MPAA and Movie Pirating

I was watching 60 minutes today (November 1, 2009) and the last segment was about movie pirating. 60 Minutes interviewed some folks from MPAA and after hearing their comments it’s become really clear they just don’t quite get it. For example one MPAA person basically described bit torrent as a program that takes a movie, breaks it up in pieces and allows others to download those pieces and when someone has all the pieces another program (as it was suggested by the person) puts those pieces together and voila you have the entire movie, huh not quite. Bit Torrent takes any file not just movies and then does the rest so not only movies are pirated with bit torrent technology but software etc. but not only that but perfectly legit files are also shared. Unfortunately when I heard his explanation my first impression was this guy is not all that bright, which could be a very wrong impression it’s just how he came out sounding. MPAA needs to work on that, had to be taken seriously when you are being viewed as idiots, no offense intended.
Which helps explain some things, like when you put in your dvd movie and the first thing you see is that FBI notice that you can’t skip. Clearly that’s not for the pirate, anyone smarter then a squirrel knows that. And what about DRM,  that has never stopped anything, it simply does not work, so again who is it for ?
Maybe they should rethink this, first let me skip the FBI notice it’s annoying and for DRM since that does nothing to stop pirating and never will get rid of. Stop wasting time and money on something that is basically useless.

The MPAA seems to treat bit torrent as the problem which it is not, it’s like saying the drug problem is because of cars, drug dealers use cars to transport their drugs. The car is not the problem and neither is bit torrent, it’s just the tool being used. If bit torrent just out of nowhere disappeared right now I guarantee you some other technology would pop up in one to two months that would replace bit torrent and pirating would continue without missing a beat.

So for now let’s just put the legitamite use of bit torrent to the side and concentrate on it’s illegal use. To download something using bit torrent you first need to download a torrent file that contains the necessary information for your bit torrent program so that it knows what to do etc. to download the file(s) you want to share. Those torrent files can be easily found on various sites that have huge lists of illegal bit torrents and those lists are updated frequently. Clearly these sites if they really wanted to could to some degree stop that, but they clearly are not even trying. That is one of the problems, of course if you managed to shut down every such site and somehow stopped anyone from starting a new one then the torrent files would simply move to some where else, there’s always a way. That’s a tough problem to solve.

What about the pirates themselves. Let’s first look at the pirates who sneak in a video recorder into a movie theatre and record the movie to share online. There is technology that can detect hidden cameras, some you point and if it’s pointing in the direction of a camera you will see a red light where the lens is. And some like this one http://www.spyshops.ca/hardwiredvideocameradetector.htm
Now this would be a good place to put some of that money they are wasting on drm. I bet you with a little reseach a solution could be found, all of a sudden boom anyone who tries to use a camera to record a movie in the theatre is detected and not long after arrested. Boom just like that, at least this part of the problem is solved. Then you just need to deal with cell phones, put up signs, maybe even do some tv/radio advertising spelling it out clearly that they are illegal to have inside a theatre period. Make it clear what the consequences will be if you are caught with one. Theatres could offer an area where visitors could drop off their cell phones, charge, let’s say a dollar to do so. Now the theatre has an extra income. It’s a win, win situation, even if you don’t charge for holding the cell phone. And this also will help solve the problem of cell phones going off during a movie.

Problem number two is those pirates who rent or buy a dvd or blueray and rip it, then share the movie online. Ok now I don’t really have a solution for this problem. DRM simply does not work and never will, so that’s just a waste of money and time. You could try to find those pirates and charge them but that’s not easy to do, so would not be very effective.
Even though I don’t have even a partial solution to this problem, I bet someone out there might have an idea, might be worth looking into it and maybe using some of that money being wasted on stuff like drm and using it to research some of those posible solutions.

One more problem is how most view the whole movie industry, they don’t see pirating their movies to be such a big deal after all they are still making boat loads of money. We still hear once and a while of some star being paid $20 million to act in this movie etc. So a public relations campaign might be in order. Put up signs/posters etc. at theatres showing how movie pirating has effect things. Maybe some tv and radio adds as well. If you can do this, there might be a small decrease in movie pirating. Well maybe this one for me at least is tough for call, but can’t hurt to try.

And my final thought, don’t do what the RIAA/ASCAP have and are doing, actually seperate yourself from them. They have already lost their war and here’s why. You can’t sue the entire world, long before you sue that many people they would revolt and oh my. You can’t shut down the internet. And a guaranteed way to loose your battle/war is to have most of everyone thing you are douche bags (to be polite). Right now what they are doing is giving them some small success, but eventually with time technology will again change and the RIAA/ASCAP will at some point realize to ultimately they will need to help of the people and what they won’t get it, because as I mentioned most consider them to be douche bags. I’m having trouble here explain my point, what I’m basically saying is if you are hated you’re business is doomed as the people decide where to spend their money and they can effect what happens with government, this has been demonstrated for decades.

And there it is, my thoughts and opinions on the whole movie pirating problem, does this mean I’m luny ? I hope so

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