New Hollywood anti-pirate posters
p2pnet.net news:- Do you work for NATO? And do you want to earn some hard cash?
This NATO isn’t that NATO. It’s the National Association of Theatre Owners and it’s touting a program to persuade Canadian and American ushers to spy on cinema patrons for money.
What do they have to do?
Identify someone, “operating a video camera or other recording device to copy a movie in a theatre,” immediately notify the police, stop the camcording, and file a police report.
How much do they get?
$500.
Easy, huh? Just contact NATO at 202 962-0054 for more.
Now it’s taken the campaign a step further with two posters, “aimed at raising awareness among moviegoers and potential movie thieves that camcording in movie theaters is a federal offense”.
Movie industry enforcer the MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) has been going balls to the wall to convince people it’s masters, the Big Six studios, are being ruined by file sharers and camcording pirates, even browbeating Canadian prime minister George W. Harper into changing federal laws to better accommodate Hollywood’s demands.
“Camcorded movies often appear online within days of a film’s theatrical release, triggering an avalanche of illegal downloads and the massive replication and distribution of bootlegged DVDs,” says the MPAA, conveniently ignoring the fact many, if not most, Hollywood flicks end up online thanks to the fact they’re put there by Hollywood insiders, the most recent example being Michale Moore’s Sicko.
“This was an inside job, a copy made from a high-quality master,” said Moore.
“More than 90 percent of newly released movies that end up on the Internet or in street markets around the world can be sourced to a single illegally camcorded movie from a movie theater,” says MPAA boss Dan Glickman disingenuously in another of his mangled non sequiturs.
So, the MPAA and NATO have now replaced posters from 2005, “with new, more visually attractive posters to engage the eyes of patrons in theater lobbies around the country,” say the MPAA and NATO.
Devastating world economies
According not only to Hollywood, but to the members of the Big 4 organise music cartel, Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG, defeating criminal entrepreneurs engaged in the underground movie and music businesses is a number one priority.
Counterfeiting and file sharing are having a disastrous effect on world economies, say the entertainment companies, claims which allow them to lobby governments around the world into changing copyright laws.
In October last year, the cartels are, “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,” p2pnet reported, quoting from the Havocscope global index of illicit markets.
If one listens to industry disseminated shock-horror spin pieces, one could be forgiven for believing that despite these earlier spurious claims, things have worsened dramatically.
However, that’s not even nearly the case. In fact, Havocscope says movies have moved up only four notches to the 12th position, and music is now two steps further down at position # 22.
Where do the Hollywood stats come from? MPAA ‘estimates’. Similarly, music figures are also ‘estimates’ issued by the Big 4′s International Federation of the Phonographic Industry.
Neither organisation has ever satisfactorily explained how it arrives at the figures the mainstream media routinely quote as being reliable and accurate.
Meanwhile, ‘pirates’ and file sharing is notwithstanding, Hollywood quietly reports eye-popping revenues, saying it’s now doing better than ever before.
“Worldwide box office reached an all-time high in 2006 with $25.82 billion, an 11% increase,” and, “U.S. theater admissions grew 3.3% to 1.45 billion tickets …”
Jon Newton – p2pnet
Also See:
p2pnet – Tainted cartel ‘pirate’ stats, October 24, 2006
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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!
June 25th, 2007 at 1:51 pm
The same old bullshit, trying to blame camcording because they are too embarrassed to admit that most pirate copies of DVDs are high quality copies that are leaked by insiders. No self respecting pirate worth his salt would touch a camcorded movie.
June 25th, 2007 at 6:16 pm
Gee, I’ve always wondered why in that one movie there was a silhouette of a man walking in front of the characters. I thought it was the killer. Hmm.