Tuesday, April 7, 2009

Piracy begins at home

Last week, a copy of the hotly anticipated film X-Men Origins: Wolverine made its way online, and onto the hard drives of film nerds everywhere. While it was ten minutes shorter than the final cut, and had many of the special effects still incomplete, Hollywood executives and American congressmen quickly found another excuse furrow their brows at pirates and make more noise for broader internet laws that would compel internet service providers to identify the names of users downloading copyrighted content.

Yesterday, a congressional hearing convened in California where executives, filmmakers and politicians all wrung their hands over the supposed billions of dollars in revenue lost due to piracy. Richard Cook, the chairman of Walt Disney Studios claimed a copy of Wall-E recorded on a camcorder in a theater in Kiev made its way onto street corners worldwide. However, in all of these discussions, not one word was made of the source of the biggest leaks in Hollywood - the industry itself.

What hasn't been mentioned in most of the articles covering the leak of X-Men Origins: Wolverine is that there is only one place where a copy of a unfinished film could've been made: inside a post-production house. But what is unique about this situation, is that it's not unique at all. Just this past winter I found copies of Gran Torino, Doubt, Slumdog Millionaire, The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button and The Wrestler online in perfect DVD quality bootlegs. The source of these copies were from Oscar screeners given to Hollywood executives, producers, critics and I'm assuming, anyone who wants a copy.

What Hollywood doesn't get - or doesn't want to acknowledge - is that the days of camcorder quality copies being the acceptable standard is long gone. Are they still being sold on street corners? I have no doubt they are, but these are from vendors who know are making a quick buck from people who think if they spend $2 they are going to get a high quality copy of the film, but instead get something that looks like Kramer filmed it. I go to quite a few preview screenings of films every year, and each time, the rent-a-cops make a big deal of waving their metal detectors and asking everyone who has cells phone with them to turn them off before being allowed to enter the theater. Do you really think someone is sitting at home, waiting for me to take a blurry photo or video with my iPhone to be uploaded to the web? Or would they rather wait for the rip of the DVD screener that will appear online? If Hollywood suits actually took to the time to really take a look at the torrent sites out there, they will see them teeming with superior quality bootlegs of films that are in theaters.

Piracy is a complex issue that will require a complex answer. An RIAA styled approach of identifying users and handing out lawsuits simply doesn't work. Their method often ended up targeting users who had done nothing wrong, and in the long run did absolutely nothing to stop piracy and turned the general public against them with their misguided tactics. However, if Hollywood and politicians are serious about curbing piracy, it will only work if they begin the search in their own backyard. Workprints, screener and promotional copies need to tracked and encrypted more vigorously. Each studio should consider moving toward a password protected site where movies can stream for internal, industry use only. When leaks like what happened with X-Men Origins: Wolverine occur, their anger needs to be pointed in the right direction. As much of a hack as he is, writer Roger Friedman is the wrong person to be losing his job. What Fox needs to do is get every head of every post-production company who would've had access to the workprint on the phone and let them know in no uncertain terms that the company or companies involved in the leak must do their own internal investigation and bring the perpetrators to light. If Fox is the one who ends up finding out who it is on their own, they will cease all further business with that company moving forward. No company is going to want to risk losing the business of a major Hollywood studio and I think Fox will be amazed at how quickly the person or persons responsible will be found.

The movie industry is quickly finding themselves in a situation that the music industry found itself in about seven years ago. Unlike the RIAA who stubbornly clung to their old distribution method to the point of destroying themselves, Hollywood has at least taken to digital distribution and are experimenting with new models of creating excitement for not only new releases, but for their back catalog titles as well. Warner Brothers recently launched Warner Archive, a made to order DVD service for the more obscure or less commercial films in their vast back catalog. Cinephiles, who have long been reduced to trader to trader copies of various quality levels for these kinds of films, are rejoicing at the studio for taking this kind of initiative. If Hollywood continues to find new ways to engage their customers, while doing the necessary steps behind the scenes to better protect their property, piracy - while it will never go away completely - can at least be more manageably contained.

2 comments:

Ab Jagernauth, CGA said...

Well-written article and great analysis.

Kim Dubuisson said...

Just like the music industry 10 years ago, the film industry missed the technological progress and process that became available to everyone at home.

Downloading almost DVD quality version of every movies in theaters is just a few clicks away. Most movie are available through piracy before playing in theaters!

Hollywood needs to rethink their way of doing business.

First they shouldnt take the spectator and potential buyers as idiots.

They need to embrace "new" technology and be on the forefront of its development and usage.

They need to stop making so many bad movies. The perfect exemple is X-MEN ORIGINS WOLVERINE. Even if the workprint available online is supposedly missing 14 minutes and the fx are not complete... it won't make this turd any better. I'm willing to bet that even comic books fans wont like it. But like many other films these days, people will actually pay to see such crap. Resulting in HUGE opening box office but falling down just as fast.

Hollywood is a business, and the truth is that last year was their most profitable year ever! Plus with sales/rental of DVD they make three time as much money as in theater.

So even with piracy they are still making money so I dont feel sorry for them.