A while back, alert reader Jennifer became aware of the number of people who are pirating RiffTrax and Cinematic Titanic riffs. She sent me a little message that she wanted to send to our readers. I explained to her that she is largely preaching to the choir here, but we agreed that if it discourages even one person from stealing from RiffTrax and Cinematic Titanic, it’s worth the effort. Here’s the message (only slightly edited by me):

We’ve come a long way since the days of “circulating the tapes.” For example, nobody uses tapes anymore. But have you noticed that neither RiffTrax nor Cinematic Titanic has asked anybody to circulate anything? That’s because they want their money. A lot of people justify downloading episodes of MST3K that are not otherwise available. But let’s keep in mind that all Rifftrax and Cinematic Titanic productions are available, to everybody, everywhere, at any time.

I know it’s tempting, though. They’re so accessible, and the anonymity of the internet leads otherwise loyal, law-abiding fans to thievery. Oh, sure, one might play it off as a casual offense — nothing more than a proprietary white lie. And it’s not as though the FBI is going to bust down your door because you pirated the riffing of a bad movie.

Yet it is because of this ease of access and the lack of any real consequences that I’m concerned about our community. We are better than this. We are dedicated fans who, despite the allure of the cheap and easy, are willing to sacrifice for the honorable and upright. We are the Rowsdowers to everyone else’s Satoris—the Princes of Space in a world full of Krankors.

So I say to you, fellow MSTies: For serious, don’t steal. After all their hard work and considering the immense joy they’ve given us, Bill, Frank, Joel, Josh, Kevin, Mary Jo, Mike, and Trace deserve every penny.

And let’s try to keep in mind how good Shout! Factory has been to us—if you want more high-quality DVDs, you’re going to have to put your money where your riff is, so to speak.

And if you do steal, they will send Torgo after you and there will be deep hurting.

Thanks, Jennifer. We would only add two things:

1) This site is opposed to SOPA and PIPA. The larger issue is a complex one (and we really don’t want this to turn in to a discussion of that). In this post we are ONLY discussing the pirating of RiffTrax and Cinematic Titanic products, which are created by hard-working artists you know and love.
2) We would ask you to make a personal pledge not to download Cinematic Titanic or RiffTrax products from anywhere but their respective Web sites, and if you know anybody who downloads pirated RiffTrax and/or Cinematic Titanic products — or worse, pirates them themselves — please exert whatever peer pressure you can to discourage them from taking money out of the pockets of these brilliant people.