Canada Responsible for 50% of Movie Piracy

westcoaster004 writes "Hollywood is blaming Canada as being the source for at least 50% of of the world's pirated movies. According to an investigation by Twentieth Century Fox, most of the recording is taking place in Montreal theatres where films are released in both English and French. This has led to consideration of delaying movie releases in Canada. Their problem is that the Canadian Copyright Act, as well as the policies of local police forces, makes it difficult to come down especially hard on perpetrators. Convicting someone is apparently rather difficult, almost requiring a law officer to have a 'smoking camcorder' in the hands of the accused. Hence, the consideration of more drastic measures."

Comments

Problem

[tomstdenis]

Ain't the "pirates" it's the 19th century business model they're clinging to.

Tip: Actors/Execs aren't worth the millions they're paid, and the everyday copyright infringement is proving that.

Tom

Re:Problem

[drinkypoo]

infringement proves the opposite, actually - that the brands and content in question is of value that people are willing to take the moderate risk in STEALING IT.

That's not the opposite. These people don't really believe there's any risk that they will be busted. Therefore they are weighing only the monetary cost of illegally copied content (nothing) vs. the retail price (something) and deciding on copyright infringement. That doesn't mean they would pay for the content if they couldn't download it. There's lots of things I'll watch if they just "come on" (although I can't get broadcast TV where I live at all, so that is pretty much over until I move someplace that's not true) but I won't pay to see them.

and your point about sticking to a 19th century business model is moot - everyone complains about the business model but no one offers a viable alternative that won't result in a significant contraction/reshuffling of the industry.

Your point about a significant contraction/reshuffling of the industry is irrelevant. These people don't have a right to have a profitable business. Period.

Re:Problem

[aeryn_sunn]

To be a devil's advocate, if an artist's, actor's, author's, etc, work is being copyright infringed on a grandscale, then perhaps that actually indicates said creator is work the millions they are getting paid. If consumers go through the effort to download/obtain a creator's work without paying for it and view/listen/whatever that work, then that at least means the work holds some value and enjoyment for the consumer, else, why really waste time and effort on something that has no appeal?

Perhaps, the real question to ask is what is the "sweet spot" of price (assuming that there is adequate distribution methods) that yields the most revenue for a piece of work and that actually compels as many of those who would pirate a work to actually pay for? For instance, if 1,000,000 people will splurge say 14 bucks on Justin Timberlakes album when it first came out, how many more people would have bought it for $7? Surely, the same million that bought it at $14 would have bought it at $7, but would, say, 1.5 million more have bought it if it was half-price, including those folks that would have just downloaded the album off of bittorrent? The same goes for DVDs and even movies at the theater, i.e. paying almost $10 to go the theater does seem absurd for many of the movies out there, but if pricing were flexible, for instance, $5 for the latest Saw VII, then more people might be inclined to take a chance and go to the theater...

anyway, my whole point is if something is worth taking the trouble to obtain off of the internet for free, then at some price point, most will probably buy it... even so, if a creator's work is pirated frequently, then that at least validates somewhat that the creator is getting paid their worth.

Re:Problem

[Captain Splendid]

The reason there is such a thing as "starving artists" is the nature of the beast, not due to piracy. No matter how hard you want to act, sing, paint, whatever, there's always the chance you're either going to be perenially crap at it, or just not what the paying public wants to see. Artists choose their fields based on desire, not money, and those that do deserve to get fucked over as they're clueless twats.

Re:Problem

[tomstdenis]

Yes, but when you see a big film cost $300 million to make, most of that goes to the exec/studio and the top actors, the possibly hundreds of other actors in the film get jack squat.

Imagine if EVERYONE took a fair pay. Your $300 million dollar movie now costs say $10 million [tops] which means the ticket sales required to recoup it is much less.

Tom

Re:Problem

[BewireNomali]

how are those low budget films financed, marketed, and distributed?

Re:Problem

[DeusExMalex]

I would say that illegal copying of movies and music proves the cost of these media to be, in fact, more than the market will bear. If the market would bear these prices then there wouldn't be (many) people trying to find ways to pay less. But because the current prices are so much higher than most are willing to pay for what they are receiving, they have found a way to get the content they want at a price they feel is reasonable (nothing). This seems to imply that something is wrong with the current business model of media providers. Instead of recognizing this fact, lawmakers have been duped into believing that media providers should be guaranteed a profitable business. The market seems to disagree with both.

Re:Problem

[BlackEmperor]

Therefore they are weighing only the monetary cost of illegally copied content (nothing) vs. the retail price (something) and deciding on copyright infringement. That doesn't mean they would pay for the content if they couldn't download it. Actually I find the convenience is far more of a factor than the cost. Downloading torrents is very very convenient and quick. Torrent download sites are generally well organised and the vast majority of movie rips are fairly good quality. If I really like the movie I generally go and buy the dvd, because the quality is better - and I hardly ever go to the cinema.

I think downloading movie torrents is killing video rentals far more than big studios.

Re:Problem

[808140]

His point is simple: if you have a previously profitable business model, and it suddenly becomes unprofitable, you are shit out of luck. For example: at one point, much of the economy of Hawaii was dependent on cane sugar. This sugar was being sold on the mainland, primarily, because let's face it, there aren't a lot of people in Hawaii, relatively speaking. It wasn't long before some enterprising farmers realised that sugar cane grows remarkably well in California, and that by producing it in California, they saved big bucks on transportation and labour costs. The result? Cheaper sugar, and they undercut the Hawaiians.

Now, this sucks big time for Hawaii: nowadays, cane sugar plantations are rare, and the industry that once held up the entire Hawaiian economy disappeared essentially overnight. Sucks to be them.

What did not happen in this scenario is, the Hawaiian sugar plantation owners didn't lobby congress to pass laws making the cultivation of sugar cane illegal in California. But if you extend this analogy to the RIAA, that's exactly what they'd like to do.

Here's the situation: DRM is unworkable, for technical reasons, for the same reason that software copy-protection has been unworkable and will continue to be so. The people have already woken up to the convenience of digital media, however, and are not going to roll back the clocks and carry around a bulky discman when an iPod or similar can hold so much more music and play for so much longer. This is simple common sense. Further, we're purchasing everything else on the internet these days, and the average consumer wants to purchase music this way too.

But because DRM is unworkable, the record companies feel that distributing music on-line is inviting copyright infringement. So they resist the migration. The result? A great demand for on-line music, already encoded in MP3 format for ease of use on the iPod and similar, and a very limited RIAA-sanctioned supply.

Well, the way the free market normally works is, I see that consumers want the media, and so I start my own business to take advantage of the high demand and low supply, and make money hand over fist. That's how business works. There's nothing stopping me from starting a CD business, for example: I can purchase a bunch of CDs in bulk and resell them. But because we're dealing with digital media, this avenue isn't open to me, at least not legally. I can't sell a bunch of Britney Spears on-line in MP3 format, because those tracks don't "belong" to me in the sense that I don't have copyright.

So the result is, illegal or questionably legal sites like allofmp3.com do it anyway, and make money hand over fist. People are willing to pay for music if the price is right; 99 cents for an AAC track with Fairplay that will only play on one particular kind of portable music player and will suddenly cease to be functional after your operating system is upgraded or re-installed 5 times, on the other hand, is unsurprisingly much less popular.

The sick thing is, the RIAA could absolutely afford to match allofmp3.com's services and prices and be just as profitable as they are -- more so, in fact, because the fact that they are legally sanctioned and don't require transactions in rubles would make the vast majority of consumers far more willing to buy, and they have the infrastructure required do the sales on a much larger, international scale.

But they won't, because they're married to their extremely high margins. It's amazing, really. They make a ton and a half of money, and the prospect they face is making less money, not no money, and so their response is luddite lobbying of legislatures around the world to somehow make their outdated business model sustainable. But this is a stopgap measure: there are songs and albums that people want to buy in CD form, and there are catchy singles and tunes that people would rather get as an MP3. Saying "no you can't" to the iPod generation isn't going to work.

All

Re:Problem

[Kelbear]

I'm in qualified agreement with the parent post.

There is demand for the media. However, this reference to demand may need a bit of explanation to clearly define to the reader of the post.

The demand for the media indicates a maximum price a consumer is willing to pay for the product. When this coincides with the price the supplier charges, a sale is made. When the price is above that consumer's demand, the demand is still there at their personal price, it just doesn't result in a sale since the two parties are not in agreement.

Piracy should be looked at as an alternative vendor of the media.

The price of piracy is how much the punishment will cost the consumer if they are caught, and this is multiplied by the probability of the consumer of being caught. So let's pick a number out of the air for the lawsuit resulting from being caught. RIAA likes to settle out of court for a lower price than they filed for so the person will accept rather than fight the case, so let's say $20,000. $20,000 x .000001, If it's a 1 in a million chance of being caught for piracy with a penalty of $20,000 means that the price of piracy is 2 cents.

Adjust this probability of being caught by the consumer's ability to accurately predict what their actual odds are, because that's how they're making this judgement, a perceived probability influences this cost. This is also why the RIAA wants to publicize how many people they hit and how heavily they're hit. The perception of a piracy crackdown prevents piracy just as well as an actual piracy crackdown as long as the consumer believes it to be real.

So compare the cost of a song to the cost of a pirated song. It's about 99 cents vs. 2 cents. This is just an example, so a conservative estimate of a 50 cent cost for piracy is safer while still making the point.

The 50 cent price of a pirated song is cheaper than the 99 cent legitimate alternative, and is within the personal price range of the pirate, and thus they pirate.

The RIAA can prevent this in two ways. Price below the 50 cent cost of piracy and sell at 49 cents. Or, increase piracy difficulty and penalty until it's risker than the 99 cent cost(this is the course of action they're taking now). Or, they can pursue both a cost reduction and an attack on piracy at the same time to get sales at a price somewhere between 50 and 99 cents. If any of these 3 possibilities are achieved, the consumer will not choose piracy (Though the piracy cost for each consumer will vary of course).

That's the economics of the situation.

Re:Problem

[MrYotsuya]

"Then i sit through a commercial telling me that piracy is illegal and that i could go to jail."

Which is a pack of lies if you live in Canada (well currently, we will see what happens with future legislation). That is the most annoying and irritating thing to me. I paid to watch the movie, I am not pirating or "stealing" the movie (the adverts are "downloading is wrong..") why do you have to tell me not to, I'm there and paid for it. That's like a car salesman telling you that you should not steal cars because it is illegal before they let you take the keys to the car you just purchased .


The solution to say loudly in the theater "Holy Shit! You can download movies off the Internet!?" When the ads come on. If everyone starts saying that, the people who put the ads up will eventually have to re-think their strategy.

Just so it's clear...

[tkrotchko]

1) Hollywood says Canada is responsible for 50% of all piracy.

2) So to "punish" the Canadians, they'll take away the legal avenue to purchase movies in Canada.

3) And this leads to....????? Profit???? Less Piracy?????

Presumably, the Canadian legislature will ask similar questions?

Re:Just so it's clear...

[antiMStroll]

The entire article reads like one long, dissembling pack of lies meant to exert influence on upcoming changes to our copyright legislation. The claims are idiotic at face value.

- Montreal, a city of approximately 4 million, is responsible for 50% of the worlds 6.5 billion inhabitants piracy. 0.6% pirates 50%. Sure.

- Conflating the normal understanding of movie piracy as distributing movies with cams in theatres is a cheap Iraq/terrorist juxtaposition ploy

- The advantage is convenience, pirates cam both English and French for release in, of all places, Asia where the vast majority speak neither (ignoring that Quebec French is significantly different the French spoken elsewhere.)

- Finally, that somehow copyright legislation has much of any bearing on it.

How we got to a place where marketing shill non-entities of tertiary industries, such as the "chief executive of the Cineplex Entertainment theatre chain" or "president of Fox's domestic distribution", have the balls to threaten foreign countries is best left to historians but its well past time politicians put these dogs back in their place as purveyors of useless trivialities and told to STFU.

Re:Delaying releases

[tomee]

Precisely. I live in Germany, where for reasons beyond me they a movie is sometimes released 3 months after the US. For example, Saw III still isn't out here. A perfect DVD quality rip has been floating about for a long time now. This is what breeds piracy.

What 50% of world movies?

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

So focussed on America, these guys dont consider rest of the world to be world. First off 50% of the world movies are not produced in America. India makes more movies.

Singapore is the piracy capital for Tamil/Telugu movies. Dubai is the palce to go to get Bollywood movies. Hongkong is the piracy portal for China and Korea. Canada is probably a distant fourth when it comes to movie piracy.

Re:What 50% of world movies?

[nitroamos]

The article probably means 50% of hollywood produced movies. Obviously hollywood could care less (and wouldn't have any statistics for) whether bollywood et al movies get pirated.

boo hoo. Hollywood needs Canada's cash.

[Jackie_Chan_Fan]

Canada probably doesnt give a crap if their film releases get delayed. They will see them when they're released right? Hollywood needs Canada's money more than Canada needs Hollywood's film releaes in theaters. Besides.. by releasing the films later in Canada, more Canadians will be forced to download them illegally.

Treat people like they're criminals, and they will become criminals.

Well, if they showed the movies in Canada

[WillAffleckUW]

they wouldn't have to download them, would they?

Many films never even get shown in Canada, and since they're a very multi-ethnic society, they tend to want to watch movies from many countries that just plain aren't shown there.

It's one thing to want people to pay for a movie that shows in a nearby theater.

It's another thing to want people to pay for a movie that:
a. never showed within 100 miles of them; and
b. when it did show was in another bleeding province.

Telesync

[Anonymous Coward]

Telesync copies, IMHO are more of a "look at me, I'm l33t" kind of thing. I don't think they're very watchable. I've always been shocked that hollywood focuses on what is not the main problem.

I have a feeling the issue of telesyncs is more one of ego... it probably bugs the crap out of Hollywood execs that it's done.

Maybe that's the issue with hollywood... everything is ego driven rather than via rational analysis. If that's true, it's costing them dearly.

Please delay the releases

[thewils]

In fact, don't release some of them at all.

Re:Just delaying theatrical releases.

[Anonymous Coward]

What is really going on here is that the MPAA is threatening to delay theatrical releases. Basically, they are throwing a temper tantrum and using their shaking fists and baby behavior to be evidence of too much un-approved copying of media content by Canadians (who, btw, pay a tax on media to be able to do just that). The real goal here is to be able to have the Canadian legislature pass new law to take away the codified fair use rights of Canadian citizens. As an outsider, I will say that any Canadian legislator who falls for this is a traitor to their country.

The MPAA does not want any other countries getting any silly ideas like codifying their citizens fair use rights into law. That would be just too much to handle for the group of corporations whose business is selling movie distribution.

Yeah, if they did follow through on their threat Canadians would just get their movies from online. I guess the MPAA has really bad timing. They should not have waited until after there was a competing model of media distribution to try and reassert their control over the old way of media distribution.

I think it is time for the MPAA to fade into the sunset.

Canada, huh.

[Nom du Keyboard]

Well Canada is only one country out of >135, and not even that big in terms of population. If half your problem is Canada alone, you should be rejoicing in the streets!

Re:Due South

[PinkPanther]

The only Canadians' houses I've been in were full of pirated videos

This statement tells me nothing about "Canadian culture" as you haven't specified how many "Canadians' houses" you've been to.

It does, however, tell me a lot about the company you find yourself in the midst of.

:-)(smiley to aid the unsarcasmable).

Slashdot Got It Wrong...

[The Real Nem]

...but is it really a surprise?

In the letter, Snyder fumed that his company had discerned that, at one point during 2006, Canadian theatres were the source for nearly 50 per cent of illegal camcords across the globe.

And it even goes on to say:

"The reality is in 2005, 20 per cent of all identified camcordings occurred in Canada," says Frith. "That's a huge number. And it's growing."

20% of a type of piracy != 50% of all piracy. And another thing:

Frith says government bureaucrats try to placate him by saying that under the Copyright Act exhibitors have the ability to charge someone criminally. "But here's the catch. Under the Copyright Act, you have to prove that an individual camcording in the theatre is doing it for distribution purposes. That's almost impossible."

If it's a criminal offence, it holds a higher burden of proof. This shouldn't be so shocking but perfectly reasonable. Maybe it's for personal viewing? But it gets better:

We don't want to have to prove the economic loss from distribution. We want it to be a Criminal Code activity to be caught camcording. Period.

Maybe because it's nowhere near the level you claim?

But in Canada, the theft of intellectual property is basically treated as a "soft crime," says CMPDA president Doug Frith. "Canada has done nothing to remedy its lack of domestic enforcement and complete absence of border enforcement."

It's, for the most part, a civil offence! Maybe it's our liberal way of thinking, but locking someone up for several years for pirating a movie just doesn't make sense. I could go on and on, there are at least a dozen or so additional laughable quotes.

Look Who Has Made The "Indepth Study"!

[1mck]

Take a look at who has made this study that "50%" of all piracy comes from Canaduh...The Movie Frigging Industry!!! Where are they getting this data to back up their claims??? Yeah, out of their asses!!! I maybe one of the few people that actually loves going to the movies, and also I buy tons of DVD's! I never download "Cam" movies as it just spoils the whole experience for me. I agree with everyone that if they implement this draconian measure to delay movie releases here in the land of high taxes, and great beer, then it will even further increase piracy. The only real way to stop Cam movies is to advertise that the staff members are patrolling to see if it is happening...of course, the staff members could be doing it themselves.

Re:Brrrrr....

[PolR]

You got it reversed. Plan A is global warming and we just leave it to the US to do it for us. This is an unstoppable plan. There will be no need to resort to plan B.

Re:I'm Canadian.

[fahrbot-bot]

I download movies, and decide whether I would like to own a copy. I own over 100 DVD's, and am not against purchasing a good movie I would like to watch again...

Exactly! This is what scares the MPAA. Lost revenue because someone determined a movie was crap *before* paying to see it in a theatre or buying the DVD.

In addition to buying the DVD, there are some movies I actually want to see on the big screen for the enjoyment of the experience. Others, not so much and the DVD is fine. Still others, I'll wait for it on TBS :-)

Right to Profit

[shani]

I think what drinkypoo is trying to say is simply that there is no right to make money at any particular activity.

There are tons of professions and industries that have disappeared or been relegated to fringe activities... coopers, glassblowers, phrenologists, jesters, scribes; the list goes on and on and on.

Would society really be better off if we were required to use wooden barrels crafted by masters to store liquids?

Should psychologists be required to have a professional read the bumps on someone's head before making a diagnosis?

Perhaps we should all pay a "scribe tax" on every photocopy we make?

The point is, times change, and sometimes professions and entire industries just become... obsolete. It sucks for people who earn their living that way, or who have a romantic attachment (think of the mystique around "the age of sail"), but overall it's okay. Life goes on. People find new ways to live, and new ways to express themselves and interact with each other.

Digital media and the Internet may have made big production movies and TV and platinum albums a thing of the past. A pity if you like Cecil B. Demille, not such a shame if you like live jazz. :)

PROPAGANDA

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

This is to instill a 'panic' in th epress, to accelerate the lobbying/vote buying effort by the TrueEvil consortia in Canuckistan.

It has come out how the RIAA and MPAA lined the pockets of MPs and administrators, practically buying unpopular legislation. Now this "news" comes out - to distract the public from the corporate pay-for-votes aspect of the story.

'Sides, it's too cold to go to the movies, ya' hose-head!

Actually....

[alisson]

I'm pretty sure this. is responsible for 50% of piracy. Can someone explain to the MPAA that Waterworld is not worth $20, in any possible way? It could be on a disc made of solid gold, and still not be worth money.

Obviously it's a small example, but the reason people aren't willing to part with $20 for a crappy movie is because... well, it's a crappy movie.

And what accounts for the other 50%? This. Stop punishing me for paying for movies. Every time I see this, I want to give you my money even less.

Nothing but a lobbying tactic

[gorbachev]

This is nothing but a PR campaign to convince Canadian legislators to pass the new copyright bill they're considering at the moment. It's the one that would eliminate fair use from Canada.

Re:Due South

[Tim C]

Of course it backfires by leading them to think "well, I might as well get my money's worth" which *AA execs were somehow too stupid to see would happen.

Or maybe they figured "well, everyone's going to do it anyway, we might as well claw back some of our lost profits".

Scrapping the tax won't make any appreciable difference to the amount of copyright infringement; anyone who cites the tax as a reason for their own copying is most likely using it as a convenient excuse for an activity they'd perform regardless.

Re:Due South

[flyingfsck]

Do not underestimate the bandwidth of a dog sled full of DVDs, eh.

Mod parent up

[JoeCommodore]

I agree

"Hollywood is blaming Canada as being the source for at least 50% of of the world's pirated movies..."

"Their problem is that the Canadian Copyright Act, as well as the policies of local police forces, makes it difficult to come down especially hard on perpetrators. Convicting someone is apparently rather difficult, almost requiring a law officer to have a 'smoking camcorder' in the hands of the accused. Hence, the consideration of more drastic measures."

So Canada is acting (unjustly according to Hollywood) in the notion that thier citizensa are innocent unless they are proven guilty beyond a shadow of doubt.

What a backwards country, thinking of of well being of its citizens over Corporate Revenues? Where are the lobbiests!?

Whoosh

[Captain Splendid]

Hint: It's the ones in it for the money I'm calling clueless twats. I know I could have written that sentence a little better, but everybody else sems to have gotten it, so calm down, k?