During the last week the scandal around Hayk Marutyan’s “Super Mama 2” film did not stop. Honestly, I have not watched the film and cannot express an opinion, however, overall, I have not liked Armenian “sketch” comedies when I have seen several episodes of them as a host to my acquaintances and relatives. There is no friend to the taste – Charlie Chaplin’s and Loui de Funes’s’, Andrey Mironov’s and Mher Mkrtchyan’s humor is dearer to me than our contemporary, sorry for saying, a little bit provincial jokes.
Nevertheless, what I want to say about has no connection with the virtues or vices of this film. That film has been pirated and the incomes which Hayk Marutyan and other creators of that video product should have received have been received by stealers, people who have made a crime. There is no justification to the crime called “video pirating” and the conversations about the artistic value of the film cannot justify that crime or lower its dangerousness. This action is not justified by any other stealing – “do you not use stolen Windows?” It is slightly similar to political “justifications” – “and when you were falsifying the elections?” If someone makes a “crime” it cannot be justified by someone else’s “crimes”.
The primary public danger of video pirating, in my opinion, is that this type of crime, in essence, kills the market. The authors, producers and creative group of any given film, soap opera, concert, TV show or video clip expect that the money and efforts they contributed will be compensated. When their product is stolen, no compensation takes place and it brings to a disappointment, hopelessness, material losses, and in the result of it, one has no wish for shooting a new film, writing a new song, organizing a new concert. Or, if such a wish is in place then a lot less money and efforts are contributed to the new project, forasmuch as there is no guarantee that the money will be brought back, is there? Consequently, Hayk Marutyan and all other people whose author’s rights have been violated, should apply to police and the consumers should be conscious that they have right to demand a quality from the creators solely if they consume a legal product.
By the way, about virtues and vices: several hundreds of thousands of users have watched the stolen version of “Super Mama 2”. No one steals a product having no demand.
Aram ABRAHAMYAN
