Piracy

A DVD-quality copy of the sci-fi blockbuster “District 9″ was posted to file-trading networks over Labor Day weekend. The movie was downloaded over one million times within the first 24 hours. Downloads are likely to exceed the leaked workprint of another SA-linked movie, “X-Men Origins: Wolverine,” which was downloaded over 4 million times.



Filmcontact.com says that most movies are available on the Internet within a few days of their release, but the quality is typically poor and all but the most prolific pirates avoid them. The “District 9″ release is described as an R5 copy, or a retail DVD sold in Region 5 — Eastern Europe, India, Africa, North Korea and Mongolia. Studios release R5 DVDs early and without any special features or image processing in an effort to compete with bootlegs in areas where piracy is prevalent......

DVD Piracy

If we're going to drive a local production agenda in South Africa, then each of us will have to take a stand against piracy. This is a huge problem: in the United States, the National Consumers League published results of a study conducted that revealed that 90% of consumers believe they should be able to back up their DVDs to a hard drive or copy them to a portable device - and that they'd be willing to pay about $61 for a piece of software that helped them back up their collections. According to the survey:

• 55% of respondents are buying fewer DVDs today than they did a year ago.
• More than four in 10 (41%) expect to be buying fewer still a year from now.
• 41% said the ability to make back up copies would make their collections more valuable
• 40% said it might cause them to buy more DVDs.
• Households with kids have purchased an average of nearly 3 DVDs to replace those lost or damaged.
• Despite studio fears that back-up copying will lead to massive Internet piracy, only 18% of respondents reported ever having copied a DVD to a hard drive.
• Another 5% said they had tried but were unable to.
• The vast majority of respondents (79%) said they have no real interest in copying DVDs.

And, according to DMW, what have the studios come up with to deliver that value to their customers? Litigation against Kaleidescape Systems and RealDVD for providing tools that allow people to back up their DVD collections.