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Night Vision Goggles vs Pirates
Cormorant writes "It was reported in The Guardian that Warner Brothers has sent night vision goggles to cinemas across Britain for ushers to don and scan for camcorder pirates during the entire length of the movie [the new Harry Potter], along with watermarks and codes displayed on screen during the film. Mr Graham said "Video piracy is rife everywhere, and with the UK screening the film four days before the rest of the world, Warner was concerned the movie would end up on the internet. Warner sees the investment as negligible compared with the threat to the whole industry."
It'll be interesting if this really stops piracy or not. It just takes one recording and all their efforts are wasted.
...if cam captures were the main source of piracy, but from what I've read, it's a lot more common for the leaks to come from "insider" sources. Either from post-production workers, or theatre employees in the projection booth.
That seems like a waste of time.
All a pirate has to do is pay the kid making minimum wage running the projector a couple hundred pounds to let the pirate sit in the booth and record from there!
And before everyone start yelling about that it isn't Piracy but Copyright Infragment (is it spelled like that?) remember that words do live and change their meaning over time. Piracy is the new definition most people in the world use for unauthorized copying/distribution/ripping of copyrighted material, and hence, the word piracy will recieve a new meaning whether we like it or not.
(now to wait to get modded as a troll)
except, they can use this to boost up coverage in media.
which is what's this is really about, or they got some very stupid idiots deciding where to put the money.
maybe they haven't noticed that nobody really watches shitty cams made in secret during a public view? or if watches, wouldn't be very likely to watch it in the theatre anyways if he'll settle for that.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
First, the guys working in the theatres who make minimum wage are not going to report anyone for pirating a movie. They aren't paid enough to care
Second, all the good pirated coppies come out before the movies hit the theatres and are from the studio themselves.
Sounds like the guys trying to thwart the pirating aren't very knowlegeable themselves about what/how it happens.
Evolution or ID?
Honestly now, how many screeners have you downloaded and watched? Not very many, probably. Why not? Because the quality is dismal compared to leaked copies. Most of the movies I've seen are of VHS (if not DVD) quality, not screeners. IR goggles aren't going to help. These studios just don't want to accept that their primary source of leaks is an internal one, either from promotional copies or early edits.
Nothing but the finest in meaningless drivel
If I had any intention of going to the Harry Potter movie, I would go. Regardless of whether there's a ripped copy available online. People don't go to movie theatres because it's their only way to see a flick - they go for the theatre experience: big screen, big sound, greasy food.
------- "From bored to fanboy in 3.8 asian girls" ----------
Not only that, in this case their stated concerns arise because it opens in Britain four days earlier than the States? Why not just release it simultaneously worldwide?
And have you ever been in a crowded movie theater? Who the heck wants to watch a camcorder copy of that presentation anyway? The last thing I need is to save $5 (I normally go to matinees) by "pirating" a copy of a movie, just to get all the coughing, jostling, kids talking, babies screaming, etc etc anyway.
I do not have a signature
I think this is the first time I heard of studios providing NVG to prevent piracy in theaters.
However, I also think this is doomed to fail.The quality of some cam recording lets me think that some pirates may be friends with a projectionnist, thus giving them access to "private" screening with no audience except a camera.
And what of the ushers themselves. Surely quite a number are in facts students with part-time jobs. The same students that download films on p2p. what's to prevent _them_ from camcording the film ?
The only real defense against this would be releasing the film the same day everywhere
It may not cost the film industry much to implement this policy, but the biggest cost will be to their reputation.
Bull. Unlike the music industry's widely publicized lawsuit campaign, this anti-piracy measure does not cause any harm or inconvenience to ordinary patrons. Heck, most probably won't even notice it. It only stops folks who shouldn't be doing what they are doing anyway.
They are following the music industry by removing one of their best forms of publicity - the small-scale, private piracy that ultimately leads to increased sales of their products.
Do you have any statistics to back that up? I'm inclined to disbelieve it.
It's their theater. They make the rules. If you choose not to follow the rules they can remove you.
....that doesn't have people shagging in it? stolen copies are the cause of most illegal distribution. Of course, by talking about camcorder "pirates" the studios can convince people that "pirated" copies are always grainy and full of background noise, rather than the near-DVD quality you can download via bittorrent.
Mod parent up!
Since a camcorder in the cinema is possibly the worst way to copy a movie, doesn't that just mean that the film industry will be acting as quality control for the pirates?
So when I go to the movies, the employee's will just think I'm some crazy anti-piracy vigilante, but in reality, I'll be recording the movie!
How long is it going to be before we see the first lawsuits from this.
In the back row of a darkened movie theatre "things" happen. People disturbed in the middle of an essential part of the human mating ritual by drooling minimum-wage usher-boy aren't going to be too happy.
And that's not counting the dangers from one person armed with a pocket flash/laser pointer and a malicious sense of humor
'Don't worry' said the trees when they saw the axe coming, 'The handle is one of us.'
So, where's the study that proves that people are MORE likely to go to theaters or buy DVDs, if they can freely download a movie?
I suppose that the movie studios can do what they want to - but we can lobby to change the laws. I think that IP Laws and IP enforcement have gotten silly beyond imagining, when things like this happen.
Education is the silver bullet.
None of them actually do ticket or piracy checks whilst a movie is being shown. Night-vision goggles aren't going to help much.
Especially if they're copying the movie themselves during late-night private screenings.
I don't know about the UK, but in the US movie ushers are teen-age kids. They're far more enamoured with getting steet-cred for getting a clean copy of a popular film then they would be with making their boss look good by catching pirates.
If the studios want security guards, they'd be better served by hiring security guards.
TW
If Warner sees a poor quality copy of its movies as a threat serious enough to track down camcorders in theaters, maybe they should ask themselves why people would want to download them. Could it be that recent movies are so lame that the extra comfort of digital image and surround sound are not enough to make viewers fork out $10 or more ?...
Except for the "I saw it first" factor, the main drive behind joe user piracy is the "it's not worth $10". Or for music albums, "it's not worth $15".
Again, they're using the wrong tactics to lure consumers back in the shops. I'm not condoning piracy, but it's the same old debate over and over again. What people want are reasonnable prices. Or else they'll get their kicks with bad quality copies and still be happy with it.
This is something new? They are doing what ushers at movie theatres have been doing for years, walking up and down the isles to make sure people aren't misbehaving. The fact that they can use cool night vision goggles instead of a flash light (annoying) makes it even better. Sorry no spout this time :)
I mod down so you can mod up. Your welcome.
Bingo. It's in the best interest of the *IAA's to thoroughly convince everyone that any IP theft is taking place outside the studios, paving the way for things like DRM & DMCA. These measures are necessary because the theft is obviously taking place out in the public, beyond the studios' control.
The Dalai LLama
...hey, can I score a pair of those googles?...
My sig could be your sig!
Night Vision goggles have built in safety mechanisms that prevent the user (and device) from being damaged by looking at bright light sources while they are turned on. Using an IR light to "blind" someone looking for pirates would only serve to draw attention to yourself and get you kicked out.
i think this is just a publicity stunt on the part of the movie industry. they want to be able to say to congress (or to the public via those inane ads), see what lengths we have to go to in order to protect ourselves from these nasty pirates?
Anybody that wants to take the time to download and watch a poor quality pirated copy shot in a theatre is a huge fan. That person is also going to go watch the movie themselves, probably more than once.
Warner Brothers is delusional if it actually believes that it's losing money because of theatre copies.
Yes, of course. Because when they examined the price/demand curve to find the optimum profit mark, they said:
"Y'know what? Let's increase the cost in spite of lower profit, just to piss people off"
I hear that's how big businesses work.
Learn to read. The parent says nothing about screener copies. Since they started embedding screener IDs, "screener copies" are a non-issue (and really, never have been much of an issue).
There are, however, many many many points in the chain within a huge studio where the picture can be quietly spirited away in perfectly clean DVD form.
Think Inside Job, my friend. And againe, taking a page from your diplomatic book, LEARN TO READ!
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
Pirates hijaak your ship, abuse your crew, and steal your goods and money!
These lily-livered, zit-faced kids perpertratin' copyright infringement are not pirates!
YAAAAARRRRRRR!!!!!!
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
I've seen a couple of videocammed movies. Wow. A grainy, jiggly, low quality image with bad sound. Is there really a demand for this?
--- Ban humanity.
The solution is to politely but firmly ask that they stop, and tell them that you will have no problem going to get an usher if they continue.
Don't be rude, don't be a psycho. Just be firm.
If enough of us do it, politeness and manners can once again be the norm at the theater.
Close to where I live, there was a tanning parlor where the owner had installed hidden "security cameras" (yeah, right) to spy on the nekkid women while they tanned. When an outraged customer who noticed the camera went to the police, she was told that they couldn't do anything, since the owner had the right to install surveillance on his property, and he even had a sign on the front door (along with a noticeable security camera, watching the register) stating that there were security cameras on-site. That tanning business is closed, though. Word got out about what was going on, and he lost too much business to keep open. So, the theaters can do pretty much whatever they want as far as surveillance, but if they make it too uncomfortable for people, they'll end up closing down. Which is a sad thing, since its the studio pushing this, not the theaters. The studio's actions could drive away the theater's business.
psmylie's dictionary: Godzillion (noun) Any number large enough to destroy Tokyo
f you go to my local [12 screen] cinema (I live in the UK) during the early afternoon on a weekday, you'll only see 3 or 4 staff working, serving food and selling tickets. None of them actually do ticket or piracy checks whilst a movie is being shown. Night-vision goggles aren't going to help much.
You know, if someone is willing to spend hours of their time and their disk space to store it, put up with variable to bad quality of the movie, and watch it on their small computer screen, I don't think that just shy of paying them, I wouldn't expect to see that person in the movie theater.
To put it simply: Good
Taking a camcorder into a theater is breaking the law. If they can spot people with night vision goggles, that's great. They shouldn't be doing it.
Completely setting the MPAA aside, this is blatant copyright violation. It's clearly prohibited, and no one can reasonably feign ignorance on this. How many people reasonably take the camcorder for purely personal viewing with no intent to distribute the copy?
If it's for personal viewing, they can wait, spent $4 more, buy the DVD, and be legal.
And I'd guess that people who DL a camcordered copy of a movie are trying to see if it's worth paying the high prices to see in the theater. If the movie is good, the'll DL the copy, see it's good, and then pay to go see it. If th emovie sucks, they'll DL th ecopy, see it sucks, an dnot go see it.
The MPAA would much rather you not know it sucks, because then there's a possibility you'll pay to go see a sucky movie (ie: most of them out there). THat's why they don't like people in the theater text messaging people outside- they might tell them how bad the movie sucks.
Warner sees the investment as negligible compared with the threat to the whole industry.
The biggest threats to the whole industry is (1) their inability to control costs on marginal product and (2) over-saturation of the market with expensive product.
The second point is rejected by the industry because the weekly blockbuster releases have all been are consumed and mostly paid off with two or three weeks of their release. Although the core audience is not growing, they are fanatically dedicated to going to the newest and biggest release every week. For five years there has been no break in audiences absorbing the box office ticket price increases necessary to blockbuster films. The film industry is in a positive feedback loop,which is not a good thing. If there were any film executives with engineering training , they would see that this will burn out your resources too quickly. In this case the resource is the attention span of the audience for cookie-cutter blockbusters.
Movie execs are known for their 'MORE, MORE, MORE!' mentality, so the concept that they may be creating and releasing too much product too quickly would be difficult for them to grasp. The movie business operates on a pay-per-view basis and having too much product available in the theatres and video stores can only work to drive down the price that the audience is willing to pay for the product. You see this a little with the number of special offers that the video rental outlets are using to get six-month-old product off the shelves, stuff like $1 US 24-hr rentals of new releases on weekdays or much shorter periods between theatrical and DVD/video release. Often a DVD is now released even as a film is still playing in second-run theatres. Distributors want to cash in before the film is forgotten.
I think that the emphasis on preventing 'piracy' (in this case pay-per-view without the distibutor or studio getting the pay) is somewhat missplaced because it implies that the first viewing of any product is most important 'money point' and that is getting to be less true every year. Film is now becoming like television; a product that is often a background medium that sets the mood rather than commands complete attention. Why go through the hassle of illegally copying this weeks blockbuster when next week there will be another one just the same? And next month it will be in DVD and available at the supermarket for a dollar rental?
My friends and I used to behave like that back when we were in HS. If some dweeb "firmly" asked us to stop trying to sound tough we would probably be throwing stuff at him till the end of the film. Being firm with someone you never met is hardly polite and a good way to end up slugging it out in the parking lot.
Saying Java is nice because it works on all OS's is like saying that anal sex is nice because it works on all genders.
How many people really want to watch a pirated version of a movie? I mean, one that was done using a camcorder as opposed to a leaked original Yeah, there are fanatics who just can't wait to see the latest release of whatever movie, but does this really satisfy them? Seems to me that pirates are just cheating themselves out of seeing the movie for the first time the way it was meant to be seen.
I could go to the theater and watch the movie with great sound and a huge picture or I can download it and view it sitting at my desk or on a laptop LCD. How is the latter even an option? WTF? I know the theater is expensive, but jeez. Don't cheat yourself.
-matthew
"THERE IS NO JUSTICE, THERE IS ONLY ME." -Death
1. They lose money from people making bootleg copies.
2. Bootleg copies are made because the movie is released early in the UK.
Why go through the trouble of trying to prevent (1), when it's a lot easier to prevent (2)? What's the deal with the 4-day delay anyway? Do they need the extra 4 days to translate British to American?
More likely, the theater should put IR LEDs pointing back into the audiance to disrupt camcorders. That'd make the most sense and be more reliable / cheaper than sending every teenage usher a nice new pair of night vision goggles.
Uh, most of the piracy is started by INSIDERS!!!
Perhaps someone should usher the ushers and the film projector booth guy?? Maybe the people that send the films out are ripping them before they go out?
Movie studios presuming 100% audience guilt should get a clue.
-- I am. Therefore, I think!
A new paperback costs $6-$7. A used one can often be had for $1-$2.
Who moderates this sort of obvious nonsense as "Insightful"??
/. If the government wants us to respect the law, it should set a better example.
If you've seen one of these camcorder pirate videos, complete with sound like it was recorded in the toilet of a bus station, you'll never bother again. I can't imagine how it would cut into the cinema showings or sale of legit DVDs. It won't satisfy anyone who's halfway intersted in the movie. It's when the high quality ones come out, duped from screeners, that you have a product worth watching.
It seems to me I've said this before here but I really don't get why studios give a damn about this problem. Maybe its just me but I don't kow why anyone would prefer to watch a monoaural and sort-of-focussed 'copy' from a video camera in their living room (or even worse, on their PC) over a Dolby Digital version of the same film for $8 in a theatre. I can see where digital copy pirated DVDs are an issue but the 'shaky cam'...hell even steady cam versions taped with video cameras aren't in no way a replacement for seeing a film in the theatre IMO...
-
Anybody that wants to take the time to download and watch a poor quality pirated copy shot in a theatre is a huge fan. That person is also going to go watch the movie themselves, probably more than once.
Warner Brothers is delusional if it actually believes that it's losing money because of theatre copies.
Especially for a movie that's a big cult hit like the Harry Potter ones. On the last one I went and watched it in the theater, downloaded a screener and watched it again, then was quite literally the first in line at my local Wal-mart to buy it on DVD. (It was scratched though, had to take it back, bah.)The only reason I didn't go watch it in the theater more than once was because I was quite broke. Even so, I paid full price (couldn't get to a matinee) to watch it once because it was worth eating ramen for a few meals to do so. I also bought the DVD on the day it was released, a luxury I still couldn't really afford, but I did.
WB certainly didn't lose any money off of me grabbing a screener on the net of that movie.
You wield things called logic, truth, and common sense. The Slashdot folk don't take kindly to such things! ;)
We don't mind them when they're being used in support of the party line. It's if you try to make logical arguments in favour of, e.g., Windows not being totally useless, or the RIAA not being totally evil, or religion not being the root of all the world's problems, or if you point out that gun laws save lives, etc., that you're in trouble.
(Watch this go down to -1 in record time!)
If you're into arbitrary metrics for 'value', why not consider $ per square foot of display area? I have a feeling that the movie theatres might beat your gaming rig on that one.
That won't help. They imagine it's "us" the entertaintment world and "them" the evil pirates (with a handheld on their shoulder instead of a parrot). In reality the employees of the movie theatres are probably the ones pirating the stuff, now they'll just have cool night vision equipment to show to their friends.
Why should they listen to reason when they can waste all that money on prevention?
Stupid sexy Flanders.
so why not do both? it gets screened more than once a day.
Besides, Im sure most younger people would give someone more cred for pirating a movie than busting someone doing it.
I.O.U One Sig.
The profits they make off these movies are in the millions, usually more than covering the cost of making the film. It is just pure profit rolling in and it is not because of additional work done. It is not like you are stealing money from hard working folks, they got their money from the film as salary. Only a few get the benefit from extra profits from movie sales, the producers, director, writers and some actors that get a percentage. The first Star Wars films gave most of the actors a set rate for the first 3 films. Hans Solo I believe didn't go for that deal and got lots more for subsiquent films.
The theaters loose some though but probably not enough to warrant the cost of night vision goggles.
So this move is in protection of the huge potential profits of the Movie producers and company. They are surely a group who's profits I want to go out of my way to protect. Now if they did like Marshall's and as time went on, lowered the price to see a movie (that had already covered its costs and a resonable profit), maybe. But they keep raising the prices and keep making millions and millions (on the winners).
But then those winners probably cover the cost of them producing the dog's. Which means that we are subsidizing their bad choices, essentially lowering their risk and probably allowing more dog's to be made, cause we are picking up the tab for them.
I am sure they will raise the prices to go to a movie to pay for the night vision goggle too.
The movie business operates on a pay-per-view basis and having too much product available in the theatres and video stores can only work to drive down the price that the audience is willing to pay for the product.
Your statement seems intuitively true from an Economics 101 standpoint, but theater audience behavior is actually a little more complicated. A phenomenon has been observed where a show's ticket sales are boosted when release dates are in a cluster near other popular movies. (Apologies; I don't have a proper citation handy.) Rougly put, the theory used to explain these observations is: once someone has gotten out to a movie, they're in a moviegoing mindset, and are thus likely to see other interesting shows near enough in time. I.e. people will spend more total money on a set of films of interest with closely spaced releases than if those movies are released relatively far apart.
In this light, the phenomenon of movie "seasons" (e.g. summer "blockbusters" and holiday season) isn't random happenstance -- it's market optimization.
"Hollywood" studio execs certainly have issues these days, but I don't think that over-releasing is nearly the biggest problem.
Right - so you fine the cinemas that aren't doing a good enough job in stopping piracy, forcing the cinemas to have to hire security guards to protect the films, forcing them to compensate for the increased costs by hiking up ticket prices even further.
End result: higher ticket prices will cause even more people to want to watch pirated films at home. Oh, and security firms gain a bit of extra business. Let us hope it doesn't go THAT far!
Free as in mason.
People who whatch crapy-quality cam rips are either :
1. Hardcore fans. They'll die to see the movie 2 days before everyone else in their country.
As fans, they're anyway going to watch the movie 3 or 4 times once it comes to a nearby theater and buy 2 copies of the DVD + almost every other related crap.
Bottom Line : Media industry isn't loosing money on them. They're actually making a lot of money with these people.
2. People who aren't interested at all by the movie.
If they really wanted to watch it, they'll either go and see it in a theater, or rent it on DVD or at least get some hi-quality rip.
But they don't give a damn fuck, and what the crappy quality.
They whatch it by curiosity because they happened to find the cam rip.
Media Industry doesn't loose money on them either : they're never going to pay for the stupid movie.
There's even a slight chance to make money on them : maybe while watching the cam rips, they'll like the movie and go out to watch the real thing in a theater.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]