"Pirates,"
according to Bobbie Johnson in these pages last week, "are costing
Hollywood billions in lost profits." Just as George W says we're either
with him or against him in the war against evil, so the Motion Picture
Association of America (MPAA) goes on the attack against those who dare
to, uh, think different.
The MPAA is a rich lobby group, with powerful allies in the World Trade
Organisation and an international copyright regime which favours corporate
profits over individual freedoms. But is the MPAA justified in its war
against the pirates? And are its claims of lost billions even credible?
A few years ago, Margaret Matheson and I tried to make a British TV
mini-series based on HG Wells' The War of the Worlds. Wanting to do things
right, we contacted Aardman Animation, and, though in the thick of Chicken
Run, they were very interested. Most of the rights to the book - including
all US rights - had long ago fallen into the public domain. Only the
British rights appeared to be privately held: by a former rock musician
who hoped to turn Wells' story into a travelling stage musical along the
lines of Blood Brothers or Fame. He was determined to hang on to them.
So, we thought, let's wait: in less than a year all rights to Wells'
intellectual property were due to fall into the public domain. At that
point, we, and anyone else, would be free to adapt his works throughout
the world. Well, we were wrong. A group of bureaucrats in Europe decided
to extend artistic copyrights by another 15 years. So our musical friend
could sit on the project that much longer.
Last week a Hollywood studio announced that it would make War of the
Worlds with Tom Cruise. They aren't going to be making the musical
version, either: but they had big money, and in matters of intellectual
property, money is all that counts. In theory, we authors have an
"inalienable moral right" to own our work. In fact, every time we make a
contract with a studio, we assign away this so-called inalienable right
and pass it to the corporate owner, usually for all time.
When the MPAA complains that it is losing billions to piracy, my first
reaction is, so what? The Hollywood studios are already hugely wealthy;
their power increases constantly, as does the power of other multinational
copyright- and patent-holders such as the pharmaceutical firms.
Consider the VCR. When VCRs and Beta recorders first appeared, the MPAA
made an aggressive attempt to have their recording capacities banned.
Recording films off TV was, they said, a mega-threat which would cost
Hollywood billions in lost profits, and mean the ruin of the industry. The
claim, of course, was rubbish. Instead home video created a new product,
and several new revenue streams. Consumers taped off air, but they also
went out and bought studio videotapes at premium prices.
But is the MPAA's claim that Spider-Man piracy has cost Columbia
Tristar millions in lost profits even true? Spider-Man is one of the most
successful studio releases of recent years. Currently the only pirate
versions available on the internet are of incredibly bad quality, shot by
somebody's camcorder off a cinema screen. To download them from the web,
you have to be fanatical, and very easily pleased.
High-quality "pirate" versions of Spider-Man or Attack of the Clones
will not be available until the DVD comes out; downloading them will
require a super-fast internet connection. The DVD release of both films is
many months away. What fanatical Star Wars or Spidey fan is going to sit
at home for six months waiting for a decent pirate internet version
without seeing it at the pictures (probably several times) first?
Every new technology so far introduced (whether current such as CDs and
DVDs, or defunct like 8-tracks and Beta players) has seen an increase in
distributors' sales and profits.These profits are enhanced by the
manipulation of copyright and intellectual property law, and by
restrictive practices such as the creation of six arbitrary DVD "regions"
instead of the "one world" of CDs.
MPAA executive Fritz Allaway told Bobbie Johnson, "We have seen our
future, and it is terrifying." I - like a lot of other independent
directors and producers - would like to see the future get much more
terrifying for Fritz and his pals; with a radical reform of copyright and
patent law, and a curbing of behemoths such as AOL/Time/Warner, News
International/Fox and Vivendi/ Universal/UIP.
Corporate multinationals, wielding unchecked power, terrify me far more
than kids with video cameras. In fact, the latter, such as the Norwegian
schoolboy who cracked the DVD code, encourage me greatly: their
resourcefulness and creativity - rather than the special pleading and
restrictive practices of the MPAA - represent a possible bright future for
our industry.