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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."
Returning as Sam Fisher, you infiltrate the theaters of the UK...
Theater pirates may get lots of press, but most of the stolen copies freely available are taken right from the studios themselves.
Have you Meta Moderated t
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.
... going to spout off about how they have no right to be observing us? I mean, what gives them the right to spy on us during a movie that we paid good money to see?
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)
does it really stop our favourite cinema employee videoing it for us/letting us in for free?
It looks like I'm going to have to get some IR absorbing coating on myself and my camcorder now.
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.
correct me if im wrong... but the only reason to use infra-red goggles would be to spot the lil distance finder beam that most camcorders use for their auto-focus.
if thats the case all the pirates have to do is cover that up with a bit of tape & focus manually, right?
Now when the projector gets screwed up or there's no sound, there will be theater personnel on hand to notice!
"It's a wonderful idea. But it doesn't work." -- Tad Danielewski
We had a set sent to our theater, and have had a bit of fun playing with them. We were amazed to find how many people actually use their cell phones during a movie. Just goofing off I've seen cell phones, laptops, and a gameboy! But no camcorders, yet.
Turn about, me Buccaneers, lest we be cast to Davey Jones' Locker! Tharr be Night Vision Goggles on yonder shore!
\Shiver me timbers etc.
Seriously, how could bootleg piracy videos really hurt their industry?
Harry Potter's target audience isn't the people who scour the net for zero-day pirate releases, and anyone who doesn't go see the movie because they saw already saw it in a grainy fuzzy download, probably wasn't really that interested in the movie anyway.
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?
Pirates will begin modifying their video equipment to look like these devices, thus foiling the ability of pirate scouts to spot actual pirates.
Then, one day, a movie theatre employee will kick out a blind man, suspecting him of pirating the movie.
All matter of hell and lawsuits will spew forth and in the end, only the blind people will suffer.
So, ban movie theatre pirate scouts before it's too late!
I always save my last mod point to mod up a good troll. You people are too serious.
Whoops.
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
First the Web, then groups, then images, then froogle, then Gmail, and now.... NIGHT VISION!! ON 100,000 Linux boxes!!! NOW I CAN SEARCH THE WEB IN THE DARK!!! ...oh... goggles.
ZERO
.. because in a few years time (3-6 ?) there will be video quality recorders which can hide in the centre of a persons glasses.
I'm not promoting piracy here, just saying that they are completely wasting their time - if they really want to "maximize profits with their combined synergies" then they would simply reduce the price.
You can't expect to wield supreme executive power, just because some watery tart threw a sword at you
Say you took a reasonably high powered IR LED, and fitted it to a 9v battery, would its output be enough to blind the night vision?
I've got no interest in seeing OR ripping off Harry Potter, but I don't take kindly to being spied upon in a movie theatre.
yes, www.dotcomforwardslash.com is my real URL.
Of course, there are still pirates on the seas today, and maybe people do use night vision technology to spot them, although radar's good, too.
Mod parent up!
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
when all you needed to take on pirates was a cutlass, a musket, and of course if you're in Bengalla and it's the Sengh Brotherhood you're dealing with, the Phantom wouldn't hurt.
How I understand it, watermarks create slight variations in the encoding of the movie (color, in this case) that are invisible to the eye, but detectable by computers. I wonder, though, whether these watermarks actually make it through to a camcorder rip of a movie, seeing as the quality is so degraded, and the color is so washed out.
Maybe it would make more sense, i think, to flash the serial number of the film print for a frame or two at random points in the film. At 24 fps, the human eye would not notice, especially if the number is simply super-imposed on the video, possibly in a section of the current frame that attracts the least attention of the viewer's eyes. I went to a research talk once of an algorithm to automatically detect the point of high interest in every frame of video, so this could be done automatically.
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" ----------
(from stanthecaddy)
% Anna and George in George's car.
George: I'm a bootlegger.
Anna: You're a what?
George: I'm bootleggin' a movie, baby!
Anna: Isn't that illegal?
George: I can do hard time for this one. And community service!
Anna: Is this your FiberCon?
George: (Takes it and throws it out window) Get outta my way!
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.
I wouldn't worry too much about the night vision goggles. Anyone smart enough to bring a camcorder into a theater is surely going to know how to defeat anyone with night vision goggles.
Magnesium flares!
Karma: SELECT `karma` FROM `users` WHERE `userid`=138474;
What bugs me, is that movie goers excpect a bit of privacy in the theater (as many couples can attest). Unless big 'we are watching you and we can see you in the dark' posters are posted in front of the theatre, I would think this should be regarded as invasion to that privacy.
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/words-to-avoid.html
....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?
"Hey, where are you going with the goggles, man?"
...
...
"Boss told me to check for videocams in the theatre."
"Dude - fair warning, Paul Reuben is in there. I wouldn't go if I were you."
"Who? Look, I just do what the boss says. See ya in a few."
"!"
"You got a fork suitable for removing eyes around here?"
Hope WB is able to handle the 'problems' of this technology.
-Adam
Fire off a nice bright flare in the movie and watch all the ushers walk around bumping into walls and tripping over half empty popcorn buckets (the size of 10 gallon hats) as they are temporary blinded. You may not be welcomed back, but that would be something worth watching.
"Look Lois, the two symbols of the Republican Party: an elephant, and a fat white guy who is threatened by change."
In NYC, it's almost double that.
We need to get a cinema full of Slashdotters to go and take the remote control for their telly with them. When the usher comes in with the goggles everyone should descretly flash them with the IR beam.
Their reaction would probably be more entertaining than the film itself.
Philip
Signatures are broken
...and flash them right between the eyes.. I mean, these are probably of the type that just amplify the light 1000x or something :-)
P.S.: I'm not really suggesting that you should do this of course :-)
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.'
I heard a story about a guy with a Ferrari or Lambroghini in the 80s who had some night vision goggles and would drive by speedchecks at 150+ for laughs. The story went that he did it a few too many times and they put up a barrier to see what it was and there were little pieces of car+driver all over the road. I'm pretty sure it's an urban legend, but it made for an interesting story.
I got to use a gen 4 or 5 (lab prototype NVG in the late 90s) you could have read or driven with this it was amazing (about the size of a credit card). Even cooler, though, was the scope off a stinger missle. It was as big as an old camcorder (the full size VHS ones). But you could see all sorts of stuff (studs in the walls), the recently turned off lights, and of course the people. Looking back it was impressive that they passed all of this around in a crowded dark lecture hall.
Degaussing scares the bad magnetism out of the monitor and fills it with good karma.
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.
Damned in-theater pirates... they give piracy a bad name.
OTOH, I should also point out, that this type of copy is often made from the projection booth. Good luck scanning the audience for that piracy problem.
Kinetic stupidity has a new brand leader: Allen Zadr.
The fascist capitalist bolshevik corporate overlords are yet again conspiring to encroach on my freedom to record all that I see, even though i happen to be in a movie theater that is privately owned and even though that couple in front of me is totally unaware that i am filming them more than the movie and plan to distribute videos of them making out on emule; But they have no right to film me! Those communist fbi Hoover-worshipping hippies think they can just go around filming whatever they see, even me in the theater, uh, itching myself, while filming the couple in front of, i mean the movie.. oh jebus.. i mean Privacy Forever!!
In fact, the awards screener DVDs are only one source. (A "screener" is a promotional preview videocassette/DVD of a film provided by a film company, or its distributor, to video store owners or movie award voters prior to its general release date. Selling, trading or distributing these "screeners" is frowned upon by the MPAA)
Every point in the production cycle where the movie transitions from print to electronic version is a possible leak.
Screener traces are already in place. And there was a notable incident this year where an Acadamy of Motion Pictures member was caught bootlegging his screeners by the trace technology.
Have you Meta Moderated t
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.
You're right, it's an urban legend:
http://www.snopes.com/autos/law/stealth.asp
"A friend of my father's was a cop in Nevada, and he was assigned the graveyard shift, posted outside of town on a little used section of road, given a radar gun and ordered to stay put and to pull motorists over for speeding. One night, while the officer waits by the side of the road, the radar gun starts screaming for no apparent reason at all, registering about 140. The officer, who was sleepy anyway, attributes this to a faulty gun, and ignores the incident.
A week later the same thing happens again, on the same stretch of road, at about the same time at night. This time, however, the gun registers 145, and the officer pays more attention. Later, after his shift is over, he has the gun checked out for problems, and is told it is operating perfectly. A week later, same road, same time, the gun goes off. By now the police officer is confused, and angry.
The next week he has men stationed at a road block a few miles down from the spot where he has been positioned. Like clockwork, the radar gun goes off, and he alerts his friends to get ready for whatever is racing down the highway.
At the road block is stopped a black Lamborghini, with an engine iced and baffled for silent running. The driver is a drug mule, hauling a load and staying on the backroads, and less frequently monitored highways. The car itself is running without headlights, while the driver wears night vision goggles.
Status: False"
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?
I'll just put my camera in a big cowboy hat...
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
If we have night vision goggles, we can see ahem...night vision "action" and as long as there was to be a video camera anyways as well as money, we point money, camera and night vision goggles to the couple snogging in the back row and make a profit upon selling it on the web...and to their parents :-)
I have a theory that the truth is never told during the nine-to-five hours. -- Hunter S. Thompson
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.
Yes, it is infact illegal to bring a camera into a cinema in the UK, california and many other places. Doesnt matter that you dont use it, mere possesion of it within the cinema is enough to have you arrested. (Cue plea`s of "but officer, I didnt intend to SMOKE that pot, its merely in my possesion"). This is actually fairly standard for UK law, for example you are not allowed to carry bladed items or pointed items above a certain inch length in public, unless you have a good excuse (its my job, im a carpenter. i just bought it, its still in the wrapping. im taking it over to my mates house, he wants to borrow the tool set.), you also arent allowed to "go equipped" with certain items.
Phones? Laptops? Camcorders? Start looking for the ladies being banged on the back seats and then you use YOUR camcorder ;)
Too late. Get your latest Harry Potter film on IRC.
Vote for new mod!!! Score:-2,Imbecile
When I worked at a theatre the biggest pirate was the theatre manager. Every once in a while I'd see him in the projection booth copying the films via a mirror reflector. We once had to get a new print because he would cut out so many frames that the film lost five minutes - I have no idea what he was doing with the frames.
As an usher you could bet I wouldn't be wearing those goggles, either. It was bad enough doing the Will Rodgers collections and stopping people from bringing in outside food. For what they paid, let them do their own undercover missions.
What I don't get is why the watermark thing works at all.
Has no one written a program to merge several films and subtract out the noise (e.g. watermarks)? I mean, comparing two videos and establishing which bits are identical IS old tech, no?
All you need is software like that and video from two theaters, and you should even be able to enhance the quality and remove motion.
The next step will be to add a "record mode" to the night vision goggles to aid prosecution.
Shortly thereafter, someone in the movie industry will publish the footage. Reality cinema arrives when we pay to see this footage. Finally the loop is completed when pirates copy this footage.
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.
Whats next? Now that we have gmail, this could be their next big thing.
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
Frontline recently ran a show, "The Day the Music Died," about the demise of the recording industry at the hands of money people. (as opposed to music people) I missed it, but supposedly it is on the PBS website, though I haven't had a chance to search for it, yet. Your points highlight the rise of money people (as opposed to movie people) in the movie industry.
For that matter, perhaps we can at least partly blame the whole DMCA, copyright, etc mess on the rise of the MBA. Figure a media exec more comfortable with money and legal instruments than with the media, itself.
IMHO, this isn't limited to the media industries, to give 'business method patents' for one example.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
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?
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!
(Reporter): Excuse me sir, do you have a minute?
(Man with family): Sure.
(Reporter): How was the film? Does it live up to the previous releases?
(Man with family): What film is that?
(Reporter): The new Harry Potter film, of course.
(Man with family): Oh yes, we're looking forward to seeing that soon!
(Studio exec lurking off to side): Priceless!
Sigs are bad for your health.
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.
I used to project films for a local cinama (here in the UK) from the age of 15. Films I wasn't even legally entitled to watch.
Large multiplex cinemas may have well-paid, adult projectionists with night-vision monocles and decent security - but there are thousands of smaller single-screen cinemas where any old kid (like me) runs the projector for pocket money. All it takes is for one of them to bring in a camcorder.
Could you flood the theater with infrared light and badly pollute the light reflecting from the filmscreen? Wouldn't that render caming useless? Or emite it from the edges of the screen, or from behind the screen.... You could at least lower the image quality to unnacceptable levels.
-My cat's name is mittens
subversive behavior = cool
pretending that being too cheap to pay for your entertainment is some sort of noble stab at the bourgeoisie = not cool
...to complain about anti-piracy measures these days, one forgets this is perfectly fair and legit. I can't say I think this is going too far at all. It is illegal to tape a movie in the theater, it always has been, and everyone knows it. I can't see how anyone but people who want to pirate the movie early would be upset about this in any way. They're not affecting the operation of any equipment you own, they're not placing heavy restrictions on copyrighted material that also prevent some forms of fair use, they're not invading your privacy (hey, keep your Harry Potter in your pants, this is a kids movie), nothing.
I can't see one reason to complain here other than "it's the MPAA". Doesn't give them an excuse to pull some of the other crap they're trying too, but I think they deserve to be praised when they do something right. Perhaps they'll make note of it and start getting it right more often?
CAn'T CompreHend SARcaSm?
I went to the "Vue" in Shepherds Bush last night to see Day after Tomorrow. First we had this advert about how piracy funds terrorism, then there was some gimp at the front of the theater with some binocular type device. I accidently shined my keyring torch at him (they didn't say they were going to spy on us)
This films been out over a week in the UK, god knows what they were looking for. They sadly didn't throw out the mentally ill idiots a few seats to my right (texting all through the movie, didn't have the courtesy to put it on vibrate), or the person that was actually talking on a phone part way though, or the idiots behind me that kept saying "here come the wolves, look out!" and "look behind you" and other shit.
It's probaby just the area, never get these twats in Penzance, or even in Exeter or Manchester.
Although this cloak and dagger stuff is interesting and will be reported widely, the real problem still remains. People are going to pirate movies. No matter what technologies are used to avoid this, people are going to come up with new ways of defeating it.
The reason people pirate movies is probably similar to the reason people pirate compact disks. They want the product in a more convient format, or they want the product at a lower price.
Long term, here are some suggestions to movie studios to avoid piracy. Most of these require the studios to look past the short term bottom line, and try to serve their customers.
1. Release the movie simultaniously world wide. By releasing movies on different days in different parts of the world, movie studios create demand for piracy. It is understandable that a languague translation might take extra time, but there should be no other delays in movie releases.
2. Get rid of region coded DVD's. These are simply pissing off legitimate users of your product. If you want to reduce piracy, make your product available as conviently as posslble.
3. Release the DVD the day the movie is released in the theater. Doesn't have to have all the special features. That way people who can't get to the theater get the product they want.
4. Stream movies over the internet. If the consumer wants to watch movies on the internet, give them a way of doing it legally.
5. Lower prices for movies. If studios want to capture the low end of the market, they need to lower movie prices. Video games can have play times of upwards of 120 hours, yet cost $40. If an average video game lasts only 60 hours, that is still only 66 cents per hour of entertainment. Movies last two hours, yet cost $8. That is four dollars per hour of entertainment. They can make up any lost revenue through merchandising, product placement, enhanced DVD's, etc.
The big problem with almost all of these suggestions is that the cut into revenue sources, such as pay-per-view, TV premieres, etc.
In the long run, customers will demand more convience, just as they are doing with recorded music. The studios will have no choice.
I predict that the policy will last until the first story about it being used to catch people who sneak in outside food. That will cross the line, in the general public's perception, between defending their legitimate business interests and protecting unreasonable greed.
/. If the government wants us to respect the law, it should set a better example.
did anyone else read this as Night Vision Google? I've been on the Internet way too long.
640YB ought to be enough for anybody.
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...
"...you'll be going to a special Hell; one reserved for child-molesters, and people who talk at the theater."
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.
And PA is not just one state away. It's a world away.
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.
or, have IR emitting from the front of the theatre, toward the audience... cameras, will wash out in the light...
but shouldn't affect the audience.
No, the only way to deal with pirates is to board their ship and make 'em walk the plank. Either that or hang 'em. That's always good for a lark.
Disembowelment sounds like a barrel of laughs, but then you have a big mess to clean up. Plus it's just plain unsanitary. The same goes for beheading. You get too much blood on the deck of the ship and it's just a lawsuit waiting to happen when somebody steps in it and falls and breaks a leg or something.
WWJD? JWRTFA!
I used to work in the reel room of a large cinema (think of the scene from 'Fight Club'). I would get offers of money in exchange for taping movies from inside the box; whenever I would, the sound quality was much better because the noise of the audience was cut out completely. By disabling the built-in microphone on the camera and running an external mic (to cut out the noise of the reels) we could get excellent sound quality, and the quality of the picture is exactly like what a person can download.
Smuggling the camera in and out of the box is no problem whatsoever; stick it in a backpack and absolutely no one gets curious, ever.
The point is: I don't think I'm the only one who has done this. The people in the theater are not the only ones you need to watch out for--the people who have free access to ALL the movies the cinema offers are likely where most of the downloadable movies come from.
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 ]