The release of the summer’s first blockbuster movies has sparked an unprecedented frenzy of film piracy, sending nearly 10 million people online to download bootleg copies of “Spider-Man” or “Star Wars: Episode II–Attack of the Clones.”
Even as box-office sales soar–with the top 12 movies grossing a record $193 million over the four-day Memorial Day weekend–Internet film piracy is growing even faster, according to a new report from Viant, a Boston-based researcher.
As many as 400,000 to 600,000 illicit copies of films are downloaded every day–a 20 percent increase over a year ago.
“It’s getting clear–alarmingly clear, I might add–that we are in the midst of the possibility of Armageddon,” said Jack Valenti, president of the Motion Picture Association of America.
More Top Picks Wolfbox Megavolt16 Air
The film industry has kept a wary eye on online piracy since Napster popularized file swapping three years ago–and made it possible for millions of strangers to freely exchange billions of bootleg songs. A new generation of file-swapping services–including Morpheus, Kazaa, LimeWire and iMesh–has allowed computer users to find and trade movie files with similar ease.
But the brisk trading of big-budget films like “Spider-Man” and “Star Wars” represents a new high-water mark in film piracy, Viant says.
The twin blockbusters appeal to “the right demographic”–primarily adolescent and 20-something men–and come at the right time–the end of the school year–to ignite a powder keg of online piracy, said Andrew Frank, Viant’s chief technical officer.
Hard-core thieves
Much of the activity is on Internet Relay Chat–a sophisticated network of servers that requires users to know pass codes and basic code language and offer something to barter as the price of admission. Traffic on IRC swelled to 2.5 million users, about five times the norm, Frank said. IRC is considered a place where hard-core pirates hang out and swap wares.
The vast majority of the bootleg activity, however, is occurring on well-known file-swapping sites.
At its peak, Viant estimates nearly 10 million computer users scoured IRC, Morpheus, Kazaa and other online services for pirated copies of “Star Wars” and “Spider-Man.” Indeed, traffic spiked 300 percent during the weekend of May 11, when trading of grainy, jerky illicit “cam” versions of the films–captured by a video camera at prerelease screenings–became widespread.
That doesn’t take into account file trading done directly over instant-messaging services provided by America Online, Yahoo and Microsoft; or on college campuses, where a single bootleg copy on the campus network could serve thousands of students.
Valenti worries that digitally pilfered film copies–packaged into file sizes that can fit on and be burned to a standard CD or DVD, then traded, shared or sold–will not only undercut box-office sales, but erode the lucrative rental market.
“Only two out of 10 movies ever get their money back from theatrical exhibition,” Valenti said. “Eight out of 10 have to go to airlines, to hotels, to Blockbuster, to HBO, then to basic cable–to get their money back. If you are ambushed in the early days of your theatrical exhibition, the chances of you recouping in a world that is mostly broadband would be very, very different.”
Frank estimates only one in four people who tried to download illicit copies of these movies were successful.
Time-consuming downloads
“Star Wars,” for instance, comes in four separate files–ranging in size from 70 million to 180 million bytes of information each–typically requiring hours to download.
And in the case of Morpheus, where a user simply enters a search term such as “Spider-Man,” one doesn’t always get what was expected–the movie can be mislabeled, blank or missing audio.
It would be easier, and less painful, to buy a ticket at the theater, Frank said.
“The fact that people are doing this, despite how challenging and frustrating it is, really does indicate there’s a whole lot of demand,” Frank said. “We hope this will encourage Hollywood not only to try to take combative measures to shut it down, which is certainly a worthwhile pursuit of theirs, but to try to address demand by accelerating their licensing of content for online distribution.”