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."

Mostly?

The true part: "There is a nation, it is called Canada."

Re:Mostly?

The true part: "There is a nation, it is called Canada."

Not so fast - them's fighting words... You need to know that within the Nation of Canada there's also the Nation of Quebec and the hundred or so First Nations. Then there's the Nunavut Territory, which is actually the Innu Nation. And don't forget the province of Newfoundland and Labrador, which was a Sovereign Nation until it grudgingly allowed the rest of Canada to join them in 1949 (and is still embroiled in a territorial dispute with the Nation of Quebec). Of course, now that we're down this path we're going to have to deal with the Metis Nation, the Acadian Nation and who knows what else. Eventually we'll reach the point where we have to recognize the Nation of the Borough of East York.

In short, the whole "Nation" thing is a bit messy up here, so it's really better for everyone if you just don't bring it up. To avoid similar confusion in the future, I suggest you go with the universally accepted moniker of "The 51st State".

One Bad Joke

Canadian Movie Piracy Claims Mostly Fiction?

Aren't most movies fiction anyways? I mean, who cares if they're pirating fictitious or documentary films?

Broken Record

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".

Re:Broken Record

And why anyone would want a movie that was taped in a theater on a camcorder is beyond me. That sound wasn't the orcs coming from deep within the mountain, it was your feet sticking to the floor..

eh?

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.

proof!

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.

Flawed Stats

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.

Re:Flawed Stats

You: Can I have your raw data and methods please?
MPAA: No, because of privacy concerns.
You: Ah, well, then you can surely give me the samples you worked with?
MPAA: No, those are private as well. As are our methods.
You: Can I at least see the results?
MPAA: No, those are especially private.
You: Well, what can you give me?
MPAA: Nothing. There never was a statistic. These are not the droids you are looking for. We're not here. *hides behind a tree*

Shrink rate

I'll probably get modded down for this, but. . . .

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."

You can't be serious. That's 11% of theatrical releases! Could you imagine if a retail store had an 11% shrink rate? (Hint for those unfamiliar with retail: 11% is head-rolling territory).

Look, I disagree with the RIAA as much as the next /.'er. But this statistic simply doesn't prove what the author was hoping to prove.

Re:Shrink rate

That's not necessarily 11%.

Where does the number 179 come from? Is that the number of arrests made? If so, then that's 179 out of however many million Canadians went to see those 1400 movies. Or maybe that's 179 releases made from camcorders in Canadian theatres, in which case all 179 might have come from one person or a small group of people. Maybe 179 incidents only accounts for ten movies with multiple recording attemps done for those movies.

It's like if you analyzed a large chain store and found that 11% of all the individual items they sold were stolen somewhere within the chain. Maybe only one of each item was stolen, meaning on average less than one per store, but somehow you end up with a bogus 11% shrink rate because you don't know how to work the numbers properly (or because you do and you are dishonest).

Re:Shrink rate

That's 11% of theatrical releases! Could you imagine if a retail store had an 11% shrink rate?

Faulty comparison. For that to be valid, then after somebody camcords a movie, nobody pays ticket price any more. Taking something off a retail store shelf makes that particular item unavailable for anyone else to buy, so it is a real loss. A cam copy may cut in to movie ticket sales slightly, but it doesn't make the movie no longer available in the theatre.

You'd have a somewhat better comparison (although still flawed) if pirates were holding up the theatres and stealing the reels of film.

Hmm....

"Canadian Movie Piracy Claims Mostly Fiction?"

Sounds like some Hollywood script writers are working for the MPAA.

The reality is...

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?

Re:The reality is...

So what I'm getting here is that you frequently need to see shitty movies?

MPAA's most successful tactic...

Make movies so horrible no one would bother recording it.

I don't know why...

Why are they worried about camcorders? Really come on now, I am sure at least one of you has seen pirated movies, they are all screeners for reviewing for awards and are all done by employees inside these studios. In reality, rather than looking at the audience and blaming the people that actually pay to go see a movie, they should be looking at themselves and do internal investigations.

FYI clarrification

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.

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.

MPAA lies - film at eleven!

(but don't bring your cam-corders!)

To paraphrase Mark Twain...

There are lies, damn lies, and MP/RIAA statistics.

Of course it's fiction

Everyone knows that Hong Kong is the piracy of the world. Who would think otherwise?

Served its purpose...

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.

Re:Served its purpose...

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.

The problem is that if it isn't Oda, it'll be somebody else. The movie and music industries will just turn their attention to the next Heritage Minister. No matter what political party is in power, the movie and music industry will always shmooze with the government to get their way.

Incentive to watch a movie at the movie theatres?

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

Real Piracy

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.

This story reminds me of a song

It's called "Foot in my mouth"
Link: http://www.stlyrics.com/songs/c/christomlin5864/fo otinmymouth233330.html [stlyrics.com].

(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

Let's Play "Translate the Statistics"

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.

Indeed

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.

apology

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.