THE BIG NEWS of the week is of course the simultaneous worldwide release of The Matrix Revolutions, opening in Cyprus on the same day (last Wednesday) as it did in the US and Europe. The other big news of the past few weeks (at least in the States) has been the decision by the Hollywood studios not to send ‘screeners’ – i.e videos of their films – to critics and Oscar voters, prompting the Los Angeles Film Critics’ Association to cancel their annual awards in protest.
Both these developments stem from the same issue – the problem of piracy, which has studio execs quaking in their designer moccasins. Blockbusters like Matrix Revolutions are prime targets for illicit copying, cutting into the studio’s take, to the extent that it’s now more profitable to strike thousands of prints (six for the minuscule Cyprus market alone) and ship them around the world on the same day than it is to wait and open films gradually, as has been the case for decades. No wonder Hollywood is so keen on digital projection, which will enable them to do away with prints altogether and just beam the latest specimen (via satellite) to all corners of the globe.
Of course, piracy has always been a problem. Local film buffs vividly recall the 80s and early 90s, when Cyprus was a centre for bootleg videos until strict legislation was passed (under pressure from the Americans) to outlaw the practice. But pirate copies in those days were fuzzy at best, unwatchable at worst, and distribution was cumbersome and easily controlled; since then, digital technology and the Internet have combined to create a new breed of pirate video – pristine picture quality, easy to copy and (above all) easy to download on a broadband connection. Hollywood honchos have taken note of the music industry’s troubles with Napster – the file-sharing program that allows fans to bypass CDs altogether – and it makes them very nervous.
Are they over-reacting? For many, the answer is yes – and worse. According to some critics (including those of the LA Association), the decision to stop sending screeners uses piracy merely as a smokescreen, the true agenda being to prevent smaller independent films – the kind that don’t get lengthy cinema runs, and often depend on screeners for attention – from winning Oscars. In the end, the studios were forced to compromise, agreeing to supply Oscar voters (though not critics) with screeners – but the videos will be watermarked and voters must sign a pledge not to copy or otherwise disseminate them, on pain of being expelled from the Academy!
Meanwhile the piracy panic grows apace, with even reports of ‘cap coding’ – a special code burned into a print, to identify those that have been bootlegged (most pirate copies start with ‘leaks’ by studio employees). Clearly, the studios are determined to wipe out the problem – understandably, given that in some countries (especially in the Far East) piracy is so rampant it’s all but emptied the multiplexes, most of them built with Hollywood money. Yet the clear assumption underlying all this fuss is that piracy is an evil, indefensible thing – and that, at least, has yet to be proved.
Those of us who remember the old days in Cyprus know for a fact that video clubs then carried a wider range of films than video clubs now, simply because they were cheaper to buy. Anyone with eyes in their head knows that Hollywood, if it had its way, would block access to everything except the latest ‘product’ it wants you to fork out for at any given time. We’re not defending piracy – which is, after all, against the law – but it’s nonsense to pretend that it’s bad for everyone, ‘us’ as well as ‘them’.
In fact, the problem is a simple one. Consumers want as wide a choice as possible; producers make it their business to narrow that choice. As long as that conflict exists, there will always be a role for the black market.
