The U.S. Trade Representative’s annual list of the countries on America’s official piracy radar was released today, with Spain and Malaysia dropping off the roster and Ukraine coming aboard. The highest Priority Watch List includes thirteen countries: Algeria, Argentina, Canada, Chile, China, India, Indonesia, Israel, Pakistan, Russia, Thailand, Ukraine, and Venezuela. The report says online piracy is “rapidly supplanting physical piracy in many markets around the world” and nowhere more so than in China, where 99% of all music downloads are illegal. Streaming sites with pirated content also have become the preferred venues to watch TV shows, movies, and live sports events. “Strong copyright protection and enforcement are vital to our industry’s ability to create U.S. jobs, grow our own economy, and expand U.S. exports,” MPAA chairman Chris Dodd said today in commending the Special 301 report. “We thank Ambassador Ron Kirk, the USTR and their colleagues across the interagency team who work tirelessly to enhance the protection of U.S. intellectual property rights overseas.” Back in February, the International Intellectual Property Alliance filed a report documenting what it says is “rampant online and physical piracy of copyrighted works and severe market access barriers” in 41 countries, with a special shout-out to Canada’s “ineffective border controls, insufficient enforcement resources, inadequate enforcement policies, and a seeming inability to impose deterrent penalties on pirates.” In its report today, the USTR said Canada’s status is subject to review if the country passes “long-awaited” copyright legislation and if it addresses online piracy.


The MPAA and RIAA are not going to win this contest. They should immediately promote models that will make US TV shows, movies and music free to users and pay for them by inserting ads in TV shows, at the beginning of movies, and having people watch adverts before downloading an album. They will not win against worldwide piracy networks, since there will always in countries that help piracy. They should also look into “all you can eat” subscription models, and other strategies that make the programmer to viewers free, such as broadcasting, or by subscription like cable TV and deal with the situation realistically.
Should be:
“…programs to viewers free,”
I’d be fascinated to know how much advertisers would have to pay to cover the costs. I suspect there is no way they would be willing to pay what it would cost.
As far as TV shows go, they could probably reduce the amount of piracy if they would air US shows in other countries simultaneously. Having your country 2-3 years behind on a show when you know there are options to see current episodes encourages illegal downloading. If a legal source is made available, most people are willing to support their favorite shows.
Exactly. And it wouldn’t hurt if cinema releases also happened simultaneously.
but that wouldn’t happen for every movie, since not every movie is a massive event, Avengers-style (BTW, The Avengers had an international launch before the US)
I spend a great deal of time dealing with countries that are not the U.S. and, sadly, despite lip-service being paid by the majors, studios, etc., there is huge untapped demand that is just not being satisfied. Foreign rights are sold to broadcasters and distributors, who might wait ages to bring a series to the screen and stores, as is their right because they’ve paid for it. In those territories which dub, anyone wanting the original version has to wait for the home entertainment version, source from overseas or, yes, download illegally. To give you one example: a friend in Germany bought the boxed set of the BBC series ‘Life On Mars’, long after it was available in the UK. It had the original soundtrack, barely any extras and cost a lot. It was returned the next day and the UK version ordered from Amazon. People across so much of the world are aware of what awesome product comes out of the U.S. They are willing, for the most part, to pay for it but find themselves stymied by the current business models.
I too think there’s a lot of mishandling on the part of the industry here. The cable companies are ridiculous with the price gouging. And they fight to avoid an ala-carte kind of model. When I had cable, I remember I was paying almost $90/month and so often, I would be unable to find anything worth watching. But, for example, in order to get AMC to watch Walking Dead, I’d have to pay for a pricey upgrade for a bunch of other channels I didn’t want. In a world of Netflix and RedBox, it’s crazy to expect $90+ for TV. And if movie theater chains were smart, they would try a Netflix style subscription service — for example, you buy a chain membership that gets you a set number of admissions per month. For the teenagers who want to see Twilight 50 times, you sign them up for a year commitment and it would be win-win for customers and the industry.
“Theater chains membership”. What a great idea. I think this is happening in UK for a while where you can get a bunch of admissions per month. don’t know how many, but enough to make you feel happy with the deal. This is a way to go.
A big feature in piracy, and I mean a big feature is the utter crap that the industry produces. Look at releases (film and TV) that people find are ‘great’ or ‘high art’ of some kind. People BUY physical copies of those because they want them as keepsakes.
When you put out middle of the road garbage people are in the position of not buying it or downloading it so they don’t waste their money watching crap. That doesn’t justify stealing but it is why it happens.
When cassette tapes came out all of these same arguments came out and the ensuing decade saw the largest album sales ever largely because they improved quality.
Every time someone comes out with the “crappy movies FORCE me to pirate,” I wonder … If the quality of the product is so abysmal, why the hell do you waste your time downloading and watching it? Just think what kind of quality stuff you could come up with if you didn’t waste your time pirating “crap.”
Television requires Advertising to function (as currently set up). If I had rattle off my top shows (i.e., shows that I would not miss and watch live), they would be:
01) HBO – Game of Thrones
02) SHO – Homeland
03) TNT – Falling Skies
04) FOX – Fringe
05) AMC – The Walking Dead
06) AMC – Mad Men
07) SRZ – Spartacus
08) SyFy – Warehouse 13
09) FX – Justified
10) CW – The Vampire Diaries
11) CBS – The Good Wife
12) USA – Covert Affairs
13) TNT – Rizzoli & Isles
14) ABC – Castle
15) SyFy – Alphas
16) FOX – Terra Nova
17) AMC – Breaking Bad
18) CW – The Secret Circle
19) TNT – Leverage
20) BBC – Silent Witness
20) BBC – Spooks (10 Seasons) & Hustle (8 Seasons) both Ended
There are some shows that are excellent that I don’t watch or stopped watching (Glee, Boardwalk Empire, Luck, True Blood, Dexter); there are also shows that I watch but am not committed (CSI Series, JAG/NCIS Series, TNT The Closer, various network comedies).
CBS has the advantage of both high total viewers and 18-49 [for example NCIS will get 20 mil 4.0 18-49 while Glee gets the same with 10 million].
Excluding Variety shows [A. Idol, X-Factor, The Voice, etc], CBS shows have been trending up as Fox shows trend down; ABC meanders in the middle, while NBC and the CW fall off a cliff.
My preference is Sci-Fi & Fantasy [BSG, Star Trek, Stargate, Legend of the Seeker, Camelot, Terminator, Dollhouse, Firefly, etc] and with the cancellation of Terra Nova, and Fringe in 2012-13, most of my TV viewing will migrate to cable.
governments will catch on eventually – here’s a potential money maker.
if isps don’t get their house in order, governments will move to regulate like TV licensing – i.e. they will only be allowed to give consumers access to downloads and streams from sites which have a license to provide content via the www in a given country.
As a content producer I am continuously having to monitor file lockers, forums and pirate sites to maintain the value of our content with takedown requests. It is not fair use to use another’s intellectual property as you see fit. In fact I am at the point now, if you steal our stuff I will eventually knock on your front door (I am positively great at sleuthing) and make “fair use” of your head.
Try me – we eastern Europeans know all to well what life is like when others dictate ones right to self determination. Private property rights are essential to individual liberty. These individual rights are natural, inherent, inalienable and exist independently of government. I create it, I own it.