How quaint, defending an startlingly outmoded copyright policy that has served to benefit chiefly the corporate sector. To your claim that "just because guys like Chartier are rich (and, apparently, sorely lacking in people skills) doesn't give you permission to take their stuff," I believe the most appropriate response comes from Robespierre: "Stop shaking the tyrant's bloody robe in my face, or I will believe that you wish to put Rome in chains."
This piece was pure reactionary garbage.

Ryan, it sounds like you and Chartier may disagree on the morally of theft, but I think you're argumentative styles have a lot in common. Maybe I'm naive but can't it be agreed that somehow people need to get paid for the art/entertainment they make, or there won't be anymore art/entertainment? And most of cinema is made by assholes, so yes the assholes pitta get paid too. They could certainly be less assholey about it, but it doesn't change the underlying point.

It's far from clear that anyone downloading the Hurt Locker would have paid for it. Those who did and liked it were mainly early adopters and influencers, people who told their friends and family to check it out.

You can call downloading theft all you want, but that's a crude characterization, and just plain wrong. The fact is, if Chartier truly intends to abuse the US legal system in such a way to extort whatever sum he likes (several thousand dollars per person, it seems) from 50,000 Americans, he'll likely find the repercussions unpleasant at the end. The truth is, this isn't a deterrence move, it's simply a novel revenue grab from a diamond-clad industry that feels nothing but contempt for its consumers, paying or not.

Marcus is right. This is just another way the Suits are hoping monetize their products. Even if you sue just a 1000 people and make them pay a $5000 fine, that's $5 million bucks right there. So if anyone tells you this issue is about morals, they are full of it. That's because the ethical issues are much larger and universal. Can you punish someone for stealing a loaf of bread even if they were dying of starvation?

The person who owns the bread, seeing that some people are on the street and starving, should be kind enough to offer the bread. Sadly, greed has replaced love.

And a poor man, forced to live on bread for so long - can we punish him if he decides he's had enough and starts stealing foie gras from the French bistro?

While the IFC's less than impartial view is far from surprising, I'd have thought the music industry example would have made clear enough that you can't sue your way against what is increasingly becoming the popular culture in an attempt to instill a sense of value in your product where all of those would-be customers and their resolutely closed wallets fail to agree.

This isn't a matter of theft or morality but of operating in a failed business model and expecting the courts to prop you up through a legally mandated sense of artificial scarcity and money grabbing lawsuits when those potential customers are clearly smart enough not to support you.

We've all seen this same situation play out enough times to know what's really going on here. IFC and Chartier need to stop kidding themselves.

Marcus you write, "It's far from clear that anyone downloading the Hurt Locker would have paid for it." But why does that make it ok? How is that any different than going into a brick and mortar DVD store, taking The Hurt Locker off the shelf, and walking out without paying for it? If I did that, and my defense was “Well I wouldn’t have paid for it anyway,” how would that go over? Call me quaint if you want, but those both sound wrong to me.

Jay, you ask whether it’s right to punish someone for stealing bread if they’re dying of starvation. First of all, if you’re arrested for robbery, I’m not sure that the judge is going to dismiss the case on the grounds that you were hungry. Secondly, there’s a pretty big difference between needing a piece of bread to survive and watching a bootleg copy of a movie you don’t want to pay $10 to see.

You also talk about “the Suits” like these movies are made by people who sit around in offices made of gold on lighting cigars with $1,000 bills. THE HURT LOCKER was made for $15 million bucks. Chartier may be rich, but that budget means a lot of people worked on that movie for very little money, grips and production assistants and sound mixers and gaffers and script supervisors and who knows who else. You’re comfortable taking all of those folks’ hard work for free?

I just think this issue will never get resolved as long as people on one side characterize everyone who downloads a torrent as felons and people on the other side continue to insist that they can take whatever they want digitally from whoever they want and that anyone who thinks otherwise is some sort of 'suit' or sell-out. If somebody offers you something (virtual or real) for a listed price, and you figure out a way to get it from them without paying, that's stealing. And when the market makes it easier to steal something than to buy it, everyone will steal it and then no one will want to go on making it. Why does this not seem self-evident to both sides of this debate?

Matt,

It's obvious that taking someone's work for free is theft. And I'm also aware that this hurts the creators ability to support themselves and hence affects their ability to produce more work. The real question here is why would anybody do such a thing, can they be blamed for it and should they be punished for it?
Why does a person steal? Why does anybody do anything?

You'd have to be willing to sweep a lot of philosophical issues under the rug to really believe in this kind of justice. It makes gross assumptions about the nature of human consciousness and identity. It's a flawed system but it's all we've got for the time being.

You're a movie guy so perhaps I should put forth a classic film to support my argument. Fritz Lang's M. Go watch it again and think a little more about all of this before dashing off another frivolous article of this sort.