MPAA says “The Big Apple” is where 43% of US CAMs are made and 20% of the ones found worldwide.
With the ongoing Tribeca film festival’s co-founder Joe Rosenthal in the background, NY Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced today increased penalties for those who make CAMs, camcorder movie theater bootlegs.
“Video piracy is not a victimless crime – it kills jobs for New Yorkers,” said Bloomberg. “Not only does piracy drive up the costs of videos and movie tickets and harm our economy, but every New York consumer is being cheated by poor quality goods.”
Bloomberg signed legislation that increases the penalty for illegal camcorder bootlegs from a violation to a misdemeanor, with an increase in maximum jail time from 15 days to six months and fines upped from a $250 maximum to $5000, plus up to $5,000 in civil penalties.
He also unveiled a new PSA anti-piracy campaign that will be featured on TV and in theaters as well as on bus shelter ads.
Apparently to show how terrible the quality of CAMs can really be, the PSAs will feature CAM’d scenes from the animated film “Happy Feet.” The PSAs and ads will also feature parodies of MPAA ratings, including “RO” for Ripped-Off, “PS” for Poor Sound, “SP” for Stupid Purchase and “OV” for Obstructed View. Again, all in attempt to demonstrate their truly inferior quality as compared to the real thing. Yet, oddly enough, there will be no mention of how poor the actual movie “Happy Feet” really is.
The TV ads will be aired on local free and cable stations beginning in June, and will appear in movie theaters in the next week or so. The bus stop ads will be put up sometime in the middle of May.
In getting NY to act on its behalf, the MPAA touted a report that NYC’s motion picture industry loses an estimated $1.49 billion USD annually due to global and local film piracy, resulting in 22,986 fewer jobs and $903 million USD in lost earning.
How they came up with these numbers has to be an interesting feat of methodology because how do you measure whether or not a person would have actually gone to see a movie if they had otherwise not purchased or downloaded a bootleg copy of it? I mean, just because a person gets a bootleg copy of let’s say the movie “Happy Feet,” doesn’t necessarily mean that they would’ve shelled out the $10 dollars to go see out or even the $4 dollars to rent it. I mean would you do either? The movie looks terrible but, I would be willing to watch it for free. I’d be willing to bet that they don’t factor the willingness of people to pay to see a movie into their “piracy losses” figure, therefore making their doom and gloom stories for hardworking actors and cameramen about as silly as the RIAA’s starving artists campaign.
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that does not stop the projectionist from doing the recording
Lololo or how about the ushers pulling minimum wage.