Serendipity: Piracy

This is a romantic movie for those who love happy endings. It is a well told story and perfect for romantic lovers. I used this scene to talk about piracy, a growing problem all over the world.





I. Work with a partner and discuss these questions: 1. Is Piracy (music, fashion, movies, software) a problem where you live? How so?

2. How do you assess this problem? Is it a governmental problem or is it the citizens' and manufactures', designers', and artists'?

3. What should be done about it?

4. Have you ever bought a pirate product? Talk about it?

5. What's your opinion about illegal downloading of films, music and software from the Internet? Have you ever done it? How concerned are you?

6. Do people buy pirate products because the original product's price is far more expensive than they should be, or is it because they do not have principles concerned about copyrights issues?


II. Work in groups and decide if you agree or disagree with the statements about several views about piracy.


1.Downloading music makes it readily available to the masses in minutes, which is great for new artists.

2. When you download music, you save on the costs that would be incurred if you would have decided to buy it because costs are unnecessarily high.

3. Music industry has profited with piracy because they have other ways of making money differently despite the decrease in sales.

4. The practice of downloading music leads to the diminishing of sales of music cassettes, CDs and DVDs. It reduces the sale figures of music companies. It has an adverse effect on the music industry.

5. By downloading music you lose its originality. When you use the copied versions of music; you indirectly encourage piracy. As you download music, you do not go for the purchase of the original copies of music, which may result in an indirect violation of copyright.

6. In the fashion industry, styles copied at lower price points flood the market with cheap imitations of higher end goods. Piracy permeates the industry; even copies are copied. The quality is not worth it.

7. Designers such as Gucci, Armani, Prada, Louis Vitton charge too much for their products. It is only fair that piracy makes them available to larger masses.

8. These materials are often of poorer quality than the more expensive resources used by the higher priced manufacturers and consumers need to replace their clothing more frequently, and so do retailers, making cheap become expensive.

9. The business of copying allows for greater employment opportunities in the apparel industry for both skilled and unskilled labor.

10. For a garment to become a fashion, it needs to diffuse to a large mass of people. Design piracy makes possible for cheap reproductions of fashionable goods to diffuse to women of all economic levels.


III. Watch the segment from the movie Serendipity and discuss the questions.








1. Describe the scene

2. How is piracy shown in the segment?

3. Who's selling and who's buying?

4. What are the consumer's feelings towards piracy?

5. How would you assess the quality of the purchased product?

6. Why did she decide to buy it?

7. Would you do the same as her? Explain it.

8. What should happen to a person who sells a pirate product? What about the person who buys it? And the person who makes the pirate product?


MOVIE SEGMENT DOWNLOAD - SERENDIPITY