Biggest Box Office Summer Ever... And Yet All We Hear About Is Piracy?

from the let's-rethink-this,-okay? dept

With the MPAA constantly screaming about how piracy is killing the movie industry, putting poor stagehands and grips out of work, you'd be hard pressed to see the problem when you hear that the box office take this summer passed $4 billion for the first time ever. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that movies are a social experience. People like going out to the movies if the experience is fun and good. If there are good movies, people will go out and see them, even if they're available as a free download online. Just imagine what would happen if the movie industry stopped freaking out, stopped treating everyone as if they were a criminal and (gasp!) actually made the movie-going experience more enjoyable? It seems quite likely that dumb movie industry policies are costing the industry a hell of a lot more than piracy ever has or ever will have.

Filed Under: box office, movies, mpaa, piracy
Companies: mpaa

Turns Out The MPAA Did Get Access To TorrentSpy Execs' Email

from the ethically-challenged dept

The MPAA has been pushing the courts to force TorrentSpy to spy on its users -- something TorrentSpy refuses to do, noting that it would break their own privacy policy and is simply ethically questionable. It should come as no surprise, of course, that the MPAA has no such qualms. In fact, it came out today that the MPAA had, in fact, been snooping through TorrentSpy's executives' emails. So, which organization looks more ethically challenged? This stems from a case TorrentSpy filed last year, after finding out that a former co-worker gave the MPAA access to TorrentSpy emails. While a court has found that the MPAA's actions did not violate wiretap laws, it's still pretty questionable. What appears to have happened, is that a former TorrentSpy employee who had access to the company's email system set it up so all executives' emails also forwarded to a gmail account he owned. He then sold access to that gmail account to people at the MPAA. Clearly, the MPAA knew that the TorrentSpy execs thought these emails were private, and yet they still eagerly paid up for access to them, which is really sleazy. TorrentSpy is appealing the case, but they'd probably have a much stronger case against the former employee who set up the email forwarding system in the first place.

Filed Under: email snooping, wiretap
Companies: bittorrent, mpaa

Howard Berman To Force ISPs To Do RIAA's Bidding

from the the-representative-from-hollywood-strikes-again dept

First Congress tried to require universities to act as the RIAA's servants (or Congress would take away funding) and now they're trying to do the same thing to ISPs. Rep. Howard Berman (who continually lives up to his nickname of being the Representative from Disney), the head of the Intellectual Property subcommittee (which, as Larry Lessig has pointed out, is like asking a Representative from Detroit to head up the committee on auto safety), is about to introduce legislation that would require ISPs pass on RIAA/MPAA threat letters to subscribers (found via TorrentFreak). Of course, Berman doesn't seem to note that the entertainment industry process is based on extremely flimsy evidence and the whole "settlement process" amounts to little more than an extortion shakedown from the entertainment industry. It's not easy to fight back, and often people feel compelled to settle. With ISPs forced to do their bidding, it will only encourage the entertainment industry to send out notices based on even weaker evidence, since the whole thing has become a revenue generator for them -- and this will simply increase their channel -- all with government support. This is making a mockery of the intent of copyright.

Filed Under: copyright, isps, piracy
Companies: congress, mpaa, riaa

TorrentSpy Cuts Off US Users, Rather Than Tracking Them

from the and-the-music-played-on dept

BitTorrent search engine TorrentSpy has been involved in a legal battle with the MPAA for some time now. The lawsuit took a slightly bizarre twist a few months back when a judge demanded that TorrentSpy start logging details about its users -- something the company had never done and had no plans to do. TorrentSpy claims that doing so will violate its users privacy and violate its own terms of service. Apparently, however, that hasn't convinced the judge to change the ruling -- meaning that TorrentSpy has now cut off access to visitors coming from the US as a way of protecting their privacy. Of course, it'll probably take all of about 10 minutes for most people to figure out other ways to get to TorrentSpy (or they'll just move on to another BitTorrent search engine). Congratulations to the MPAA for driving a bunch of movie fans further underground...

Filed Under: bittorrent, ip addresses, privacy
Companies: mpaa, torrentspy

Teen Pleads Guilty For Filming 20 Seconds Of A Movie

from the crimes-and-misdemeanors dept

Remember Jhannet Sejas, the teenager who was arrested for filming 20 seconds of a movie for the sake of showing her brother that she went to that movie? Apparently, she's agreed to plead guilty, which will get her off without any jailtime, a small $71 fine and an agreement to stay out of trouble for a year (afterwards, the misdemeanor will be taken off her record). It's unclear what this has really accomplished for the movie industry, other than highlighting that you better be careful not to take out a camera in a movie theater. A spokesman for the National Association of Theater Owners admits that it's hard for theater owners to police whose filming a movie for distribution and who's just doing it for fun, but then goes on to say that this case "reinforces our efforts to educate the public that unauthorized recording, whether a clip or the whole film, in movie theaters is against the law." Actually, it doesn't do that. It reinforces that theaters have a bunch of ridiculous and costly policies that likely cost more to implement (the article notes that they're rewarding theater employees $500 for each person they catch, which explains why you'll be seeing a lot more theater workers in night vision goggles). However, given that most of the movies you find online are actually leaked by industry insiders rather than camcorded versions (which tend not to be very good anyway), shouldn't there be someone doing a cost-benefit analysis on this? It seems like the educational campaign is quite expensive, makes the theater owners look like a bunch of bullies, and does little to nothing to stop movies from showing up online. Update: Apparently Regal Cinemas pushed hard to prosecute her. How nice of Regal Cinemas.

Filed Under: camcording, movies, mpaa, theaters
Companies: mpaa, regal cinemas

Who Cares How Many Discs Counterfeit Operation Could Have Made?

from the why-focus-on-that? dept

Information Week is reporting on two men who were sentenced to jail for what is being called the "largest CD and DVD pirating scheme to be prosecuted in the United States." From the evidence, it certainly sounds like these guys were counterfeiting all sorts of music, movies and software, so there's nothing wrong with them being caught, found guilty and punished. What I do find interesting, however, is how the various industry associations have been spinning this story (and how the press is accepting it without question). Since these guys were arrested, the story has been how they had equipment that could have made 300 million pirated CDs and DVDs. Note the "could have" part. Because, in reality, authorities only seized a bit less than half a million. It's still significant, but it's less than 0.2% (not 2%, but 0.2%) of what's going in the headlines. In theory, any DVD/CD burner could produce millions of counterfeit discs -- but that's not news. Why is it news in this case?

Of course, this is par for the course for the industry. Remember when the RIAA wanted to count high speed CD burners as multiple burners in trying to boost the size of a bust it made? Or when the MPAA claimed they seized $30 million worth of DVDs when in turned out to only be about $10,000? It seems they like to blow these things out of proportion with big, totally unsubstantiated numbers. Of course, that lets them make the laughable claim that each of these busts is "a significant blow" against piracy when nothing can be further from the truth. In fact, as we've seen, all these CD/DVD counterfeiting shops are facing a much more "significant blow" from the competition from free downloads. Yet, of course, the Information Week piece carries a quote saying that "It cannot be understated how significant it has been." Actually, I'd say it's been significantly overstated.

Filed Under: cd, copyright, counterfeit, dvd, movies, mpaa, music, riaa, software
Companies: mpaa, riaa

Movie Industry: Live By Royalties, Die By Royalties

from the funny-how-that-works-out dept

One of the things that has always been part of the problem with the entertainment industry's business model is the idea that any time any of its content is used for anything, the industry needs to get paid. Most of the rest of the world works in a work-for-hire world. You get paid to do a job and then you're done. The factory worker gets his salary and doesn't make extra royalties every time one of the widgets he builds is sold or resold. Otherwise, you get weird situations with people whining that they need to keep getting paid for work they did 50 years ago. Of course, if you're from the entertainment industry (and I can already hear you readying your replies), you insist that this is how it must be done -- despite plenty of evidence that it need not be done this way (and that doing it that way can limit the potential market for the content). Apparently, however, the movie studios disagree with you. Well, partly. They agree that's how it must be done when they're getting paid money. So every time a movie is being shown or sold, you better believe the studios want their cut. However, the studios feels quite differently when they have to pay money out. That's why they're trying to negotiate residuals out of the new writers' contract. That's right. Suddenly, the movie industry that insists it must get paid for every possible use of a movie, doesn't think it makes sense to pay the writer after the initial set fee for writing the movie. It actually makes much more economic sense for the writers to be paid a straight fee with no residuals -- but it's a bit hypocritical for the Hollywood studios to claim it makes sense when it benefits them and doesn't when it costs them.

Filed Under: movies, mpaa, royalties, writers
Companies: mpaa

A Year In Jail For Filming 20 Seconds Of A Movie?

from the disconnect-with-reality dept

For some odd reason, the movie industry has been really focused on the supposed camcorder threat this year. They've been talking it up with completely unsubstantiated numbers and getting various governments to pass stricter laws, making it a crime to record movies. The thing is, it's already against the law in most places. These laws are just much stricter. However, the bigger issue is that camcording is the least of the industry's worries. After all, a large percentage of the movies that are downloadable online aren't from camcorders, but are leaked from Hollywood insiders. More importantly, every movie is available online. You're simply not going to stop movies from getting online by throwing some kids with camcorders in jail. All it takes is for one copy to get online and then it's available to everyone. Stopping 99% of the people putting movies online won't make the movie any less available because all it takes is that one person to get a copy online and it can spread like wildfire. Finally, downloadable movies do not appear to be a substitute for the social experience of going to the movies. We've seen this over and over and over again -- most recently with the Simpsons Movie.

But what happens when you get into the habit of treating your customers like criminals and even get laws past to make it easier to accuse them of crimes? You get ridiculous situations like the story of a 19-year-old girl on her birthday who was having some fun with a video camera to record her trip to the local mall. She and her boyfriend went to see a movie and she decided to film about 20 seconds of it to later send to her brother to convince him to go see the movie (yes, to promote the movie, so her brother might become a paying customer). Instead, she was arrested and now faces fines and jailtime. You would think that anyone would recognize this wasn't a movie pirating situation and let it go -- but instead, the theater owner, Regal Cinemas, is pressing charges, while the MPAA is citing its discredited bogus stats as a reason that this type of action makes sense. It's difficult to see how this benefits the movie business in any way. It's scaring off people from going to the theaters, treating movie fans as criminals and discouraging them from promoting movies to their friends. Plus, on top of it all, a company like Regal Cinemas is making itself look like a bully. This helps the industry how exactly?

Filed Under: camcording, movies, mpaa
Companies: mpaa, regal cinemas

Once Again, Online Availability Doesn't Dampen Box Office For Simpsons Movie

from the ah,-that-again dept

For years, people have been pointing out that the MPAA's fears over movie downloading are overblown. After all, the experience of watching a movie that you download is quite different from actually going to the theaters and enjoying a social night out. Yet, the folks in the movie industry continue to misunderstand this simple fact. They insist that movie piracy is destroying the business at the same time that they continually make the movie going experience worse, not better. However, the point is driven home week after week when top movies continue to do amazingly well at the box office, despite being available online. We noticed this years ago when the latest installment of Star Wars did quite well despite tons of downloads. More recently, despite entertainment industry worries that the film Sicko was available prior to release, that film also succeeded at the box office. The latest is The Simpsons' Movie, where unauthorized downloading was such a worry that the opening sequence features Bart's famous chalkboard punishment saying "I Will Not Download This Movie Illegally." Yet, not surprisingly, the movie was both widely available and widely downloaded this past weekend... and did amazingly well at the box office. So, at what point will those in the movie industry finally admit that unauthorized downloads aren't the problem they want them to be?

Filed Under: movies, piracy, simpsons
Companies: mpaa

MPAA Says Net Neutrality Would Hamper Its Anti-Piracy Efforts

from the must-be-a-bad-idea-then dept

If you were on the fence about net neutrality, this might just push you over: the MPAA has sent a letter to the FCC saying that net neutrality regulations shouldn't be implemented because they might interfere with filtering technologies and foster the sharing of copyrighted content. Like so many things the MPAA says, this doesn't make a lot of sense. Even if net neutrality regulations covered the use of packet inspection and filtering to weed out illegal content (and it's not clear that they would), the regulations would only apply to ISPs. Despite the proactive stance AT&T is taking in sucking to Hollywood by deciding on its own to try and filter content, few ISPs would want to join them. There's no reason for them to try and filter out copyrighted content: they have no legal responsibility to do so, thanks to safe harbor laws, while spending money to do something that's only going to annoy their customers is generally regarded as a bad idea. It's not hard to see what's happening here, though. The MPAA wants to ensure that net neutrality laws, or anything else, would preclude ISP filtering -- then it's going to push for new laws forcing ISPs to police their networks for unauthorized content.

Filed Under: net neutrality, piracy, politics
Companies: at&t, mpaa