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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."
See, part of the problem is our copyright law incorporates fair use explicitly. Since the *AAs couldn't get that part repealed, they managed to get themselves a levy on all blank media to counter the 'theft' which they are a victim of. Now, all recordable media that gets bought causes them to get paid a cut. Nice little scam from out perspective.
Many people in Canada have basically said "fsck it, if you're gonna charge me for all of my blank media, I'm gonna use some of it to make copies of your crap -- you're already getting paid, so I'm getting me a movie".
Mostly though, I'm absolutely shocked that many people are interested in seeing a camcorder recording of a movie. When I see a movie, I want a good picture quality -- not some friggin' hand-held recording of the movie.
Oh well, the vast majority of movies coming out nowadays are dreck anyway, and the ones I'm looking forward to, I'll go to/buy as soon as they're available to me.
Cheers
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Wouldn't delaying releases really screw hollywood a lot more? They'd have to spread their marketing budget over a much longer time to keep the buzz generated, otherwise people would say "I want to see that! Oh wait its not out yet..." then forget all about it before actually did come out.
Not to mention the people that it would increase the demand for bootlegs floating around online.
How about this, after they make a film, in order to prevent piracy they burn the master copy before anyone can see it. And shoot all the people involved in the production, so that they can't make another copy. Gotta catch 'em all!
Indeed, and that's what the U.S. movie industry so scared about. Quote from the article: Camcording a movie in Canada is not illegal (it could be for personal use). The illegal part is distributing the recording to others, but that is a completely separate event. Again from the article: Fantastic! Let's just assume everyone is a criminal if we even suspect that they don't support the status-quo monopoly!
Personally I don't want Canadians giving up any of their freedoms just to maintain the current distribution monopolies. All Canadians in the audience should consider signing the petition against copyright extension: http://www.digital-copyright.ca/billc60/.
Wow, this isn't insightful at all.
In fact, actors and execs in the film industry are only paid what the market will bear - and what previous box office success warrants. for example, to say that peter jackson isn't worth what he's being paid for the LOTR franchise and ensuing going forward is absurd - because that franchise is verging on 5 billion, if not billions more. I'd wager that Peter's take is in the area of 250 million. I'd wager he's worth more than his take and then some.
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.
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.
un burrito me trampeó.
There's also the fact they have to pay a "piracy tax" on blank media, which they quite rightly resent. 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.
They're also implementing practices that are pissing purchasing customers off like crazy.
I see at least 1 movie in theaters per week, often two.
I pay $11 to sit through 5 tv commercials followed by 6 trailer commercials as well as about 8 studio commercials. Then i sit through a commercial telling me that piracy is illegal and that i could go to jail. This delightful process then takes up 30 minutes of my life that i PAID FOR. This isn't entertainment, this is crap that I don't want and am pissed of by it.
To top it off ushers from the movie theater then walk up and down the isles during the movie with infra-red binoculars in order to seek out pirates with video cameras, which disturbs everyone in the theater.
But hey, it's the pirates fault that the movie industry is losing profits, right? It clearly has nothing to do with the absurd practices put forth by the MPAA.
MABASPLOOM!
Coincidentally (or maybe not...), Sweden has a very similar tax and is home to a very large BT tracker...
Yeah, I don't understand the thinking behind these taxes either...
The end result? No less than:
1. People think it's more OK to copy copyrighted material, as they pay for it anyway.
2. People purchase media in bulk from neighboring countries without these taxes, where shipping charges are not a problem.
Result of #1 is increased piracy and #2 is economic losses for Swedish hardware retailers.
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!