America: top movie pirate
p2pnet.net news:- “Why Canada? Why not focus on Germany, Thailand, France, Italy, or even Japan? What the hell is going on?”
The question, posed by p2pnet reader Thomas S. in an email, refers to the fact Hollywood has decided to name Canada the illegal movie camcording country.
What’s the justification? Only the major corporate movie studios know, and they’re using wildly imaginative statistics to support their contention.
“Remember a while back you did a post on movie and music piracy compared to other ‘black markets’, and it wasn’t that bad?” – says the email.
We remember.
“The music, movie and software cartels claim so-called ‘piracy’ is a Number One problem not only for themselves, but for the world as a whole,” said the p2pnet article in question, going on:
The industries have fabricated a multi-headed monster by turning a simple commercial concept – copyright infringement which in truth, affects only them – into a huge, international conspiracy involving millions of their own innocent customers around the world, and genuine criminal counterfeiters.
So successful are their continuing dis- and misinformation propaganda campaigns that they’ve been able to use them to dragoon entire governments and police forces into acting as industry enforcers.
However, the cartels are also frequently accused of fabricating statistics upon which they base their claims and according to the Havocscope global index of illicit markets, far from being at the top of the pile, movie and music piracy are way, way down the list, ranking 16th and 20th, respectively.
Seven months on, Canada leads the world —– as the top movie piracy country, say Time Warner, Viacom, Fox, Sony, NBC Universal and Disney.
We based the first story on data carried by a site called Havocscope.
Check it out again, suggested Thomas, only this time, see what it has to say about Canada in terms of movie piracy.
We did. And far from being the Number One piracy country, Canada, is way down the list at Number 13, says Havocscope.
The leading piracy company is in fact America, which is principally behind the charges being levelled at Canada.
In the second position is Japan, and number three is, no big surprise, China.
(Thanks, Thomas)
Also See:
wildly imaginative – Hollywood’s war on Canada , May 4, 2007
wasn’t that bad – Tainted cartel ‘pirate’ stats, October 24, 2006
If your Net access is blocked by goverment 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 17th, 2007 at 9:41 am
In all fairness, the Havoscope statistics refer to piracy in general, not “camcording.”
Not that I honestly believe that Canada is the top spot where “camcording” takes place, or that “camcorded” movies are the most prevalent method of illicit distribution, but the Havoscope statistics aren’t exactly counter-proof of those claims either.
May 17th, 2007 at 11:26 am
You’re right. I’ve amended the headline.
Cheers!
May 17th, 2007 at 3:24 pm
What it really demonstrates is the effectiveness of the owned media. I.g., The cartels have a heartburn with Fair Use, First Sale, and file sharing.
Fair Use has all but been eliminated along with First Sale by the use of new laws for digital data. DMCA and DRM have attempted to lock up the product and prevent it from being tampered with to use as you see fit. The customers have turned away from buying largely because of those actions.
Piracy has always been with us and will continue to be so. Even the cartels recognize that they won’t get rid of it all; ever. So the motion has been to get the most news splash attention getters. You can remember all the crap that came down with Napster, AudioGalaxy, and the ton of others. Following right along with it today is the going after individual file sharers today.
Shutting of the sources and control is now what is sought, just as it always has been. You can see that in the moving towards special movie players for the Oscars and watermarking of movies in special showings. It’s always been that the best quality movies are leaked from insiders. Camcording is just an attempt at removing the lower end source. It isn’t about true figures and never has been.
Ever since busts and the like have used inflated and nonsense figures for headlines it has made the practice look more accepted to not only fudge on the numbers but to make them up. The cartels are not and never have been above using adjusted figures. Look at their business practices where the artists or anyone else involved with doing business with them. You’ll never get a straight answer in figures because doing so will expose them either now or down the road to seeing those figures again. There are so many eyes on them now from the public and from insiders who know what is going on, that it gets reported anyway.
Corporations have been successful in exporting jobs overseas and removing the middleclass job positions from the national market. More and more of the middleclass income jobs have disappeared without more being created at the same rate. It means that much of the middleclass has become lower income earners. Less money means less disposable income to spend for non-necessities. The customer now looks more seriously at bang for buck and passes by more of the impulse buys without purchasing, such as music. Since the product prices are so high for limited quality, that means there are far less buying then in the heydays.
Corporations are now looking to hedge their income streams by locking in customers as much as possible. You buy a Zune mp3 player you’re stuck with M$. It’s as good an example as any to show the idea.
So camcording is on the list. Doesn’t make much sense because camcording is so low in quality, the industry really isn’t loosing anything. Those that are going to buy a camcorded movie, aren’t going to go the the movies anyway. Nor are they going to buy the dvd from the store as the the quality is so poor. It’s not about lost sales but rather control of the source and distribution lines, just as it has always been.
May 17th, 2007 at 7:33 pm
Pleae feel free to flame me if I am wrong in my understanding of the numbers listed on Havocscopes’s site, and that I miss-understood this article but—
It looks to me, that these rankings are not in order of which country is the cause of piracy, but the ranking of which contry has had the greatest loss due to piracy.
If this is so, these rankings would only explain that the US is the greatest market for pirated goods (it was kinda funny that pirated batteries were a bigger problem than moves, at a whopping $12 mil of revenue loss). Also according to this article:
“In Fiscal Year 2006, the United States Customs and Border Protection agency seized more than 14,000 counterfeit goods worth more than $155 million.3 81 percent of the goods seized were from China.”
and nowhere in this article does it state that Canada was where these pirated films came from.
just my two cents…
May 17th, 2007 at 7:37 pm
Oh yes, and there is this bit too…
“In addition, “Globally, about 40 percent of all movies recorded on camcorders in theatres and then distributed via the Internet and counterfeit DVDs come from Montreal”"
and “In 2006, camcording recordings made in Canada increased 24 percent when compared to 2005.”
(http://www.havocscope.com/Counterfeit/canada.htm)
just my two cents…