The massive security problem with 35mm film is, being a high quality analogue format, it is relatively cheap and easy to produce a high quality video master from it. A reconditioned Cintel can be easily obtained for around £10k and a Beta SP recorder for around £5k. Add to that bits and pieces for sound processing and a computer with a decent video capture card, and you can be turning out VHS and DVD copies of a film which are every bit as good as legitimate ones sold in the shops for under £20k, which for professional criminals is bugger all. That's why the industry so badly needs a system which enables them to identify the film element used in the illegal telecine process, because doing so represents the only real hope of catching those responsible.

With the content being distributed in the digital domain, there is less need to do this. If you are trying to pirate moving images and sound supplied as encrypted digital data, you have two options: (i) crack the encryption, or (ii) decrypt using legitimate technology and then capture the analogue image. The industry will be making every effort to ensure that the encryption mechanism of any digital delivery system which eventually gets rolled out is crackerproof - and if it is cracked, they'll change it, regularly if necessary.

As for the latter, well in reality this probably means pointing a camcorder at a cinema screen, with a resulting loss of image quality on the dupe. Sales of these poor quality videos are never going to threaten the legitimate market, as the pirate video craze of the early to mid 80s demonstrated. So I'd guess that being able to identify the source element from an illegal dupe is far more of a priority for the industry with film than it is with digital.

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John P. Pytlak, Senior Technical Specialist
Worldwide Technical Services, Entertainment Imaging
Research Labs, Building 69, Room 7525A
Rochester, New York, 14650-1922 USA
Tel: 585-477-5325 Cell: 585-781-4036 Fax: 585-722-7243
E-Mail: john.pytlak@kodak.com
Web site: http://www.kodak.com/go/motion

quote:

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BOOTLEG MOVIES
by TED SCHWARZ

ARE THEY BEING MADE AND SOLD BY A CLEVELAND-BASED MIDDLE EASTERN CRIME RING?

"He don't talk like no cop. He called me on this phone about movies and DVDs. He ain't no cop... Maybe a minister... He sounds black, though... I see you took them off the counter." -- message inadvertently left on voice mail on July 9, immediately after a telephone call was placed to the Just Dollar store on Superior and Euclid asking about VHS and DVD copies of current movies.

Earlier in the day, bootleg tapes had been seen during a visit to the store. During the telephone call to the location, the person answering said they had neither tapes nor DVDs. A visit the following day found nothing on display. Cleveland is faced with what appears to be a new, seemingly innocuous organized crime group that is distributing and selling bootleg DVDs and videos of current movies.

The crime ring involves what is seemingly a group of largely Middle Eastern males working in independent dollar stores and food markets selling bootleg movies over-the-counter. To some, including entertainment industry experts, it seems like a relatively minor issue. But where is the money going? As of yet, nobody knows that answer.

Over the course of two weeks, the Free Times visited five stores that sold illegal bootleg movies. Bootleg videotapes sell for as little as $3 if the corresponding theatrical movie is about to be released on tape, to $7 for the recent Scooby-Doo movie as it was just beginning to be shown in theaters. One Just Dollar store with the best and the newest bootleg movies, located on Fulton Road near Memphis Avenue, offers bootleg videos of new movies for $10 each, three for $25. The DVDs sell for around $12 for the most recent pictures, such as Like Mike.

Copying usually starts with a hidden VHS or digital camera recording the screen during an early showing of a new release. Then, depending upon the technology used, it is copied either on a computer (digital) or video duplicator, such as those legally made by Go Video.

There are any number of ways for the art to be created. These include cut-and-paste work with posters and downloaded photo websites promoting the new release. The final creation can be cut-and-pasted (common with some DVDs found in various Cleveland stores) to offset printing of the boxes.

Finally, the product is shrink-wrapped (it's $100 for a small machine capable of low volume, up to $2,000 for a commercial unit) and sold to the stores where the tapes and DVDs are offered to the public.

How big a problem is all this? Bill Shannon, the director of U.S. Anti-Piracy Operations for the Motion Picture Association of
America, explained that the industry annually loses between $250 million to $350 million in the United States, and as much as $3 billion internationally. This means that at least 25 lower-budget movies, and as many as a half-dozen big-budget potential blockbusters, cannot be made because of lost profits from theft. The crime can also result in higher theatrical and rental prices. More important, the actions violate federal law, and can result in both a felony conviction for the bootlegger and a reward for the person who turns in the offender.

No one knows the size of the Cleveland problem. Mention the bootleg videotapes and DVDs and you usually hear that they are "everywhere." But ask for specifics and you are usually referred to the handful of independent dollar stores and the occasional food store -- the ones we were able to confirm all are run by Middle Eastern males -- where these are sold.

And this is where the questions must be raised. Are the illegal tapes and DVDs being created by a group of friends, then sold where they work?

This type of situation was described by Bill Shannon, whose investigators have found groups dividing the effort among specialists. One handles the art, another the duplication, a third the assembly, and then the wholesaling is done from another locale, such as a rental-storage shed.

"A poster might be reduced to box-size and color-copied onto the cardboard," says Shannon. "Offset printing is rare, though we have seen it. And some put the art together, misspelling names and sometimes having the wrong story. Spider-Man might have the right pictures and the wrong studio and wrong artist."

Or is the creation and distribution being handled by an organized crime element? This seems more likely, given the variety of locations uncovered in the past few weeks.

Finally, there is the most important question, the one which Special Agent Bob Hawk at the Cleveland FBI office has expressed an interest in determining: Who gets the money?

If the bootleg video and DVD sales are putting money in the pockets of the people producing and selling them, it is an ordinary-enough crime, and will be handled accordingly. But in this post-9/11 era, where any illegal activities perpertrated by Middle Eastern males, no matter how small, are subject to increased scrutiny, suspicions also arise that profits are tied to more sinister purposes. Were such to be true, what might have seemed like a victimless crime could hold much greater import.

Among the independent dollar stores offering illegally created videos and/or DVDs that were either checked by a visit within the past two weeks or called on the telephone are:
9300 Wade Park
7415 Superior
13225 Superior (none showing the day after the telephone call)
4257 Fulton
Food Town Supermarket, Euclid Ave. near Superior Ave.

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Problem is, the MPAA would be a lot more convincing if they would DOCUMENT how they are loosing hundred's of millions of dollars a year; how do they reach those figures? Does Valenti pull them out of a hat or elsewhere closer to his person? And how exactly do they figure that 25 independent films and 6 blockbusters can't be made, as a direct result of bootlegging? The article uses those MPAA numbers as facts, but then can't even tell you how many operations are out there, if they are small or large; the reporter asks plenty of questions that would have been a lot more interesting if he reported some answers to them.

He asks this ominous question (but not before saying that the bootleg copies are being sold in store run by men of Middle Eastern decent, "But where is the money going?" the report then asks. But instead of enlightening us with the answer, he says, "Nobody has the answer." Well, how about writing the story when you find someone who does. He asks, is it run by organized crime? Well, he doesn't know the answer to that either -- he just says it "seems likely." Wow....how's that for ironclad, nail-it-down reporting? So what it is -- organized crime or Middle Eastern terrorists?

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As already pointed out, the majority of these pirates are noting more than guys pointing camcorders at the screen. So what if the cap code transfers to the print (along with the guy's head in front of the bootlegger). It only proves what print was taped in what theatre, but without other physical evidence, that's not going to catch anybody.
So why all this noise about piracy? I've always believed that the MPAA's main job in hawking this piracy theme was to grab headlines and basically give the studios a dramatic reason to continue to fund it. The MPAA was hastily founded as nothing more than a lateral punt to derail a Congress that was hell-bent on passing regulation legislation on the studios. The MPAA was the answer and Valenti was hired (although he knew nothing about the film business) only because he was well know on Capital Hill through his connection with the Johnson administration. It worked. To his credit, Valenti came up with the rating system that assuaged Congress's thirst for film industry regulation. So Mr. Vee earned his keep for the first few years; but how long can you keep tweeking the Rating system? He needed something new and exciting, so he hit on the anti-pirarcy theme and has been playing it like a virtuoso violist ever since.

His Washington insidership allowed him to enlist the FBI, and before you knew it, those FBI warnings appeared on just about everything that came out of Hollywood. The FBI insiders became miffed that the MPAA had made it look like they were the MPAA's own private police force, many times paying thousands of dollars for the FBI to mount sting operations manuvered by the security people in the MPAA. The MPAA always made it a point to inform the local media when FBI agents were about to uncover a priacy "ring" -- Joe Schmo with his video camera pointed at a movie screen.

Gotta stop -- FANTASIA in the park and I've got to get some sleep. As of this evening, the print is "lost in transit." Swank says they will have it for us sometime tomorrow. We go on the screen at dusk. I am not panicing yet. But talk to me around 3pm tomorrow.

Wish me luck

MPAA Anti-Piracy

quote:

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To battle the problem, in 2000, the MPA launched over 60,000 investigations into suspected pirate activities, and more than 18,000 raids against pirate operations in coordination with local authorities around the world.

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Now, I've seen a few pretty impressive ones, a friend of mine downloaded a telecine transfer of Spiderman where the full 35mm frame was transferred, so it would pop in and out of various aspect ratios throughout the movie. Still, no CAP code, and you couldn't see anyone's face unless it was a close-up.

Sometimes, they're entertaining. I saw your typical cam-in-the-auditorium job for a FOX movie where someone horribly coughed right after the fanfare and the entire audience laughed...

If these are the alleged bootlegs that are costing the industry millions (billions?) of dollars every opening weekend, then we can rest assured that quality doesn't matter to people anymore, and DLP is around the corner...

That's what I mean. Who can believe such numbers -- that's like what, a "raid" very 10 minutes of every day of the year? And if they are making these so-called raids and there STILL is rampant piracy, that means that pool of pirates are replacing the ones caught it the raids even FASTER than that! Where are all these skilled priates coming from? If you can believe this MPAA nonsense, every graduating college kid must be diving right into the bootlegging business; the pirate recrutment must be running overtime.

Given a choice, I'd rather be making the money.

Seriously, the film industry needs to make it difficult for pirates to get good copies of films. Theatres can:

* Be on the lookout for anyone attempting to copy a film with a camcorder. Post a notice offering a reward for any employee or customer discretely reporting someone in the audience using a camcorder. Prominently post a notice that camcorders will be confiscated, and then do it, and turn them in to the authorities. You're probably only catching "small fish", but word gets around.

* Limit print access. Leaving film shipments in publicly accessable areas is just asking for a print to be "borrowed" for telecine transfer.

* Get to know your print delivery people. Document shipping and receiving of prints.

* Limit projection room access. Use door locks that require a pass or personal passcode, recording the time of entry and exit to keep a log of off-hours activity.

* Report suspicious activity. Why would prints be delivered anywhere but a theatre or film exchange? Why are thousands of tape cassettes or DVD blanks needed at a back-alley "lab"? Why does that dumpster have scrap cassette or jewel case labels for a current movie? Why is the print on a different platter level than it was when the last show finished last night?

The MPAA anti-piracy awards program is real, and an incentive to report piracy:
http://www.mpaa.org/anti-piracy/contact/index.htm

------------------
John P. Pytlak, Senior Technical Specialist
Worldwide Technical Services, Entertainment Imaging
Research Labs, Building 69, Room 7525A
Rochester, New York, 14650-1922 USA
Tel: +1 585 477 5325 Cell: +1 585 781 4036 Fax: +1 585 722 7243
e-mail: john.pytlak@kodak.com
Web site: http://www.kodak.com/go/motion

Why is there a telecine projector setup in the booth?

Why is the print being picked up by a guy named Cheech in his SUV instead of the Airborne truck?

Why is your assistant manager always on the phone with a company called El Cheapo Film to Video Transfers Inc.

Why did you find a rack of computer equipment with a bank of three dozen DVD burners and two dozen VCRs in the basement behind the old standees.

And lastly, Why was your projectionist seen at the corner of 42nst Street and Broadway with a display case full of the DVDs of all the titles currently playing at your theatre yelling " Come and get em -- all the movies playing down the street on DVD -- any title $5, two for $9, except STAR WARS Episode 2 which is $1."

Frank

Does this camera thing really happen? You couldn't exactly set up a tripod in the middle of the auditorium; I suppose you might be able to balance a camera on the back ot the seat in front. Hand holding, apart from the difficulty of keeping it still, would hardly be practical during a two hour feature. Surely, any use of a camcorder in the auditorium would be pretty obvious; wouldn't somebody notice, and grab the culprits on their way out - with the evidence.

Setting up a camera in the projection box might be a slightly better bet, but any chief projectionist, or manager who did this, or permitted it to be done in their cinema, would be highly likely to get caught, and would face instant dismissal, and prosecution; would they take the risk?

I have see a few pirate DVDs, and have been able to examine one closely. It was of 'Return of the Jedi'. To the best of my knowledge, there has never been a DVD release of this title, so it must have been a pirate. The disk was in an Amaray type case, of unknown make. The isert card, actually paper, was printed four colour litho, guite well done, no obvious moire from reproducing previously screened material. The text was in both English and Chineese, or some similar language. The style of the artwork was rather different to that which I am used to seeing here, but may be similar to legitimate material in the part of the world where it was made, I don't know. It had all the usual DVD, Dolby Digital etc. logos, and was probably assembled from scans of various existing material. The disk istelf was a DVD5 (single sided, single layer), a proper pressed disk, with screen printed artwork, not bad quality, but not quite up to the standard of a legitimate product. The copyright notice around the edge was in black, over a white drop out in the image. The registration between the two wasn't quite right, and some of the other printing was slightly blurred.

The sound was, as claimed, DD 5.1.

The video vas in 4:3 format with the picture letterboxed, I didn't measure the exact ratio, and had Chineese, or similar, subtitles burned in on the lower black border. Video format was NTSC, with composite video artifacts visible in places. The disk claimed to be region 6, but was actually enabled for all regions. The whole film was one chapter, and there were no 'extras'. Overall, picture and sound quality were very good. My best guess for the origin of this material would be an NTSC laserdisc, but I don't know for certain.

This DVD was clearly very different from something made by somebody pointing a camcorder at a cinema screen, and a fairly large run must have been made to justify the set-up costs, and would be a serious threat to legitimate sales, but surely, anything recorded with a camcorder in a cinema would be so bad that anybody tricked into buying it would have to throw it away, and buy a legitimate, or better pirate, copy.

There are a number or traders on the internet who openly advertise what are clearly pirate DVDs, and VCDs, for sale, imported from overseas. Surely it wouln not be difficult to take action against such obvious, and large-scale piracy, just look thrugh the DVD newsgroups go to the web-sites you see mentioned which advertise these products, order some, then prosecute them for piracy if the goods turn up, or fraud if they don't.

However, I did see a letterboxed VHS copy of TITANIC while it was still in the theatres and the quality was about what you would expect from a generation away from a legitimate release, with one exception -- cassette 2 had no soundtrack, although this might have been a fault of this one copy. In the black area below the image, was the text something to the effect of: "Preview copy. Only for AMPAS members. These are the fairly decent copies that are troublesome to the studios because they are good enough that people will buy them.

But it leads me to this thought: the industry might want to stop that knee-jerk reaction of always looking with a collective raised eyebrow at every theatre projectionist as if they were the source of all things pirated and look to some of their own Academy members for a possible source of bootlegged copies.