Friday, October 4, 2019

We Need A Global Network Against Movie Piracy




We Need A Global Network Against Movie Piracy

Movie pirates released Martin Scorsese's "The Irishman" two months ago before the official release in September. 



I am afraid that they may have access to James Cameron's yet to be released "Avatar 2", the much awaited sequel to his blockbuster movie, "Avatar" and other big movies waiting to be released. And these movie pirates are not invisible.

Global movie piracy cost billions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of jobs.
See the following alarming reports.
Global digital piracy costs the US film and TV industry at least an estimated $29.2 billion and as much as $71 billion annually.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.cnet.com/google-amp/news/digital-video-piracy-costs-the-movie-and-tv-industry-at-least-29-billion-study-says/
A report from industry analysis Digital TV Research suggests the amount of revenue lost to piracy has skyrocketed from US$6.7 billion in 2010 to nearly US$31.8 billion last year. The figure will hit nearly US$52 billion in 2022, the Online TV Piract Forecasts report suggests.
The US lost the most to online piracy in 2016 – US$8.9 billion – and will remain the most impacted in 2022, when US$11.6 billion is predicted to disappear.
Piracy in China, which is already tecond-most affected with a US$4.2 billion loss in 2016, will rocket up to US$9.8 billion by 2022.https://www.digitaltveurope.com/2017/10/30/piracy-to-cost-tv-and-film-industry-us52bn-by-2022/


Movie pirates are ahead of us, because we don't have a consensus on a global strategy against movie piracy.
For example, American anti-piracy agencies often campaign against the piracy of American movies, but ignore the widespread piracy of foreign movies in America. And in Nigeria, we cry over the piracy of Nollywood movies, but we ignore the rampant piracy of movies from Hollywood and Bollywood openly hawked on the streets of Lagos, Africa's largest megacity where thousands of pirated foreign movies are sold every day. 

Copyright infringers tend to also be the entertainment industry’s biggest customers. https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110727/16233815292/another-day-another-study-that-says-pirates-are-best-customers-this-time-hadopi.shtml
Yes. Many reports from investigations and surveys have shown that pirates spend more on original Intellectual Property (IP) than the loudest noisemakers condemning the pirates.
A Japanese fan of Nigerian born musician, Keziah Jones once paid US$800 for the music video of his live concert in Lagos in March 2005, without the knowledge or permission of the artiste. The first copy of the music video from the laptop of  the organisers of the concert was DHLed to the fan in Tokyo who shared it before the artiste returned to Europe with his "Master Copy".

The fact is: it is most likely while Mr. Charles H. Rivkin, Chairman and CEO of the Motion Picture Association is sipping coffee in his office, someone he sees every day at home or on the street is downloading a movie or song illegally on a digital mobile device.

I exchange greetings with the man selling pirated American movies and TV series on my street. Nigerian police officers and other law enforcement agents are among his regular consumers.
As I said earlier that movie pirates are not invisible spirits. They are among us and they reproduce themselves every day like mosquitoes in the swamps. 
The movie piracy website that illegally premiered Martin Scorsese's "The Irishman" two months before the official theatrical release on September 27, 2019 is not invisible. The operators can be caught with Google Maps within minutes.

We need a global network of all anti-piracy agencies to campaign and fight against movie piracy from the street to the internet. And until we do so, the fight against movie piracy will be like exchanging blows with our own shadows.


- By EKENYERENGOZI Michael Chima,
CEO, International Digital Post Network Limited,
Publisher/Editor,
NOLLYWOOD MIRROR®Series
https://www.amazon.com/author/ekenyerengozimichaelchima.
 @247nigeria Twitter.
@Nigeriansreport Facebook




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