Movie piracy on the rise, but the industry fights back
Fri, Aug. 25, 2006
Chicago Tribune
LOMBARD, Ill. — When Gene Harris showed up at a Lombard theater for the premiere of "Miami Vice" last month, seeing the movie wasn't his priority. He hoped to catch a filmmaker in action.
And sure enough, Harris did - right there in the audience.
Harris got out his cell phone and called Lombard police. Shortly after, the man in the audience was arrested for secretly camcording a movie.
Score a victory for movie cops like Harris, who is an investigator for the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA).
Had "Miami Vice" been successfully recorded that July night, it would've been available in Chicago's counterfeit DVD markets within hours, Harris said.
Harris is on the front lines of the movie business' war on piracy, ferreting out furtive filmmakers in darkened theaters, and snooping through flea markets for peddlers of counterfeit DVDs.
It's not as dramatic as his old line of work as a homicide detective. But he's got plenty of challenges. Piracy is a booming business, costing the film industry billions of dollars.
Stealing movies and selling counterfeit DVDs has become easier as digital technology has advanced. Video recorders are getting smaller, thus easier to conceal. The Internet has become a key distribution tool. And DVD burners are getting better and faster.
Meanwhile, crooks are increasingly discovering that movie piracy pays well and is less risky than other criminal enterprises - like selling drugs.
"The people you are dealing with aren't going to rip you off and kill you," said Dane Cuny, Lombard's deputy police chief. Plus, the punishment for selling bootleg CDs is much less severe than selling drugs, he said.
Some drug dealers have even migrated to the movie business. "The profit is the same," Harris said.
A distributor of counterfeit DVDs can make $3,000 to $4,000 a week, Harris said. "They live good."
Barriers to entering the business are relatively low: Two DVD burners that together can copy almost 100 discs per hour cost about $1,800 a piece. A high-quality camera costs around $1,000.
And operating costs are extremely low. Each counterfeited disc costs about 75 cents to make, and sells for about $5 - $10 for a particularly hot movie, Harris said.
Big hits, particularly just-released films, command premium prices. That's why "cammers" - people who record movies in theaters - play a critical role in the counterfeiting chain.
Once they finish filming, a pirated movie is quickly uploaded into a computer and formatted with sophisticated software. It can then be burned onto thousands of discs, or distributed through the Internet. The whole process moves very quickly.
A major counterfeiting operation illicitly shot the premiere of "The DaVinci Code" in Guam on a Friday, and illegal copies showed up two days later on street markets in London, said Mike Robinson, the MPAA's director of U.S. anti-piracy operations.
In the case of "Miami Vice," Harris got a tip that a bootleg DVD of it would be on Chicago streets within hours of its local theatrical premiere. The movie was set to open at two theaters, the AMC Loews Crestwood and the AMC Yorktown in Lombard.
So, Harris staked out the Lombard theater and sent a private detective to the Crestwood theater. As the movie began, Harris spotted a Sony camcorder mounted on a tripod, delicately balanced in a seat's cupholder.
Harris called Lombard police and they arrested Frank S. Williams, a 36-year-old Chicago resident. A "blocker" - a suspected accomplice who helped the alleged cammer shield the camera - got away, Harris said. "We had a mix-up and he walked out."
When police later searched Williams' West Side residence, they found DVD burners capable of copying 14 discs at a time, 500 counterfeit DVDs and scores of blank discs for future bootlegs, Cuny said.
Williams was later charged with one count of criminal use of a motion picture exhibition facility, which is punishable by one to three years in prison and/or a $10,000 fine.
Williams, who couldn't be reached for comment, hasn't formally entered a plea.
Harris said he believes Williams was recording the movie for a vertically integrated piracy operation - that is, an outfit that shoots movies, sells them at retail and sells master copies to other retailers.
The bootleg movie business has lots of small players that don't actually shoot movies in theaters, but simply buy copies from those who do, and then burn their own counterfeit DVDs.
They hawk them from mall parking lots and bus and train stops. Flea markets are a particularly big retail channel.
To the consumer, the bootleg's appeal is simple: A family of four can sit and watch a new movie for $5, instead of the $40-plus it would cost to do the same at a theater. And the quality of counterfeits is often very good, Harris said.
In his office recently, Harris played a bootleg version of the movie "Cars" to a reporter. It looked just like the real thing, and was even packaged with a fake label made on a sophisticated copying machine.
Harris works from a nondescript business park, sharing an office with an investigator for the Recording Industry Association of America, which also combats piracy.
Counterfeiters often sell movies and music together, so Harris often works with his record business counterpart, J. Martin Walsh, a retired postal inspector. When either thinks they have a case, they bring it to law enforcement authorities.
Harris, 67, began moonlighting for the MPAA in the 1990s when he was still a Chicago cop. He retired from the force in 1997, after 33 years of service, and then increased his contract work for the MPAA. Last November, he became a full-time MPAA employee.
The MPAA also has full-time staff detectives in Atlanta and Miami, along with several investigators in Los Angeles and New York, the nation's biggest piracy hotspots.
Harris' work in some ways isn't that different from his old job solving murders. He still relies heavily on confidential informants, only their tips now might concern an illicit copy of "Meet the Fockers" rather than a bloodstained kitchen knife.
"The parallel is the investigative work," Harris said. "It's the same thing."
