Film piracy could limit production

Kevin Rademacher

Thursday, March 6, 2003 | 10:59 a.m.

The victims of motion picture piracy go beyond billion-dollar corporations and wealthy actors and actresses -- and the losses could mean fewer movies being produced.

That's the message the film industry is looking to get out in an educational campaign launched Wednesday in Las Vegas during the ShoWest convention for movie theater owners.

In a taped message to the crowd of theater operators, director George Lucas said: "As a result of piracy, fewer movies are going to be made."

The educational campaign will center around a two-minute theatrical trailer shown for the first time at ShoWest. It highlights the less-glamorous film industry jobs -- from animal trainers to theater employees -- that could be affected by losses resulting from piracy.

It will be aired as a trailer in movie theaters around the country.

Jack Valenti, president of the Motion Picture Association of America, said the film industry loses $3 billion to $4 billion each year from the circulation of bootleg videos. Technological advances, however, pose greater risks for the industry.

"The Internet changes everything," he said. "Pirates are downloading an estimated 400,000 to 600,000 movies every day from file-swapping sites."

Those copies are often pirated from previews distributed to awards voters or for advance screenings. While such pirated copies were once poor quality, digital technology has made the copies more palatable for viewers.

Jim Gianopulos, chairman of Fox Filmed Entertainment, said the industry is being "digitally hijacked."

The panel said education must start with the young.

Valenti said discussions are in the works for a kindergarten through fifth grade education program. On the other end of the scale, he has started speaking on college campuses about piracy.

Wang Ziqiang, deputy director general at the Chinese National Copyright Administration, said steps are being taken to address the piracy issue in China.

He also unveiled a theatrical trailer focused on the issue from a Chinese perspective. In that country, lack of copyright protection is hindering cultural and economic development as it stifles the film industry's growth.

Again, Ziqiang said education will be the key.

"If society lacks a genuine respect for copyrights ... it will be very difficult for us to eliminate piracy," he said. "People engaged in the movie business themselves don't have the knowledge to use the legal protections that are in place."