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Canadian Movie Piracy Claims Mostly Fiction?
Justin Primus writes "Michael Geist's weekly column dismantles recent claims that Canada is the world's leading movie piracy haven. The article uses the industry's own data to demonstrate that the assertions about movie bootlegging and its economic impact are greatly exaggerated and that the MPAA's arguments about Canadian copyright law are misleading. I particularly liked how Geist dug up the fact that the MPAA itself says that there have only been 179 movies recorded with a camcorder over the past three years out of the 1,400 that the Hollywood studios released."
The true part: "There is a nation, it is called Canada."
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
Why does anyone believe these unaccountable, selfserving "stats" released by the notoriously lying, litigious, abusive RIAA? We don't make gas mileage requirements taking oil companies' reports as gospel, except when "we" are really screwing "ourselves".
--
make install -not war
So the piracy claims about canada are mostly fiction, how is this different than the opinion* most piracy claims made in north america?
*I say opinion because there are no facts about piracy beyond the fact that it does happen, and it may or may not be good for the industry depending on who you ask.
Is it sad that I am more likely to recognize you and your posts by your sig than your name or UID?
there have only been 179 movies recorded with a camcorder over the past three years out of the 1,400 that the Hollywood studios released
..confirming that less than 13% of their crap is worth watching.
Take any statistics an entity comes up with to help itself with a grain of salt, and then ask for the raw data and methods, so that you can reproduce the results. If they can't give you the data for privacy reasons, at least look at the samples and methods.
Basically, don't trust in-house statistics, unless you can reproduce the results yourself.
The government can't save you.
Look, I disagree with the RIAA as much as the next
Sony ha
"Canadian Movie Piracy Claims Mostly Fiction?"
Sounds like some Hollywood script writers are working for the MPAA.
This is my opinion. To make sure you don't steal it, it's covered by the DMCA.
The MPAA knows the claim is bogus... like the RIAA lobbying to try to alter Canada's copyright provisions to suit them, this is just trying to sow seeds to try to get the copyright laws changed to suit the MPAA. Seriously, anyone who does download movies knows the camcorder rips are the worst of the lot... it's the studio prints that are desireable... and where do those come from?... It's all just PR (or propaganda if you will) designed to try to further their aims... and to borrow a line from another topic... this ploy is not intelligently designed...
You want to know why ticket sales are down... Ask yourself this...What is the last movies that you just had to see?
Documentaries have always been a minority in their number of releases, so it makes sense that most piracy would be fiction.
They asserted 50% movie piracy by camcorders in Canada.
The total FOR THE WORLD piracy rate is 11% OF THEATRICAL RELEASES according to the MPAAs own numbers.
Also just because 11% of the worldwide movies are camcordered doesn't mean they lost 11% of their movie revenues. So it's not even wastage. How did Star War do? It was heavily camcordered in the 1980's.
Make movies so horrible no one would bother recording it.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
That technique is just one of the methods and is arguably the worst way to pirate. A lot of films get bootlegged during post production and often show up before the film is released in theaters. Waterworld showed up in Russia as this chaotic mix of dailies and some cut scenes, not that the final release was much better. The most popular way to pirate has to be ripped DVDs. My friends in distribution call them $20 masters. You buy one copy and use it as a master recording. I shot a couple of low budget films and my distributor told me he saw bootlegs selling for a $1 in Malaysia right next to 100 mill Hollywood films also selling for $1. There is no market in South East Asia for domestic films, they're all pirated and sold openly. I think you'll find there are pirates of every film made. Pirating is largely free and if they are reselling the pirates DVDs are cheap to burn.
(but don't bring your cam-corders!)
It's actually "claim" as in "Fire claims 12 victims." They are saying that Canadians mostly pirate fiction, as opposed to documentaries.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
There are lies, damn lies, and MP/RIAA statistics.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
Where are the "yes" and "duh" tags? :-)
Everyone knows that Hong Kong is the piracy of the world. Who would think otherwise?
please... let me sleep... a little more... yay, no longer annonmyous coward.
The MPAA needs to eat shit. Only swallowing after thoroughly chewing said fecal matter.
The movie industry made a big deal out of this simply to get some good headlines. Geist's expected hatchet job on its "facts" are beside the point. Virtually no one will hear it: only those already tuned in to the lies are reading Geist's columns.
The purpose of the hype was to provide "justification" for Bev Oda to push for the reforms that she and the content industry have been working on. If this goes as I expect, watch for some more sabre-rattling headlines to come, followed quickly by a copyright reform bill that will address the content industry's wish list.
As much as I don't want another election, I hope the Conservatives' upcoming budget is defeated, so that any of Oda's bills will die on the table when the government falls.
Look at the tomato! Isn't it sad? He can't dance! Poor tomato!
And when someone tries to equate 11% of 1400 theater releases being filmed by camcorder-wielding pirates to an 11% shrink rate, well that's called FUD . Now, if the box-office receipts of 179 theaters were stolen by thieves - that I'd call an 11% shrink rate!!!
"A little misunderstanding? Galileo and the Pope had a little misunderstanding."
Their lost revenue isnt some cheap cammed version of a movie here...it's because more people than ever before have big screen televions at home. DVD is also to blame...the quality is just better than ever before at home and people have more reason to either rent or buy a movie. The novelty of watching it on a big screen has worn off to some point. What they need to do is give people more incentive to go see it while it is still at the movie theatre. Perhaps a voucher where you get a discount if you buy the movie on DVD later...or perhaps try and make more movies people want to watch. There is a reason why there is a lot more direct to DVD movies than ever before. Movie theatres are going to become a novelty someday and will simply complement simultaneous release on DVD of movies. It's up to the industry to wake up and learn this sooner rather than later. Look at the music industry...they lost more revenues than they could have by trying to fight digital music downloads rather than embrace it. It is nice to see that the video game industry seems to have learned from all of this by letting people download video games on their consoles and letting amateur gave developer in on the revenue pie (360, PS3, and wii all allow you to download games). One thing's for sure though let's hope they never go entirely digital...it is nice to own a movie you can see on your shelf...the same applies to video games
I got this from a friend in the biz:
Location: somewhere in the former Eastern Bloc (I can't remember the actual city)
Film lands at airport and is sent out to a series of theaters via courier. Except that the courier van is actual a portable dubbing studio on wheels (worth 100's of k's). The pirates took a couple of hours to do all the deliveries and by that time had a pristine digital copy of the movie.
The way they were caught was the studio inserted unique frames in to every copy of the print made (1000's of prints around the world). They were able to nail it down to an area and then sent investigators to watch for the projectionist to make the copies. When that panned out, they finally figured out that it was being done by the courier company.
I'd post a link to a torrent of Gigli, but I'm out of eye bleach and it might well be one of those files the MPAA puts out there to discourage piracy.
Lord only knows, that has to be more effective than their other tactics...
It's called "Foot in my mouth"o otinmymouth233330.html.
Link: http://www.stlyrics.com/songs/c/christomlin5864/f
(chorus)
I got my foot in my mouth,
guess I should watch what I say,
I got my foot in my mouth,
it's prob'ly better that way
The movie industry, like the music industry, releases a large number of movies, but makes most of the money from a small number of hits. Since pirates will tend to target the most popular films, that 13% of films probably represents the majority of revenues and profits.
Of course, it's very difficult to determine just how much loss the existence of pirate versions of those films represents to the industry. It might be significant; it might be quite small. The MPAA hardly has a record of being honest in its assessments. How many in-theater pirated DVDs of Hollywood films do Slashdotters have? Are you folks aware of many other people with pirated DVDs? I bet it's not many, though I also suspect Slashdot's (often young, male, with disposable income, tech and pop culture savy) population is a prime target for both Hollywood and pirates. How many Thais (say) would have bought the $20 DVD if there were no pirated version? I bet that's not so many either.
There's lies, damned lies, and statistics. We know the XIAA loves all three, but lets add rationality to the firestorm with a game of "Translate the Statistics".
"MPAA analysis of counterfeit copies of recently released movies on DVD seized throughout the world reveals that more than 90 percent can be sourced back to theatrical camcording. As of August 2006, MPAA had documented 179 member company titles that had been stolen in this manner since 2004, providing the source copies for pirate DVDs discovered in the markets of 46 other countries on every inhabited continent. In 2005, 23 percent of camcords worldwide were sourced to Canada."
179 titles Camcorded
90% of Pirate DVD's from Cam.s = 161 total -- % Yar'd = 11.5
23% of camcords from Canada = 37 -- % Yar'd = 2.6
% Yar'd = value/1400
i.e. 37 movies over a 3 year span were originally recorded by camcorder, and can be found somewhere in the world. A very compelling case for whatever special rights the XIAA is currently demanding of the government. Pfft.
Be careful of your thoughts; they could become words at any minute...
Agreed. I saw a documentary on Discovery or the History channel regarding religion and Hollywood. Most of it was outside the scope here, but what caught my attention was that a Christian group put together enough money to make the "Left Behind" book series into movies. You could go to your church, watch the movie, and then buy a copy to take home. This, I believe, is the beginning of the new motion picture market. Simultaneous release of the DVD, with some atmosphere on the side. In fact, I'd like to see the Barnes and Noble model applied: a giant video store with screens set up so you can watch the movie in the store. Throw in a few people taking drink and food orders and there's your concession business. Just as long as they don't charge $7 for popcorn and a Coke.
If you live in toronto you may know about this place. Every 3rd or 4th shop is a bootleg pirate DVD shop. And they have everything there too, not just blockbusters. Seriously, i've only seen places like this in China or Thailand before. There are raids once and awhile but within a week or two everybody is back in business. A lot of the movies seem to be good quality too, and you can get older movies on DVD9 format with about 5 movies on a single disc. Heck, i saw the entire star trek series (OS) for sale for about 10$! So whether or not you believe the MPAA, the truth is piracy is big business here in the Toronto area, and it's not even underground.
The notion of a nation motion is not to make a nation legislation, and while emotions about the motion are running high what people need to know is according to all the promotion, the motion states that all these nations can only be nations within a united nation... of Canada http://www.cbc.ca/22minutes/video.html December 5th: Nation Explaination
I support the troops. I pay f'ing taxes.
Dear Sirs, Madams, etc.
The MPAA has alleged that they will delay the release of films to Canadian theatres if you don't bias our copyright law further in favour of foreign-owned law firms. I have a number of comments about this.
- What is copyright and why do we have it? Is it so that we can collectively benefit from the work of our creative artists including the right to use their work freely after they make a reasonable living from it or, as these organizations would have us believe, is it so that some sharp individuals can profit greatly and indefinitely by virtue of having more money and few scruples than most. This is important because this appears to be an attempt to inch copyright from civil law to criminal law.
- Do their statements hold water? By their own admission, Canadian infringement is a drop in the bucket compared to Mexican and even American infringement.
- Supposing that there is validity to what they say, is restrictive legislation an appropriate decision? Movie theatres are private property and theatre owners and the movie middlemen have their own contracts as do theatres and their the patrons. Clearly the existing legal framework covers this situation in a way that is compatible with copyright (civil) law.
The bottom line is that I think that the producers have every right to delay release of movies into Canadian theatres. As it is, they already use that discretion freely by choosing where and to whom movies are shown before "public" release. They have the right to not release films into Canada at all. I support this right and encourage them to exercise it. As a tool, delaying the release may impact theatre owners and will likely encourage them to consider their contracts more seriously. As a side effect, it may do wonders for Canadian independant and live theatre (I'm not holding my breath though).
None of this implies changing any laws or even changing enforcement of the ones that we have. It certainly doesn't imply the need to create an entirely new class of crime. If anything, it argues the opposite: the rights holders have clearly stated that they have the power to enforce their copyright within the law as it stands and that they are choosing not to.
My son works as an assistant manager in a movie theatre that is part of the largest chain of theatres here in Canada, and they don't just kick people who are using recording devices out, they arrest them. My son hasn't personally seen anyone do this yet, but one of the people he works with has. They basically take them into the back room, someone calls the police and they wait for them to arrive. The recording device they were using is confiscated and held as evidence -- and it doesn't matter if it was their cell phone or if it had anything else important on it, they've lost it.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
sorry... I had BT cranked up and I put a skew on the data set my IP address is : 78.64.112.162 just subtract my traffic and everything should be peachy. note - ip address altered to protect the innocent.
Think Gnole-ish, not prole-ish
I bet you that one hasn't been camcorded - not even in Canada, eh?
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
Bad corporate citizens who don't pay their fair share of the tax burden should be shown the door...
It is a no brainer that the tax authorities stop unpaid enforcement, and direct their beady eyes on the real villans.
The American version can't use a Dutch shelter, but you can bet they are doing similar practices.
http://www.bbspot.com/News/2005/03/mpaa_piracy.htm l