50% of Movie Piracy Coming From Canada?

[Jason Dunn]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.canada.com/globaltv/national/story.html?id=b3dea202-82da-4ad9-b6f8-277923bc1f6b' target='_blank'>http://www.canada.com/globaltv/national/story.html?id=b3dea202-82da-4ad9-b6f8-277923bc1f6b</a><br /><br /></div><i>"As much as 50 per cent of the world's pirated movies come from Canada, prompting the film industry to threaten to delay the release of new titles in this country. According to an investigation by Twentieth Century Fox, most of the illegal recording, or "camcording," is taking place in Montreal movie houses, taking advantage of bilingual releases and lax copyright laws...Jacob said he was warned in a letter from Bruce Snyder, president of Fox's domestic distribution, that if Canada doesn't do something to curb its growing piracy problem, Hollywood will. "They are definitely thinking about delaying releases in Canada," said Jacob. "This is very, very bad for our Canadian consumer and it's bad for the industry as a whole.""</i><br /><br />It's not often that I side with the big Hollywood movie machine, but in this case I will: when a movie studio spends $100 million on making and releasing a movie, someone in the movie theatre recording it is immoral. Period. The movie studios have every right to protect their own product from theft in this manner. The fact that this activity, perpetrated by a tiny fraction of all movie-goers, has the potential to delay movie releases for the rest of us, really ticks me off. So much so that I pity the fool who has a video camera pointed at a movie screen when I'm in the theatre. :twisted:

[ghostppc]

.... I pity the fool who has a video camera pointed at a movie screen when I'm in the theatre. :twisted:

Okay Mr. T.....I mean "J" :lol:

[Phronetix]

Hmmm. Realy though, are these videotaped versions any good, especially the sound? I think they would be rather pathetic. And I guess my assumption is that this would be done from inside by the staff of a movie theatre, late at night, at an unauthorized screeening of the movie.

Or do they actually film when other patrons are there?

And yes, I do realize that I have missed the point of the issue, but I have always wondered these things.

[Felix Torres]

Yes, they do film with other people in the theater.
Some pirated clips they've shown on TV look like Mystery Science Theater.
Folks still buy them.

[Jeff_R]

Just wanted to say, as a filmmaker who relies on honest theatregoers for not just making a living with the current film, but being able to finance the next one, thanks, Jason. :)

[gdoerr56]

Conceptually, I agree with Jason. I have several problems, however, with the statement from the studio:

1) I don't believe that most of the piracy comes from 'camcordered' movies. The majority of the pirated movies I have seen are very high quality and likely from the promotional DVDs the studios produce.

2) While you might watch a bad quality version of a movie, the only way I believe it would impact movies gross receipt is if the movie itself is bad. I can't see someone watching the camcorder version of 'Star Wars' and then not seeing it either in the theater or on DVD. Unless of course they didn't LIKE the movie.

3) The statement is from the studios. Their track record on quality research and honesty is pretty pathetic.

The people involved in the creation of the content (Music, Movies, etc.) have earned all they receive (and likely much more). Unfortunately, the current system tends to reward and protect the studios, their financiers and their distribution partners. If anyone looses, its the artists first with the studios way down on the list.

Just my $0.02

[Jeff_R]

Good points. My view from the other side of the lens...

1) I tend to agree; it's hard to quantify loss, but a lot of their research numbers seem to be wild guesses; I don't have access to all their data, but I am reasonably plugged in and the numbers don't seem to make sense. 50% of piracy from Canada? Based on what, exactly? "As much as" is the get out of jail free card. 1% could be "As much as 50%". It still qualifies.

2) I can't agree entirely with this. We live in the age of hype, and the desire to line up and see it on the first day, or stand in line to buy it at the store, is lessened when the product is already out in the wild for free, especially when the product is inferior in quality (which, unless it is from a finished master, it almost always is, whether it's a camcorder job or whether it's got a visible watermark.)

There have been tests done, and the perceived quality of the film in terms of post-production polish directly affects many people's opinion of the artistic merits of the film, even down to whether the story made sense. Poor visuals, and particularly poor audio (people will watch home movies with THX sound before they'll watch IMAX with AM radio sound) make people judge story, performances and direction more harshly, sometimes making people decide they disliked the movie when they might otherwise have liked it. Think of getting the new album for your favourite band and it's full of pops and hisses. Movies are about taking us out of ourselves to an imaginary viewpoint, and technical glitches jerk people out of that suspension of disbelief. And that can make them think they didn't like the film. I've seen pirated movies in a variety of formats, and I've noticed this in myself. Sad, but true. Believe me, if all that polish didn't affect people's opinion of films, the studios would never spend such a large portion of their budget in post!

Also, there is a good portion of the audience who does not watch things twice. I can see how if you see a cam job on Star Wars or King Kong, you might feel you need to see it again on the big screen, but Catch &amp; Release? Notes on a Scandal? Why would you see it again? You've seen the story. I think, in a lot of cases, people would decide to go see another movie they haven't seen, or else do something else.

I don't think the financial impact is 50-75% of the gross receipts, but could it be 5%? 10%? Maybe. And if not now, in a few years? Probably. And that's enough to affect whether you get to make another film, or even whether a production company survives.

3) Can't really disagree with you there. Look at the "Coming to America" case. 8O

[gdoerr56]

Jeff,

I will concede your point on number 2 although I don’t see the impact on gross receipts increasing. That conclusion in entirely based on my own point of view, however and is based on a very limited knowledge of the industy. I’m one of those people who knows enough to be dangerous!

[Felix Torres]

The impact on the bottom line is not very big in afluent societies like NorthAm and Euroland, but in other markets it can be hefty.
First, because movies don't get simultaneous release and second because the gross receipts from those markets are lower and the "localization" costs are higher.

Even big movies can be impacted if, say, the Thai market gets flooded with a nickle-and-dime low-res version of something like King Kong. Now, one such market alone won't cripple a movie but 20 such markets losing 10-20% and soon it will be noticeable because those are low-profit margin markets and the impact is felt strongest in the secondary revenue streams; PPV, broadcast, DVD...

Some of this is Hollywood FUD, but a good part of it is real and the bottom line is there are entire businesses built on publishing unlicensed content. That is theft, plain and simple, regardless of the nature or quality of the content or the absolute size of the bottom line impact.

We all pay for this because anything that makes content providers more paranoid hurts us, the legal consumers, as it drives more studios into the lockdown-it-down/price-it-high/limit-accessibility camp of Sony, Fox and Disney.

[gdoerr56]

Right, but Canada?