Does
Hollywood Have Itself To Blame For Its Piracy Problems?
(By Timothy B. Lee, Washington Post, 15 October 2013)
Why does movie piracy persist after years of efforts to stamp it out? A new website called PiracyData.org suggests a simple explanation: people pirate movies because they don't have the option of paying for a legitimate copy online. Every week, the file-sharing news site TorrentFreak publishes a list of the 10 most pirated movies. PiracyData.org mashes this list up with data from CanIStreamIt, a search engine that helps consumers find legitimate sources for copyrighted films. The results are striking. In last week's results, not a single film was available from streaming from services like Netflix or Amazon Prime. Only three of the top 10 films, The Lone Ranger, After Earth, and This is the End, were available for online rental. For example, several services offer After Earth for $4.99.
And just six of the top 10 movies (Pacific Rim, The
Internship, The Lone Ranger, Monsters university, After Earth, and This Is the
End) were available for online purchase. Monsters University, for example, can
be purchased from iTunes or the Google Play store for $19.99. The only way to
get the other four movies online was through illegal downloading. Last week's results were not an anomaly. The
PiracyData team has been collecting data for three weeks, and during that
period, not a single highly pirated film has been available to stream. And many
highly-pirated movies have not been available for rental or download.
Piracydata.org was created by two tech policy researchers at
the Mercatus Center, a libertarian think tank, and by Matt Sherman, a software
engineer based in New York. The team's leader, Jerry Brito, says he got the
idea for the site after a hearing
in which major content holders criticized Google for failing to do enough to
combat piracy. That criticism came despite the fact that Google has taken
a number of steps to prevent illegal sharing of copyrighted works. A year ago, Google began automatically
demoting search results that are the target of numerous takedown requests
by copyright holders. Yet despite that proactive approach, searches for
Hollywood blockbusters frequently turn up links to pirate websites. "The MPAA is complaining
that Google leads people to infringing links," Brito argues. "But
what's the alternative?" The movies that are available on file-sharing
sites, he says, are "very rarely available for legal acquisition."
Unsurprisingly, MPAA spokesperson Kate Bedingfield
disagrees. "Today there are more ways than ever to watch movies and TV
shows legally online, and more are constantly being added," she said in an
e-mailed statement. "If a particular film isn't available for stream or
purchase at a given moment, however, it does not justify stealing it from the
creators and makers who worked hard to make it." Brito insists he's not trying to excuse
piracy. But, he argues, "I don't understand how the industry is making a
big show about Google not taking voluntary measures to help with piracy." Hollywood, he says, could "change its
business model to take their own voluntary measures to deal with piracy,"
by making movies more readily available through legal online channels. If it chooses
not to do that, he believes, they have no business complaining that tech
companies aren't doing enough to combat the problem.
But Bedingfield counters that films get heavily pirated even
when they're made available in online formats. “The Walking Dead was pirated
500,000 times within 16 hours despite the fact that it is available to stream
for free for the next 27 days on AMC’s website and distributed in 125 countries
around the world the day after it aired," she says. "Our industry is
working hard to bring content to audiences when they want it, where they want
it, but content theft is a complex problem that requires comprehensive,
voluntary solutions from all stakeholders involved."
Correction: The original data supplied to us by
PiracyData.org was inaccurate. It showed 1 movie available for rental and 4
available for purchase. In fact, 3 are available for rental and 6 are available
for purchase. We regret the error. We also added an additional quote from the
MPAA's Kate Beddingfield.
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