Hollywood Claims US Has Eliminated Movie Piracy?

[Ldsmith104 Profile]

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20070131/144409.shtml
from the say-what? dept
By now, it should be clear that some folks in the entertainment industry will say just about anything to try to make whatever point they're trying to make today, without bothering to see if it actually makes any sense. Two weeks ago, we wrote about how the movie industry was kicking off a big and pointless campaign in Canada to have the practice of videotaping a movie in the theater with a camcorder made into a criminal, rather than civil offense <http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20070115/153254.shtml>. As we noted at the time, the whole thing was part of a PR campaign for a new law -- and it was silly since camcorder-based counterfeiting barely is a blip compared to actual copies of movies leaked from within the studios and put online. Yet, that won't stop the industry from saying whatever the hell they want. Mikester writes in to point out yet another article in the PR campaign which goes on and on about all the camcorder piracy coming out of Canada <http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20070130/pirated_films_070130/20070131?hub=Entertainment>. It's almost identical to the article from two weeks ago and to articles from last week as well. Like all of the earlier articles, it talks about piracy without noting that camcorder copies really aren't the big issue these days. Instead, it just accepts the claims from the Hollywood representatives. But the most outrageous claim comes towards the end of the article, where the CEO of Cineplex Entertainment explains why they need this new law, claiming that there are similar laws in most US states and: "It pretty well eliminated piracy in the US." Really? Huh. So, next time we hear about the MPAA complaining about "piracy" in the US, we're going to point to this statement to remind them that they seem to believe it's already been solved.

[SavageParrot Profile]

LoL well in terms of making money having a proper dvd quality copy is always gonna make more than a crappy camcorder knock off. If it was just camcorder copies out there anyway the problem would fix itself. Most people who buy a crap camcorder copy would not pay money for more of the same shit. It's pretty obvious that crap copies are only really viable as a one off sale. Like you say they need to be worrying about who gets hold of those promotional copies they circulate to studios and newspapers and who it is that is making the nice neat copies of their own high quality pirates dream which they released into the wild.

They like to blame it on faceless people in cinemas with camcorders becasue it's a visible scare tactic. People getting arrested in the seat next to you is a pretty clear message. Pirate copies being rampant becasue of their own whorish need for approval from the media, and desperate need for as many critics as possible to see the film is, somehow, just less imposing

[King Profile]

I know a bunch of Canadiens that pretty much only pirate movies. I know a bunch of Americans that pretty much only pirate movies too. So, whatever.

[gowhitesox99 Profile]

hook us up King!!