Whether you choose to pay attention to the scaremongers, piracy is the scourge of the internet and is stifling creativity and investment. It’s an easy statement to believe since downloading digital content has become as easy as sending an email to your mother, a few clicks and you have a whole album or movie on your computer.
The movie industry would lead you to believe that movie piracy is causing a decline in theater attendances and Box Office revenues but, according to the LA Times, this simply isn’t the case. In 2009, attendances rose by 4.5% (not just in the US but including the UK, Japan, Germany, Australia, Mexico and Brazil) from the previous year, even when a recession was taking its toll on every other consumer industry.
Changes haven’t just been noticed in theatres, it’s starting to take effect on the very sites that proliferate digital content. In a yearly study undertaken by Andy Biao, where Oscar nominations are referenced with the availability of its associated pirate download, it has been found that there are less pirated movie “Screeners” available for download as the Oscar Cermony approaches than in previous years.
For those not in the know, a Screener is a high-quality compressed backup of a DVD sent to Academy members for their consideration. In previous years these copies have made their way onto the internet and uploaded to Bittorrent websites for users to download.
Of the 34 nominated films, only 14 Screeners have found their way online and “on average” are taking 21 days to leak from the date of the films theatrical release. Whilst 41% of films are available to download via a leaked Screener, 82% are available as a Camcorder (CAM) or TeleSync download but even these lower quality releases have noticably dropped since last year.
Different people will have different theories as to why there has been a decline in Screener leaks this year. A credible theory is that Academy members are now under such scrutiny in regards to possible punishment for a leak (the copy they receive is watermarked to individually identify the person behind the leak) or that the film they receive has a more complex form of copy protection.
One theory that sits well with me is that movie downloaders are waiting for the Retail DVD to be released so they can be assured the audio and video quality of the release is up to their standard. Screeners tend to have embedded watermarks and R5 releases tend to be released in Russian therefore requiring a dubbed English audio track from a Camcorder copy.
By nature, we are impatient. I would sooner jump in the car and travel to the movie theater to watch a film that interested me than wait (at least) a couple of months for a retail DVD to be available for download. Could this be the same for some of the other casual downloaders? If so, the MPAA will sleep well if this trend continues.
I have noticed less screeners this year to, but I have another reason for it…
Many of the screeners are now being sent out on Blu-ray, not DVD, which allows the reviewer to get more of the original cinematic quality. The side effect is that the movie is now much bigger, more like 30GB compared to 6GB and it's considerably harder for them to rip it off. It won't fit on most USB sticks and it's considerably harder to decrypt. End result, less piracy.
Ben, showing n00b intelligence there mate. Blu ray copy protection has been broken since its introduction nearly 3 years ago. I download 720p releases way before they're out to buy. No studio has sent out Blu ray screeners as they would be just as copiable as DVD's are and would be higher quality rip offs if they made onto the web. I find the article confusing as the final oscar film this year was released yesterday (avatar) which means that every film in every category up for an oscar is in my media bin (4tb NAS) which i can watch in high quality dvd upscaled in 1080p. There arent fewer dvd screener releases this year, the guy writing the article has not done his research.
LOL bertyjones, you're a real classic but clearly as you only have 4TB of storage you're pretty new to this game. You talk about the article author not doing his research yet come out with such pathetic and inaccurate claims.
Blu-ray screeners have been around for ages and they're particularly useful when sending discs to foreign language reviewers, e.g. Spanish. The extra space easily allows multiple language versions on one disc, in full quality audio, without requiring the compression you need on a DVD to cram extra language soundtracks on.
Blu-ray copy protection has indeed been broken, but they keep changing the keys. Sure, once the keys are cracked, we can copy those newer discs but it takes a little time. Usually more time than you have with a screener disc. These are generated with new, unique, keys which blu-ray ripping software can't extract off the shelf. If your mum or dad happens to be on the Academy Awards panel, it used to be as simple as grabbing the DVD out of their briefcase for 5mins and running it through DVD Decrypter onto a USB stick. Not quite so simple now, not at all. Sure, not impossible, which is why the blu-ray screeners still leak from time to time; but certainly considerably more difficult and time consuming than before. Most of the PCs/laptops used to do this still don't even have optical drives capable of reading blu-ray discs.
But don't just take my word for it, seeing as you like a bit of research, let's provide a few examples:
Star.Trek.BR.XViD.LINE.SCREENER.2009.ES-iND
You know the film, right? Star Trek 2009, the JJ Abrams contribution to the Star Trek movies. Good film. Of course it was released on a Blu-ray screener. The above release was encoded from it, into xvid, and then alternate language audio muxed in as it wasn't on the original disc. The BR in the filename stands for blu-ray, didn't you know?
Maybe another example, like the one recently done by drago group:
2012.2009.BRSCR.SPANiSH.LiNE.XViD-Drago
Oh yeah, the movie 2012…from another blu-ray screener.
Not convinced these are from blu-ray? Should they be in HD perhaps? Well they do exist…here's another:
Julie.Y.Julia.2009.SPANiSH.720p.BRSCR.x264-PROXY
A nice x264 encode, in 720p, from a blu-ray screener.
So, enjoy your ripped off DVDs and enjoy upscaling their low res and crappy bitrate onto your 1080p – I'll wait for the retail disc myself.
Ben if that was true then the scene (which I'm a member of) would simply sync those HD quality video with TS audio that is available since the film is released in cinemas. never have I seen those copies that you quote such as “2012.2009.BRSCR.SPANiSH.LiNE.XViD-Drago” there is no release group on the scene called 'drago' lol. I'd really love to know where your sourcing your info from, because it's heavily inaccurate. There were no screeners of 2012. there were cams some TS, then R5 in late december. now its already been ripped through blu ray, even though its not out until next month. the point of blu ray keys are pointless as the whole reason 'piracy' exists is one copy, which is copied and transferred. Why would an ordinary consumer want to rip their blu ray they bought and run into difficulty doing so if the key is changed when an original copy that is ripped months ago, was exactly that – been around for months…… Ben, send me your email and I'll happily get you into the scene if you want, maybe you'll learn something…
You're not a Scene member.