Hollywood seeks the pirates, file-sharers growing movie appetite
Posted on 04/08/03 10:36 by Dennis                             
Hollywood seeks the pirates, file-sharers growing movie appetite
GristyMcFisty used our news submit to tell us that the movie industry (Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA)) is planning to follow the music industry (Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA)) increasingly aggressive responses to piracy.

It is feared that people who use file-sharing software will soon get bored of only downloading music with their increasingly faster Internet connections and that they will develop an appetite for free movies:

After watching the music industry be financially hammered by piracy, Hollywood moguls want to follow its recent lead and go after individual consumers who illegally download or file share copyrighted films.

"We can't allow what happened to the music industry to happen to the movie industry," says Jack Valenti, president and chief executive of the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA). He says the group will "seek enforcement of the breaking of copyright law" by the authorities against offending consumers. The MPAA also is launching public service ads urging consumers to just say no to piracy.

To send a strong message that movie piracy is a crime, "There will probably have to be some people charged with the criminal downloading of movies," says Bo Andersen, president of the Video Software Dealers Association, which gathers in Las Vegas for its annual meeting this week. "It has to be made clear this is criminal behavior, and not just something fun to do on your computer."

David Bishop, president of MGM Home Entertainment Group, says his studio has an internal team constantly checking "how much piracy is going on around our titles," including the upcoming home video release of Legally Blonde 2.

The studios also are working on the next phase of DVD technology, with tougher encryption codes that might solve the problem, but that technology is still three to four years from market. "We're confident the next wave of DVD products will be much more difficult to file share with," he says.

According to the article worldwide piracy costs the studios an estimated $ 3~4 billion a year. Consumers spent $ 20.3 billion to rent and buy movies in 2002, more than twice the record $ 9.3 billion fans spent on movie theater tickets last year.

Source: Yahoo! News

Reactions
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By the111, Mon 4 Aug 2003 14:38
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I just walked down to my local HMV store looking to buy a copy of ADAPTATION, which is out today. The price was £18 / 26€ / 29$. £18 is a lot of money to me, and much too much to be spending on a single DVD. I particularly liked Adaptation, so I'd probably have been prepared to spend £10 on it. Seeing it at the cinema cost me £3.75, and renting the DVD would cost me about the same. Why oh why should purchase prices be so unreasonable? I'm not in favor of piracy in principle, but until prices become affordable, and until films are available legally, from high speed servers online, I'm more or less forced to keep doing it.
By jab1981, Mon 4 Aug 2003 15:04
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More or less forced? Wow... Jesus man, when I feel something is overpriced and I can't afford it... I wish I could just steal it. Wouldn't life be great if we could all just decide in such a fashion. Gee I want Dolby Digital 6.1... but nah it's a bit too pricey. I'll just "pirate" it because they more or less forced me to. RIGHT. As for your example, I'm not sure if it works internationally, but www.dvdpricesearch.com lists it as twelve dollars. That's less than most CD's. Perhaps it's time you tried shopping, rather than using a price you deem to high as justification for breaking the law.
[edited by jab1981 on 04.08.2003 15:05]
By Fr4nz, Mon 4 Aug 2003 15:11
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I think that prices for movies are more appropriate than the ones of music CDs which are really TOO high... Why don't you go to the cinema or rent a DVD and watch cool cool cool it at home??
By the111, Mon 4 Aug 2003 17:03
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Pathetic. If I want to watch it, I have to pirate it. And I want to watch it. Enough said.
By UNCOGNITO, Mon 4 Aug 2003 18:23
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LOL it will never be the same as stealing it from a shop and u will never convince anyone that it is why do u think there is seperate law for copyright infrigement and stealing
By jab1981, Mon 4 Aug 2003 19:29
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What's pathetic is your abuse of the English language. If you want to watch you can buy an extremely affordably priced DVD. You don't HAVE to do anything. If you can't afford it, then you wait till you can or you steal it. There's no have involved. You choose to break the law and I seriously hope they stick your ass to the wall. Or atleast send your paychecks to my bank account. Enough said. It's the people like you that screw things up for the rest of us. What's pathetic is that when I try to legally backup my material, I now can't because you mistakenly think the world revolves around what you want. Let the lawsuits begin, if only they'd all be against the likes of you.
[edited by jab1981 on 04.08.2003 19:31]
By Seán, Mon 4 Aug 2003 21:29
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SeánI don't think removing movies off Peer-to-peer networks is going to solve movie piracy. At present, almost anyone with a DSL & Cable connections can leave a download overnight for a movie. At the moment, most home piracy comes from renting movies actually! Unlike with music, the movie industry still gets something for the customer renting the movie, but quite short of the same customer purchasing the movie (since many duplicate the rental). It wouldn't affect me (or any other one-time movie watchers) as I rarely watch any movie a second time, so while I rent movies and go to the cinema, I don't see any need in making a duplicate. devil
By onlinetracker, Mon 4 Aug 2003 23:05
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onlinetrackerEveryone who ever says anything about "the Artist" getting screwed by the MPAA or RIAA is using that as an excuse to justify their stealing of someone elses works. If you thought that highly of the artist, you'd send a check to the freaking artist directly. So, don't give me that you are fighting a righteous cause for the artist. What a joke! (now will come the comments about me being a joke) whatever, you know deep inside that what you are doing is wrong, and when your kid, brother, or friend follows in your footsteps and gets caught you'll be crying foul even more when you should have just paid for the stuff in the first place. Tell me where you work, or what you do and I'll give you an example of why you should pay for the product and then MAYBE you'll see it from that perspective. Most of you probably just work 9-5 and don't produce something novel, just fill out forms, or code a bit of HTML. Bah!
By Quakester2000, Mon 4 Aug 2003 23:47
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Quakester2000If you ask me it doesnt matter what it is Music / Video if people think that they cant get it for free because of threats from one industry they complain how expsenive things are. I agree music isnt worth buying these days, but with some great dvds out there at reasonable prices with many extras i dont see how people can complain, just go online plenty of cheap prices at places like amazon etc.
By the111, Tue 5 Aug 2003 00:23
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Some DVDs are reasonably priced, I'd have to agree. £5-10 for a DVD is affordable for me. But in answer to your question, I'm at university. £18 is 2/3 days food. And so given that I really can't afford to buy it, I don't feel im ripping anyone off by pirating it. After all, they get £0.00 either way!
[edited by the111 on 05.08.2003 00:24]
By slacker6, Tue 5 Aug 2003 01:41
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Okay, here we go again. But there is a difference. I can get DVD\'s through Columbia House in the US for a landed cost of 7USD per movie. That is cheaper than the CD\'s offered for sale. Sure, I have to buy 8 but who cares? That\'s a helluva deal and if the movie industry is making it work, so the music industry.
[edited by slacker6 on 05.08.2003 01:41]
[edited by slacker6 on 05.08.2003 01:42]
By StrongBad, Tue 5 Aug 2003 03:04
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Here we go again, I personally was hoping that Mr. Valenti actually had a clue when he said he didnt want to follow in the RIAAs footsteps,but I guess I was hoping for too much when I thought a overpaid hollywood exec would have a clue. Lets trace the RIAAs "footsteps" 1999-2001 Napster was in existence kicking hard, cd sales? breaking new records every year. RIAA does the traditionally retarded thing and decides to shut it down cause they are losing soo much money, what happens? Cd sales start to drop (consistent with the economy going to shit), what does the RIAA do next? start suing their customers. Wonder what this is going to lead to. Now lets look at the MPAA, last year they broke the record of movie ticket sales, Home dvd sales are up 57% for the first half of 2k3 (according to another article here), now what does Mr. Valenti wanna do, follow the RIAAs footsteps and start SUING consumers, can anyone guess where this is going to lead to?
By sorti, Tue 5 Aug 2003 03:58
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sortiMost people don't pirate movies they should but they don't. Movies are too big, this is all downside for the MPAA. People with money that are worth suing will not be wasting there time downloading a movie; people with more time then money are the ones that will be spending time on this. This will also affect parents who have children but parents can't stop kids from smoking or having sex so good luck on the piracy thing. Most of the time if your kid has sex or smokes you doesn't get sued...
By NeRoWiZaRd8, Tue 5 Aug 2003 06:31
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Sorti made a really good point that i was just thinking myself. Its not the rich people that are going out downloading pirated material over the internet, its the middle class and poor that dont have hundreds of thousands to just spend on buying anything they want. Its cheaper to just buy a high speed connection, a fast cd-rw, and a big pack of cd's and have a party. I agree that piracy is illegal, and is just as bad as stealing it off the shelf in the store that sells it. But if they have to target people it should be the people that sell pirated copies to people for lots of money, not all us poor defensless people that only download it for ourselves and noone else, because without us they wont be making any money at all instead of just a few less billion and a few less mercedes in the front lawn. I think its a big joke that people like the MPAA and the RIAA spend all this time and money to try and do something about file sharers over the internet. Do they not realize they are gonna spend way more money on lawsuits then they ever would lose to piracy on the net? You can't tell me they actually believe they are gonna scare people into stopping just cause of what they are trying to do now. And what about the younger generation of kids 12-20? All their life they are told not to do drugs, have sex when their really young, smoke, whatever and do they ever listen just once? NOOO!! Filre-Sharing over the internet isn't any different and is neverending. These billion dollar companies shouldn't be allowed to do anything or even have as much money as they do when theirs alot better things in the world all this money could be going for instead of trying to making a billionare a trillionare.

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