Local Movie Cinemas Losing Livelihoods
Movie theaters and film studios are in a fight to maintain control over their livelihood. Some $900 million is said to be lost annually in the state of New York due to movie bootlegging. This, added to other types of piracy, may cost over $3 billion per year.
One of the problems is that there are so many ways to easily bootleg movies, such as simply smuggling a camera into the movie theater. This costs the industry money because each cam, the resulting bootleg, only earns the price of one ticket while many are able to view the movie. With camera sizes reducing in size, stopping camcording is more difficult than ever and simply banning large bags from theaters is hardly effective. There are some theaters that have resorted to using night vision technology to spot bootleggers during screeners. However, some movies are being bootlegged by those employees of the theater with access to the projectionist booth. This creates better recordings because of the center view from the booth and audio that can be recorded directly.
Other means—more common these days—of bootlegging include rips and screeners, which typically create better quality reproductions. A rip is made by using software to extract a copy from officially licensed media, such as retail DVDs. This is a quick means of reproducing a movie and the quality tends to be high. Advance copies of films, often released for promotional or production purposes, sometimes fall into the hands of people that copy it for premature release, a screener (SCR). These often end up on the internet as DVDSCRs, typically before the scheduled release date, sometimes provoking studios to change or even withdraw a movie prior to release. A Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) decision to address the problem has been to issue strictly binding contracts to strengthen privacy and attempt to limit advance copies. Fines upwards of $150,000 per title have been served for the leaking of films.
Viewers themselves are being robbed of seeing the full creative vision that is ruined by a lesser quality production, according to the MPAA. A lessened concern for quality and a disregard for the original vision often is a tip-off that a movie one is viewing is a bootleg. If one should find a title before the movie has been released in theaters or at the same time, this may also be a sign that the product is counterfeit.
As for the bootleggers, their motivation may not only be a financial one. Some studios place moratoriums on certain releases which limits the sales of the release during a set amount of time (e.g., Disney). This is often an attempt to increase sales in a short period of time by increasing demand and superficially reducing the supply. Removing the titles from store shelves for years at a time creates a vacuum which bootleggers are happy to fill. In a similar manner, limited run releases and movies that have yet to be released may lead can also attract the attention of bootleggers.
Residents of New Hampshire are urged to report bootlegging to 1-800-NO COPYS (1-800-662-6797).
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