posted 07-01-2004 10:17 AM                 

quote: Brad Miller

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...these bootleggers are so stupid as to bootleg at an indoor theater? Go to the drive-in!!! You have the privacy and security of your car...

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True, but then who's going to arrest the cop who arrests the bootlegger cuz the cop got the film on his dashboard camera?

>>> Phil

posted 07-05-2004 12:43 PM                    

quote: Paul G. Thompson

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Camcorders account for 92 percent of all illegal copies of films that are sold online and on street corners worldwide, according to the MPAA.

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There are lies, there are damn lies and there's statistics.
In many countries, they sell the lowest quality VCDs and DVDs that no one in the U.S. or Europe would look at even for a single minute. I have seen VCDs from China and India which obviously were taped in theatres, even shot hand held and with people walking through the frame all the time. There is a market for that stuff, but the MPAA seems to forget that not everybody who picks up such a crap disc could afford to pay $7 or € 8 for a movie ticket or 16,99 for a Special Edition DVD.

And to make it more threatening, they ignore the fact that some countries, take India, have a large film production output, so many of these mythical 92% will not affect the studios and distributors represented by the MPAA.

Piracy is a bad thing and I definitely support the practice of checking the auditorium for cameras, but these 92% thing is just crap, we all know that the screener & post production leakage has been the prime problem in the last years.

We have come to the point where some people cannot grasp the idea of creative ownership any more. Last weekend I supervised a Betacam video taping of a jazz concert, and after an hour a guy comes to my desk where I am mixing the camera signals and starts talking in a strange way. First I thought he had a technical question, but then I realized that his constant repetition of "You are recording the concert, so the music is on the video tape, right?" meant that he wanted a copy. I told him No Way, talk to the band's manager if you want their music, or buy a CD. He repeated his but-it's-already-on-the-video stuff again, and so I politely asked him to leave.

Now this guy was no bootlegger, but like many people he had come to assume that as soon as a piece of work has been recorded (from movies to software), he had a right to get a copy for free. To me, this is pure insanity, but it has become a fact of life...

posted 08-04-2006 02:43 PM                       

quote:

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Movie filmed in cinema

SATURDAY , 05 AUGUST 2006

A woman caught in a Christchurch cinema trying to film a movie on her camcorder is the second such case in Canterbury in three months.

In the latest example a woman was spotted by staff at Northlands Hoyts apparently recording a movie trailer – ironically an anti-piracy message – ahead of the popular children's movie Cars.

New Zealand Federation Against Copyright Theft (NZFACT) executive director Tony Eaton said cinema staff contacted management and the woman, who was sitting with her family near the back of the cinema, was approached and her video recorder seized.

Eaton believed the woman intended recording the film for piracy purposes and had reported the case to police. He planned to courier his file on the matter to Christchurch police on Monday.

Under the Copyright Act the woman could face up to five years in prison, or a fine of between $10,000 and $150,000, if convicted.

Three months ago a similar attempt to pirate a movie was spotted in a mid-Canterbury cinema. Eaton said the NZFACT file on this case was in the police's "to do" pile.

Detective Senior Sergeant Grant Wormald said the first he had heard about the case was on the radio and he hoped to receive details about it early next week.

Northlands operations manager James McIntosh said he was contacted on Wednesday afternoon about the apparent videoing of Cars but knew no further details.

Eaton, a former police officer, said movie piracy was a "huge" business estimated to cost the industry worldwide $6.1 billion a year.

In New Zealand the big players were motorcycle gangs and Asian organised crime.

"We're finding most of this stuff is organised crime and sold through their networks alongside cannabis and stolen goods."

Eaton said his organisation knew of more than 40 commercial operations earning more than $50,000 each selling video bootlegs.

Usually bootlegs were made from pirate copies picked up in Asia or by downloading the movies from the internet. It was less common to record a movie using a video camera and no-one had yet been charged for doing this.

However, cinemas became alert to the risk after bootlegged DVDs of an early version of Sione's Wedding were discovered.

NZFACT was set up in May 2005 and now had 10 private investigators working in the country. It was one of 85 anti-piracy organisations worldwide funded by the Motion Picture Association of America.

Last month it sued 14 New Zealanders for selling more than 10,000 pirated DVDs on internet auction sites, including Trade Me. Eaton said the sellers had made tens of thousands of dollars and substantial settlements were agreed.

Criminal prosecutions have included Auckland man Benjamin Samu, who in February was fined $1000 and ordered to do 300 hours' community work for selling pirated DVDs at markets. Another Aucklander John Houston, 42, was due to be sentenced this month after admitting 21 charges of copyright theft.

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posted 08-04-2006 03:21 PM                       

quote: Thomas Procyk

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The MPAA seized 52 million illegally duplicated optical discs worldwide in 2003, when optical-disc piracy reportedly costs the industry $3.5 billion in lost revenue.

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quote:

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movie piracy was a "huge" business estimated to cost the industry worldwide $6.1 billion a year.

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quote:

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NZFACT was set up in May 2005 and now had 10 private investigators working in the country. It was one of 85 anti-piracy organisations worldwide funded by the Motion Picture Association of America.

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posted 08-05-2006 02:33 AM                       

quote: Frank Angel

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Wow, that's some increase....

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posted 08-05-2006 06:49 AM                       

quote: Paul G. Thompson

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These people, young or old better not get caught in our theaters by me with a camcorder. End of that story.

I read the news clip. There is one thing I disagree with...it was said that 98% of the bootlegged movies are committed by movie patrons. That is a bunch of crap! Of all the years I have been running movies since the video camera technology developed, there was only one instance where a video recording device was brought into one of our theaters. It was an employee that did that to make movies of the theater itself. It was done without permission, and I caught him. The tape was confiscated and destroyed. This was in the mid-1980's.

Shortly thereafter, that employee was terminated.

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I forgot you Americans still allow Capital Punishment. Still it does seem to me to be a bit severe for what is only a potential minor copyright infringement.

cheers Peter