Paul Coelho on Piracy and Publishing

[karunaji]

Originally Posted by CWatkinsNash

A movie theater's job is provide a certain type of experience. Whether you will like any given movie is outside of their control - it's totally a matter of your own personal preference. Watching the whole film then wanting a refund is the equivalent of eating a complete steak dinner then wanting a refund because you decided you apparently don't like steak.

With movies it is more complicated. There are some part of movie theater that is non-refundable, like renting a space, providing heating etc. But the other part is licencing fees of the movie and if the movie is bad then I see no reason why should I pay for a bad product, at least regarding the licencing part.

There is another aspect that bad movies will attract less people like a bad restaurant will be avoided after the first bad experience. However, the service provided by the restaurant is the same every day. If it is bad I search for a better one. On the contrary, a movie is one time experience. The movie theater may be great and I would come again but if I truly feel that a particular movie was bad then the producers should not get any money from me. It is their job to create entertainment. If it didn't work then maybe the product is not good.

Or maybe their marketing did a bad job finding an appropriate target audience. I often find that spoilers do not represent the actual movie. Similarly to Kindle samples that are preselected portions that do not represent the book at all. At least in the bookstores one could browse the full book before buying. In this aspect the piracy seems to return control to customers.

[Andrew H.]

Originally Posted by karunaji

Guess what, I am a self-employed person and if I do not perform accordingly, I do not get paid.

So if you spend two months installing a new kitchen for someone (or whatever) and they decide they don't like it, you don't get paid and they keep their new kitchen?