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Warner Brothers Pulls Canadian Previews
A number of readers let us know that Reuters and others are reporting that Warner Brothers is canceling movie previews in Canadian theaters, starting with Oceans Thirteen. A Warner VP said, "Within the first week of a film's release, you can almost be certain that somewhere out there a Canadian copy will show up." Recently, the International Intellectual Property Association placed Canada on its Priority Watch List, along with the likes of Argentina, China, Russia, Turkey, and Venezuela. This community knows, thanks to Michael Geist, that the claim is mostly ficiton.
Those are called trailers, and they're not stopping those. They're canceling early screenings of new movies.
... On theglobeandmail.com below:
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http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGA
The Globe And Mail is one of Canada's largest daily newspapers and has some amount of influence. Also, Mathew Ingram is somewhat influential in the "blogisphere" up north. I think he's hit the nail on the head. Too bad the studios won't be paying attention.
This is my opinion. To make sure you don't steal it, it's covered by the DMCA.
There seems to be a lot of confusion here. I take it they don't do this in the US.
In Britain (and I assume also in Canada), there's often a showing before the release date. Usually a day early, sometimes a week early. This is usualyl billed as a "special preview" or something to hype it up and to make people feel they're getting something special. Actually it usually just means the effective release date is the day before the posters claim.
So perhaps the headline should read "Movie piracy delays Canadian Release by up to a week".
I'm in Canada. Cuban items are allowed for sale here. It was meant as a poke in the eye to their industry.