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?

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

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

Re:Mostly?

[Lev13than]

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".

Re:

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

Ha!

Reminds me of John Candy's quip that he wasn't really sure if Canada had produced more famous comedians than any other state.

Thanks - you have now supplemented Barbara Budd as my primary source on the Dilemma Canadienes.

Re:

[HardCorePawn]

To avoid similar confusion in the future, I suggest you go with the universally accepted moniker of "The 51st State".

Oh... I thought that was Australia... aka Mini-America

Re:

[twig_nl]

Then there's the Nunavut Territory, which is actually the Innu Nation.

Actually, that would be the Inuit. The Innu nation is in Labrador (where the Inuit live too, but farther north and on the coast).

Re:

[swight1701]

Lard tundering jaysus! Don't be talking about us Newfie's!

hehehe You're post just proves our biggest difference. We are a cultural mosaic, and not the melting pot that happens when you go further south.

Re:

[Five Bucks!]

Lord Liftin'!

Ya gots ta be more careful wit' yer h'Apostrophies. You should head into town and get some proper learnin' :p

Re:

[swight1701]

hah! If that is your real lat/long I'm about 2 km from you. :)

Re:

[c]

The sad part is that you got modded as "Funny".

c.

the notion of a nation

[Howserx]

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 [www.cbc.ca] December 5th: Nation Explaination

Re:

[TheRaven64]

Of course, we have the weakness of just not really feeling like taking over the world, but really, what would we do with it anyways?

Make the USA go and stand in a corner until they learn to play nicely with all the other nations?

Re:

[S.O.B.]

To bring it back into focus.

Our country's full name is Canada not the Dominion of Canada. The British North America Act (1867) [wikisource.org] declares "the Provinces of Canada, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick shall form and be One Dominion under the Name of Canada; and on and after that Day those Three Provinces shall form and be One Dominion under that Name accordingly." (emphasis added)

In this context the word "dominion" means "nation".

The term "Dominion of Canada" was never officially recognized and has not been in reg

Re:

[thirty-seven]

In this context the word "dominion" means "nation".

More specifically, in this context the word "dominion" means "kingdom". Although, by necessity, the British North America Act of 1867 which created the Canadian federation and formed (and still forms) the main written chunk of our constitution was passed by the British Parliment, the text of that Act was conceived and written almost entirely by Canadians.
The one main exception to this: as written by the Canadian Fathers of Confederation, the Act refer

Re:

[msouth]

The term "Dominion of Canada" was never officially recognized and has not been in regular use in government documents since the 50's or 60's so as not to intimidate our neighbour to the south.

I don't think Mexico's all that worried--for one thing, they've got that whole "buffer country" thing going that the Soviet Union used so successfully to keep western Europe from invading.

Re:

[S.O.B.]

I don't think Mexico's all that worried--for one thing, they've got that whole "buffer country" thing going that the Soviet Union used so successfully to keep western Europe from invading.

I should have said our neighbour immediately to the south. But don't think we won't be coming for them after we're done with the U.S.

You parsed it wrong

[spun]

It's actually "claim" as in "Fire claims 12 victims." They are saying that Canadians mostly pirate fiction, as opposed to documentaries.

Re:

[Drooling Iguana]

"But I'm sure it means those houses down there; the village."

One Bad Joke

[Anonymous Coward]

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

[Doc Ruby]

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

[Austerity Empowers]

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..

Re:

[edwardpickman]

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..

And the Hobbits sound like teenage girls and I didn't realize Middle Earth had cell phones.

Re:

[Maxo-Texas]

My first was in 1988- Logan's run in a secret back room at "Spectrum Con" in Houston at a hotel that no longer exists. It was VHS, it was noisy- and it was very cool for the 20 to 30 of us that shared the experience.

Re:

[dan828]

It's for that "theater experience" that you normally miss out on with an ordinary DVD. Now just throw in some $5 popcorn, and you'd have no reason to go to the movies. That's what the RIAA is protecting!

Re:

[Farmer Tim]

Just nitpicking, but these unaccountable, self-serving stats were releases by the notoriously lying, litigious, abusive MPAA.

Re:

[Doc Ruby]

Nit picked. The distinction without a difference just reinforces the facts about these content cartels, without limit to a specific medium. If books were still popular, I might have mistakenly typed the BPAA (imaginary Book Publishers Association of America).

Re:

[AJWM]

If books were still popular, I might have mistakenly typed the BPAA (imaginary Book Publishers Association of America).

That would probably be the ABA, the American Booksellers Association. They intimidate even the publishers. (In how many other industries can the retailer get a refund on units ordered just by ripping off the cover (boxtop, whatever) and sending that back?) Not that all publishers are saints (some are, but the bigger houses tend to be like corporations everywhere).

And books are still popul

Re:

[Doc Ruby]

Readership statistics really haven't changed much in the last hundred or so years.

By headcount or by percentage of population? I'd like to see the cited stats. It would cheer up some of my fellow readers.

Re:

[AJWM]

By percentage. And it might not cheer them up, the fact is that - in the US anyway - readers have never made up a huge percentage of the population.

The stats were mentioned recently in a post on the Baen Books web forum, sorry I don't recall the exact location.

Re:

[Farmer Tim]

I'm not disputing for an instant that there's negligable real difference between the two industry groups, if only because the member companies they represent are mostly the same. In my view its one of many arguments in favour of laws lmiting cross-media ownership, but I don't expect to see any politician with the principles to take a stand on this issue any more than copyright reform.

Re:

[iphayd]

Nah, the 50th state. We don't accept Texas anymore.

Re:

[Synchis]

I agree. I've looked at the stats, and figure in my own personal dealings with purchased movies...

Pre-DVD's, I bought exactly *2* VHS movies.

Once I owned a DVD player, I actually bought *more* movies than I ever had before. Sure, I might make a "Personal Copy" of a few too, but the point is, when I really like a movie, when its *worth* buying, I actually buy it.

Oh yeah... and I'm Canadian. :P

eh?

[TinBromide]

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.

Re:

[$RANDOMLUSER]

Don't deny it. You know it's the Canadians. They're in it with the Scientologists. And the Freemasons. And the Trilateral Commission. And the Teletubbies. God, I hate those little purple faggots.

Re:

[dargon]

Please, in the future, get your facts straight. We want nothing to do with the scientologists and would love to crate them all up and ship them back to hippie land, aka California.

proof!

[geedra]

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.

Re:

[thebigbluecheez]

Well, that and the fact that you have to pay to camcorder the movie. Isn't that kind of against the whole idea of pirating?

Re:

[stanmann]

WRONG!

Most *watchable* cams are recorded by employees in empty theatres.

Re:

[davecb]

When camcorders first came out, a school friend's father set up a tripod in the projection room and taped a lovely copy of a then-popular movie. You could barely hear a low whir in the background from the projector...

Can't get more "inside" than that.

--dave

Re:

[LordEd]

I think its better proof that 87% of their crap isn't even worth stealing.

Probably the most successful 13%

[Geof]

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

Flawed Stats

[bendodge]

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

[Jesus_666]

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*

Re:

[ebvwfbw]

Basically, don't trust in-house statistics, unless you can reproduce the results yourself.

Most people out there are simply not qualified to do statistics and they think they are. Turns out that most people don't even know how to count as anyone that has taken a discrete mathematics course would know. So verifying the results in all but a trivial case isn't possible for most people. For those of us who could do it, the data is often not available (intentionally). If it is available and we try to tell othe

Shrink rate

[Skadet]

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:

[garcia]

And those are the least downloaded I'm sure. I, for one, completely ignore CAM versions and either wait for DVD or the "better" release that's ripped from some other source (usually DVD).

I don't bother to pirate much anymore because their DVD release schedules are so fast -- but if someone does need to be seen I certainly wouldn't bother with a 700MB CAM.

Re:

[vhogemann]

Actually,

I guess nowdays most of the film downloads are from series such as Lost, Heroes, etc... Who would bother to download an entire DVD when is so much easier to rent one, and them rip it?

And, yet again... why rip it when is soooo much easier to rent it again?

Re:

[Jesus_666]

Rerenting a movie:
1. Drive to store
2. Locate movie
3. Rent it
4. Drive home
5. Watch movie
6. Return movie and pay

Watching a ripped movie:
1. Start media PC/XBMC
2. Start media player/navigate to "Video"
3. Navigate to movie file and open it
4. Watch movie
5. Shut down media PC/XBox


Watching the ripped movie saves you two drives and some time - I think that is an advantage.

Re:

[Firehed]

I think the time is negligible unless you have either a damn fast computer or a very distant rental place. For me, ripping is a matter of freeing enough hard drive space on my temp. drive, ripping the disc, transcoding the rip to something useful, waiting 2+ hours for the transcode to finish, freeing space on my media drive, copying resulting .avi file to said drive, deleting original vob files.

I mean, honestly, it's not always that bad. But waiting for the transcode to take place is still fairly time-con

And how many in Canada?

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:

[Gr8Apes]

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.

Actually - that's an 11% attempted rate. What does it really mean? Seriously?

So 11% of the movies were taped with a camcorder. Ok, fine. What happened after that? They had a whole 10 people download it before word got out it sucked horrendous road kill?

Re:

[Skadet]

So 11% of the movies were taped with a camcorder. Ok, fine. What happened after that? They had a whole 10 people download it before word got out it sucked horrendous road kill?

I understand your point, but I think the argument here is that we don't know what happened after the movie was taped, and we never will.

Re:

[Gr8Apes]

So, then, do we really know the movie was taped?

Re:Shrink rate

[digidave]

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:

[bcattwoo]

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.

Rather than speculating, you can just read the cited document(I know wild speculation is more fun):

"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 conti

Re:

[Fred_A]

"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.

Actually I didn't get that bit. *Why* would anyone bother distributing a camera capture ? Just to beat the DVD release ? The DVD release local to wherever the movie is from usually follows the theatre release quite quickly. Creating copies from that ought to yield far better quality. Stripping the zoning shouldn't be that hard

Re:

[StikyPad]

...discovered in the markets of 46 other countries on every inhabited continent.

Which begs the question, what country is in Antarctica [wikipedia.org], and what does the black market there look like?

"Psst. Wanna buy some DVDs?"
"Jeff? Is that you?"
"My name is Vlad! Now do you vant to buy them or not? Hurry up, I'm freezing my ass off out here."
"Whatever Jeff."

Re:

[stanmann]

Yes, but we're talking about digital media which once in the wild can be copied indefinitely.

Re:

[tinkerghost]

You're using the wrong ratio. 11% shrink isn't what they are talking about. They are talking about only 11% of the products on the shelves - in all of the stores - was stolen by camming.
In retail you're talking more along the lines of saying - "OK this year we've had 3% shrinkage, of that 80% was by shoplifting and 20% was credit/check fraud. Looking into the fraud, we can see that only 11% of the products we stock are ever stolen by fraud." This should be followed by the question "WTF is wrong with the r

Re:

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:

[Jeff DeMaagd]

I really don't think the analogy fits. For one, retail of a physical product is not the same as a file. Also, one camcorder copy doesn't mean that the movie is gone. The closest equivalent is 11% would represent if each of the ~150 titles had one copy out of a million illegally taken. So the shrink rate might be closer to .00001%.

Re:

[Frenchy_2001]

The author makes his point perfectly, although the summary does not make it quite clear.
99% of the movies that are released get pirated. Out of all those pirated movies, only 11% are from bad cam recording. The rest are mostly DVD rips a bit later, DVD rips of advance projection or review copies or again for oscar nominations.

The author point is not that few movies are pirated (as stated, most movies are already available in pirated form), but that the camcording in the movie theater is a marginal form (mos

Re:Shrink rate

[AJWM]

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.

Re:

[pembo13]

That would make for interesting news.

Re:

[EtherealStrife]

BS. The problem with shrink is the actual removal of something, which this is not. If you want to go with the retail shrink metaphor, then this is more along the lines of an OfficeMax opening up across the street from OfficeDepot. OfficeMax says that it will be giving away free merchandise, but they will only carry 11% of the items that OfficeDepot stocks and all of the free items will be of shoddy quality (barely usable...we're talking 1-ply tp here that is made out of poison oak leaves). OfficeDepot may s

Re:

[smaddox]

They don't get paid a certain amount of money per movie, though. They get paid per admission. Just because 11% of the movies were recorded on camcorder, doesn't mean the drop in sales was 11%. If you factor in the number of people who saw the CAM version, and the number of those people who would have paid to see it, but didn't have to - the loss in revenue is negligible.

Re:

[Battle_Ratt]

Yea an 11% shrink rate would be head-rolling territory.

You can not however equate a camcorder rip to retail shrink. That would be similar to saying that someone taking a singe gummy bear out of the bulk bin at the grocery store cost the store the value of the entire bin.

A more honest approach, if it was possible, would be to count how many times one of these copies was downloaded by someone who never ended up paying to see the show, vs every single ticket sold, and every single DVD sold, of the entir

Hmm....

[8127972]

"Canadian Movie Piracy Claims Mostly Fiction?"

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

Re:

[sconeu]

Yeah, but the MPAA claims will never make a profit (on paper), so the writers won't get paid.

The reality is...

[Bullfish]

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:

[Aladrin]

"What is the last movies that you just had to see?"

Unfortunately, there HAVE been a few movies in the past few years that I just -had- to see. As many as when I was a kid, and I -know- I was less picky when I was a kid. A few that I remember off the top of my head:

Star Wars Ep 1 (2 was a must-see, but disappointed.)
Epic Movie (Yeah, that was just last week)
Aeon Flux
War of the Worlds
Signs
Lady in the Water

And I'm sure there were quite a few others, as I avidly looked forward to going to the movie theatre ab

Re:

[Floritard]

not trying to flame here, but how did you feel after seeing the movies on that list of yours, and how does that affect the current discussion on Hollywood's product quality of late? Epic Movie? sheesh...

Re:

[Aladrin]

With the exception of SW ep 2 (which I already noted) I liked all those movies. There were plenty more that I liked as well, but they didnt fall under the must see category.

How does it relate? The previous poster was claiming that movies werent good lately, and that there were very very few must see movies. I happen to completely disagree. And if they truly were crappy movies, why would you pirate/steal/whatever them and watch them anyhow? Watching them admits they are worth your time.

Re:The reality is...

[Knara]

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

Re:

[Kandenshi]

Not trying(very hard) to flame here, but how did you feel after watching Signs [imdb.com]?

I mean, SIGNS?! I got conned into seeing that by a pair of old friends who were visiting town and wanted to go out to the movies... Hell, Signs was very nearly enough to ruin movies for me. I needed to watch a bunch of real classics to get my love for film back after that. It was an abortion of creativity and intelligence. Only uglier and smelled worse.

Re:

[1u3hr]

a few movies in the past few years that I just -had- to see. As many as when I was a kid, and I -know- I was less picky when I was a kid. A few that I remember off the top of my head:

Star Wars Ep 1 (2 was a must-see, but disappointed.)
Epic Movie (Yeah, that was just last week)...

Epic Movie has a 3% rating at Rotten Tomatoes [rottentomatoes.com]... I won't be rushing to watch, or download that one, I think.

"Epic Movie strays so far from the solid fundamentals of filmmaking that it calls the very foundation of humor into questi

Re:

[Aladrin]

Wow, check that out, people have OPINIONS.

I loved the movie. I laughed the whole way through. It's SUPPOSED to be stupid. It's supposed to be crude. It's supposed to be a PARODY.

People that didn't like Scary Movie 1,2,3, Teen Movie, and Date Movie should not have bothered seeing Epic Movie. It's going to be the same kind of thing! (I didn't actually watch Date Movie, as I have no interest in those movies and wouldn't have known most of the references.)

Epic Movie did an excellent job of parodying all t

Re:

[1u3hr]

I am not one to follow what others think blindly, so Rotten Tomatoes' 3% score doesn't affect me at all.

Cool. But I think I'll trust the 97%.

Re:

[mrbcs]

Exactly! We had an article here a while back about this issue. I sent an email off to my MP about my concerns. I was actually quite shocked when they sent me back a letter informing me that my concerns will be brought up with the Minister in charge.

My MP also informed me that he would like more information when the Minister Responsible For This Mess replies to our initial inquiry.

Democracy might not be dead yet in Canada...

Re:

[nostrad]

What is the last movies that you just had to see?

Couldn't have said it better myself. The fact that I recently had 6 free tickets and actually had trouble finding anything I would like to watch would probably say something (and I still have 2 tickets left, after inviting a friend to go with me and watch 2 movies in one day just to actually use them).

Re:

[antiMStroll]

"The MPAA knows the claim is bogus..."

Lying to the police or the courts, those who adminster the law, is an offense punishable by jail term and fines, yet the far more grevious misleading lawmakers is considered business as usual. One act affects an individual or small group while the other a nation. Why aren't these people going to jail? I'm all for this being considered a form of treason.

Re:

[RyuuzakiTetsuya]

Borat.

MPAA's most successful tactic...

[HaeMaker]

Make movies so horrible no one would bother recording it.

Re:

[Farmer Tim]

Make movies so horrible no one would bother recording it.

But people record them anyway, regardless of how bad they are.

Its like Blackbeard plundering Pogs...

Re:

[Seule]

Aren't they already doing this?

Waterworld...

[flyingfsck]

I bet you that one hasn't been camcorded - not even in Canada, eh?

Re:

[ShadowsHawk]

Waterworld catches a LOT of flak, but there are far worse movies out there.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

FYI clarrification

[edwardpickman]

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.

Re:

[punkr0x]

Which is exactly what the feature article says:

the window of availability of the camcorded versions is very short. Counterfeiters invariably seek to improve the quality of their DVDs by dropping the camcorder versions as soon as the studios begin production of authentic DVDs (which provide the source for perfect copies).

MPAA lies - film at eleven!

[DreamerFi]

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

To paraphrase Mark Twain...

[fahrbot-bot]

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

Of course it's fiction

[Sleeping Kirby]

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

Served its purpose...

[debest]

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...

[canfirman]

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.

Re:

[debest]

Well, we managed to go almost 8 years longer than the United States without passing more draconian copyright laws when we were under the Liberals. Seems the palms aren't quite as greasy when the Grits are in power. Perhaps Oda is more *ahem* "receptive" to their opinions than Sheila Copps ever was?

Please don't confuse me with apologizing for the Liberals: I just notice that the content industry's influence seems to be far powerful with the current Tory government.

Incentive to watch a movie at the movie theatres?

[arock99]

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

Real Piracy

[HeyBob!]

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

[reyalpdemannu]

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"

[Atraxen]

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

Indeed

[mark-t]

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