Technology 'can beat film piracy'

Sleepy

www.bbc.co.uk wrote:

Technology 'can beat film piracy'
By Ian Youngs
Entertainment reporter, BBC News

Johnny Depp in Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest Pirates of the Caribbean 2 was pirated by camcorder in the UK New technology is the key to beating movie piracy, the UK film minister has told industry executives.

Making films available on demand as soon as they are released at cinemas could help stop fans watching illegal copies, Shaun Woodward said.

"The real answer is in the technology," he told the BBC News website, citing the success of legal music downloads.

"People will take the legal way and I think ultimately that's the solution for film piracy as well," he said.

Film pirates in the UK make an estimated £300m profit a year, according to the Federation Against Copyright Theft (Fact).

Most illegal gain comes from pirate DVD sales, and much is believed to help fund organised crime.

Apple's online iTunes store lets US users download movies to iPods
A number of major companies, including Sky, BT and AOL, already offer film downloads in the UK, while giants such as Apple and Amazon offer similar services in the US.

Movies are also available on demand on TV in the UK through services such as cable provider NTL Telewest and broadband broadcaster Homechoice.

But no-one offers films at the same time as they are released at the cinema - whereas pirate copies usually hit the streets or the internet within days, if not hours, of their first screenings.

Mr Woodward told film executives at an anti-piracy campaign launch on Thursday: "You're going to have to look at release dates in a slightly different way than you have done before.

"You're going to have to look at slightly more ingenious ways of making electronic copies available so that people may actually pay a different price for something that they can download at home, which is just being released in the cinema.

"If they want to watch it at home, then maybe you should make it available to them.

"But they should pay a premium rate for having it earlier on and it should be encrypted in such a way that it can't be copied."

Some gangs used film piracy to finance "some appalling organised crime around the world, which often reaches into terrorism", he added.

Downloading and watching films on a computer is increasingly easy
More than 90% of pirate DVDs came from people recording films with camcorders in cinemas, a Fact spokesman said.

Camcorded copies of hits including Pirates of the Caribbean 2, X-Men: The Last Stand and V for Vendetta have been traced back to the UK.

On Thursday, Fact and the Film Distributors' Association launched guidelines to help cinema staff and police catch people making surreptitious recordings.

They also published procedures designed to keep film prints secure at every stage of their release.

Fact chairman and Sony Pictures UK finance director Brian Robertson said Mr Woodward's idea about simultaneous download and cinema releases was an "interesting suggestion".

"At the moment it's probably not technically possible," he said.

"But in a few years, yes, I'm sure it will be possible and it's part of the whole economic model of film-making that will have to be looked at.

"It is a radical thought and the film-makers themselves may have an issue with it because they want people to experience something on the big screen, not on the small screen.

"It will certainly be an interesting debate."

Does anyone else think that while this seems to be a step in the right direction, ultimately whatever encryption they put on films they allow people to download will be cracked within days of it being used?

I'm sure this could help in reducing film piracy by people who aren't particularly tech-savvy but I'd imagine most users of these boards wouldn't have much problem in getting around any of the current copyright protection and if they themselves had a problem doing it, they'd be able to find the necessary steps/software to bypass it in a matter of minutes with Google.

Even current streaming technology can be bypassed to allow a user to record the stream quite easily. Maybe I'm overly confident in the abilities of the crackers out there but I can't see this changing...

Lurk

Crackers will always find a way round whatever technology comes out. The film industry will have to learn from the music biz and start offering cheap downloads. It'll bring in some revenue, but there'll always be pirating.

J.R.HARTLEY

half the problem solved, one of the two main reasons for not going to the cinema is that a lot of people feel it's not value for money, the other is that there are still a lot of movies released here months after it was out in the states.

MrJoeSoap

"Piracy funds terrorism" people, don't do it!

lodgepole

Embracing technology has allowed the music industry to turn a higher profit despite pirating, so there's no reason to think the film industry is any different. Most people would be happy to pay for things whether they can crack them or not. I find myself pirating less and less as avenues to see and hear things legally and conveniently open.

senordingdong

Sounds like codswallop to me.

MisterAnarchy

MrJoeSoap wrote:

"Piracy funds terrorism" people, don't do it!

You wouldnt steal a car ,you wouldnt steal a handbag ,but watching a pirated film is just as bad according to those woeful ads.:D

Running Bing

Those bloody patronising campaigns drive people to piracy. Its always gonna be there but their just publicising it more and making it more widespread and even acceptable. The harmful affect of piracy is also grossly exagerated imo. At the end of the day people are willing to pay what they value a service or product at. Despite the fact I could easily buy pirates/ download I choose to buy dvd's and go to the cinemas, as do the majority of people becuase they value quality, convenience, the experience of the cinema or the packaging of the DVD.

Also they expect us to feel guilty before watching a movie(which we paid about 9 euro into the pictures to see or 10 euro for the DVD) where the three stars probably made 30 odd million between them.

abetarrush

Piracy ftw!

It serves em right, multi-billion dollar companies moanin over 300million a year

If they're werent so greedy in the first place there wudnt be a need

Piracy is abt bein a rebel, gettin one back on the companies who release it

If they care more about money, than people watchin their film, wha r they doin it for?

saps

Sam Vimes

dvd player + dvd recorder = every form of protection broken

the menus and stuff would be lost of course. there's no way to stop someone copying a dvd if they really want to

ObeyGiant

I'm not sure this would 'beat film piracy', but it would certainly take care of a lot of 'casual' piracy. The hardcore pirates wouldn't even notice.

I personally feel this is the right way to go. Rather than come up with blatantly stupid soundbites to convince people that "piracy funds terrorism", they're actually stepping back and thinking "well, why would people rather watch a shoddy hand-held camcorder copy of our movie instead of paying 10 bucks to watch it in the cinema where they feel like a criminal and are surrounded by monkeys on day release from the zoo?"

People would rather watch movies at home. Give them the option to do this on the day it's released in the cinema.

I wonder how Soderbergh got on with his experiment in simulatenous multi-format releases? Anyone know if that was a success?

Dmtiling

Any sort of encryption that can be made can be reversed. There is no way around it, piracy has been around since the first blank audio and video tapes.

Maybe even before that?

senordingdong

abetarrush wrote:

Piracy ftw!

It serves em right, multi-billion dollar companies moanin over 300million a year

If they're werent so greedy in the first place there wudnt be a need

Piracy is abt bein a rebel, gettin one back on the companies who release it

If they care more about money, than people watchin their film, wha r they doin it for?

saps

Yes, but you're forgetting that if thses companies don't get their money back then they won't be able to make new films etc...

peterk19

MisterAnarchy wrote:

You wouldnt steal a car ,you wouldnt steal a handbag ,but watching a pirated film is just as bad according to those woeful ads.:D

if i could download a new tv or a new car i would:rolleyes:

abetarrush

senordingdong wrote:

Yes, but you're forgetting that if thses companies don't get their money back then they won't be able to make new films etc...

Good!

Sony and all them other companies who are makin films for the craic shud be shot

senordingdong

Yes, but what I'm getting at is that if they're not stuffing their pockets with the cash they get from the endless streams of ****e they make, then they won't have the excess cash to invest in the more alternative or 'sophisticated' films.

Think about it.

J.R.HARTLEY

the won't invest in the "more sophisticated movies" unless the bean counters are sure they'll make a return

c - 13

Slightly OT - Does anyone else find piracy warnings on pirated DVD's hilarious ?

OT - Anything that can possibly be put on the discs can be removed - even if it means slight quality reduction people would be willing to sacrafice that for ease of viewing.
In my experience most pirate DVD's that people buy are one that are only getting into Irish cinemas. Maybe a worldwide release date would help to curb this ?

Zombrex

peterk19 wrote:

if i could download a new tv or a new car i would:rolleyes:

Same here

the thing the companies fail to realise is that you aren't "stealing" something when you download movie for free. You are coping something for free. There is a difference. Now, they don't care because the result is the same, you see something for free that you would otherwise have had to pay for the privilage. But to the average punter sitting at his computer he isn't making the connection between what he is viewing and stealing, because he is not actually taking something from someone. No one is losing something tangable.

If I could copy my friends Golf I would. He still has his Golf, but now I have a free Golf. No one losses except for the car company that I would have had to pay money for this new Golf.

Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not supporting piracy. These movies have to be paid for some how. But this constant linking piracy to stealing is largely pointless because it isn't stealling in the sense that the average joe on the street views stealing, the loss of something tangable.

lostexpectation

what about pirates who put all their profits back into the piracy, shouldn't we applaud such finiancial commitments.