"Cinema 'Cops' Deploy Night Vision Devices"
In response to an increase in pirated movie recordings coming out of Australia, the copyright police are patrolling cinemas with night vision devices - and it's not just commercial pirates they're after. Movie studios are providing the scopes to cinema ushers across the country and "training them in how to spot people illegally taping films using camcorders and even mobile phones.
After Village Roadshow successfully implemented the technology to prevent pirated copies of The Dark Knight making their way on to the internet, 20th Century Fox has adopted it for Baz Luhrmann's "Australia", which opens today.
* ok firstly, "increase in pirated movie recordings coming out of Australia" ? last time i checked we are near last on the world scale for actually having movies appear in cinemas on debut world wide, this too goes for DVD releases. hence .... everyone knows that if you want to see a flick, you download the version that came out in the states 3 weeks ago and has been on the web way before any 12 year old gets a chance to whip out his mobile in an ozzie cinema.
Neil Gane, director of operations at the Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft (AFACT), said the night vision scopes would be deployed at the majority of the 304 Australian cinemas. He said the film industry had become concerned over the past few months as "a number of big name movies that were the first to appear on the internet have been forensically matched to cinemas in Australia".
He would not name the movies, citing ongoing investigations, but said that, for a number of years, movie studios had been adding "unique forensic markers" to film prints distributed to theatres.
* wait a second .. "forensically matched to cinemas in Australia" ? your not seriously falling for this one are ya? wake up and smell the coffee already. this is pure and utter crap, dreamt up by organisations who are government funded, and would rather spend billions in protecting the latest release of "Australia" by spilling a scare tatic news story in the Herald.
come on, we all know where to get our new release movies. it aint from Australia, and it surely aint from a kid saving it on his 3 mega pixel phone cam. the sad thing is, most of the time the TS releases of "cinema films" from overseas appearing on the net are actually recorded in the projection booths by employees on debut night. what i would like to know is who creates organisations like the Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft (AFACT), and how do they keep people employed?
* slowly going the way of the stars and stripes. watch out for those CCTV cams, you might be caught over thinking your reality, and thats gotta be a crime.
What a crock of "scare tactics 101" how about they fund Cinema seat repairs instead of this trash. Digital downloads just keep eating away at their greedy pockets, and yet they still fail to grasp the concept. embrace the internet and deliver us digital movies at a reasonable cost, when i want, and with no DRM restrictions. i'll pay for whats worth my dollar, minus the 12 year olds throwing popcorn.
1 comment:
Shaun,
Great blog...
I worked for AFACT for about 4 1/2 years... I was the Lead Investigator in Victoria for 2 of those years... (previously I was a Federal Police officer of 12 years standing)
I no longer work for AFACT due to a restructuring of the investigative process and a reliance on reactive "stumble upons" by Police, rather than pro-active field investigations. But thats an axe I won't grind here.
So let me set you straight on a couple of points. (I agree with your blog, just a couple of factuality's)
1. AFACT is not Government funded. They are funded by the big 6 movie production companies. Through the MPAA (Motion Picture Assn of America). Budgets for major investigations were SO tight, I had a lead to the actual manufacturing company who let "Kenny" leak out in pre production.. the producer Clayton Jacobson identified the pirated disc as being one of HIS OWN work in progress copies that were carefully controlled. The 'budget' would not permit me to undertake a proper investigation at the production facility and the whole thing died on the vine. Doesn't sound like they really give a sh*t about anything but press releases and image does it? ;-)
2. Australia is lucky enough to sometimes have movie releases (when they are world wide simultaneous releases) a few hours before the folks in New York or LA. In this time the proportion of our 20+ million population who have the knowledge to, the inclination to run the risk, or the cunningly devious criminal mind to cam-cord a new release - is virtually non-existent. Thats why in Sydney, in the first week of the Simpsons Movie release, poor halfwitted Jose Duarte was caught uploading a "Phone Quality" snippet of the movie. He was paraded about the press and the industry media (press releases available) like the prize Pig at the local county fair. (Spiderpig maybe) A truly great trophy to hang on Neil Gane's wall in his little office at Fox Studios in Sydney.
3. You are 100% correct in putting Australia at the bottom of the cam-corder dog-pile.... Russia, Canada, and the USA all share the top podium along with the various Asian countries. There was and still is a very high proliferation of medium to watchable Russian copies available within days of any movie release. This night vision goggle story will circulate until it fizzles out - just like the DVD sniffing dogs (Paddy & Manny in Malaysia) (Lucky & Flo at Heathrow) of the Philippines / Malaysia .. Google that one.. its hilarious. Another Neil Gane / Mike Ellis initiative. (reality check - The dogs are trained to sniff out a chemical used in disc production, but they cannot distinguish between real and the pirated DVDs.)
OK... this may sound a little bitter... possibly.
I had a great pro-active job; albeit hamstrung by lack of a realistic investigational budget. Unfortunately AFACT would not entertain the concept of having a full time employee in Melbourne and stuck with sub-contracted Private Investigators being paid on an hourly rate. When I was the Lead Investigator, I was contracted on a daily rate, which was realistic. When Neil Gane took over again, (he had 2 years in Singapore as the Asia Pacific chief) - he decided to do more of the work himself and to pocket the investigation expenses. I ceased to get any further work from AFACT when I refused to move onto an hourly rate. I have to work a full day for a day's pay not piecemeal work a couple of hours a week reacting to happenstance discoveries by the local plods.
Ok that sounds quite bitter... but its better out than in.
Keep up the great blog. Cheers G
PS: I now work as a freelance photographer a couple of days a week and make more than I did in a week of AFACT work. Go figure.
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