MPAA claims prevention of 31 illegal recordings of Spider-Man 3
By Conrad Quilty-Harper 
posted May 20th 2007 6:16PM
posted May 20th 2007 6:16PM
We resent writing about the MPAA, simply because every time the organization makes a statement it invariably exposes some aspect of its backwards perspective. This time the Association has made the rather preposterous claim that the efforts of staff and customers in preventing illegal recordings of Spider-Man 3 gave the film "a fair shot at its record-setting opening." In all, 31 people were caught illegally recording the movie, a figure which is apparently thanks to night vision equipped cinema staff (motivated by a $500 reward for each case) and reporting from the patrons themselves in a few cases. The logic that this in some way helped assure that the film would be a commercial success is shaky at best: it only takes a single recording for the film to become "pirated." And of course, if the system for detecting illegal recordings of movies is working so well, why do we still have to sit through those patronizing anti-piracy PSAs?[Via TechDirt; Image credit]
Michael - I totally understand your gripes about being told you're a thief by the MPAA and being frustrated about not being able to watch the DVD you purchased the way you want on your computer or other multimedia devices. I completely share your frustrations, I just thought I'd add something that I heard while talking to a like-minded person in LA who just happened to be the head of Warner Brothers' anti-piracy devision.
The reason those warnings are up there and why studios haven't tolerated/accepted the use of DVDs on multimedia devices is not that they don't want you to watch them on those devices, it's not because they're behind the times - it's all due to legalities. Let's use an example of that old classic, "Streetcar Named Desire." When that film was made, no one had a magic crystal ball that could tell them that some day, there would be these magic devices that would allow people to watch this new movie on a tiny little handheld thing called an "iPod." So when they were drafting up the contracts between the film maker, the studio, and the distributor, they didn't include rights to distribution on futuristic multimedia devices. They didn't know they would ever exist, so they didn't include clauses in the contracts to lay out who owned what right to what distribution network. It used to be just clean and simple - it went to a theater, and that was that.
This problem has been in existence ever since movies were first released ages ago through betamax, laserdisc, VHS, and DVD. Whenever a new form of distribution develops, the lawyers have to debate ownership all over again - it's like starting over from scratch as if the old contracts never existed. Most of the time, it takes them months - if not years - to figure out who to even negotiate with because with some old films and TV shows, they don't even know who owns what rights anymore. Perfect example, the Cosby Show: fans kept screaming for years, blaming studios for not releasing DVDs soon enough. The simple fact was - there were so many people involved, it proved almost impossible to track them all down to get all the legalities straight in order to release the 80's TV show on technology from the 90's. That took long enough and now that we're dealing with such rapidly changing technology from the new millenium, the lawyers just can't keep up. By the time they've figured out the contracts for one multimedia form of distribution, it's already become outdated and the consumer is screaming for their favorite show or movie on a new personal media player.
Anyway, that's how I heard it, and from a legal stand point, it really makes sense. So even though it really pains me to say this - let's cut them some slack. A lot of the lawyers I've talked to aren't out there just to screw us geeks over. They're really just trying to make sure that everything's legal, that the artists and owners get what rights and royalties they deserve, and unfortunately that process takes so long, they're all a bit behind the times when it comes to technology.
So anyway, just thought I'd add that point of view since no one else had brought it up yet. This topic is so complicated and has so many facets to it that, sure it'd be easier to just scream and rant and rave and say they're all out to get us. But we're intelligent beings, we should realize that maybe we don't know the whole story. And when we realize that, we can stop, take a minute, and then reevaluate the situation and only end up learning more about the system.
Anyway. That's my bit. I'm sure I'll be flamed for it, but I hope at least somebody got something out of it.
Hi Heather,
thank you for that very interesting point of view! I totally believe, that it is in their best interest to sell us as many movies as they can. So I had to think about what you said and came up with this theory...
First of all, they can do with their content whatever they want to. I am only a customer and honestly, I can live if they decide not to offer the thing I'm looking for. I can always decide whether I want to buy it or not. So I am better off since they can't force me to buy anything from them (not yet ;)). So no one should be angry with them, DVDs, movies or music are no human right... there is right for free or cheap movies in the human right charta, at least not to my knowledge.
The other thing you mentioned was about the right management. Well, I can only say that these contracts are poorly made up. They could buy the rights for the current form of distribution and any other coming. You don't have to name it, although you might have to pay more for it ;)
So why do they still bother to have all these protections, lawsuits and massive PR going on if the customer clearly doesn't want it? I guess we have to accept that they want to make money! Why using copy protection which don't help stopping downloads? Why showing clips and accusing customers of theft? Why having region codes? To make money... and that's ok!
Copy protection makes a certain amount of customers to buy the movie or music again if they want to do something else than originally intended with the first media. Some will be able to circumvent these copy protections, most won't (just guessing there). So therefore, extra income without any work!
I'm not quiet sure about the thief spots yet but I guess they want to raise the awareness of the illegality of downloads/copying.
Well the region codes are obvious to all of us, why they decide to cripple movies with strange subtitles or stupid language menus, I don't know. Why is Windows not easy to use? I guess the wrong people are designing the things...
So to finish my conspiracy theory (which isn't really one because they won't deny that they try to make as much money as possible) I think they try to sell us the same stuff, with less rights to use it for the same price if not more! At the moment the customer still takes it. When he doesn't anymore, they will adapt... ah, good old market... let's hope, anyway
I watched a pirated copy of Spiderman 3 and don't feel guilty. I had no intention of going to the cinema to see it so don't see how I lost them any money. I am happy to pay to go to the cinema to see GOOD films (or at least films that look good). The last film I went to see was Sunshine (damn that filmed was dull) and I intend to goto the cinema to see Transformers. The Spiderman 3 trailers and reviews all put me off the film and after having seen it I'm extremely glad I didn't pay to go and see it.
@buck09
@Dave
The Enter key is your freind.. Show it some love.
Pirating will disappear (In Western countries anyway) when we can easily and quickly download a quality copy to watch the same week as the theatre release, pay 20 bucks for it and have it for good.
So what if everyone has a copy of all the films, you can sell old films again by adding something to it, remaster it again, turn it into 3D, increase the resolution..whatever.
The self-inflicted problem movie producers have is that consumers see piracy as legitimate and socially acceptable, if watching a pirate film or showing one to your mates was the social eguivalent of serving warm alcohol free supermarket beer then that would move piracy to 'saddos' Noone would buy a Korean made BMW no matter how good it was.
They just need to get people saying 'Holy crap John this is a frekin pirate version you tightass!!'
@surftacular... (sniff, sniff) I smell douche.
For all those people who are concerned with spending money on crap they might not like; its pretty damn easy getting a refund from the theater after watching a movie in its entirety on the basis that you're not satisfied with the product ... as long as you don't do it every weekend.
"Heather" - you want us to cut them some slack? Do you really understand *why* lawyers have to get involved with new types of distribution? So they can double-dip on licensing fees -- in other words, charge people to watch content they already own on some other medium.
Already bought the movie on DVD? Too bad, you're supposed to buy it again if you want to watch a version of substantially lesser quality on your iPod.
When they start making a distinction between someone who already owns a "license" for a movie (and consequently only pays the media/distribution cost) and someone who's buying it for the first time (full price), I'll gladly cut them some slack.
There are a lot of liars (or maybe it's just ignorance) commenting on this post. No, your friend who works at a theater did not give you a high quality copy. No, you did not download a high quality copy. The best copy available for download is a telesync (telesync means shot inside a theater with direct audio) by the release group mVs.
A friend of mine pointed something out: Spiderman 3 grossed $382M its opening weekend. At about $9 per ticket, that's about 42 million viewers, which means that the 31 people they caught were fewer than one in every million customers. For every person caught, they had to tick off over a million paying customers with this insulting campaign.