Hollywood Claims US Has Eliminated Movie Piracy?

from the say-what? dept

Thu, Feb 1st 2007 4:39am — Mike Masnick

By now, it should be clear that some folks in the entertainment industry will say just about anything to try to make whatever point they're trying to make today, without bothering to see if it actually makes any sense. Two weeks ago, we wrote about how the movie industry was kicking off a big and pointless campaign in Canada to have the practice of videotaping a movie in the theater with a camcorder made into a criminal, rather than civil offense. As we noted at the time, the whole thing was part of a PR campaign for a new law -- and it was silly since camcorder-based counterfeiting barely is a blip compared to actual copies of movies leaked from within the studios and put online. Yet, that won't stop the industry from saying whatever the hell they want. Mikester writes in to point out yet another article in the PR campaign which goes on and on about all the camcorder piracy coming out of Canada. It's almost identical to the article from two weeks ago and to articles from last week as well. Like all of the earlier articles, it talks about piracy without noting that camcorder copies really aren't the big issue these days. Instead, it just accepts the claims from the Hollywood representatives. But the most outrageous claim comes towards the end of the article, where the CEO of Cineplex Entertainment explains why they need this new law, claiming that there are similar laws in most US states and: "It pretty well eliminated piracy in the US." Really? Huh. So, next time we hear about the MPAA complaining about "piracy" in the US, we're going to point to this statement to remind them that they seem to believe it's already been solved.

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team

25 Comments

If you liked this post, you may also be interested in...

Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread

Bill, 1 Feb 2007 @ 5:27am

It's all about perceptions
If people in movie theaters with camcorders start being seen as hardened criminals it starts painting a picture of piracy as a really bad thing. This is one step to change public perception that piracy is ok.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
franticindustries, 1 Feb 2007 @ 5:34am

The dichotomy
So, there is no piracy in the US, however the fight against piracy made up 6.6% of US GDP in 2006. Furthermore, the piracy (which doesn't exist) cost the industry billions of dollars. The RIAA is suing people who copy pirated (and thus, non-existing) materials, and is often suing the wrong people, who are not really pirates (which don't exist). Sometimes those people sue the RIAA back for stomping all over their civil rights, but the RIAA is sure that these minor setbacks will not compromise their unrelenting fight against this non-existing threat.

Damn, I should have made a blog post out of this (:
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Vincent Clement, 1 Feb 2007 @ 5:51am

So the MPAA and RIAA plan is to:

Sue customers without any concrete evidence

Utilize copy protection and DRM to prevent customers from using content as they wish

Extend the life of copyright well beyond the life of the original creator

Claim that fair use is a bad thing or that it does not exist

Convert a civil offence into a criminal offence and use the police to enforce civil offences

Reduce artists royalties

Demand a percentage of all monies earned by artists

Oddly enough there is nothing about adding value, improving the experience, offering choice or giving the consumer what they want (not what the studios want). When you start dismissing the needs and wants of your consumers, you headed towards extinction.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
haywood, 1 Feb 2007 @ 6:29am

Desperate times.....
All they will do is drive the pirates underground and make them more technically savvy, (French video blended with English audio for instance) What they will catch and likely prosecute is some first time offender thrill seeker and the punishment will in no way fit the crime.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Roland, 1 Feb 2007 @ 6:46am

Yay MPAA AND RIAA!
You don't have to compete with free if you try to sue and/or jail everybody who downloads a song or makes a crappy bootleg copy of a piece of crap movie in the theater.
What is the point of the "theater experience" anyway? You bend over so they can rape you when you buy the ticket, you bend over again if you want a cold soda and some popcorn or some other snacks, and then you end up in a dirty theater where the the idiot kids are playing with their cell phones or not shutting up, and your ears are bleeding because the volume is jacked up way too high..

I downloaded music for a long time, and if I like the song, I buy the album and hope that there are a few more good songs on it... but even though I downloaded it off the interwebs in a promotional sort of way, and even though I bought the album, and more often than not, the rest of the album sucks... I'm somehow an evildoer. If I would have listened to the radio I never would have heard the song in the first place because the radio plays what they want you to hear.

I don't want to go off on a rant here, but I think the real problem is the underlying problem with the united states in general. Despite all our anger over how we are treated by these industries (for example), we don't do anything about it. We complain to people if they will listen, but we don't do anything about it. We complain and complain and complain. But not enough of us take a stand. On this soap box, i'm complaining... but am I going to do anything about the problems?? probably not..... who would stand up with me? Nobody. We're too busy in our own lives to stop what we're doing and fight for things we believe in. Nothing is going to change because we're too lazy.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
heddy, 1 Feb 2007 @ 6:49am

Quite a bit of camcorder piracy comes out of NY and always has. If you talk to the release groups who dump this stuff out on to the net, they're often grabbing silvers from the NY streets or have cammers working a bunch of the movie houses to get the copies.

But as you say, people really don't care about the initial cammed copy. It's the later cams (TS) that are usually worthwhile and the dvdrips (which come earlier and earlier) that most people hang on for.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
A Truly Concerned Person, 1 Feb 2007 @ 7:31am

I would
Roland, I would stand with you.
I am young and still have my passion for life and freedom.
By young I mean low twenties.
I am tired of this government abusing us and ignoring us (Republican'ts, Demorats, all of them).
I am tired of being made out to be a criminal.
I am slightly different in the music respect, I get most of my new music from my friends who buy it from various places.
I am more of a movie guy, I download movies after they are out on DVD (prefer the DVD Rip quality). If I like it, I go out and buy it, and give it a good review. If the movie sucks, it gets deleted and a bad review on my clan site.
That is how things are. I just really got tired of paying for crap a long time ago, and I do not trust all of the big critics. So I screen them myself.
If I was not able to download movies to preview in this manner, I would buy far far less movies, as I would only buy the movies that I liked that I saw that my friends bought.
As it is now, they also buy more movies because they see what I have and like it and buy their own.
I am giving them far more business through my network than if I didn't download.
They are and always will be too stupid to realize this.

So, I would stand with you.
We should make a movement webpage.
Not a page for others to go to complain about how things are, I am sure there are enough of those already.
We need a site where all of us who truly want to change things can go, to sign up, and to stand up, and fight.

Heck, if we did well enough and removed the RIAA and MPAA, I am sure the price of products would drop because there are a lot of losers in those companies sucking up funds and revenues.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 1 Feb 2007 @ 7:37am

Roland this is for you
http://www.freedomtofascism.com/
[ link to this | view in thread ]
bshock, 1 Feb 2007 @ 8:00am

Forget Hollywood
I've said this before: Hollywood is run by beancounters who see their industry as a big black box. All they want to do is turn the crank on that box and count the money that comes out the other end. It's not that they don't care how their business works -- they simply want it to work like a factory that produces as few items as possible for as long as possible, performing the same operation over and over again forever. It's all about a predictable business model.

It's all about producing the exact opposite of entertainment.

I've stopped going to Hollywood movies or even watching Hollywood-produced tv shows. I encourage everyone else to do so as well. Forget this dull, mindless trash. There are better alternatives out there.

Starve Hollywood to death.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
CB, 1 Feb 2007 @ 8:20am

business plan
This should be the Hollywood Business Plan

Create a Good Movie.
Good Marketing makes good attendance.
Charge a fair price. Make a fair profit.
After a run on the movie if you had good marketing you will sell DVD etc....
Forget all about the coping crap....
Move on to the next movie.

Sound resonable ?

cb
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Jeff, 1 Feb 2007 @ 8:31am

?
Really? I'm downloading The Cooler. Good movie.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Geoff, 1 Feb 2007 @ 8:36am

Re: It's all about perceptions
If people are SEEN in movie theatres with camcorders than they are bad at what they do - I doubt very much that anyone reading this article has ever seen anyone in a theatre with a camcorder - The point as I read it is that the movie companies are painting a pretty picture of piracy in US vs. Canada. CamVids are not the problem - the fact that my neighbour has DVD quality copies of every film nominated for the Oscar's (best picture, best actor/actress categories). Some of these movies are not even remotely close to be released - That's the problem, and based on the available subtitles for these movies, it's not a Canadian problem either - unless my official language has become Russian or Spanish.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Roland, 1 Feb 2007 @ 8:42am

Re: I would
That's the thing though. There are plenty of websites for people who are angry about this or that or the other thing. What i'm talking about is not the inaction of sitting in our chairs at our computers making webpages with forums and stuff, i'm talking about GOING OUT and changing things.

One of the things we can do without going out is to call, email, and write the politicians that run our states and represent our states in Washington. And not just do it once, but pester them, it has to be done in a respectful way, not just trash talking them, because that doesn't get anything done.. These are our elected officials, they were voted in (for the most part) who represent us in this representative republic (for those of us who live in the US, a representative republic is not a democracy. no matter how much the word democracy is thrown around...) (if you live in the US). If they get enough badgering about this, they might visit this issue because a big enough voter base is complaining.

It's also more than a "go into the street and protest on a specified day", because after the protest, people just back down and wait. The Million Man March or the Million Mom March or what have you are fine. After it's done, they go home. What if A Down with the MPAA and RIAA trash Million PO'd Person march happened, but instead of going home, we stayed? What if we said we will not go away until this is fixed? What if we forced them to change it?

Sure, there's flaws in the logic i'm describing here, but there's too many of us that just sit and do nothing. Not just on this, but on almost every issue that affects us. We sit and we take it, and we think that it sucks and it should change. But we do nothing about it. The reason our government is in the pockets of lobbyists and irresponsible media groups like the MPAA and RIAA is that there is a lack of action by the very people the elected officials represent.

G.K. Chesterton once wrote "This is the age in which thin and theoretic minorities can cover and conquer unconscious and untheoretic majorities." - ILN, 12/20/19

We need to wake up and show them... this rant is out of steam now... and i'm still sitting at my computer, not doing anything...
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Beefcake, 1 Feb 2007 @ 9:05am

Reading
Let's all start reading bound books again. I don't think they can embed a root kit into paper yet.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
lolercopter, 1 Feb 2007 @ 10:42am

good game...
oh its been totally eliminated...hmm now where'd my pirated copy of Thelma and Louise go....i have a sudden urge to watch bank robberies....
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Michael Long, 1 Feb 2007 @ 11:06am

Context
If you consider the context then it's pretty obvious they meant, "It [those laws] pretty well eliminated [THAT SPECIFIC TYPE OF] piracy in the US."

'Course, eliminating the context makes it much more "newsworthy".
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Harn Soper, 1 Feb 2007 @ 11:18am

This debate misses our common ground
Each side has its reasons for taking sides in this debate. Some of us are anarchists and some are capitalists. Can we all agree to a few things? Common Ground 1: If we all agree that we like movies then we can all probably agree that there has to be a fair way to make money at it so more movies can be made. Common Ground 2: If you own something you probably would like to have some control over it. Seems natural. Common Ground 3: If we accept that movies on TV are free (because they have commercials) then can we agree that pirated movies of the Internet are OK with commercials? Your thoughts?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Michael Long, 1 Feb 2007 @ 11:23am

Context
"It pretty well eliminated piracy in the US."

Reads well when you take it out of context that way, doesn't it? Quite newsworthy. Of course, taken in context it's rather obvious that the quote actually means something like, "It pretty well eliminated that type of piracy in the US."

Which is an entirely different statement, and one that probably deserves debate on it's own merits.

The difference between the former and the later is sensationalism vs. journalism. Your bias is pretty obvious, but you usually don't make up news or take things out of context just for the sake of a rant...
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Michael Long, 1 Feb 2007 @ 11:26am

Context
"It pretty well eliminated piracy in the US."

Reads well when you take it out of context that way, doesn't it? Quite newsworthy. Of course, taken in context it's rather obvious that the quote actually means something like, "It pretty well eliminated that type of piracy in the US."

Which is an entirely different statement, and one that probably deserves debate on it's own merits.

The difference between the former and the later is sensationalism vs. journalism. Your bias is pretty obvious, but you usually don't make up news or take things out of context just for the sake of a rant...
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Michael L, 1 Feb 2007 @ 11:27am

Context
"It pretty well eliminated piracy in the US."

Reads well when you take it out of context that way, doesn't it? Quite newsworthy. Of course, taken in context it's rather obvious that the quote actually means something like, "It pretty well eliminated that type of piracy in the US."

Which is an entirely different statement, and one that probably deserves debate on it's own merits.

The difference between the former and the later is sensationalism vs. journalism. Your bias is pretty obvious, but you usually don't make up news or take things out of context just for the sake of a rant...
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Michael Long, 1 Feb 2007 @ 11:31am

Context
"It pretty well eliminated piracy in the US."

Reads well when you take it out of context that way, doesn't it? Quite newsworthy. Of course, taken in context it's rather obvious that the quote actually means something like, "It pretty well eliminated that type of piracy in the US."

Which is an entirely different statement, and one that probably deserves debate on it's own merits.

The difference between the former and the later is sensationalism vs. journalism. Your bias is pretty obvious, but you usually don't make up news or take things out of context just for the sake of a rant...
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Michael Long, 1 Feb 2007 @ 1:45pm

Dups
Sorry for all the duplicate posts. System was reporting them as "spam" and I tried a couple of times to get it to go through.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
|333173|3|_||3, 1 Feb 2007 @ 3:14pm

Re: Dups
That's odd, since the posts falgged as spam are sent to the mods for approval, and I would have thought that they would notice dups like that. THey must have been busy. THe spam filter does seem podd, since all my long posts get flagged as sapm, but some of the obvious spam seems to slip throuh.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Mike (profile), 1 Feb 2007 @ 4:53pm

Re: Context

Reads well when you take it out of context that way, doesn't it? Quite newsworthy. Of course, taken in context it's rather obvious that the quote actually means something like, "It pretty well eliminated that type of piracy in the US."

I wrote exactly what was in the article. I didn't change his words. I didn't pull that sentence out of a paragraph that says what you claimed.

He specifically said it. And it's bogus, no matter what the context. The industry has a long history of saying things that are completely wrong. I'm not sure why you think there's anything wrong with highlighting that. It's not "sensationalism." It's calling them on a bogus statement.

I'm sorry if you disagree, but we stand by the post.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
ScytheNoire, 2 Feb 2007 @ 12:25am

cam's?
who needs cam recordings when the movie industry themselves are giving "pirates" DVD Screeners and DVD pre-releases. and when you count in those R5 releases from Russia, heck, no one gets the cam recordings, they just wait a week or two and get the DVD version.
[ link to this | view in thread ]