Ebert once said that Spike Lee complained about the opposite happening: Multiplexes “mistakenly” giving tickets to the wrong movie to people going to see a black film. If anyone asked about it, they were told never mind, just go see the film you said you wanted to see. He claimed this was a bid by the movie industry to lower the box-office figures for black films. Seems a little paranoid to me.
A bit difficult here to get away with sneaking into other movies. Seating is assigned, and there are lots of staff hanging around making sure you go into the correct hall.
Making a general, meta-level point that bears very little impact on the OP, this is simply a shallow view of ethics, IMHO. Ethical decision making is inherently a balancing of factors. One’s feelings are indeed pertinent as a factor, although I’d agree that ends do not justify any manner of means.
Consider the following series of questions, which get progressively more unlikely:[ul][li]Is lying unethical? Generally speaking, yes.[/li][li]Is lying to protect someone from harm unethical? Generally, I’d say no.[/li][li]Is lying to protect someone from the “harm” of being arrested unethical? Generally, I’d say yes.[/li][li]Is lying to protect someone from being arrested by a “dirty cop” if that person is a witness to crimes committed by said officer and in fear of extra-legal punitive actions? Generally, I’d say no.[/li][li]Etc., etc.[/li][/ul]Possibly, you’ll object that by the end of the list, we’re moving well into the realm of absurdity. And I’ll most certainly grant that. But as I said before, what makes ethics questions interesting is their dependence on context and the variations thereof. Remove that and you’re simply spouting kindergarten platitudes.
Then you shouldn’t consume their product while violating the implicit agreement that you give them $10. Period.
Ah, so you’d be honest if somebody forced you to. Nice to know. Do you steal other things, (say, novelty keychains) and blame the store for not stopping you?
I’m also showing my disapproval of Ben Stein’s movie by not paying for it. And, of course, not seeing it, since I’m not a thief. It’s not a boycott if you steal the product you’re boycotting.
So nobody can explain the ethical difference between seeing the movie without compensating the creators by buying a ticket for a different movie, and seeing the movie without compensating the creators by borrowing the DVD from the library?
What’s the ETHICAL difference?
Just asserting there is a difference doesn’t mean that the difference exists. See, I’m a little slow, and I don’t understand the difference, so you have to explain why there is a difference.
The ethical difference is that in the case of the library, the creator has by its own choice issued the movie in the form of a DVD, knowing that the only reasonable use of the DVD is that it will be watched, and knowing that it is legal for people to transfer possession of the DVD so that other people can watch it, but that the law prohibits them from making copies of the DVD.
The creator has intentionally and with knowledge of the law chosen to issue the DVD, and, thus, intends for it to be thus used. Under the law, the library has paid the creators for the DVD, and, thus, the creator is compensated to the extent that the law grants him a right to be compensated.
Where is the ethical problem?
In the case of the theatre, the law grants the creator a right to be compensated for each person who is present at the performance of the film. By going in without paying, you are denying him his rightful compensation (which you have not done by borrowing the DVD from the library) and you are violating a contract with the theatre (in fact, an explicit contract: the ticket you are given specifies which film you are admitted to view). That’s two ethical violations.
I don’t think it’s quite like that. It’s more like, if it was that important to the theater that I see the show I paid for, then they’d make more of an effort to ensure people saw the movie they paid for. Most theaters I’ve been in have two wings stemming off the concession stand; having one ticket taker for each wing, along with strategic film placement (G-PG in one wing, PG-13 to R in another, for example), would do a lot to halt movie jumpers, and not be that much more costly than a single ticket taker.
Theaters give out free passes all the time. How is that any different?
So if it was important to the convenience store owner to prevent shoplifting, he would put all his merchandise inside locked display cases, and since he doesn’t, it must mean he doesn’t care if you swipe some bubble gum?
Clearly not. In the case of the theater and fountain soda, you pay before you get what you paid for. You buy a ticket, you’re let inside, and you have free run of the place. You buy a cup, you go over to the fountain, and you have free use of it.
If a store owner charged you for gum as you entered the store, then let you go inside to get it while allowing you to leave freely without checking to make sure you got exactly what you’d paid for, he’d be a damn fool not to realize he’ll be missing stock.
Not that I’m arguing that it’s right to take advantage of someone like that. But a business is set up in the way that makes the most sense for them. It clearly makes more sense for theaters to pay only one ticket taker and run the risk of movie hoppers than it does for them to check tickets at the individual screen’s door. It’s not ethical to hop, but it’s also not screwing the theater or the studio as much as one might think, otherwise they’d be more cautious, like they are for blockbusters.
For clarity: I do not and would not hop. But as far as ethical offenses go, it’s pretty freaking low on the totem pole. I reserve more ire for jaywalkers.
The fact that the theatre is wide open doesn’t mean, to me, that the owner doesn’t care about movie hopping.
I think the analogy with the convenience store owner is close.
Both weigh the pros and cons. Pros being the ease and convenience for the customer to find what they are looking for quickly and efficiently, with little effort on the part of the buisness owner, balanced against the cons of shoplifting/movie hopping.
Since movie hopping currently is not as much of an issue, they don’t need to go to the expense of configuring the building to insure the customers only see the movie they paid for. I think that if movie hopping were a much larger problem, movie theatres might change their ways. Just like convenience store owners configure their store based on the (perceived) risk of being robbed. If they were in really really crime ridden areas, they lock up their merchandise more (and protect the cashier with cages).
Home Depot used to lock up the spray paint merchandise here in SoCal, because of the kids swipping them for their graffiti needs. (Dunno if they still lock that stuff up these days, though.) But I imagine they didn’t lock up the spray paint cans in Billings, Montana. (WAG, admittedly.)
It sort of boggles me to see the lengths to which some people will go in order to rationalize and justify dishonest behavior.
Perhaps part of the problem is that “watching a movie” is essentially an intangible, so that when you leave all you have is the memory of having watched. it. Stealing this experience (i.e. not paying for what you received, even if you paid for something else) may seem less dishonest than stealing something tangible (numerous examples already offered by other posters).
I expect many of those rationalizers’ opinions would change if the shoe were on the other foot. If it were *their * work being viewed without payment, whether for the purpose of expressing derogatory opinions or just because someone thinks they don’t deserve such payment, I wonder how long it would take before they started expressing their outrage in the Pit.
Roddy
(1) As others have pointed out, when you buy a ticket for a different movie, you are breaking the rules that have been set out for the conditions under which you have permission to see the movie. When you borrow the DVD, you are taking advantage of one of the legitimate, permitted ways to view it.
(2) Seeing in a theater setting, when that movie is in the theater (which is usually before it’s available on DVD), is a different experience from watching it on a DVD, an experience you’re expected to pay for.
(3) There is an element of dishonesty in buying a ticket for a different movie: You’re saying you’re going to do one thing, then doing another.
(4) The “What if everybody did it?” question: If nobody bought a ticket to the movie, even if they wanted to see it while it was in theaters, the movie would be a flop, people involved would lose money (and, at worst, experience financial ruin), and it would be far less likely that other movies of the same sort would be made in the future; and there’d be no DVD for you to borrow. — Which seem to be the results that some posters are hoping for, if they’re not buying a ticket because don’t want to support a movie they find objectionable. Fine, but don’t pretend this has no ethical implications.
To make this truly analogous you’d have to have ethical complications with giving the orange grower money, and have need of an orange eating experience to criticize the orange grower.
In other words I think that analogy misses important points.
By that logic if you accidentally cut someone off in traffic you’re a thief. You deprived another motorist of the right of way that was lawfully theirs.
What about people who put couches on their porches. They’re (in many jurisdictions) illegally lowering property values and stealing money right out of the city’s tax fund. Are they unethical thieves or just people wanting somewhere comfortable to sit and take in the fresh air?
What about if you tape a recording of an NFL broadcast an ABC sports, and invite your friends over to watch the game with you. There’s a disclaimer at the end denying you all rights to record and to public performance in the end without written consent. Is recording the game and watching it later with your friends unethical?
Lisa: Well, in Sunday School, we learned that stealing is a sin.
Homer: Well, DUH.
Lisa: But everybody does it. I mean, we’re stealing cable as we speak.
Homer: Oh. Look at this way, when you had breakfast this morning, did you pay for it?
Lisa: No.
Homer: And did you pay for those clothes you’re wearing?
Lisa: No, I didn’t.
Homer: Well, run for the hills, Ma Barker! Before I call the Feds!
Lisa: Dad, I think that’s pretty spurious.
Homer: Well, thank you, honey.*
I think Stranger’s analogy holds, you are just looking at it a different way. In the steal-a-book/pay-the library scenario, the publisher is not getting paid - just like Paramount Pictures (or whoever) is not getting paid when you sneak into a showing of their film. The library = Miramax, or whichever studio got the money when they didn’t pay anything to produce the movie you ended up seeing. Yes, the theater gets paid, but that is not where the ethics come into play.
Every time I’ve used a pass, it involved going to the box office to exchange it for a ticket to the movie that I did want to see. The makers of the movie I saw, I have to assume, still got credit for me viewing it.
That said, I pretty much share your opinion on the ethical severity of this offense.
I’ve only paid and swapped once. The line to get into the movie we wanted to see was so long we figured we’d end up sitting in the front row and looking backwards to see the top of the screen, so we ended up going to a different theatre to see another movie we’d been meaning to see that had been out for a while and had plenty of open seats.
Wrong perhaps, but do I feel bad about it? Of course not. It’s not something I planned to do, nor do I ever plan to do it again. That’s not to say that under similar circumstances I wouldn’t do it again, but I have no intention to. And on a chart of wrong things to do this is very close to the bottom.