Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Anti-Piracy

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Posted by Ethan Harper (Member # 472) on 05-01-2002, 09:08 PM:

Did anybody else get this? It would have been better if the pirate had a reel in his mouth instead of a knife.

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--"That's my story and i'm sticking to it!"--

Posted by Paul G. Thompson (Member # 655) on 05-01-2002, 09:16 PM:

With the crap Hollywood is still putting out, who in the hell in their right mind would want to steal it?

Posted by Adam Fraser (Member # 1074) on 05-01-2002, 11:09 PM:

Yep, we got one too. Just saw it for the first time today when I came to work.

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Adam Fraser
www.pinestheatre.com

Posted by Don Anderson (Member # 397) on 05-02-2002, 01:06 AM:

Could they have made the thing a little bigger. Gee whiz. I'm not too sure if I want to put the bloody thing on our boxoffice window. Looks crappy too.

Posted by Greg Mueller (Member # 17) on 05-02-2002, 09:18 AM:

I'm sure everyone will see that sign and be sooooo scared. It will undoubtedly foil all plots to pirate anything. In fact they should just put one on the front door of every airport, except say no Hijackers. That should take care of that!

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Greg Mueller
Amateur Astronomer, Machinist, Filmnut
http://www.muellersatomics.com/

Posted by John Pytlak (Member # 331) on 05-02-2002, 10:00 AM:

Seriously, theatres need to take an active role in preventing movie piracy. Theatres should have a strong program of print / digital file security (e.g., do your film shipments sit in an area where they can easily be stolen?) and need to have procedures in place to catch audience members or employees who try to copy movies. "Screener" videos should not fall into the wrong hands, even for just a few hours.

CAP Codes and digital watermarking are only a few of many tools the MPAA uses to catch and convict the criminals who prey upon the industry. The job you save may be your own.

BTW, the MPAA does have a generous reward program for anyone that provides information leading to the conviction of movie pirates:
http://www.mpaa.org/anti-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

Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 05-02-2002, 10:43 AM:

Do signs like this really do any good? Are release prints really a major source of pirated video copies of movies? I was under the impression that most of the pirated videotapes and VCDs sold by "professional" pirates originated from studio or screener tapes and not from 35mm prints. Is this not correct?

Related Q: will the theatres playing Star Wars in DLP have guards in the booths, just as they did for Episode I?

Posted by John Pytlak (Member # 331) on 05-02-2002, 10:55 AM:

Lots of the pirated videos on the street and on the internet have been traced to simple camcorder recording in theatres. The quality may be poor (including flicker, cropped images, unsteady camera, audience sounds, shadows of audience members, etc.

), but these crappy copies are still a threat.

Posted by Jesse Skeen (Member # 586) on 05-02-2002, 12:18 PM:

I have a bootleg VideoCD of "Space Cowboys" that my dad bought in the Phillipines about a week after it started playing in theaters over here. It was done with a camcorder in a theater, and someone's head sticks up through most of it. The sound seems like it was fed directly into the camcorder though as I didn't hear any ambient noise; they might have plugged a hearing-impaired device into the microphone jack. It's no substitute for a good copy of the movie, but I look at it every once in awhile just to laugh at it- the cover art is pretty funny too.

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 05-02-2002, 01:39 PM:

Why do studios send out screener tapes anymore? Is this really necessary? They might as well put "Please copy me" stickers on the tapes since they are just asking for it by doing that.

Posted by Ian Price (Member # 14) on 05-02-2002, 02:04 PM:

Screener tapes are for critics to see the film who are too lazy for a drive down to the city to watch the movie on film like it was meant to be watched. We get them all the time and Ky and I hardly ever watch them. They usually have a bug on screen all the time that says this is a screener tape and please don't copy.

Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 05-02-2002, 02:10 PM:

If I were a distributor of art-house pictures, I'd send out screener tapes, too. This is because a) the demand for pirated copies is low and thus the risk is minimal and b) small-town theatre owners (understandably) are reluctant to book films that they are unfamiliar with and theatre owners in smaller towns are unlikely to be able to see the limited-release titles at screenings or at commercial theatres. Obviously someone thinks that this is worth the risk for certain types of films.

Would I send out screener tapes of, say, Spike and Mike's Animation Fest? Sure! Would I send out screener tapes of Star Wars or Spiderman? Hell, no!

Besides, small-town theatre owners are not very likely to want to pirate this stuff, since it would do nothing but hurt their own business.

Posted by John Scott (Member # 520) on 05-04-2002, 08:41 PM:

You should also keep an eye out for people who may have keys to your building such as your cleaners comming in back doors during operating hours. A friend of mine who works for a different circuit said he about a month ago had a situation where the cleaners came in through the side door with their key and were found in one of the auditoriums with a video camera recording an afternoon performance. What makes the situation rather amusing is that they didn't think there was anything wrong with this when they were confronted (getting in for free or videotaping the film). Needless to say my friend told me that after a call to the cleaning company that crew in question needed to find new jobs.

Posted by Dave Macaulay (Member # 813) on 05-05-2002, 10:20 AM:

Piracy is a menace, but I think less so to the film industry than to software and music producers. I could download Spiderman.avi before the film opened. If I had I think it would have been more of a full length advertisement for the theatre business than a satisfying experience of the film. Software and music can be enjoyed as they were originally intended, but as far as I know there is no full size theatre in America or Canada selling tickets to a pirated print of Spiderman. The home video market stands to suffer - but how do we guess the impact?
The potential for stealing a digital "print" exists, and I'm sure it will happen. Probably somewhere that copyright enforcement is ineffective they will be shown in "real" electronic cinemas to paying customers.
This poster seems to unconditionally supports some very questionable efforts to curtail personal freedom and restrict established personal rights - while hiding vehind the "Piracy" flag.
Real piracy is a big business run by organized crime. They will get access to the stuff they want to sell. Always have, always will. Just like stealing a car - if they want yours they will get it regardless of how many locks and alarms you install.
Casual "fair use" home copying was affirmed as legal in the "Betamax" case at the US Supreme Court. Entertainment companies fought hard to have home VCR's made illegal, and by losing the case they created the home video market that made them billions.
Piracy should be suppressed and the criminals sought out and prosecuted.
We should not make every citizen a suspect and destroy innovation and progress in a vain attempt to protect business models established before the technological revolution we are living through.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/archive/24616.html

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 05-05-2002, 05:12 PM:

It is quite possible that the sudden reason for this anti-piracy push is because of the whole digital cinema thing. Lucas is trying to have as many DLP machines installed as possible before Episode II opens and there are lots of DLP screens already running Spiderman. So what you ask? Why does this matter?

Any moron can make a near perfect video transfer from a DLP screen!

Yes folks let's think about this for a minute. With a regular 35mm film projector, there are 2 or 3 shutter blades. So in essence there are either 48 or 72 images per second. Video shoots at 30 images per second and 30 does not divide into 48 or 72 without a fraction, thus a very horrible flicker will result in the taped copy. With DLP, there is no shutter, just 24 images per second. What this means is that any bonehead can take any old crappy video camera, point it at the screen (preferably on a tripod of course) and walk away with potentially a much better copy than that person could generally achieve when trying to copy a DVD because of DVD's MacroVision copy protection! Now sure the audio would sound echoey if the built in microphone was used, but many monitors have headphone jacks on them, and for those that don't, it wouldn't be rocket science for some determined low life to patch into the sound system directly.

No I do NOT advocate piracy and I have personally caught several bootleggers red handed in my theaters and confiscated their tape and scared the pants off of them, but let's be honest here, digital cinema is an open invitation to piracy.

CAP code? No I don't think so, for I've never seen the marks on a DLP presentation and it's not that effective anyway. As it stands right now, there is nothing to prevent someone from copying a DLP presentation to video. I have come up with a few ideas on my own and passed them along, but I am not sure if they will implement them or not. I'll post a couple of them here for your reading enjoyment:

*Do the "ET" trick. When ET was released in 1982 I noticed that the ending scene where there is no dialogue, but random shots of everyone staring at the ship in awe as ET leaves Earth that the shot order varied between prints. Very sneaky and very effective! Such a thing should be easily able to be accomplished with DLP, for it would just be a matter of modifying the digital files between "prints".

*Do the Yoda thing. When Empire Strikes Back was released some of the audio was changed. The most obvious example is when Luke first meets Yoda. Luke says "Hmmm, I feel like" and then Yoda replies "feel like what?" Luke does a quick turn around and in half of the prints Yoda moved his stick in front of his face and in the other half of the prints Yoda does the same movement, but says "eeeeeeeehgh!" Little audio changes like this should also be changed easily enough.

*Change a number on a door. This is my favorite and to my knowledge has not been implemented. Let's say Jar Jar is running down a hallway trying to escape death from an attacker. (Let's hope the attacker wins!) As he stops in front of a door that door could have a number on it or the nearby wall. How hard would it be to make that number the "DLP print number"? Not too hard I wouldn't think.

*Even more subtle, but highly effective would be to take a shot that is long to begin with that the director wouldn't mind shortening, such as an establishing shot, and chop frames out of it to signify the print number. Let's say there is an establishing wide shot of a landscape that holds on the screen for 8 seconds, but the director is willing to cut it down to 4. That right there would mean that with simple 24 to 30 FPS math you could make about a hundred specific "DLP prints" and the other prints could use a different long shot like this to get another 100 or so more markings. Simple!

Why am I not working for the MPAA?

Regardless, the bottom line as things currently stand:
Film = good
Digital = evil

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 05-05-2002, 06:51 PM:

The methods Brad mentions are pretty good. I like the changing number on the door/wall/wherever the best. In the "Empire" example you could only narrow it down to 50% of the prints. Not effective enough.

Of course you can get good copies pointing your camera at the screen, but that's not the biggest threat, IMO. Hackers are generally pretty damn smart, and in reality they WILL break the encryption to DLP and be able to convert the files to standard Quicktimes/AVI's or whatever. They could burn really nice looking DVD's. There is no encryption that cannot be broken. Once this happens then everyone will have to upgrade their DLP's to a new encryption method. And then it will happen again and again. These guys don't have great morals, but they are "whip smart". Who's to say that the team who designed the encryption won't leak out the info? Just 'cause they work for TI or whoever doesn't mean they are trustworthy. Like the RIAA and MPAA want us to believe... "No one is trustworthy".

Posted by John Pytlak (Member # 331) on 05-06-2002, 01:28 PM:

Brad is correct, a pirated video of a film projected in a theatre will usually have annoying flicker.

Kodak already has developed invisible digital "watermarking" technology:
Kodak Digital Cinema Watermarking
Watermarking Features
About Kodak Digital Watermarking
Technical Paper about Kodak Digital Watermarking

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 05-06-2002, 03:00 PM:

John,

Another idea is to incorporate an infared signal inside the DLP that projects through the DLP's lens along with the picture. The signal would write the DLP serial number across the picture along with a date and time. The beauty of this is that while no human could ever see it (unlike those CAP code dots), the second a pirate looked through his viewfinder to start videotaping, he would see it and there would be no way to trick the camera not to see it. Just point a remote control at a videocamera and you'll see what I mean. Surely there is some way to make that basic idea work, although I do not know how well it would reflect off of a screen.

Posted by John Pytlak (Member # 331) on 05-06-2002, 03:45 PM:

Use of infrared and other similar concepts are already being discussed.

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 05-06-2002, 03:56 PM:

If they go the infrared route, which makes the most sense in the grand scheme of things, I hope they make it so that there is no way that the user or even a technician can get to it. There are several DVD players on the market with a secret menu that allows you to turn off Macrovision encoding. Let's hope there are no secret menus in digital cinema.

I'd make the infrared numbers HUGE. So huge that there is no way they could be cropped out. "Across the entire screen" huge. That would make the pirates say "Argh mateys" and just not tape the movie. Would you rather catch the pirates who do this, or would you rather prevent it altogether? Sometimes I get the feeling that the industry would rather punish than prevent.

Also, about lost revenue. If it wasn't for piracy, do the studios think that people would have PAID to see whatever movies they stole? I think many people pirate just because they can.

Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 05-06-2002, 05:41 PM:

I would think that the most flexible anti-piracy approach for DLP shows would be to implement the encryption technology in hardware (for example, as a plug-in card, much like Dolby cards) that can easily be swapped out with a more sophisticated system at a future date. The worst possible approach would be to standardize on an ineffective system (a la CSS for DVDs) and then be stuck with it for many years into the future. The decryption 'key' could be transmitted over telephone lines (or something similar) and could be time- or location-locked--i.e. it would only be useful for decrypting the "movie" at a particular time of day (or range of times) and in a particular location (perhaps the playback device could have a GPS receiver built in). This way, theft of the "key" (via phone taps, etc.) would be pointless, since the usefulness of a given key would expire within a few hours or if the player were moved far from its theatre location.

Initial encryption (and--ugh!--compression) could be done in the mastering stage by the post house which would put together the entire program. The decryption itself should be done in the projector head, so that all of the data on the wire would be encrypted. As new and better encryption schemes are devised, theatre owners could simply swap cards in their projector heads.

[I won't even discuss the DVD issue here, which is totally different and is set up to deny DVD owners their legally protected "fair use" rights to make copies of the material for personal use under specific circumstances. I strongly oppose piracy, but I won't stand for attempts to infringe upon legally protected rights (at least in the US), either.]

[BTW, for those who are interested in issues of intellectual property rights and the delicate balance between private and common ownership, I can recommend "The Future of Ideas" by Lawrence Lessig. He makes many important points that I agree with, but cannot articulate as well as he does in the book.]

Posted by Dave Macaulay (Member # 813) on 05-06-2002, 10:49 PM:

You can add an infrared filter to a camera fairly easily.
Video cameras with variable electronic shutters eliminate most of the flicker from taped film.
Macrovision is laughably easy to defeat. It only frustrates the rank amateurs. With real "factory" movie video prices today, it is simply uneconomical to make and sell fake copies once a movie releases to video. The big profit in piracy is from exploiting the release schedule; with a new hit movie here that won't be released in Japan for a month or two one can get a damn good price for a pirate copy in Tokyo - and the Yakuza are well aware of it.
I really think that the quality of a video made by taping a projected image is so poor that honest distribution isn't markedly affected. If you've ever seen a "sidewalk tape" you will probably agree that anyone who could afford to see the real (reel?) movie would do so.
Security can be incredibly tight for films before release. Guards accompany every negative and show print, and the labs are locked up like Fort Knox. As soon as the film is released though, all bets are off.
An organization that can make $$$ from selling tapes in affluent late release markets will find a way to get a print.
It only takes one quiet break-in or finding a bent staffer plus a telecine setup to make a million bucks? Done.
A crappy tape with mono sound is not going to be worth as much as the currently available pirate DVD versions with full digital sound. You don't see this kind of product in North America very often, but if you look in the back alleys of Akihabara you can probably find one of Spiderman right now. Why? Since I can see the film in a theatre for $10.00 today, I'm not too likely to spend $200.00 for a DVD that I'll be able to get for $30.00 in a few months legally - fans in Japan who have to wait a few weeks for the local release and have the money...?

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 05-07-2002, 01:16 AM:

Simultaneous worldwide releases! I know that would be a bitch. But if the studios REALLY want to help stamp out piracy that might be one place to start. Of course if they would just stop releasing movies altogether there would be no more piracy... problem solved! Surprised the studios haven't thought of that one.

Posted by Paul G. Thompson (Member # 655) on 05-07-2002, 01:24 AM:

Joe, with most of the crap Hollywood is releasing, maybe the majority of the studios should stop releasing films.

Posted by Adam Martin (Member # 641) on 05-07-2002, 01:35 AM:

Day and date worldwide? Where the heck would we get the rejuvenated prints for Europe and Australia?

Posted by David Rowley (Member # 1202) on 05-07-2002, 01:46 AM:

Long time lurker, first time poster...

I seriously wonder at just how much piracy affects the film industry. If someone actually wants to see a movie, are they going to settle for some jerky video camera capture? Probably not. Look at this last weekend. Spider-man set box office records left, right, and centre, even though it could be downloaded off of the 'net for free, not to mention not having to wait in lineups. I don't think piracy hurt that movie...

Granted, not all copies are poor quality. The copy of the LOTR floating around is just amazing; obviously a screener DVD rip. Great stereo sound, and amazing picture quality for an SVCD. Yes, I have a copy of it (somewhere), but that didn't stop me from seeing it in the theater nine (9) times. Yes, I am a freak.

Posted by Paul G. Thompson (Member # 655) on 05-07-2002, 01:59 AM:

David:

Welcome to Film-Tech, "The Home of the Professionals".

Posted by David Rowley (Member # 1202) on 05-07-2002, 12:14 PM:

quote:
Welcome to Film-Tech, "The Home of the Professionals".

I am not a professional in the film industry (should be pretty obvious), but I've seen enough movies (or at least a few movies enough times) to hopefully be able to contribute in some way.

I'm a newbie here, so if I get out of line, feel free to let me know!

Posted by Jerry Chase (Member # 660) on 05-07-2002, 01:41 PM:

Paul scribbled:
Welcome to Film-Tech, "The Home of the Professionals".

Paul, professional what? Weenie shakers? I've got to do an animated gif you you shaking that weenie. Every time I see it, I get the urge to make one, and then put you and Joe R. in an animated light-weenie battle.

I prefer to think of film-tech as a representative cross-section of village idiots, gearheads, and geeks, myself included.

David scratched the following into the electron stream:
"I'm a newbie here, so if I get out of line, feel free to let me know!"

David, I'll save you from having to wait around:

"Perhaps I am an exception to the rule when it comes to piracy. I only pirate that which I enjoy (or think I will enjoy)"

You're out of line. If you want to pirate stuff for your own personal use, and you don't see anything wrong with it, then do it. If you get caught with your hands in the cookie jar, you can deal with that as well. Don't expect anyone to approve of it, no matter how noble your actions.

Posted by David Rowley (Member # 1202) on 05-07-2002, 05:30 PM:

quote:
You're out of line. If you want to pirate stuff for your own personal use, and you don't see anything wrong with it, then do it. If you get caught with your hands in the cookie jar, you can deal with that as well. Don't expect anyone to approve of it, no matter how noble your actions.

Fair enough. I don't expect anyone to agree with my statements, nor approve. I was just trying to illustrate my point that I didn't believe that Hollywood is suffering as much as they would like us to think.

Movies are better in the theater (most of the time), and I think most people would rather pay to have a nice theater experience than to watch a poor quality camcorder version for free...myself included.

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 05-22-2002, 12:34 AM:

***POTENTIAL SPOILER ALERT***

It appears Lucasfilm DID make alterations between the DLP version and the film version of Episode II. Some of the local Star Wars gurus have pointed out that there is at least one very obvious difference at the end of the movie. In the final scene when Padme grabs Anikin's hand, in the film version she grabs his flesh hand. In the DLP version, she grabs his mechanical hand. Apparently there are other differences that are harder to spot too. Anyone running screens of DLP and 35mm film notice differences?

Posted by James R. Hammonds, Jr (Member # 673) on 05-22-2002, 12:46 AM:

We have at least one film print with the mechanical hand.
I havent seen the end of each print, so I cant say for sure.

Posted by Nick Catalano (Member # 1296) on 05-27-2002, 06:29 PM:

According to TheForce.net there are a few changes in the digital version compared to the film version, but I doubt they were added due to pirates ripping off the movie.

This was probably done to get fans into the digital screenings of Episode II, in the same manor that Lucas will not release a DVD version of Episode 3, 4, 5, and 6 because he wants people to go out and buy HD-DVD (i.e. BlueRAY) equipment when it comes out this fall/next year.

Also, all the pirated versions of Episode II currently available on the internet were done using cameras on tripods with a direct link to the theatre's sound system (which is what is done with most releases). After these are put onto VCD (the first releases were VCD) or SVCD (the new Centropy release (much better quality) is SVCD) there is such a degration of quality that any digital watermark is gone. The odds of a film's pirated release being a Telecline is next to 0 (Telecline machines cost too damn much). These groups use Digital PAL Cameras (25FPS), so the quality is still rather good (depending on how they have it setup).

Note: All items in this post are the truth according to my information and experiences. I have NEVER brought a camera into a motion picture presentation and don't intend to.

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 05-27-2002, 11:51 PM:

Film pirates use any number of methods make transfers. And there can be many sources of piracy on the same film. Screener DVDs are a big source now. I've even heard of people "borrowing" actual film interpositives and making pretty sophisticated film to video transfers. Chinese groups play a big role in this. There are even rumors of organized crime involvement. The "Seinfeld" style of videotaping the screen is just the more gutteral way things have been done in the past.

I'm not sure what can be done to really stop film piracy. It seems like every effort that is invented to circumvent piracy winds up getting cracked very fast. It's just like those new "copy-protected" music CDs from Sony than can be cracked just by marking the edge with a felt tip marker.

Regardless of what happens, the movie and music industry needs to stop jerking consumers around and insulting them. Rigorous copy protection junk on DVD-V and DVD-A discs serves little purpose when the money making window of film piracy only exists when the film is in the theaters.

And the music industry (particularly the RIAA) has no clue whatsoever when they chisel people for $20 for a crappy CD of mostly unoriginal material and possibly one or two good songs. They were making more money when Napster was around because Napster was a good source of advertising for their product. Jesus, these same morons are paying a fortune in payola to radio stations to get their music played (this is why you seem to hear the same 10 songs over and over and over and over again regardless of music format). Napster was an additional source of advertising. But because they are paranoid, they have shot themselves in the foot marketing wise. I hardly listen to radio anymore since the music is largely so boring and generic anymore. I have to search lots of magazines and internet sites trying to find new bands of interest that are getting no radio airplay. At least with services like Morpheus, I can download a low quality 128kb/s MP3 file and see if their stuff is any good before buying the better quality CD.

The movie industry is flirting with the same bad path. If they hamper digital formats bad enough out of copy protection junk, to where you can't even hook your digital camcorder up to your computer anymore then the whole damned market is going to dry up and they will all lose their shirts financially.

DVD-A and SACD are going nowhere at all since they cannot function on the same levels of user customization and portability as classic Music CD. I can make my own "best of" CDs with no filler material and take it to the lake and pound it out of my boom box as atmosphere for a good tailgate party.

The film industry needs to do what it can to protect its intellectual property, but it better keep interests of customers in mind while doing it.

Posted by Nick Catalano (Member # 1296) on 05-28-2002, 12:32 AM:

The film industry is trying to ward off the inevitable.. People who don't see the movie in theatres and rather go to Hollywood Video or Blockbuster and rent the movie.

Theatres will loose their location in american media rather quick, and because the MPAA sees this they want to do everything in their power to keep people in those theatres where they are making $3/person in royalties rather than $1 per household for rentals.

------------------
- Nick Catalano

Posted by Paul Konen (Member # 41) on 05-28-2002, 12:45 PM:

Dave Macaulay - In regards to infrared filters, is that the basic idea behind x-ray vision using a camcorder

Posted by Thomas Procyk (Member # 1170) on 07-01-2002, 12:10 PM:

Seems that on June 26th, a bootleg of Men In Black II surfaced. I haven't seen it, so I can't say how the quality is, but I wonder how they got it this early. From a trade screening perhaps? Someone on the "inside"?

I wonder if it's anything like that horrible copy of Episode 2 that showed up a week prior to release.

It almost makes me wonder, with all of these releases showing up before the actual release date if the bootlegging is occuring at a regular theater.

=TMP=

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 07-01-2002, 02:49 PM:

To my knowledge (and I'm not saying the info I have is correct), Men in Black II prints were sent out reels 1-4 on Friday and reel 5 chased it on Saturday, with the actual trade screenings occuring on Sunday (yesterday). If that is indeed the case, it wasn't from a theater print. Generally these are taken from studio video screeners anyway.

It just goes to show you how EVIL video is!

Posted by John Pytlak (Member # 331) on 07-02-2002, 10:26 AM:

Again, the MPAA offers REWARDS for information leading to conviction of movie pirates:
http://mpaa.org/anti-piracy/contact/index.htm
http://mpaa.org/anti-piracy/

Posted by Ken Lackner (Member # 1002) on 07-02-2002, 08:03 PM:

Brad, you are correct. We got reels 1-4 on Friday and R5 on Saturday for a speacial Sprint screening Sunday evening. WHY DID THEY DO THIS????

Did ayone else see that 5-minue Sprint bit at the beginning? It was hillarious!

Brad, you said "trade screenings." Ours was for Sprint. Were there others that did this also?

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 07-03-2002, 05:41 AM:

Ken, the print I screened tonight had some GODAWFUL and incredibly UNfunny cartoon called "ChubChubbs" or something like that. The sad part was it had a HUGE credit listing at the end. All those people spent all that time.

What was this Sprint thing?

Posted by John Pytlak (Member # 331) on 07-03-2002, 07:20 AM:

South Africa cracks down on DVD piracy

"A passenger carrying 3,800 pirate DVDs, including 1,400 copies of Men In Black II was intercepted at Johannesburg International airport over the weekend by South Africa's Federation against Copyright Theft, in its latest drive to stem the counterfeiting market which is costing the industry some $6.1m per year."

For more on this story, here is a link to Screen Daily:
http://www.screendaily.com/story.asp?storyid=8812

Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 07-03-2002, 08:46 AM:

Check out this article from the LA times (posted today on Slashdot):
http://www.calendarlive.com/top/1,1419,L-LATimes-Movies-X!ArticleDetail-64586,00.html

It's an interesting comparison of the film and record companies' current situation. The point is essentially that the film industry has had great success with DVD sales by giving customers a quality product at a resonable price (which reduces piracy), while the record industry has been hurting by providing customers with what is perceived to be overpriced, substandard products and is thus suffering much more from piracy.

(This isn't to say that film piracy isn't a problem for the film industry, too, but rather that consumers appear to be more likely to purchase the legitimate product when the value appears to be high.)

Posted by Ken Lackner (Member # 1002) on 07-03-2002, 10:14 AM:

Brad,

The print I saw didn't have a cartoon attatched to it. I wonder if it is supposed to be on all the prints? Maybe the Sprint attatchment will be replaced with the cartoon. Anywho, Sprint had a special screening for their employees at our theater Sunday evening. Before the actual movie, there was a guy talking to the audience (obviously the Sprint audience) about selling two of their new phones. Then he and Frank go into a room at MIB headquarters and he practices a sales pitch on one of the aliens. After than, about a dozen MIB's, along with the guy from the Sprint commercials come into the room, but the sales guys dissapears into the counter much the same way the "drivers" of the MIB vehihcles get sucked into the steering wheels. It was pretty funny, but I didn't realize until afterwards that it was only a Sprint thing. The whole time I was watching it I was thinking to myself, "What the phugg is this??"

So were there other companies that had trade screenings besides Sprint? Did everyone recieve their print the way we did - R1-4 onr Friday and R5 on Saturday?

Posted by Paul Konen (Member # 41) on 07-03-2002, 02:28 PM:

Ken, I don't think other companies had screenings for this.

Sprint obviously paid good money to do "Product Placement" along with Burger King. It's a way for a studio to reduce some of its cost and for someone to advertise a product. (Austin Power's Hot Pocket's, Minority Report has a bunch).

When watching the movie, they use a Sprint PCS phone to make calls, a Sprint PCS store was located in MIB right next to BK.

(God, I sound like a commercial)

We received the print the same way everyone else did. Instructions were to remove the commercial, given that we were keeping the print, and to add Chubbs when it came in.

Sony is the worst studio in regards to piracy. Any trade screening that is done, the print arrives 2 hours before show time by courier, built with them watching, shown, immediately torn down with them watching and removed from the theatre.

The worst idea with them was with Spiderman. I had a two print screening on Tuesday before opening. Technicolor said I got to keep the prints, which they were wrong, so I had to break down the two prints for a courier to pick up. Then the next day, a new print arrives for a Wed screening. I do get to keep that one and then on Thurs, the original two prints that I had, come back to me to build up again.

I am going to stop or otherwise I could go on for a whole page.