The availability and accessibility to watch these films on demand have resulted in a boom for this growing medium, which is now clocking up more than 3,000 films a year. The popularity of online movies is only ever increasing as the web allows for them to be highly accessible. This accessibility is also galvanizing the movie industry, as people are now able to watch films that they have never heard of before having looked at them by simply typing the name into a search engine. This enables greater accessibility and increased use of the medium. However, this boom has resulted in a number of problems that arise from these films being available online and are contentious issues such as Piracy and Copyright Infringement.
Disputes over หนังชนโรง or movies online arise when people who post their movies online without permission find that their work has been copied onto other websites without their consent or knowledge. This happens because the Internet makes it possible for the work to be copied with ease and without the copyright owner’s knowledge. However, in order to maintain control over their film, these filmmakers are then faced with distributing their work in a variety of different ways, which all may have different problems. Piracy, for example, is a concern for many filmmakers because it leads to the unauthorised distribution of a film online and often results in a large loss of money.
For online movies to be able to be considered as legitimate entertainment there is one specific set of requirements that must be met:
a). They must be produced and distributed in a way that conforms with the relevant laws of the country. This means that they must not contain anything that would violate local law.
b). They must be produced in a way that ensures their authenticity: There is no point in making an online film if its copyright is not respected, as this means that the film cannot really be considered to be its own product and therefore more of a copy than an original work.
c). Being made and distributed online, they must also be seen as legitimate entertainment.
d). It is important for the film to be available for an agreed period of time in a way that does not risk disrupting people’s lives (for example, through its availability only online).
e). From the point of view of copyright, it seems more legitimate if the authorities have approved their release rather than have just released them because they have been left unchallenged.
The development of online movies means that there often is no way to assume that such requirements will all be met. All of these are issues that arise from the internet, which can make it hard to determine whether something is satisfactory or not. For example, a filmmaker may be based in one country, but their movie may be widely viewed in another and they may not wish to comply with its laws. Also, as online movies move away from being a new medium to become more widely-used and mainstream, it is potentially easier for people to disregard the requirements laid out above.
