Author / No Thoughts
If you want to say what the hottest news in the movie industry was yesterday, it is probably Marvel's "Spider-Man 3" released a new trailer.
In the case of the failure of "Black Widow" at the box office, and the uncertain future of the mainland release plans of "Shangqi" and "Eternal", the "Spider-Man 3: Heroes No Return" released at the end of the year has undoubtedly become the most anticipated Marvel movie for domestic fans this year. Yesterday, the popularity on social networks also fully proved this.
However, there were also unexpected oolong incidents. The trailer that should have been released at the CinemaCon Sony conference on August 23, North American time, was accidentally leaked, and it was quickly spread on Twitter and YouTube before the official release. Although the special effects of this version of the trailer were not finished, and Sony Pictures quickly took action, removing the relevant videos and issuing a copyright notice, it still did not stop the enthusiasm of fans.
Since this is the case, Sony decided to simply do nothing and release the "real guy". Therefore, yesterday, the film side took advantage of the heat and released a real trailer positive film. Sure enough, except for the unfinished part of the special effects, the main plot is almost exactly the same as the trailer that leaked out before.
Coincidentally, two days ago, a similar incident occurred in China.
Since the launch of the fire TV series "Sweeping The Black Storm" on August 9, not only has the popularity always been very high, but the word of mouth has also remained high, but most viewers have reported that the pace of updating one episode a day is too slow. In addition, many viewers have also disputed the on-demand format of the series. Ordinary users can only watch one episode a day, platform VIP members can watch four more episodes, and from last weekend, they can be on demand in advance in the form of one episode of 3 yuan. Many viewers said that Tencent's wave of operations is really "ugly to eat".
However, on the evening of the 20th, there was a leak of resources in the "review version" of the "Anti-Black Storm" complete collection on the Internet, and the topic on Weibo even rushed to the hot search for a while. Although the official quickly issued a solemn statement of "anti-piracy", saying that it had been reported to the police and would be investigated for criminal responsibility according to law, the damage caused was probably difficult to recover.
Frankly speaking, the leakage of resources is not a new topic in the film and television circle, and similar incidents have often occurred before, including but not limited to the leakage of schedules, trailer leaks, and the complete leakage of positive films to a serious extent. Although the reasons behind this are also different, people speculate a lot, but the "Spider-Man 3" and "Sweeping Storm" encountered, undoubtedly bring the relevant topic of "anti-piracy" to everyone again.
Resource leakage incidents at home and abroad are frequent
In recent years, resource leakage incidents have occurred frequently at home and abroad. Back in 2009, there was a breach of super blockbusters in Hollywood.
At that time, the prequel to the "X-Men" series, "Wolverine", was scheduled to be released in North America on May 1 and landed in domestic theaters on May 3. Unexpectedly, a month in advance, on April 1, there were leaked resources for this film on the Internet. According to netizens, the integrity of the resources of the version is very high, in addition to the last ten minutes of special effects have not been completed, there is no timecode and watermark, which can already be regarded as a pure version.
This incident not only made the producer at the time, 20th Century Fox, angry, but also alarmed the FBI. Although there have been previous leaks of film sources in Hollywood, such as Eli Rose's "The Skin Inn 2", Rob Zambie's "New Halloween", and Michael Moore's "Medical Insider", these films are obviously not as large as the commercial blockbusters such as "Wolverine", and the impact is not as widespread as the latter. In a way, "Wolverine" may be the largest volume of films in Hollywood history at that time that suffered a resource leak.
In recent years, there have been very few relevant news in Hollywood, but in China, there will still be resource leakage from time to time. Among them, tv dramas belong to the hardest hit areas. For example, fire dramas such as "Ode to Joy", "The Name of the People", "Three Lives and Three Worlds and Ten Miles of Peach Blossoms", and even "Qing Yu Nian", "Dear, Loved", "Hidden Corners" and other fire dramas have been leaked to varying degrees.
In 2017, the movie "The Legend of Wukong" also had a resource leak a few days before its release. Although in the past, pirated resources like movies, or pirated recordings and pirated films are also not uncommon, but it is not uncommon for full film resources to appear before the release of the film this time.
At the time, screenshots of pirated resources showed that the version was a version without post-special effects, and the actors all performed in front of the green screen. From the watermark information in the picture, it can be seen that most of them are loopholes in the post-production process. Such a situation as "Wukong Biography" is a highly industrial and commercial film, which is undoubtedly a fatal blow to the box office of the film.
However, on the whole, there are still few cases like this that occur before the release of the film and the flow of pirated resources. In most cases, the leakage of pirated resources still occurs after the film has been produced, and the sample is sent for review or exhibited.
For example, after last year's Berlin Film Festival, Cai Liangliang's new work "Days" soon had a resource leakage. It is understood that it is likely that the producer of Cai Dao was leaked in the process of transmitting the film source at the request of some media and film manufacturers, and the source is more difficult to check. At that time, Cai Dao began to publish several long articles in Douban, denouncing people who spread pirated resources. This matter was once discussed in the fan circle.
▲ Director Cai Liangming's diary on Douban
Since last year, due to the popularity of online film festivals, many well-known films screened at international film festivals have also escaped the fate of being "recorded", which has begun to become one of the culprits in the current dissemination of pirated resources.
Among them, the most widely discussed is the Hong Kong film "Wisdom Teeth". In March this year, "Wisdom Teeth" first landed in the Screening Unit of the Berlin International Film Festival, and some of the media outlets released at that time were quite strong. Later, in early July, the film was again screened at the Italian Far Eastern Film Festival, but it was recorded. Soon, the video recorded version of the video began to go viral on the Internet. Considering the scale of this film, it is estimated that it is difficult to enter the domestic theater line through deletion, but it is important that this film has not yet been released in Hong Kong. And this time the leakage of resources basically means that the local distribution plan in Hong Kong is more difficult, which is undoubtedly a huge impact on this film.
▲ The screen of "Wisdom Teeth" at the Far Eastern Film Festival
Not only that, but several films like this year's Berlin reputation, including "Chance and Imagination" and "Mr. Bachmann and His Students", were all recorded version of the resources shortly after the end of Berlin. In fact, these two films have been bought by domestic film dealers and are ready to be screened at domestic film festivals, and the leakage of resources has undoubtedly caused great losses to various domestic film dealers.
Although films such as "Days", "Chance and Imagination", "Mr. Bachmann and His Students" mentioned above, art films that are originally of interest to niche fan circles, it is difficult to really get a high box office for the mass commercial market. But in a way, these kinds of films are sometimes more harmful than commercial blockbusters.
At least, those commercial blockbusters that pay attention to the perception and audiovisual experience can attract a wide audience to enter the theater to "see a hilarity"; but these works that belong to the carnival of the niche circle, if even their own fan groups are not supported through genuine channels, ordinary audiences are even less interested. In the long run, the domestic art film market will only tighten in the future.
Who is to blame for leaking pirated resources?
The leakage of pirated resources can occur in all aspects of the film production and distribution distribution pipeline, which is closely related to the maturity of our market industry level and the moral and legal awareness of practitioners.
Because the awareness of copyright protection in China is too weak, it has been difficult to completely eradicate such a phenomenon. In theory, once a film enters a public space such as the Internet, it will be difficult for the filmmaker to make up for it. Cracking down on network links can only be one of the ways to talk better than nothing, and the symptoms are not curative.
Although the protection of copyright is taken into account, the producer will sign a confidentiality agreement with the partner at each step to clarify the responsible person. This may seem like a safe measure, but there are still many opportunities to take advantage of.
For example, as soon as the incident of "The Legend of Wukong" came out, the contradictions pointed to the post-special effects production company at that time. Although the sample leaves relevant company and personnel information, in fact, in this process, the sample may also be passed to different people through multiple reversals. After all, post-production is a huge project, and each link such as color grading, sound effects, and subtitles requires the participation of different personnel, which is also likely to be mixed.
In addition to the resource leakage that may occur in the later stage process, other links such as filing for approval after the completion of the film production, and registration for film festivals may also occur. For example, films such as "Middle Evil" and "Elephant Sitting on the Ground" of the PREVIOUS FIRST Youth Film Festival have all experienced the leakage of film resources.
▲ Screenshot of the leaked version of the movie "Middle Evil" (from the network)
In addition, there is also a situation, that is, everyone knows it, but it is rare to get the vicious competition of peers on the table, which may be more obvious in the drama.
After all, due to the difference in the number of episodes, the chase is also time-based, and a popular series is often broadcast on different platforms. Nowadays, in the era of capital pursuit of profits, the Internet platform has a high right to speak, if the popularity of a series is too high, the platform will often take different ways to stimulate the new or drainage of members, such as reducing the update rate, or advanced on demand. But this often causes users to resent, and the eyes of the home are red and black.
Even if a film successfully lands on the big screen, there will also be some people with weak legal awareness who openly pirate and pirate the film in the theater.
In the past few years, the "gun version" resources of cinema theft are not uncommon, and in recent years, with the continuous strengthening of the anti-piracy mechanism of the theater, the monitoring of video in the cinema hall, the protection of the source file transmission process, and the increasing viewing habits of the audience, the phenomenon of piracy has improved to a certain extent compared with before. However, the current pirate leakage resources can be said to be more and more clear, such as the various blockbusters released in the Spring Festival in 2019, and even just the second day of the release, there are already high-definition resources on the Internet, and I don't know whether it was leaked out by the theater, or who cracked the mother disk key.
In short, it is regrettable that with the continuous improvement of the level of technology, people's moral standards and ideological concepts do not seem to have improved with them, and there will always be new cracking methods one after another, which is overwhelming.
Cracking down on leaked resources is a "protracted battle"
Considering the different profit models of movies and dramas, the spread of pirated and leaked resources has different effects on each other.
In the field of film, most films can basically complete their normal distribution life, and when the theater and network distribution are completed, there will be pirated resources circulating on the Internet. But like "The Legend of Wukong", leaked resources before the release, which had a rather bad impact on the box office of the film.
And like "Wisdom Teeth", not to mention the Chinese mainland and foreign countries, even the local distribution process in Hong Kong has not been completed. That is to say, the film is currently not distributed offline in any country and region, and it has been maliciously disseminated to network resources. This is not only "cutting off people's financial roads", but even "leaving no way to live", which is really infuriating.
As for the drama field, the most closely linked to it is the impact of membership payment and advanced on-demand fees. After all, the current broadcast model formulated by the platform, which is a super member and an advanced on-demand, is already "expensive" for the user itself. To be fair, if you can watch the pirated full collection for free, there must be many viewers who are willing to do the "reach out party".
▲ Netizens have not a few supporters of the controversy over the "Sweeping Black Storm" incident
In China, the reason why it is so difficult to combat piracy resources is that in addition to the technical conditions that need to be improved, the public's copyright awareness needs to be enhanced, and there is also a very important point, that is, "the cost of breaking the law is too low".
Not to mention that in the process of resource dissemination, it is difficult to prove, and there is a large space for flexibility; even if it is really held responsible, the cost paid or the amount of compensation paid in many cases can only be regarded as a dime a dozen compared to the loss of the video platform or the movie box office. It was not until 2014 that the first criminal verdict for pirated video websites appeared in China; it was not until early 2019 that the National Copyright Administration issued a statement saying that serious infringement and piracy incidents in the film field should be included in the scope of criminal crackdown.
Therefore, returning to the source and cracking down on pirated and leaked resources actually put forward higher professional requirements and ethical guidelines for all of our practitioners.
Only in the field of film, first of all, in the pre-shooting and post-production stage of the film, in addition to strictly doing the corresponding confidentiality work, and signing the corresponding confidentiality agreement with the staff of each link in the later stage, the responsibility should be implemented to the individual, but also to cultivate a good sense of copyright awareness and collective honor. To let everyone understand that this work condenses everyone's hard work, the film is not a one-man war, it requires the cooperation of hundreds of thousands or more people, and there is no room for sloppy behavior in any link, and the consequences will be fatal.
Secondly, in the process of transmitting film sources, such as the stage of sending them to participate in film festivals, if conditions permit, "human flesh copies" are naturally relatively safe measures. In addition, the choice of encrypted links, as well as relatively secure, anti-screen video platforms are also factors that need to be considered. If you must use the network disk as a way of dissemination, you must ensure that you add the name of the reviewer and other information watermarks to the sample, so that even if the source of the film is leaked, at least the relevant responsible person can be held accountable. Of course, the reviewers themselves must also improve their sense of responsibility, and the film festival exhibitors should undertake important regulatory work to ensure the transparency, openness and credibility of all links.
Finally, and most importantly, it must be implemented in everyone and the overall environment. Of course, considering the special domestic national conditions system, many people will explain it on the grounds that "the country cannot be viewed through the genuine channel", and even if there is a genuine channel, most of them will suffer different degrees of deletion. Therefore, when talking about copyright issues in China, it seems that there are always some gray areas in the congenital nature, and it is difficult to achieve one-size-fits-all eradication.
In this regard, The Intelligence Jun believes that although this is the case, it is still necessary and important to establish a good copyright awareness. The premise of having copyright awareness is to have the most basic legal awareness, to respect the copyright of film and television dramas, not only to respect the circulation and normal life of film and television as cultural goods, but also to respect the basic aesthetic values and spiritual tastes of film and television as an art form. Creators and investors must be allowed to gain so that a virtuous circle of the industry can be fostered.
The birth of a film and television work condenses the hard work and sweat of countless people, and deserves to get legitimate returns and feedback; but to destroy all this, in fact, only a network disk link is needed. How many of these are unintentional, and how many are intentional? I am afraid that only the initiator himself knows best in his heart.
In short, piracy is a cliché, not only in China, not only in the film and television industry, but also in the world. It can be said that the fight against the leakage of resources has a long way to go. And this war between copyright owners and resource leakers is likely to continue.