The downfall of the movie industry
or the inevitable turn of the digital age?
The loss to UK industries through "film piracy" last year amounted to about £8 Billion. The actual loss to the film industry is estimated at £400 million. Car Boot sales, local markets or online file sharing programs have become prime sources for acquiring pirated films. The quality of the films range from people recording the film with a camcorder, that they’ve sneaked into the cinema, to DVD copies, where people have literally copied the DVD shortly after release. Sometimes copied films on the UK streets are “Pre Theatrical releases” – that is, a film being duplicated and sold to the public before it reaches the UK cinemas. How do they do this? - one source is imported US DVDs, another is promotional DVDs used for Oscar or BFI nominations. It is believed that this ever-increasing damage against the film industry will soon take its toll, by stifling the funding of future movie production.
However… there are two sides to every argument.
There are generally two types of piracy. Those who copy the films with the sole purpose of making money and making hundreds of copies at any one time to sell at car boot sales and market stalls, and those who download these movies for “personal use”. No explanation is necessary for those who do it to make money, they aren’t doing it to spite the greedy movie makers, they are in it to make money, plain & simple. But the “personal use users”, why do they do it? Well, the opportunity to see a film sooner is deceptively & enticingly powerful. Movie trailers and promotional teasers are created months before the theatrical release of the movie, making the waiting public more frustrated and more impatient. UK release dates are almost always, months behind the US release. So, why wait sometimes 6 months when you can download it a couple of weeks after the US release? When money is an issue – of travel costs to the cinema, ticket costs and then refreshment costs (especially for a family) the option of watching the film for perhaps a tenth of the price (or the price of the Internet connection – depending on whether you bought the movie or downloaded it), in the comfort of your own home, has convinced some to use these avenues. Is it right that the movie producers should proportion blame on the loss of money within the movie industry to piracy, when they think it’s justified to pay millions of dollars to the actors who star in the films? How many actors / actresses have turned down a role in an obviously badly written sequel just to change their minds days later, based on the fact that the producers have increased their pay offer from $10 million to $20 million? Come on, hands up those who think that $10 million dollars wasn’t a lot of money to begin with?!
The conclusion… the law says that unauthorised duplicating of movies is not only illegal but theft, pure and simple! Is it that simple? You tell us…
John Merryweather
John is a 40 year veteran of the cinema exhibitor world, and currently manages the Regal Cinema in Melton, and he identifies THE PIRATES OF THE CINEMA INDUSTRY
What may prove to be one of the poorest summers certainly at the Box Office for many years may be blamed on two factors - One, disappointing movies - The Hulk promised, but at the Box Office failed to deliver, and the rest to a variable degree followed. And Two, of course, the weather - hottest June/July since records began. One factor however within the industry not be featured quite so prominently is piracy, and the effects of that on the Box Office.
Any weekend the length and breadth of the country Car Boot sales are busy with any number of pirate/copied goods - clothing, CD's, films, electrical goods - the list is endless. The effect on the individual business are unknown, the effects on the UK cinemas is growing. The number of copies of US releases, and the quality of the copies is increasing at an alarming rate - Pirates of the Caribbean - Confidence - Bad Boys 2 - Finding Nemo are all available for a minimum of £5 several weeks/days prior to the UK release. I suspect the 'quality' dictates whether or not a return visit is made to the cinema to see the release properly. I wonder on the release for example of Confidence, not a wide UK release from a smaller yet very professional and committed distributor as to how these copies will effect their release, maybe Momentum Pictures would wish to share their thoughts with the Industry?
Is there an answer? Well yes - better policing of these Sales for a start would help, more prosecutions, and well published prosecutions for all forms of piracy. The Industry could help finance 'policing' on maybe a voluntary donation on a per screen, per site basis. Ditto from Distribution - it is after all an Industry concern. It's no good endless cinema owners/managers shouting to FACT, they do their very best but clearly don't have sufficient manpower/resources to cover every sale. We have to help finance the controlling body.
There still needs to be far greater awareness within the cinemas and to help inform the patrons as to the criminal activity of the pirates. The occasional feature with a trailer hard locked on isn't sufficient - we need to do more. Example... within the press adverts, with the front of house posters, TV advertising, answerphones, web sites of all interested parties to hammer home the message that the releases being advertised is/are only at cinemas and if you are offered any other 'at home' copies then these are copies and as such are illegal. Maybe that's too long, a more punchy caption is needed, but the principle is there.
I am sure that the vast number of people who either buy or download these copies via broadband don't fully realise the full implication of their actions, they don't realise that of course a percentage of the eventual profits are ploughed back into making films. That to us is obvious, to the general public they just don't realise the possibilities of their actions - make no mistake there is a load of cash being made by the sale of these copies - £1000 per weekend isn't beyonds the reals of possibility - 200 copies at a fiver a time, no VAT, no staff costs, £5 for a pitch makes easy money. Not many cinemas have a grand profit for two days work!! A number of boot sale organisers are waking up and now take the car numbers/addresses of certain traders. The trading standards people are gradually becoming more effective but for us is the damage done?
How do we police broadband? Not too sure on that other than shutting down the sites - they must be known to Trading Standards. Maybe the technology for closing down a particular site isn't available yet, but I suspect it is though.
It is also interesting to note that for the great part the copies are purchased by a certain age group, mainly I am told, the 18 - 25 male, so presumably for example Calendar Girls won't have such a big sale. Put on that fact any spin you like, mindful that Calendar Girls could well turn out to be one of the biggest films of the year.
Al Alvarez
Al is the Vice President of Operations at Cine-UK, who operate Cineworld
Film piracy is bad for the entire industry as well as for movie goers. Since most pirated titles are now out before a films' release, the real problem is no longer copies made in cinemas with camcorders.
Innovative types who rush to buy or download bootleg releases are often not the target for those films and the result is detrimental word of mouth. Since many pirated films are the very same ones that require a big sound, big screen experience, the often substandard copies and unfinished products that get pirated do the finished film a disservice. For smaller films, the internet further compounds the problems by allowing bad word of mouth to spread quicker from often clueless teenagers commenting on films for which they have no possible frame of reference. A quick look at web reviews for The Hours, for example, reveals this bias when you compare the mostly rave print reviews for the same film. Teenagers stumbling on pirated DVDs for movies like The Hours could start a slander campaign the film may never recover from.
Distributors and producers who often just break even during the cinema run are now pressured to up the marketing spend and hurry DVD and video releases in order to protect themselves. The result is higher release costs and a shorter window between cinema and video release. Early advertising of releases on DVD and video could also be hurting cinema attendance. Everyone who has profit participation in the film gets affected. The Hulk is a recent victim of all the above.
The result of all this is higher prices at the box office and at the video stores as production costs and salaries keep going up and cinema revenue drops as the industry deals with an unwelcome middle man who has forced himself into the movie food chain.
The flow of money-making films makes it possible for producers to take risks on more complex films. The next time you buy a bootleg DVD or video you will have inadvertently contributed to the demise of alternative cinema as well as rising cost of your next legitimate movie ticket.
Nick McKiernan
Nick is the Projects Manager for Apollo Cinemas
To quote Corporal Jones, Don't Panic. Film Piracy exists for one reason, the same reason film exhibitors and distributors oppose it - public demand. In recent times the argument against has suffered for different reasons. Traditionally the quality of pirated videos was poor, often filmed from a cinema screen with a hollow, echoing soundtrack. The argument put forward by the industry was that the video may be available on the cheap, but that's just what it was, cheap and nasty. Now to the present day, and the quality argument has diminished with the advent of illegal broadband downloads from P2P sites, often delivering DVD quality copies. These are traditionally purchased for around 5 pounds, and can also be purchased pre theatrical release.
The downloading of a film is still illegal even if it is for private use only, and every effort should be made to stem the flow of copies onto car boot sales, or the 'bloke down the pub'. More resources should be made available to Reg Dixon and his team, and as mentioned earlier by John Merryweather more effort in cinema sites. My greater concern is that families will use pirated DVD's to entertain the children at home instead of bringing them to the Cinema for a major summer or half term release. The impact for major releases during the summer and half term could be lessened due of the purchase of cheap copies, the perceived cost of visiting the cinema to a young family far greater than £5 for the DVD and the cost of refreshments etc. I think the effect of cheap copies will affect regular cinema patrons also, but to a lesser extent. The old plus's still ring true, the communal experience, getting out of the house for an evening comparatively cheaply, groups from the workplace attending, being out on your first date wondering if she will turn up !
In summary, more can and should be done to prevent piracy, joint funding provided by the Industry and the Government. Will we ever see the end of piracy ? Probably not, but we must channel our efforts into reducing the level at much as possible.
Alastair Donaldson
Alastair is the Senior Investigator for the Federation Against Copyright Theft Ltd. (FACT)
Those of you familiar with the FACT website will also be familiar with the statistics of our anti-piracy efforts, including the recent announcement that seizures of optical video discs have already topped a million in 2003. The figures are indicative of the success of our strategy of targeted investigations in close liaison with law enforcement agencies and other trade organisations but we are only too aware that they also highlight the sheer size of the problem. Film and video piracy is a huge parasitical growth sustained by the film and video industry at no cost to the pirates but, as is usually the way with parasites, at the expense of the host body. It is a crime whether those involved are producing tens of thousands of professionally manufactured DVDs for the world market or a few dozen hand produced CD-Rs for the local boot sale, the difference is only one of scale. Thanks to the Internet it is a crime that is facilitated world-wide and the raw materials of film piracy are made available everywhere simultaneously. Thanks to the peculiarities of the movie release timetable it is a crime that satisfies a substantial market in the United Kingdom.
The pirates are sustained by their customers, without the “personal use users” there would be no market, no demand, no sales, no income. Currently the market is perceived as being such a profitable place that the trade in counterfeit/pirate goods of all types is recognised by law enforcement agencies around the world as being a major source of income for those involved in organised crime. Their analysis is clear, intellectual property crime is seen to be a relatively low-risk, high-income generator; it may be financed by the proceeds of other crimes or be used to finance other types of criminal activity (or, conceivably, both these things). It is not the preserve of ‘nerdy’ teenagers utilising their spare time and the spare bedroom to finance their way through college nor is it some hand-to-mouth, subsistence-level, cottage industry. These types do function at the lower margins of the trade but let us not be under any illusions, the real damage to the legitimate industry is being caused by full-time, professional criminals.
The “personal use users” know what they are paying for, they know that the first pirated versions of new film releases will have been camcorded in a cinema somewhere, how else would you explain the silhouetted heads bobbing along the bottom of the frame as latecomers take their seats, what else could account for the muffled crowd noises, laughing and cheering sometimes, on the mono soundtrack? They know that the next generation of pirates will be ‘screeners’, followed by ‘DVD-rips’ and they know that they are all fakes.
I agree with Al Alvarez that piracy is bad for the entire industry including, it should be said, the video rental branch of the industry. Video rental operators suffer from video piracy in several ways; the most obvious is loss of video rental – nobody wants to rent a film they already own on pirate DVD – but they also have to deal with the investment dilemma – how many rental copies of an already pirated ‘blockbuster’ video to buy; too few and their customers will probably go elsewhere because the popular titles are never available, too many and they will never earn their keep. Other contributors to this debate have outlined the problems facing the distribution and exhibition branch of the industry. Clearly one of the possible consequences of falling ticket sales would be the closure of unprofitable cinemas which would probably mean those in small towns where the nearest alternative cinema or multi-screen may be too far away to be readily accessible.
So what can we do about it? FACT, of course, will continue to do what we have been doing for twenty years to identify and deal with the manufacturers and sellers of pirate video recordings. In the last twelve months we have participated in an anti-piracy initiative with colleagues and the authorities in Malaysia which resulted in very large numbers of pirate DVDs being seized before they could be exported to the United Kingdom. We also have an ongoing programme in liaison with H.M. Customs and Excise that has resulted in hundreds of thousands of pirate DVDs being intercepted on their way into the United Kingdom from the Far East. Working in conjunction with other trade bodies and through trade organisations, the case for protecting our industry’s product has been brought to the attention of Parliament and legislation has been amended to improve Police powers and ‘beef up’ the penalties for offences contrary to the Trade Marks and Copyright, Design and Patents legislation. In addition, a Senior Investigator has been designated to liaise with the distribution and exhibition companies to help to improve the security of film prints and to assist cinema staff and Police to deal with those people found making illicit video recordings in cinemas. Resources will always be an issue – any organisation charged with investigating criminal behaviour, be it a public body like the Police or Trading Standards or private organisations like FACT and ELSPA, could always do more if they had greater resources. But, like the law enforcement agencies, we accept that we are never going to be sufficiently resourced to be able to eliminate the problem entirely, we can only make it less profitable for those who will not stop and less attractive for those who may be tempted to start.
Our greatest resource is information and for that we rely on you – workers in the industry, cinemagoers, video renters, car boot sale devotees, whoever you are – to tell us what you know about other people abusing the product that, good, bad or indifferent, sustains the movie industry. We can be contacted by telephone (0208-568-6646) or email (contact@fact-uk.org.uk) and will deal with your information in confidence.
HAVE YOUR SAY!!
Cinemas-Online Forums: Piracy
|
|