Hollywood’s war on Canada
p2pnet.net news view:- At the beginning of 2007, up to 50% of movies which show up online illegally are Made in Canada, said the Big 6 studios, Time Warner, Viacom, Fox, NBC Universal, Disney and Sony, through their MPAA in the US, and CMPDA in Canada.
But this is yet another example of an overblown Hollywood promo for a feature which turns out to be vacuous when you see the whole thing.
The 50% claim heralded the start of an all-out Hollywood attack on Canada, accused of being a haven for criminals who are using camcorders to tape feature movies which then show up online, or as DVD counterfeits.
‘Camcorder’ is short for the small, easily concealed hand-held video recorders of the type manufactured in the millions by Sony’s consumer electronics arm and widely sold through the Windows Marketplace, and Amazon, and elsewhere.
Montreal is named as the hub of this criminal activity and, “They are using Canada because they can have the movie out on the street in the Philippines and China before it even releases there,” according to Cineplex Entertainment theatre chain’s Ellis Jacob.
Gangsters are behind it all, declares Jacob, a fact which, “endangers our young employees, because they are dealing with hardened criminals, for whom this is more lucrative then selling drugs”.
And Bruce Snyder, president of Fox’s domestic distribution, has said if Canada doesn’t do something to curb its “growing” piracy problem, “Hollywood will”.
If Canada was America, where Hollywood and the Bush administration are closer than two peas in a pod, the threat would have weight. But for the moment, anyway, here, it’s still bluster, and the statistics Hollywood relies on are proving to be equally lacking in substance.
Dr Michael Geist, Canada research chair in internet and e-commerce law at the University of Ottawa, appeared before the Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology on Wednesday to discuss counterfeiting. He focused on the need to obtain more accurate data; and, to separate the counterfeiting issue from copyright reform.
“I argued that the inclusion of issues such as ratification of the WIPO Internet treaties is hampering progress on the serious counterfeiting problems,” says Geist on his blog.
And he used the US camcording claims as illustrations stating:
Consider, for example, the issue of camcording in Canadian movie theatres and the allegations that it contributes to DVD piracy. Earlier this year there were reports that Canada was responsible for 50 percent of camcorded movies that later appear on pirated DVDs.
Over the weeks that followed, industry sources began altering that number, with suggestions that the figure was actually 20 percent, 23 percent, 30 percent, or 40 percent. Such a broad range of possibilities suggests that the industry simply does not know. In fact, new reports this morning out of New York indicate that New York City alone is responsible for more than 40 percent of camcorder piracy.
Moreover, a closer examination of actual industry data indicates that all of these figures are wildly inflated, with the actual number closer to 3 percent of MPAA released movies.
When combined with the fact that few, if any, Canadian movies are said to be affected and Canadian copyright law already addresses the issue – it is an infringement to camcord a movie and camcording a movie for the purposes of distribution brings with it the prospect of huge fines and jail time – the issue highlights the need to avoid knee-jerk legislative proposals by instead focusing on obtaining independent, reliable data.
Meanwhile, two US politicos are also in on the act, having the effrontery to lecture Canada on “the explosive growth of pirating of movies from [Canadian] theaters through the use of hand-recorders known as ‘camcorders’,” and offering their ‘expert’ advice to Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper at the expense of the American taxpayers who elected them.
And US ambassador David Wilkins is on record as saying Canada must strengthen her copyright laws, “to prevent illicit pirating of American music and films”.
“There’s a lot of pirating that goes on, a lot of counterfeiting of movies and songs” and “it really does cost the Canadian economy a huge amount every year, estimated to be from some 10 to 30 billion (dollars) per year,” he states unequivocally. “It’s not some effort to protect some high-paid Hollywood star or studio. It’s about ensuring that Canadian and American innovators and entrepreneurs are encouraged and protected so they will continue to make North America competitive in the world marketplace.”
However, Wilkins’ figures are no more reliable than the statistics which supposedly support US piracy claims.
In fact, they come from the same source, Hollywood’s MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America), which routinely produces unsupported statistics to suit the occasion, and which are then trotted out by the likes of the MPAA’s Canadian clone, the CMPDA (Canadian Motion Picture Distributors Association), for unquestioned repetition in the Canadian media.
Stay tuned.
Jon Newton – p2pnet
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Tired of being treated like a criminal? They depend on you, not the other way around. Don’t buy their ‘product’. Do bug your local politicians. Use emails, snail-mail, phone calls, faxes, IM, stop them in the street, blog. And if you’re into organizing, organize petitions, organize demonstrations and then turn up on your local political rep’s doorstep, making sure you’ve contacted your local tv/radio station/newspaper in advance. Don’t just complain. Do something!
