff right?), it makes me think twice.
But in the other hand, I do need entertainment. Ever since I fell in love with the world of music and cinema, seems like I can't get away from them. My hunger isn't for food anymore, it now has branches. Watching a good movie feels like I've eaten a cheeseburger. It's somehow satisfying. Because through a movie, I can learn a lot of things from the characters. From the most motivational to the most depressing one. Watching a movie is like getting an education outside school, it's a lesson of life. You know what they say,
experience is the best teacher, but we actually don't have to experience it by ourselves.
Like for example, drugs. I don't have to do drugs to know that it's bad for me. By watching movies about people who are addicted to drugs, it showed me how painful they are, thus it makes me don't want to try it, at all. Then there are movies about girls who are trying to make money by 'selling themselves'. Yeah, they finally got the money, but they lost everything they already had—family, friends, boyfriends. By watching movies, it simply open my eyes to everything, I can see the world in some different perspective. It's cool.
And from movies, I found people who finally become my inspirations in life. Look at how I really fancy Shia LaBeouf. He's handsome, he really is, but that's not the point of why I like him. I learned about his past, on how he needed to make a living for him and his mother, and finally God led him to become one of the most successful actors. But he's still grounded, he's not greedy. He prefers to make good movies instead of selling his big name to do
anything that isn't substantial (well the second installment of
Transformers was really sucky but take a look of his other works, they're all brilliant!).
From this fandom, it's obligatory for me to watch
any new or old release of his movies. He's been acting since he was kid, and of course I was really curious about how he did back then. His movies had been released into DVDs and such, so it would be the best way for me to watch them. But then I remember the price of original DVDs. Geez, I haven't even worked yet, my parents will kill me if I asked them $ 20 just to buy a DVD. So I took the short cut, I went to the
unlikely-DVD store in the town. (I couldn't say it blatantly so I simply wrote "unlikely-DVD", but you know what I mean.)
After that,
voila, my Shia LaBeouf movie collections were complete. I could watch all of his works. By that I can really say that he's a great actor. I created a fansite dedicated to him. I declared myself as his #1 fan in Indonesia (yeah right). But it left me a really big guilt: if I were actually his number one fan, then I should appreciate him by literally spend any amount of money to buy his original works.
But... Is that the real meaning of fandom? By only buying the original works of the actor? Is fandom measured by money? Really? I mean, I spent a lot of time creating that fansite. I dug deep my creativity to make the most unique layout. I unleashed my research-like-a-detective method to find the most exclusive news and pictures. Ever since that fansite has been online, I've been acting like his unofficial publicist by providing all things related to him to his other fans worldwide.
So basically I disagree about the idea of appreciating the work of an artist is just to buy their original work. I must say, if I were in a different circumstances—let's say if my parents gave me allowance IDR 1 million each month, then I
would definitely buy the original Shia works. I don't care if it's through shipping and such, I don't care about the extra cost. But that is not me in reality.
By this I would like to thank anyone who kindly copied and spread those awesome movies to me, a person who has no capability to buy any of them. Okay let me re-phrase it, a person who actually can buy it but have a good reason not to spend significant amount of money just to buy that stuff. It's simply because there are other things more important with that amount of money than DVDs. Again, thank you dear 'pirates'. For those who are already in prison, I know you violated the laws, but just want to let you know that for a person like me, you're like the Robin Hood. You steal to help me. Thank you.
Okay then, I gotta find more interesting stuff to do to wait until 3 hours. At least when I get home, I have a lot of movies to watch, which means a lot of materials to write for my
Nita's Movie Diary. Yay!
Have a great Sunday, people! xoxo
