Movie Studios Unveil New Anti-Piracy Lab

PaulusMagnus writes "According to the BBC Walt Disney, Sony, Paramount, Warner Bros, Universal and 20th Century Fox have formed a new organisation called the Motion Picture Laboratories. They've also given them a nice tidy sum of US$30m to play with to develop new technologies to combat piracy." From the article: "There are thousands of new concepts floating around the hi-tech community about how to develop tools to fight piracy ... Researching and developing these technologies now will help save the major studios and other motion picture producers and distributors money in the future."

The first discovery....

[Dark Paladin]

Make another "Mary Kate and Ashley Olson" movie, and *nobody* tries to pirate it.

Success!

Re:The first discovery....

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know... I think "One Night in Mary Kate and Ashley" would probably be the #1 pirated movie ever.

Re:The first discovery....

[Dark Paladin]

You are the wind beneath my wings.

Re:The first discovery....

[tktk]

Another Tom Green movie would work though.

But One Night in Tom Green would be going way too far.

Re:The first discovery....

[tktk]

Visual?

You think that's bad? I though of it!

I'd stab my own brain if it wouldn't kill me.

Re:The first discovery....

[hypervinetest45]

I slept with Mary Kate and Ashley before they were famous.

Here's a good tool to fight piracy

[Marxist Hacker 42]

Price your movie tickets within the reach of NORMAL FAMILIES!

Re:Here's a good tool to fight piracy

[wheelbarrow]

Marxist Hacker, there is an alternative that is available to you. You should produce a movie that people want to see and then price the movie tickets within the reach of normal families. You can make the free and voluntary choice to do that. What's stopping you?

Re:Here's a good tool to fight piracy

[Mr. Underbridge]

Um, how did the tax cuts reduce your standard of living? They may be contributing to the deficit/debt, but I'm having a hard time seeing how the tax cuts have you in the poor house.

Re:Here's a good tool to fight piracy

[Marxist Hacker 42]

Um, how did the tax cuts reduce your standard of living? They may be contributing to the deficit/debt, but I'm having a hard time seeing how the tax cuts have you in the poor house.

Simply put- the majority of the tax cuts were to people who live on dividends. Because people are encouraged to live on dividends, this puts downward pressure on payroll (after all, businesses only have so much profit to go around- and if the stockholders are forcing the majority out in dividends, it has to come from somewhere

Re:Here's a good tool to fight piracy

[Mr. Underbridge]

1) The middle class got a tax cut, as did the lower classes. I'm in it, I do my own taxes, they were less after the cuts. We may not have gotten the cut we "deserved" but it was greater than 0. 2) Inflation has been quite low for some time now, outside of housing in certain markets. 3) I'm not really buying that chain of events. Downsizing and outsourcing are happening for a number of reasons, but tracing them back to tax cuts (for individuals) through a convoluted link structure isn't all that believa

Re:Here's a good tool to fight piracy

[Mr. Underbridge]

I happen to be in one of those markets.

I am too, so at least believe me when I say I know what you're talking about.

Fine with me. All I know is that in the 1990s, businesses were willing to spend money on R&D- and now they aren't. At all.

Huh? No R&D for what industry? As someone who got one of those nonexistent R&D jobs this year, I'm going to have to question that. R&D hiring has bounced back rather well in most science fields since 2000.

Portland wasn't a high cost of living market

Re:Here's a good tool to fight piracy

[lgw]

The top 1% of income earners pay 33% of all income taxes, the bottom 33% of income earners pay 1% of all income taxes. Sounds progressive to me.

Did you notice that when Reagan cut the top tax bracket back from 70% that federal revenues actually went up? The purpose of the tax system is to fund the federal government, not to punish success. Though given that you're a self-described Marxist, you probably think the reverse should be true. Marx was a fool and his ideas have killed tens of millions.

I'm not w

Re:Here's a good tool to fight piracy

[thefirelane]

MOD DOWN

This is entirely incorrect. The taxes in dividends were reduced, but that did not have the effect described above.

Previously, the tax on long term capital gains was less. This means, instead of dividends, companies paid out profits to share holders by either buying back stock, or holding onto the cash (thereby increasing stock value). The problem with this, is that it placed pressure on companies to increase stock price, instead of simply paying higher dividends. The problem is that a higher stock price can be created through manipulation, whereas higher dividends can not be faked. This led to Enron and others, which is why the law needed to be changed.

The point of the story is that before, a hypothetical company would go from $100 to $125 whereas no it is more likely to go from $100 to $100 with a $25 dividend payout. The main point is that all the tax break did was change the channel through which the same money traveled. It did not have the effect described in the parent post.

Re:Here's a good tool to fight piracy

[Maxo-Texas]

Walk, Ride a bike in 95 degree heat. Check (Peak temp was 106 degrees)
---
Walk/Run 1.6 miles to make the bus after work. Check
---
Wait for the buses to start again at 5am so I could go home and get some sleep before turning right around and going back to work. Check (sometimes just -walked- the 8.9 miles home in 3 hours- got home about 4am)
---
Ride a bicycle 8.9 miles -each way- (~45 minutes) to get from my affordable housing to my $8/hour job. Check. (started regularly getting off after the last bus-

Re:Here's a good tool to fight piracy

[Txiasaeia]

Primer cost $10,000 USD, and it was the best film I've seen all year. The point is that you don't need a million-dollar budget to produce a quality film, and with a lower budget comes lower ticket and DVD prices. Even so, I paid over $30 CAD for the DVD of Primer when I could find it (for comparison, most DVDs cost $20-25 CAD when they're released, and usually drop by $5 after six months). The moral of the story is that people are willing to pay for quality; I know I'll be buying The Constant Gardener fo

Re:Here's a good tool to fight piracy

[Marxist Hacker 42]

Primer cost $10,000 USD, and it was the best film I've seen all year. The point is that you don't need a million-dollar budget to produce a quality film, and with a lower budget comes lower ticket and DVD prices. Even so, I paid over $30 CAD for the DVD of Primer when I could find it (for comparison, most DVDs cost $20-25 CAD when they're released, and usually drop by $5 after six months). The moral of the story is that people are willing to pay for quality; I know I'll be buying The Constant Gardener for f

Re:Here's a good tool to fight piracy

[Marxist Hacker 42]

Chill, man, your ideology is showing.

I can't help the fact that before October 2001, I had made all the right choices: I was slowly getting raises, I had my degree in software engineering, I was studying .NET and Java Enterprise, and the worst decision I had to make was whether to cook at home or go to a restaurant. I also had a savings account. Then 26 months of unemployment followed by a 75% reduction in pay changed all that- and yes, I most certainly do blame the idiots-in-power.

Re:Here's a good tool to fight piracy

[Marxist Hacker 42]

How, exactly, did the tax cuts push you to paycheck to paycheck? Because your statement implies that prior to the tax cuts, you weren't. Just interested is all. I might guess that you were making a shitload more money in the dotcom boom, but so were a lot of people who aren't now but that's not really an excuse and it certainly isn't Bush's fault. He came in on the bust and the start of a recession.

Which he could have done something about. He could have gotten us out of the WTO, and stopped the rush to I

Re:Here's a good tool to fight piracy

[mcrbids]

Price your movie tickets within the reach of NORMAL FAMILIES!

Which is just so much hogwash. When you adjust for inflation, movie tickets are actually kind of cheap [go.com] especially when compared to 1971-ish prices, where they were 50& MORE expensive than today!

A notable quote from the linked article:

Defenders of movie ticket price increases point out that while prices have increased in recent years -- to an average of $5.66 in 2001, according to the Motion Picture Association of America and the National Ass

Re:Here's a good tool to fight piracy

[drsquare]

In other words, if you don't like the price of something, take it illegally instead. It's not your fault for breaking the law, it's someone else's fault for pricing it wrong. After all, Slashdot posters have a god-given right to DEMAND how anyone else does business.

I believe in the free market. If you don't like the price of something, don't buy it. I think that Premiership football clubs charge too much for tickets. But I don't climb over the gate and sneak into the stadium, I just don't go. Simple, no?

Re:Here's a good tool to fight piracy

[great om]

here in Nyc it's 9.50-11.00 usually based on where you are in the city. If you are lucky, some theatres have discount days where if you go at an unpopular time (like late sunday night or during the workday) it'll be like 6-7 bucks

Re:Here's a good tool to fight piracy

[h4rm0ny]

UK South, £5-6. (US$9-11)

Happy enough with that price, but never buy food / drinks there, mostly due to disgusting quality of the food and drinks. Also would be more inclined to go if the Odeon gave up trying to make us sit in allocated seats.

Re:Here's a good tool to fight piracy

[Marxist Hacker 42]

$8 discount, $15 regular showing. But that's not what I'm talking about. I'm not talking about a comparison between different cultures. I'm talking about basic pricing philosophy. Back when I was growing up, we had a third-run theater that continually waited until the end of the blockbuster weekends before they'd get copies of movies. They'd charge $2.50/ticket- and kept doing that well into the 1990s. $10 for a family of 4 to see some third-run film; and you can bet we didn't have people with camcorders sneaking in. (Last I heard, they went up to $3.50 but started throwing in the popcorn for free). Not to mention the old drive-ins that would charge by the carload instead of individually.

The point is that the MPAA wants to make all of their investment and profits up front- where if they'd go for volume pricing instead, and roll prices back a few years, they'd have NO problem with piracy at all.

Re:Here's a good tool to fight piracy

[shmlco]

Back when I was growing up, a cup of coffee or a loaf of bread cost a quarter, a shake 50 centers, you could get an entire meal for a buck, and $30,000 was the price of a house, not a car.

I say we take on the nasty, profiteering coffee, bread, ice cream, restaraunt, housing, and auto companies...

Then again, since none of those other things cost the same now as they did then, and since what was once a million dollar movie now routinely costs $50-100 million, why is it again that you're expecting to pay decades-old admission prices?

Re:Here's a good tool to fight piracy

[Leiterfluid]

why is it again that you're expecting to pay decades-old admission prices?

Because they're recycling the same decades-old plots and story lines.

Re:Here's a good tool to fight piracy

[shmlco]

Well, put that way, since you've already seen them, you don't need to see them again, now do you?

If it's about movie price

[Sycraft-fu]

Then why do all movies cost the same? The Matrix, and sequels were some of the $100m+ movies you speak of. Cost $8.50 at the theatre near me. Sin City was $40m, mostly paid up front by Rodriguez, also cost me $8.50 at the same theatre. Gigli was $22m, and though I didn't see it, the price was the same, $8.50. Or taking some older films, Pi had a production cost of about $60,000 (1998 dollars). It was about $8.00 IIRC, though not at the same theatre (hadn't been built yet).

You know, I don't see a scaling of price and movie tickets. It seems to me I pay just as much to see a small budget film as I do a big budget film. This is additonally odd seeing as most big budget films make back their investment. Not universally true, of course, but generally they do. Many of them even make a lot of money.

So, if ticket prices truly were based on costs, shouldn't low-budget indy films be less? Wouldn't it even perhaps be a good business decision? I mean blockbuster effects type films are widely popular and with some marketing, it's easy to convince most people to go. However low budget indys are harder, people are used to high production values and thus often snub them. Wouldn't a lower ticket price help allure them?

Or, could it be, that it's just more of the movie industry being greedy? Remember these are the same people that are mandidating that for any HD movie spec HDCP will be REQUIRED. So be it HD-DVD or Blu-Ray, you'll have to have DVI/HDMI out to an HDCP compatible display. If you go analogue, no HD for you, if it even plays at all.

My bet? Ticket prices are atrifically inflated. The studios do NO competition on price. They've fixed one price, for all movies regardless of source and cost. The only variance is per theatre or area.

The day I start seeing cheap movies for less, and start seeing one production company trying to underprice another, maybe I believe they prices are justified. For now, I think they are in every way as reality based as CD prices: Which is to say not at all.

Re:If it's about movie price

[Dirtside]

Or, could it be, that it's just more of the movie industry being greedy?

All industries are greedy, all the time, or they cease to exist. Stop pretending that the movie industry is some kind of special evil. But that's tangential; on to the main point.

The studios (mostly) do not own movie theaters. Most theaters decide their own ticket prices. Per-movie pricing has several quite real economic problems:

0) Theater owners don't end up getting most of the ticket receipts. In the first weeks of a maj

Re:Here's a good tool to fight piracy

[Marxist Hacker 42]

Actually, there's the good point in other threads that the same movie that cost $1 million back then could be made for $10,000 today- by using technology (which makes me wonder how much Tim Burton's latest claymation cost- done with a relatively cheap digital camera). So you'd actually expect to see DEFLATION on this.

Re:Here's a good tool to fight piracy

[Ironsides]

Back when I was growing up, we had a third-run theater that continually waited until the end of the blockbuster weekends before they'd get copies of movies.

They still exist, though they may count as second run now. We have one near us called "University Mall Theatres". They are right across the street from a ... university. Fairly cheep tickets and small theatres. They are currently showing, Rocky Horror Picture Show, Madagascar, War of the Worlds, Mr. and Mrs. Smith and Star Wars: Episode III. If t

Re:Here's a good tool to fight piracy

[Marxist Hacker 42]

Don't have very many universities near by, and what is near by is being bought up by Regal and Century and being turned into first-run megaplexes. But yes- I agree, they do still exist, and the very fact they exist proves that theaters don't really have to charge so much that they encourage piracy- more people would see the film and thus they'd make it up on volume.

Re:Here's a good tool to fight piracy

[Maxo-Texas]

If actors, directors, editors, etc. made $120k to $240k and similar very nice but -reasonable- salaries were paid throughout the organization, Movies would not be this expensive and we would not have as many commercials on television.

---

I believe the current income levels reflect a monopoly that existed because there were limited outlets and limited entertainment. As we reach a point where there is more quality entertainment than we can watch- then consumers will start to choose the quality entertainme

Re:Don't be rediculous

[chrismcdirty]

The movie industry is not a charity

Maybe one day UNICEF will get into the movie industry. But until then, Walt Disney, Sony, Paramount, Warner Bros, Universal and 20th Century Fox are the guys to see.

Re:Don't be rediculous

[ergo98]

Don't be rediculous

Sigh. Pedantry is lame, but rediculous has been a particularly virulent misspelling. ridiculous. If I can stop just one person from perpetuating this, then this post will be worth it.

Unlike this "$30 million dollars to piss in the public's faces" lab

To use some of their own lame terminology, I want the magic of the movies to continue. I want them to spend $300 million on the next hyper-realistic super-imaginary world, and I'm willing to be one of those few stupid people to see it in a th

Re:Don't be rediculous

[crabpeople]

"To use some of their own lame terminology, I want the magic of the movies to continue. I want them to spend $300 million on the next hyper-realistic super-imaginary world"

well sure thats your opinion i guess. Personally, I have never seen a well done movie that cost millions of dollars. maybe they exsist, but i am in mind that there is no correlation (except maybe an inverse one) between money and greatness. thats not what its about though. what you say, "i want the magic of movies to continue", is bizzare

Oh, isn't that just so cute

[Conspiracy_Of_Doves]

They actually think they can stop piracy

build a....

[millahtime]

build a better mouse trap, get a smarter mouse.

Re:Oh, isn't that just so cute

[raitchison]

They actually think they can stop piracy

I'm sure they are under no delusions that they can even make a dent in Piracy. Any technology that would represent even a speed bump for pirates would make the "product" unusable for the average consumer.

All that the implemented "anti-piracy" technologies do, indeed all they are intended to do is make it harder for people to exercise their fair use rights.

Millions for defense...

[Quinn_Inuit]

...and not one penny for good movies!

Better way to spend $30M

[slaker]

Why don't they take that $30M and make a movie people might want to pay money to go see?

Re:Better way to spend $30M

[xero9]

My thoughts exactly! Most of the movies out there I won't even bother to download simply because they aren't even worth the time getting. So if it's not worthwhile for me to get for free, then why would I pay for it.

Re:Better way to spend $30M

[Ironsides]

Why don't they take that $30M and make a movie people might want to pay money to go see?

Because that would mean that they would have to admit that the main reason for the drop in movie attendance is their shitty movies instead of piracy?
That they would actualy have to admit to their shareholders that they have run out of ideas and can't make a decent product (aka movie) anymore without rehashing old movies/remakes/sequels?

Other stuff in here as well, just can't phrase it properly. But maybe this will

Make decent product

[yroJJory]

I thought the best "technology" was to make a decent product. Then people would likely feel more inclined to actually pay for it, rather than waste their $$$ on a turd.

Ultimate Solution

[Arandir]

Just outlaw motion pictures! When there are no motion pictures to pirate, no one will be able to pirate motion pictures.

Cheap porn

[turgid]

If they mass-produced lots and lots of porm at, say, $1 per DVD the market would be enormous and it wouldn't be worth anyone's trouble trying to copy it illegally.

Re:Cheap porn

[arkanes]

It's kinda funny. Porn is some of the most-pirated content around, both the full blown commercial infringment (like sites stealing content from one another) and casual consumer piracy. It's also far, far, far more profitable than the regular movie industry, theres a thriving cottage industry of amateurs and an equally thriving industry providing tools (hosting, web applications, cam/phone brokering) to those amateurs. It's actually a very healthy, vibrant economy. The traditional movie houses could do worse than to watch what pornographers do more.

Re:Cheap porn

[deaddrunk]

Providing tools? I thought that was the job of the male actors.

Re:Cheap porn

[meringuoid]

The traditional movie houses could do worse than to watch what pornographers do more.

I'm sorry. It's puerile, I'll grant you, and the sort of humour that most of us should give up on at about the age of fourteen, but... that sentence cracked me up like nothing else.

Re:Cheap porn

[Usaflt2003]

You have actually hit on one of the open secrets of technology, porn is A. an early adopter and B. a driving force behind large amounts of technology and marketing strategems. I often baffle my friends when I tell them that, besides the obvious reasons, when I go to a gentlemans club or adult boutique (yes yes I am a dirty old man, I admit it) its to see what new tech there is or get ideas for various marketing plans I am involved in. For the doubters I invite them along on my next trip and point out certain things then tell them to watch for it over the next 6 to 12 months. They are amazed when those ideas filter to the mainstream.

If Hollywood would adopt some of the business model of the porn industry they would see a marked improvement in profits. And its not like the quality of acting or writing is all that high above porn anyway...

Re:Cheap porn

[Maxo-Texas]

For most of the 30's and 40's Hollywood ground out tons of films. The actors made good enough livings to live well and party frequently but nothing like today. Same thing for directors, actors, etc. etc. An actor might be in 7 movies a year.

Movies were cheap- a buck or two by today's standards. As a result (and because there was no TV)- people saw them regularly.

Today the people who make movies are all compensated at ridiculous levels- we make 160 million dollar movies which would be $30 million do

Let's place our bets now...

[Gothic_Walrus]

Once the new protection is released, how many days will it be before it's cracked? :)

Copy protection can and will be broken, unless the studios do things like weld the discs to the inside of the DVD players.

Re:Let's place our bets now...

[turgid]

Once the new protection is released, how many days will it be before it's cracked? :)

How long before the authorities start getting serious and sending in the jack boots to sort out the pirates?

They'll just keep tightening the screws.

No more fair use

[Nonillion]

This just means you can kiss all your "fair use" rights goodbye. No mater what they try, it will certainly hobble my fair use rights to make copies of my disks so the kids cannot ruin the originals....

Re:No more fair use

[moexu]

They're doing a pretty good job of interfering with fair use now. Part of the reason that I buy stuff on DVDs is that I want to watch the content and not all the crap surrounding the content (commercials, previews, etc). I've gotten DVDs with introductions or previews that can't be skipped and even one movie that disables fast forward. WTF is that about? Why don't I get to decide which parts of the disc I want to see and which I don't? I bought the thing after all.

Re:No more fair use

[phalse phace]

It's because you don't own the product. You are merely paying for the license and the priviledge of watching it. And that license is under their terms only. Well, that's what the **AA will tell you anyways.

They already have the solution

[stox]

Judging from this summer's releases, the studio's have obviously found the perfect solution, only release material nobody would want to copy. So far, it appears to be working. No wonder cinema and DVD sales have fallen off so much.

How about...

[suyashs]

not making the content to begin with?

Sure-fire Anti-Piracy Method

[nycroft]

Lower the cost of the theatre tickets and lower the cost of DVDs!

All the while...

[DerekJ212]

All the while, DVD Jon sits in his laboratory funded only with chips and soda. Score: DVD Jon: 2 MPAA: 0

Re:All the while...

[Wilson_6500]

There's one thing that the individuals/groups who break copy protection are funded with in abundance, something that the entire music industry can never have, and that they can never beat...

Love.

(No, I'm not a Hollywood writer, I'm serious. Love for what they do, not for the Female Lead. Time and time again, we see how love outmatches the almighty dollar. Screw movies! Real life can teach us everything we need to know, like how fire hurts.)

Some In-House Cleaning

[thebdj]

Seriously, how many pirated copies of TOP movies actually make their way into the world via cameras? I mean, most the cam caps I have seen are horrible, poor audio and poor video, nothing I want to watch, especially on an HDTV. The GOOD copies come from screener versions of the movies. Heck some even have the, if you are watching this call...

Also with new digital equipment at theaters I am starting to wonder if some people working these booths haven't found some new way to offload the movies and possibly make copies that way. It just seems that there are too many HIGH quality rips coming out to possibly be the result of geeks with cameras.

Finally, while ticket prices are arguably high, I do not believe the real problem is ticket prices so much as nothing people are wanting to see. Actually I am more annoyed with the theater to dvd turn around time. I would honestly prefer this get as short as 3 months even on GOOD movies. Once again the digital formats available make this transition a lot more feasible, and most the extras are filmed during production or shortly post-prod anyway. So the three months release time should be enough to clean them up and release great DVDs....

If only the intelligent and tech-saavy people were running these industries nowadays and not the old fossils who developed the industry into what it is...

Re:Some In-House Cleaning

[Ronald Dumsfeld]

If only the intelligent and tech-saavy people were running these industries nowadays and not the old fossils who developed the industry into what it is...

Were the industry being run by intelligent and tech-savvy people, they likely wouldn't have the capital until they gave the proverbial pound of flesh to those you refer to as "old fossils".

Whenever anything innovative and with growth potential comes along then monied interests move in and you get last decade's basic assumptions applied to new techno

Re:Some In-House Cleaning

[plover]

There are many forms of piracy. But the MPAA believes it is in their best interest to plug them all.

The camcorder-pirated movies are going for $4 each on a blanket on a New York sidewalk. They're not worried about HDTV owners for this particular form of piracy -- as you mentioned, you wouldn't lower yourself to watch these things filmed in craptovision. They're mostly being sold to exceedingly poor people who would never pay ticket prices to see a movie in a theater anyway.

However, these same camcord

Re:Some In-House Cleaning

[Ironsides]

The biggest threats from breaking content protection do not come from without, they come from within. Most of the high quality rips you talk about come from people who work inside the DVD production plants and save an extra copy of the files to take home with them. Or the person who works in the editing room and gives themselves a copy. Or a whole host of people involved in the chain of production who can be bribed.

Then there are some other things involved. I knew a guy who was working at a TV station

Think of the job security!

[glengineer]

$30 million stating out, and nowhere to go but UP! I want that job. It'll be like the anti-virus and operating systems security industry all over again. Pay us to protect you, make you feel good, and we'll do a crummy enough job so that you keep wanting to pay.

This will come in handy

[boristdog]

This will come in handy for them when they actually manage to make a movie people want to see!

Re:This will come in handy

[Anonymous Monkey]

Perhaps making a movie people want to see is how to stop piracy. If the movie looks lame I'll just not see it, or if I do I'll borrow the DVD from a friend, technically piracy. If it's a movie I do like I will buy a copy, even if I've seen it, so that the nice bean counters know that this movie that is cool will make money...Then again, I'm just one Slashdot troll, odds are my buying habits are not normal.

Good money after bad...

[mr.dreadful]

two words: RCA out. Fancy encryption can always be trumped by an a/v signal out into a recording device. It's not the fastest, but it works everytime.

Unexpected display of common sense

[Anonymous Coward]

According to the article they are looking into "ways to jam camcorders being used to record movies in cinemas illegally, and developing methods of detecting illegal content sharing on peer-to-peer networks". I don't have a problem with that. At least they're not proposing another copy protection scheme that will only ever inconvenience their paying customers while the pirates probably won't even notice.

Yet.

They've been trying to stop Software Copying Since

[TastyWheat]

The C-64. I remember ripping the C-64 game protection just for fun. They spent tons. What will change now? Only the names.

Stop Pirating

[CastrTroy]

I've got a way for them to stop piracy. It's called not overpricing your product. I used to pirate a lot of movies, then I discovered Zip.Ca, where I could rent 15 movies a month for $25. I could rent more, but I can't watch them that fast. If they would drop the price on CDs, I wouldn't pirate those either. I think the biggest reason for pirating is the cost of getting stuff the legal way. $10+ to see a movie in theatres, $80 for a concert, $20 for a dvd or cd. If they don't lower their prices, people will continue to pirate, no matter how much they try and stop it.

Re:Stop Pirating

[Red Flayer]

"If they don't lower their prices, people will continue to pirate, no matter how much they try and stop it. "

Even if they lower their prices, people will still buy black market copies. Why do you think most second-run theaters are out of business? Pirated copies will always be cheaper.

You want to know what their biggest profit problem is? I'll give you a hint, it's not revenues.

Obviously, Tom Cruise ain't worth 25 million if his movies don't sell well. Obviously, crazy-good special effects aren't

Best of luck...

[HerculesMO]

The brightest minds in the world being paid to create copywrite protection is NO MATCH for the brilliant mind in some Norweigan country who is MOTIVATED to crack that protection.

It's always a losing game. Maybe think about offering better choices and making it more CONVIENIENT to get music? Oh what do I know... I'm just a consumer!

Re:Best of luck...

[HerculesMO]

I meant to say Scandanavian... Oh well.. I skipped work yesterday, so it's like Monday for me :)

This is rich!

[Criterion]

They can spend all they want. As long as the movie is viewable in some form, it can be captured. Even if they were to come out with the ultimate gee-whiz uncrackable encryption, all it takes is somebody to rig up their hdtv setup with a high def camcorder, and it's all over. It's not even a fair fight, because it's one that absolutely impossible for them to win... kinda like trying to keep people from snagging a picture off the 'net. No matter what you do to try and protect it, there are ways around it.

When Will They Get It?

[quibbs0]

What was that famous quote? "Those who don't learn history are doomed to repeat it." I think that's it.

Have we not seen since the days of VCR's and tapes and CD's that things are NOT changing? No matter what, there is always going to be someone trying to circumvent the technology, and someone is going to succeed. I'm compare this with terrorism:

To think that we can stop terrorism is complete hogwash. We may kill a ton of bad apples, but there's always gonna be atleast one more guy that thinks he's

I remember when...

[goldspider]

I remember when it didn't used to be a crime to watch a movie.

Re:I remember when...

[H_Fisher]

When they came for the people who were camming movies in the theaters, I said nothing, because I didn't watch crappy reencoded cams.

When they came for the people leaking the screeners, I said nothing because I never watched them: I hated that stupid time-counter at the top of the screen.

When they came for the P2P filesharers, I said nothing because I never downloaded movies: I hated the hassle and could never find what I wanted.

Now they're coming for my fair-use rights, and I can't watch anything a

HOWTO: Fight Movie Piracy

[FlukeMeister]

A simple guide for movie executives.

1. Release films worldwide at the same time.
2. Stop policing movie theatres with security guards and confiscating mobile phones as potential "recording equipment" and creating customer antipathy.
3. Release films to DVD within a month of their theatre release.
4. Stop putting region coding and anti-copying measures on DVDs.

And finally, the most important:

5. Stop your own employees from stealing and duplicating your films and selling them to criminal organisations for mass duplication.

Re:HOWTO: Fight Movie Piracy

[cliffski]

you forgot the best one:

remove unskippable bits fom DVDs, and dont put adverts in front of the feature on a DVD I flipping PAID FOR.

Re:HOWTO: Fight Movie Piracy

[Ironsides]

A simple guide for movie executives.
1. Release films worldwide at the same time.
2. Stop policing movie theatres with security guards and confiscating mobile phones as potential "recording equipment" and creating customer antipathy.
3. Release films to DVD within a month of their theatre release.
4. Stop putting region coding and anti-copying measures on DVDs.
And finally, the most important:
5. Stop your own employees from stealing and duplicating your films and selling them to criminal organisations for

Do you want people talking on cellphones?

[tepples]

2. Stop policing movie theatres with security guards and confiscating mobile phones as potential "recording equipment" and creating customer antipathy.

There's a legitimate reason to require customers on the theater's private property to deposit all phones in lockers: If it's in a locker, it can't ring or "chainsaw ring" in the screening rooms.

Mark the film

[sxmjmae]

Why not insert a visibly hidden serial number to the film. This serial number could be applied to all releases of the film (pre-theaters reviews one, etc). A unique serial number for each real.

If a pirated moved if found just go to the point in the film where the hidden serial number is located. Then track back you had access to that film. If a theater then threaten not to allow them access to your films any more and sue them for damages for allowing the piracy. If it is a pre-release reviewer edition the same actions can be taken against them.

How hard would it be to just add a serial number to 10 frames here and 10 frames there? Hidden in the back ground somewhere. In stead of just a number it could a colour or the insertion of a special object (IE: Green coffe cup of a specific style.)

I do not think the studios want to really know where the piracy is really come from - their own staff!

Re:Mark the film

[Spudnuts]

They are already doing this with the CAP [wikipedia.org] code system.

i've seen this already

[circletimessquare]

i saw LotR:Return of the King in the Philippines and saw exactly what you just described: a serial number in the upper right hand corner throughout the entire movie

Market Forces: Piracy Killer

[ThosLives]

The only thing to stop piracy is market forces. And, the odd thing is, market forces won't even stop piracy. Here's what has to happen for folks to be happy (and this just won't happen, folks!), even though I've said it several times now.

Ignore pirates completely. If the amount of revenue you get from your product from paying customers isn't enough to produce more product, you stop producing the product and people don't have it. People aren't entitled to always have someone producing a product, and you're

Blowing smoke

[rkhalloran]

The studios are quietly admitting to themselves that a big part of this season's lousy box office has been the glut of LOUSY MOVIES (NYT link [nytimes.com]).

However, throwing $30M at an anti-piracy effort lets them point fingers as do all the RIAA lawsuits against 14-year-olds, vs. actually admitting their business model is desperately fscked.

animal testing?

[wardk]

Just as long as they don't test their shit on poor defenseless animals, they can open as many labs as they want. I say.

A philosophical argument

[MoogMan]

Interesting... Philosophically, how can you stop somebody reading something that is designed to be read?

Just give it to DVDjon...

[inkdesign]

...and beg him to stop!

Don't say you have not been warned...

[Stormwatch]

"If Coca-Cola accidentally created 100 million cans of faulty Coke, you know for sure the entire 100 million cans would be dropped in the Atlantic or Pacific Ocean, without a second thought and irrespective of what that did to the year's profits. What do we do with a crappy movie? We double its advertising budget and hope for a big opening weekend. What have we done for the audience as they walk out of the cinema? We've alienated them. We've sold audiences a piece of junk; we just took twelve dollars away from a couple and we think we've done ourselves no long-term damage."--- David Puttnam, movie producer (from GQ magazine, April 1987)

Re:Don't say you have not been warned...

[Jherek Carnelian]

David Puttnam (Born February 25, 1941) - a well known hollywood producer known for his outspoken nature was found in his home in Ventura dead of a drug overdose at 6:30am on May 2nd --Obituary Section, Los Angeles Times May 3rd, 1987.

Death of a sales*IAA

[N3wsByt3]

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: the *IAAs are fighting a lost cause. And I think they know it.

First off all, I have difficulties with their acclaimed 'stealing' of music, as they always proclaim it is. As far as I know, stealing implies that the one that has been stolen has been derived of something. When you take a copy, you do not take the original away, thus they have not 'lost' anything. They might claim that they loose money when ppl d/l music, but even that is far from certain. Not only is

A giant step in combatting 20% of the problem

[serutan]

These movie piracy articles always have the same themes -- stop p2p, stop camcorders in theaters. The fact that 80% of pirated movies are leaked by industry insiders (New Scientist) [newscientist.com] is NEVER mentioned. They've got the public convinced that movie piracy consists of techno-geeks sneaking hidden cameras into theaters and posting the files on p2p networks. Never mind that those camcorder versions are crap. The high quality copies everybody wants are made directly from the originals by people within the movie industry. It's the same mentality as blaming terrorists for every problem.

Piracy might be a problem, but

[Windcatcher]

...it's not what's causing them to lose money. They're losing money because they're making movies no one wants to see. They don't seem to understand that word gets around about bad movies and we're not such undiscriminating cattle that we'll shell out $9.50 just for the heck of it.

I just saw AVP: Aliens vs. Predator for the first time on cable. On the one hand I'm glad I knew to wait for cable (you can usually tell if a movie is dog sh*t from the trailer), but I'm also sorry I wasted two hours last night watching it. It's bad enough that it was crap -- but it's such a blatant attempt to sucker in the fanboys that it's just sickening.

As I think about this, I think there needs to be a Godwin's Movie Law:

When a movie is compared to Aliens in an effort to sell it, it is immediately relegated to the category 'Dog Sh*t' and should not be watched on any medium, ever (even free ones).

Translation: if moviemakers can't make their Sci-Fi film stand on its own and have to try to ride the popularity of Aliens to sell it, then you already know everything you need to know about it: it's crap.

And here are some of my personal movie laws:

- Do not watch a movie based on a video game, ever. It is not worth watching. If you know someone who actually paid to watch one, slap him with a large trout for being such a sucker.

- Do not star in any of the above movies -- it will wreck your career. People sometimes confuse bad writing with bad acting. Don't walk away from such a movie, RUN.

- CGI is no substitute for talent (yes, George, I'm talking to YOU)

Can't win

[HangingChad]

There's no way MPAA can win this way, trying to build a hack proof bunker around their product. In the age old arms race between warhead and bunker, always bet on warhead.

Ran into a perfect example of this concept in operation yesterday. Heard a song on a commercial that I liked. The company had a link to the site that had the song.

I would've had to download their special player and set up an account, just to download one song. Screw that, there's no way. If I could've gone somewhere and downloaded a high res copy for .50-.75 cents that would play on my Linux box, I would have done it. But all the hoops I'd have to go through, forget it.

Getting tough didn't work, getting tougher isn't going to work any better.

When will they learn:

[t35t0r]

If it can be viewed, then it can be pirated.

Re:just plain wrong

[EraserMouseMan]

Yea, and then they spend another 2 million on suing the guy for circumventing their $30 million DRM protection scheme.
AND
They'll have to spend this much each year to keep up with the hackers. But at least it's nice to know that Hollywood is fighting for ethics and the little guy. And so I'm sure this useless expenditure will not be passed on to the little guy but will be footed by the pocket change from a couple movie stars and movie studios.

Re:3.5bn?

[qwijibo]

Sorry, that's my fault.

I don't go to theatres because they're too expensive. Whenever I see a commercial for a movie that looks good, I make a mental note to buy that on DVD when it comes out. I figure for $3-6 more than a movie ticket, I'd rather have the DVD. Of course, by the time the movie eventually comes out on DVD, I've completely forgotten everything about it, including my past interest in purchasing their product.

I have the same problem with TV. I watch one show, and if it happens to be the one that doesn't suck, I want to purchase the season on DVD. However, they won't sell it to me until they've shown all of the episodes and gotten all the advertising money from commercials that they can get.

Movie piracy does not cost the companies anything. The people who are pirating movies wouldn't pay for them if they were a penny a piece. Claiming this as a loss is just creative bookkeeping (fraud) on the part of the movie companies.

The real harm is being done every day by people like me who could purchase their products, but don't. I'm a bad consumer. I should be taken out and shot for my crimes against the corporations.