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[ipplanet]

The U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee has approved a bill that would make it a felony to stream copyrighted movies and TV episodes online.
This bill is supported strongly by the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), the Independent Film & Television Alliance (IFTA) and the National Association of Theatre Owners (NATO). In their opinion the streaming of movies and TV series on the Internet leads to huge financial losses for the industry.
This is another step towards more tightening laws concerning copyright in the U.S. With the development of the Internet and the increasing number of Internet users, streaming and other such practices have begun to have a significant impact on profits and losses of film and television industry in the country.
The question is first whether this bill will be enacted and secondly whether such legislative frameworks will be forced in other parts of the world which is determined by the global nature of today's business models.
http://intellectualpropertyplanet.blogspot.com/2011/06/illegal-streaming-is-felony-in-us.html

[scorpioncbr]

Good morning,

I just read the article in question and was redirected a few times until I reached this link:

http://mpaa.org/resources/76421ba8-c3e9-40de-bc0d-c39cedccb7f3.pdf

The bill in question seems to punish the hosting site not the viewer or am I wrong?

Now comes the tricky question. assuming that a website like megavideo or putlocker or whatever, moves it's servers to countries where copyright laws are not as strict (i think Norway is one) like China, the MPAA, IFTA, and NATO would have no legal recourse to actually prosecute, or am I wrong? By what I know China does not, respect patents nor copyrights, how would they be able to prosecute?

I can understand if they decide to sue a website like youtube, as they are located on US soil, so any copyright infringment would be on their heads. Also how would the government monitor these websites without infringing privacy?

Judging by another users' answer to one of my questions, monitoring is quite easy on P2P websites where the IP's are public, but how can they verify who was watching what at a given time? Wouldnt they need some sort of warrant? and if so wouldnt it congest court room cases beyond anything tollerable?

Wouldnt a solution be for these hosting sites to automaticaly erase user information the second that they exit the website?

Lastly, and this is just my opinion, anyone who preferes to download or even stream a movie that is currently in movie theaters has serious problems. The only way that a movie like that can be uploaded is if it was recorded at the cinema with a camera. The quality, both audio and video would make the movie unwatchable. I seriously doubt that anyone has suffered such a financial loss to justify this kind of 'solution'.

Lets make a practical example: Twilight eclipse was downloaded quite a lot when it came out at the cinema, the movie had a rough cost of about $68,000,000 and how much did it earn at the box office on opening week end? $68,533,840. In less than 48 hours they made rougly half a million in profit. Roughly 10 days later they made a GROSS PROFIT of $308,262,377. Downloading and streaming doe not harm filmakers. These amounts speak for themselves, then let's not even mention the millions they make through merchandising.

These companies do not lose a dime from what they make, claiming that all the hardwork from everyone behind the scenes of a movie do not earn is ridicuolus. The only way a movie earns less is if it is trash to begin with. Besides this is only a temporary solution, why? becuase if will only raise actual piracy, where one person buys the real DVD, copies it X amount of times and resells them at a fraction of the price (usually the cost of an empty dvd plus a few extra bucks). Or if not that, then it will drastically increase the 'used dvd sale' market. X will buy movie Y, copy it for himself and resell it on ebay or wherever. If a movie is good people will still purchase the real thing, no matter how convenient streming is it will never have the same quality as a dvd, if the movie is trash then thats wher it belongs.

[LivingItUp]

Now comes the tricky question. assuming that a website like megavideo or putlocker or whatever, moves it's servers to countries where copyright laws are not as strict (i think Norway is one) like China, the MPAA, IFTA, and NATO would have no legal recourse to actually prosecute, or am I wrong? By what I know China does not, respect patents nor copyrights, how would they be able to prosecute?

Recently the U.S. shutdown several online poker sites for breaking U.S. law, and arrest warrants were issued for the people who owned the domains. The warrants can be used to extradite people to the United States.

See, http://www.cardplayer.com/poker-news/11224-department-of-justice-nabs-fourth-arrest-post-black-friday-s-indictment

Quoted from article: The 52-year-old was arrested in Guatemala before being extradited back to the United States. He is currently being detained in Miami while he seeks legal counsel.

[LivingItUp]

Lets make a practical example: Twilight eclipse was downloaded quite a lot when it came out at the cinema, the movie had a rough cost of about $68,000,000 and how much did it earn at the box office on opening week end? $68,533,840. In less than 48 hours they made rougly half a million in profit. Roughly 10 days later they made a GROSS PROFIT of $308,262,377. Downloading and streaming doe not harm filmakers. These amounts speak for themselves, then let's not even mention the millions they make through merchandising.

Your logic is flawed. Why not pick out a flop (i.e., where cost greatly exceed revenue) to use as an example?

[scorpioncbr]

Wouldn't the fact that the movie is a flop be the primary reason for it doing poorly at the cinema?
Usually if a movie has done poorly at the cinema is not due to the fact that X amount of people saw it in streaming, again I would like to point out that movie quality of films currently in cinema (the so called CAM quality) is very poor, making the movie unwatchable. There are plenty of movies out there that did pretty bad at the box office and even worse once released on DVD. But there was no connection between loss of sales and amount quantity of people who watched said movie in streaming.

Lets make another practical example. Hypothesize that both Titanic and The Cable Guy came out at the same time and that streaming was already available at the time.

Titanic was one of the biggest selling movies ever, regrdless of being able to stream it or not people wouldve still gone to see it at the movies, The Cable Guy on the other hand was a huge flop, people would not have gone to see it because they wouldve seen it online but because it was a bad movie.

The only thing that streaming might be able to hurt is DVD sales. Banning streaming websites won't actually prevent damages because nowadays there are automatic rental stores where for a few bucks (cheaper than Blockbuster and other such places) euro you can rent a movie which in turn might end up being copied making any kind of antipiracy enforcement purely fictional.

Again streaming quality is bad (for todays standards) and does not offer much entertainment.

But lets look at another factor, websites like ABC, NBC etc actually post their TV shows online for the public, after it has aired, meaning that they are okay with them being online, they just don't allow other countries to watch them (i was on holiday in Spain and a clear message popped up saying sorry this website is not available in your country). Theoretically though if you were to mention the source the video was on (like you would with a text or an image) and embed or upload them on another website, wouldnt that count as a way to circumvent at least the TV show streaming 'violation'? I do realize that what I just listed are very 'what if', but I wanted to research the specifics (as part of my final dissertation) in order to get a clear view of the law.

I thank you in advance for all your replies.

[LivingItUp]

Wouldn't the fact that the movie is a flop be the primary reason for it doing poorly at the cinema?

Yeah. The studios need profits on the successful movies to make up for the movies that are not successful.

Your prior post sounded like, "They don't even need the money lost to streaming, because they make so much profit".

MGM studios filed bankruptcy last year, see, http://money.cnn.com/2010/11/03/news/companies/MGM_bankruptcy/index.htm

They made "Rocky movies" and James Bond movies. In your example, of the Twilight Eclipse 300 million gross profit, that does not mean the shareholders see that profit. The company itself has costs, and those costs have to be paid.

Your logic is flawed in that you only point to a single movie and say, "see, look at that one movie, it is so profitable, therefore, they don't need any revenue lost to streaming".

I don't know anything about streaming quality.

[scorpioncbr]

Right, but gross profit is the profit made AFTER all expenses were paid.

But as you say my logic was flawed, only taking into consideration one movie is not right. I Randomly selected a few movies from 2006, 2008 and 2010. Lets see how they did:

2006:

X-Men 3: The last stand had a budget of rougly 200,000,000 U.S.D. and had a gross profit pf 230,000,000 U.S.D. in the USA alone (in the three months it was out in the cinema ALONE)

V for Vendetta: Budget $54,000,000 earning a gross profit of roughly $131,411,035 world wide

The Departed: Budget $90,000,000 and earned a gross profit of rouhgly 133,000,000  USD

300: Budget $65,000,000 with a gorss profit $211,000,000

The Prestige: Budget $40,000,000 with a Gross profit $53,082,743

Cars: Budget $120,000,000 with a $461,981,126

2008:

Vicky Cristina Barcelona: Budget $15,500,000 with a gross profit of around 24,000,000 (USA Alone)

The Dark Knight: Budget $185,000,000 with a gross profit of $1,001,921,825 (1 Billion in 4 months)

Taken: Budget $25,000,000 with a gross profit of $145,000,989

Step Brothers: Budget $65,000,000 with a gross profit of $100,468,793 in the USA alone

Tropic Thunder: Budget $92,000,000 with a gross profit of 110,000,000

2010:

Insidious: Budget $1,500,000 with a gross profit of $53,010,822

Easy A: Budget $8,000,000 with a gross profit of $58,401,464

Grown Ups: Budget $40,506,562 with a gross profit of $162,001,186

Skyline: (horrible reviews) Budget $10,500,000 with a gross profit of $65,070,978

Now you have to realize that these values are for the three to four months that a movie was out at cinema, these values exclude all DVD sales, rentals, etc.

In less than four months the companies made at least twice as much as they invested, in a lot of cases even more. Most movies manage to cover all expences in the first weekend of screening. I understand people might think that streaming kills the movie & music industry but these values speak for themselves. I really don't understand how anyone can claim they are suffering a financial loss when a movie like batman made more than 1 billion in profit in 4 months. Just because a few kids watch a movie online it won't tank the movie industry. What tanks big conglomerates like MGM are poor investments and definitely not because some 13 year old in New York watched the latest movie online instead of going to the cinema.

Please do keep in mind I am in no way justifying or suggesting that illegal streaming is or should be OK, I do however find it ridicuolous that these companies are claiming a financial loss when clearely they didnt have one. I think they should find a halfway meeting point, allow streaming in poor quality as a 'demo' vesrion of the movie, if you like the movie and want to enjoy it in good quality then you buy the real thing.

You claim you don't know the quality of streaming movies, well I'll help you. Try to make a home movie with your digital camera, just a few minutes long, 5 should be enough. Put that movie on a dvd and play it on your television. Turn off all the lights and put the tv Volume as loud as you need it. Now using your camera zoom into the tv screen so that you can't see beyond the border of the television, (Say while staying 10 feet away). Now have someone stand nex to you and laugh, cough, eat every 30 seconds (typical movie theter scenario). Once your done recording connect the camera to the tv and play this video back and see the great quality that comes out. Keep in mind that the CAM versions commonly found online are like this if not worse. Camera technology is what it is. If you notice between what you originally shot and the recording of the recording is quite awful. People will still go to the cinema, they will still purchase movies.

[MYK]

No, GROSS profit is the amount made BEFORE expenses are paid.  NET profit is after expenses.

A good example of that was the movie "The Bridges of Madison County".  The author was badly advised and sold his rights to the studio for a percentage of the NET, rather than of the GROSS of the movie.  My understanding is that he got absolutely nothing as a result, because even though the movie made millions, the stars got paid out of the gross, the studio racked up huge expenses that were paid out of the gross, and so on, until the movie itself netted nothing -- it was a "loss" to the studio.  Everyone made money except the guy who wrote the book -- sort of like the oft-repeated complaint about jurors at a trial being the only ones who don't get paid for their time.

In a lot of ways, Hollywood is a giant accounting game.

[artchain]

Pirate copies are no longer made by filming off a screen (except perhaps by school kids).  Movies are distributed to theaters digitally, and there are many points along the distribution chain where an unscrupulous employee can pirate a copy.

Also, whether a movie studio makes money or loses money is simply not relevant.  They would make MORE money if people could not view their movies without paying, and they are entitled to those additional revenues.

[artchain]

You are comparing production costs to gross revenues (ticket sales) and assuming the difference represents profit.

That is completely incorrect.

The majority of the ticket sale price goes to the theater operator.

From its portion of the ticket sales, the studio must pay marketing, distribution, and operating costs, plus royalties and residuals, which together usually exceed the production costs. 

[scorpioncbr]

With regards to madison county that was a bad move on their part, a horrible investment, and thank you for correcting me i got confused between net ang gross, it happens.

Yes I do understand that if no one saw the movie online there would be more (maybe) people watching the movie at the cinema, but again that would be a very small amount of people. Even the RIAA had record high sales regarldess of the fact many people download music. It is because CD quality os only on CD. Regardless of how 'lossless' a download claims to be it will never be the same quality as the real thing, that is why people still purchase the real thing.

Yes I do realize that nowadays there are excellent quality cinema movies available to be streamed, but those USUALLY get shut down within hours of an upload. The majority are CAM videos, which as I stated have poor quality. I doubt that there is a huge financial loss on the movie's part.

And yes it is true they do have additional costs but at the same time huge additional revenues from merchandising. I can understand that the majority of what is earned by the cinema goes to the owner of the cinema, but when a movie makes 5 times what it cost to make you can assume it did pretty well. Besides on a global scale how many people do you think actually streamed the movie.

I am not trying to be agressive or trying to be rigth at all costs, mine is just curiosity. On average how much do you think is the financial loss for a movie that grossed 200,000,000 at a box office.

I fully agree with streaming hurting the entertainment industry, but given the fact that they manage to have record high sales regardless of the fact of the economic crisis and downloaders it makes me doubt that their losses are very substantial.

Again I'm sorry if I seem agressive but it is hard to convey tone over the internet.

[MYK]

I have no idea how much the industry loses to streaming, etc.  I do know that there's an entire culture of filesharing and live streaming springing up, and that the movie and television industry wants to stop it.  If you hang around forums like /ck/, almost every night someone announces that s/he's going to be streaming hours and hours of cooking shows.  Likewise, sites like YouTube often have whole movies and series uploaded.  For companies like Hulu, which is trying to make a (legal) buck off the same thing, it hurts.

At some point, one just has to acknowledge that copyright holders want to get paid for their content.  It was expensive to produce, and they'd like to see as big of a return as they can make.  Even if it's "only" another million dollars on a $200,000,000 movie, it's still another million dollars.  Nobody wants to work for free.

On the other hand, some content creators embrace direct-to-customer downloading and streaming as a new business model.  Most of it is silly and amateur, like "Epic Meal Time" (basically, three guys selling T-shirts), but some bands have built a following through downloads.

[artchain]

For companies like Hulu, which is trying to make a (legal) buck off the same thing, it hurts.

This is a good point.  Legitimate businesses are being hurt, directly and indirectly, by the culture of filesharing.

People who steal content often say "it didn't cost the producer anything because I wouldn't have bought it anyway."

That may or may not be true...  but if the pirated content was not available, those viewers would be buying and watching SOMETHING. 

[SoCalProductDev]

The U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee has approved a bill that would make it a felony to stream copyrighted movies and TV episodes online.
This bill is supported strongly by the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), the Independent Film & Television Alliance (IFTA) and the National Association of Theatre Owners (NATO). In their opinion the streaming of movies and TV series on the Internet leads to huge financial losses for the industry.

I wonder if this same group of elected tax maggots and entertainment executives would support making patent infringement a felony also. 

[MYK]

I wonder if this same group of elected tax maggots and entertainment executives would support making patent infringement a felony also. 

Now, now.  Maggots are useful creatures.  Some species are currently used in the treatment of wounds, to remove dead tissue.

Besides, as copyright law stands today, it is fairly easy to say (to use the most obvious example) "hey, Disney owns the copyright on Mickey Mouse, I shouldn't be streaming Steamboat Willie," whereas the first time someone finds out they're infringing a patent is, often enough, when they get a letter from the patentholder -- and even then, it's a long and arduous process to prove that infringement actually occurred.