According to Thailand's "Bangkok Post" recently reported that after the release of a Hollywood blockbuster, millions of people can get high-definition version of the picture quality online in a very short period of time. Intellectual property experts and film industry executives said that due to rampant Internet piracy, ticket sales in offline theaters and the growth of online paying users are threatened.
In the past, to watch high-quality pirated films, it was usually necessary to wait until a few months after the film was released. Although it is sometimes possible to sneak a sneak peek at the "secretly filmed version" recorded in the theater with a camera or mobile phone, the picture quality and sound effects are very poor, and even cannot be viewed normally. Today, as the film industry gradually shifts to streaming, the situation of newly released films being "perfectly reproduced at the speed of light" is becoming more and more serious. Advances in streaming technology have improved the quality of pirated content, and people can download high-quality movies using special files called "torrents."
According to TorrentFreak, which monitors piracy, illegal copies of several of this year's most popular movies soared in popularity after their premiere, from Suicide Squad and Godzilla vs. King Kong to Jungle Quest and Black Widow. After the release of "Black Widow" on July 9, it became the most pirated movie in the world for three consecutive weeks, and within a few hours of the digital premiere of "Jungle Quest", piracy spread on the Internet. In early August, 12 of the top 20 popular movies on the Pirate Bay website were first released on the official streaming service platform, and the results were quickly pirated. These include Disney's Black Widow, Krura and Jungle Quest, Universal Pictures' Baby Boss 2, and multiple films premiering on official streaming platforms such as Paramount+ and Warner Bros. HBO Max.
Andy Chatley, chief executive of Muso, a pirate tracking organization, said: "When people started hiding from the pandemic at home, the number of pirated videos online and the number of downloads increased dramatically. Muso even found that in March 2020, piracy of children's films such as Paramount's Sonic the Hedgehog soared as children were unable to go to school.
Ernesto von Desar, founder of TorrentFreak, dubbed the illegal pirate website "Netflix without passwords." Ernesto also pointed out that theater executives often predict the follow-up performance of new films based on ticket sales in the early stages of release, but as piracy became more rampant, popular blockbusters such as "Black Widow" plummeted overnight at the box office.
Fearing piracy, actress Scarlett Johansson and her team had hoped that producer Disney would not launch a "Black Widow" film at the same time as its streaming platform Disney+. However, the latter did not heed the advice, resulting in the film's offline premiere box office failing to meet expectations. Scarlett Johansson angrily filed a judicial lawsuit against Disney in July.
"If piracy appears at the first time, how much will everyone lose?" Recently, the National Association of Theater Owners (NATO) anxiously asked major studios in a statement, but Disney and Warner Bros. declined to comment, and Universal Pictures and Paramount did not respond. Hollywood's "indifference" is not indifferent to piracy, but has its own interests.
On the one hand, Hollywood has a team of professionals who search for pirated content and require infringers to remove illegal copies and download links for a limited time. They also combat piracy by working with law enforcement, funding private anti-piracy organizations, and lobbying officials to strengthen regulation and penalties. On the other hand, the "touch net" of the film industry has become a general trend. During the pandemic, as most U.S. theaters closed and studios took the opportunity to implement streaming strategies with great success, Disney+, Netflix and HBO Max were touted by Wall Street capital markets due to a surge in subscribers.
Ultimately, though, piracy hurts the overall interests of the film industry. According to Muso, Warner Bros.'s "The Conjuring 3" grossed $201.4 million worldwide, but it was also the most pirated film in the world that month, with 9.2 million illegal streaming views alone, including more than 1.1 million in the United States. Earlier this year, Godzilla vs. King Kong was illegally played 34 million times.
Piracy will not only reduce the theatrical box office, but also reduce online subscriptions. The Creative and Entertainment Alliance, an anti-piracy group, said that in 2020, websites dedicated to broadcasting and downloading pirated film and television dramas attracted more than 137 billion visits. Before the outbreak, the global box office grossed about $40 billion a year.
On July 30, Disney released "Jungle Trek" starring Dwayne Johnson and Emily Blunt on Disney+, for an additional $30 if users want to watch it online. The weekend of the film's premiere, Disney made $30 million from streaming platforms. But the good times didn't last long, and a day later, thousands of online communities began spreading the "seed" of free downloads of the movie.
"Piracy acts like consumers," said Michael Smith, a professor at Carnegie Mellon University, "and if you make it hard for them to get something that's free, they're going to pay for it." But he also acknowledged that the fight against piracy is a long way off, and that banned illegal websites will soon be replaced by latecomers.
The report also said that Hollywood's "streaming first" strategy has also contributed to the spread of piracy to a certain extent. In the past, it was difficult for overseas audiences to obtain high-quality subtitled versions of films. Today, both Disney+ and HBO Max offer TV shows and TV shows in more than a dozen languages on the platform, thus opening the door to illegal downloads and viewing. For example, a Marvel fan downloaded the 4K HD foreign language version of "Black Widow" that was not released in his home country through the forum, and then searched for the corresponding native subtitle plug-in on the Internet to watch it smoothly.
At present, Hollywood and theaters are trying their best to find countermeasures. AMC Entertainment, the largest theater chain in the United States, has announced a new annual deal with Warner Bros. to ensure the latter has exclusive 45-day release rights. Although Disney said that it will continue to broadcast new films on streaming platforms and theaters, it will discuss the details of the release with theaters "one by one", and its next Marvel movie "Legend of Shangqi and the Legend of the Ten Rings" will be exclusively available to theaters. (Compilation/Ling Feng)
Source: Reference News Network