Waltzing pirates in bulky clothing
p2pnet.net news view:- “The reality is that the film industry (exhibitors, distributors, studios) is tired of waiting for the federal government to wake up to the fact that thieves in bulky clothing hiding high-tech equipment can waltz into any cinema in Canada, film away, and waltz back out. Because Canada has not made this a criminal act, theatre employees cannot detain these people or confiscate their cameras.
” ‘What Warner’s position really did was bring more national attention to the matter,” said Ted East of the Canadian Association of Film Distributors and Exporters.
“Douglas Frith, of the Canadian Motion Picture Distributors Association and one of the industry’s chief lobbyists, said yesterday that ‘the government is focused on this. We have their attention, and hopefully they come to the right legislative solution’.”
The quotes come not from Hollywood’s latest hysterical diatribe against Canada, which it accuses of being a safe harbour for movie pirates, but from Globe and Mail reporter Gayle MacDonald.
In an earlier story, “Canada – particularly Montreal – is known as one of the world’s worst offenders for piracy, rivalling places such as China, Lebanon and the Philippines,” she says.
Note that this is an direct statement from Gayle, not a quote from East or Frith. Worse, almost, it’s not from a Canadian publication. It was syndicated and ran in the Knoxville News Sentinel, published in the US, and headlined, “Canadian pols plan to crack down on camcording in theaters”.
Heritage Canada minister Bev Oda, “said in a statement that she and Justice Minister Rob Nicholson are working on ways to deal with the problem,” according to the Knoxville re-print, and, “We are committed to protect the work of creators and take this issue seriously,” their statement said.
“A Motion Picture Association analysis of counterfeit discs in 2005 revealed that close to 75 percent of all films illegally camcorded in Canada were recorded in theaters in and around Montreal, recently identified as the No. 1 city in the world for surreptitious camcording,” says the Knoxville G&M story, quoting Warner Bros claim 70% of all its films released over the past 18 months have been taped in Canada..
The newspaper of record
Canada is in a strange situation. Although it has a large number of print and electronic media covering communities around the country, there’s a serious dearth of major national media press outlets with the Globe and Mail billing itself as Canada’s principal newspaper.
“The paper is often considered the newspaper of record in Canada,” says the Wikipedia. “With a weekly circulation of two million, it is Canada’s largest-circulation national newspaper and second-largest daily newspaper after the Toronto Star. The paper is a division of CTVglobemedia Publishing Inc. Its parent company, CTVglobemedia, also owns the Canadian television network CTV.”
So if the Globe says it’s so, it’s so, and with that in mind, the US G&M story goes on:
Cineplex Entertainment – in conjunction with the Canadian Motion Picture Distributors Association, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and other movie chains such as Empire and AMC – have spent the past few years lobbying the federal government to make it a criminal offense to pirate films.
Tuesday, one industry veteran described the Warner Brothers’ preview blackout as a shot-over-the-bow designed to shake up federal officials. The piracy issue heated up in January after the Toronto Globe and Mail published an article detailing how Fox’s Hollywood-based president of domestic distribution had sent a blistering letter to Ellis Jacob, the Toronto-based chief executive of Cineplex Entertainment, Canada’s biggest cinema chain. [Our emphasis.]
Spitting mad after pinpointing Canadian theaters as the source of a steady stream of illegal camcording, Fox threatened to stop sending copies of all its films to Cineplex’s 130 movie houses, or push back the Canadian release date.
A laissez-faire approach
Thieves in bulky clothing hiding high-tech equipment waltzing into cinemas, filming and waltzing back out?
This kind of categorical, overblown statement is more usually seen in puff pieces released by Hollywood’s MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America), not in Canada’s “newspaper of record”. But Gayle, Oda and Nicholson aren’t alone in doing Hollywood’s work for it.
“For Daniel McTeague, a liberal member of Parliament from Toronto, the Canadian government’s failure to crack down on movie piracy is an international embarrassment,” says the Los Angeles Times.
“It is clear pirates are operating with impunity through a combination of lax laws, poor enforcement and, for some people, a laissez-faire approach,” the story has him saying, going on, “McTeague and other legislators have been pushing for a law similar to the U.S. law.
If Canada doesn’t act soon, “the studios might,” says the LA Times ominously. “Last fall, 20th Century Fox threatened to stop showing its films in Canada, or at least delay releases there to slow the piracy.
McTeague, “worries that studios will follow through on those threats,” it states, adding, “It wouldn’t be nice to know we’d have to drive down to Buffalo to watch the latest movies,” he said.
The hotly anticipated Harry Potter
But who’d really care if Warner and the rest cancel their advance screenings? Come to that, who’d worry if they pulled their movies altogether? They’d eventually be available in the video stores (and online, Montreal or not) for those who care.
Meanwhile, the Canadian Press is also fielding a story by Cassandra Szklarski on the Warner Bros fiasco. And she took the trouble to look beyond self-serving statements from Hollywood hacks.
“The studio’s ban on advance screenings, affecting roughly a dozen Canadian cities, will begin immediately,” she says. “Movies affected include the upcoming Brad Pitt-George Clooney film Ocean’s Thirteen and the hotly anticipated Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.”
The CP story goes on:
The move is less severe than one proposed last year by 20th Century Fox, which threatened to push back the release date of its films in Canada over the same issue.
Ottawa-based copyright expert Michael Geist questioned Warner Bros.’s piracy accusations, noting that independent reports have suggested counterfeiting is far less severe than the film studios make them out to be.
He pointed to a Financial Times report that says the OECD is about to release a study suggesting trade losses due to counterfeiting and piracy have been exaggerated by business lobby groups. The report said global losses were up to $200 billion last year, which is a third of what business groups had been claiming.
“This is a global phenomena and this specific targeting of Canada without any independent data or verification is highly problematic,” said Geist, pointing to New York and China as other centres often cited as piracy havens.
“Camcording, for the most part, is such a small part of the broader piracy issue, even for movies,” he said.
“The reality of the business is once there is a DVD master version of this, which occurs weeks after the movie hits the theatres, that the pirates use the far better quality master version. The true film fan wants to see it in the theatre or the real DVD version, they don’t want to see the camcorded version.”
It also has Darcy Antonellis, Warner Bros’ senior vp of worldwide anti-piracy operations, admitting many of the illegal copies showing up online and elsewhere are made after a film’s official release date.
p2pnet posted yesterday:
Notwithstanding claims that its owners are being ruined by movie pirates, in its eye-popping annual theatrical market statistics report, the MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) said global film audiences, “boosted the worldwide box office to an all-time high of $25.8 billion, compared to 23.3 billion in 2005,” an 11% increase.
And the US box office, “rebounded in 2006 to finish the year at $9.49 billion in revenues compared to $8.99 billion in 2005 – a 5.5% increase from the previous year, with 1.45 billion movie tickets sold in the U.S., ending a three-year downward trend in ticket sales,” it says.
We also pointed out, many, if not most, of the releases which show up online get there not thanks to “Thieves in bulky clothing hiding high-tech equipment,” but to Hollywood insiders.
As an authoritative AT&T Labs report says, of a total of 285 movies its researchers sampled on the p2p networks, 77% were leaked by industry ‘insiders’.
Says a p2pnet Reader’s Write:
Hell, arenas ban cameras/video recorders etc. I assume theaters can as well, and throw you out for having one…. and it’s already illegal to record a movie and make money off of it.
INAL: But my best guess is the ‘copyright’ cartel are doing everything they can to get one law on the books in Canada, where they do not have to actually prove the ‘criminal’ made any money. So once ‘for profit’ is no longer a requirement and the fines are high enough, they have a foot in the door to add to other laws.
I’m also sure they will continue their attempt to whittle away the whole burden of proof ‘thing’ that has kept them from suing in Canada…so far anyway.
They will not be happy until they no longer have to prove anything. They make accusations and the accused has no option but to pay them, that’s how they want it and to me that’s extortion, pure and simple.
And who goes to previews anyway? ;P
Jon newton – p2pnet
Also See:
Globe and Mail – Warner Bros. stands alone in cancelling previews, May 10, 2007
Knoxville News Sentinel – WCanadian pols plan to crack down on camcording in theaters, May 5, 2007
Los Angeles Times – Film piracy mushrooming in Canada, May 9, 2007
Canadian Press – Warner Bros. cancels Canadian advance screenings, May 8, 2006
Financial Times - Forgery trade losses ‘under $200bn’, May 7, 2007
been claiming – Piracy ‘loss’ statements overblown, May 9, 2007
If your Net access is blocked by governBryan Adams slams Net radio hikement restrictions, try Psiphon from the Citizen Lab at thIs the endSurvey: How Did Copyright Infringement Become Equated with Robbery? (of the Net) nigh?zze University of Toronto’s Munk Centre for International Studies. Go here for the official download, here for the p2pnet download, and here for details. And if you’re Chinese and you’re looking for a way to access independent Internet news sources, try Freegate, the DIT program written to help Chinese citizens circumvent web site blocking outside of China. Download it here.
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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!
May 10th, 2007 at 10:00 am
So you think it is OK for people to waltz in film, and waltz out again?
May 10th, 2007 at 10:20 am
___ waltz in film, and waltz out again ___
My piece is meant to be more about lop-sided reporting and the effects it can have than whether or not there should be a law against filming flicks with camcorders.
Cheers!
May 10th, 2007 at 10:51 am
Once a film is released in the U.S.A., it will show up on computer networks. Once this happens, Canadians eager to see the films but not allowed to do so legally will only have the option of downloading them from one of the computer networks or waiting for the release. This law will hurt theatre owners instead of thwarting “piracy.” Anyone here know of a good concealable camcorder that produces great results from a theatre screen?
July 12th, 2007 at 12:15 am
Well… today’s the movie’s release date in theatres and I haven’t found a torrent yet that hasn’t been labeled a fake.