Movie studios resort to scanners, goggles
signonsandiego.com
By Jonathan Sidener
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
April 30, 2003
Before a recent advance screening of "X2: X-Men United" at Horton Plaza's theaters, Fox Studios employees scanned movie critics with metal detectors to search for hidden digital camcorders.
Once the lights dimmed, the employees donned night-vision goggles to monitor the audience.
Using tools designed for war and used to thwart terrorists, Hollywood has escalated the fight against the digital theft of movies.
The measures are particularly evident at advance screenings, primarily attended by winners of promotional tickets as well as movie critics.
Studio employees search for the ever-smaller camcorders that cinema pirates use to record movies, making copies that quickly turn up at swap meets and on the Internet before a film's release.
"We take this very seriously," said Jeffrey Godsick, Fox Studios' executive vice president. "There are a number of measures we are taking at every pre-release screening."
Fox and other studios search moviegoers' bags, and security employees – some using night-vision technology – monitor the crowd.
"If you go out to go to the bathroom or get popcorn, we'll wand you and search your bags again," Godsick said.
At a screening in another city, Fox employees found a moviegoer with a camcorder on a tripod before the movie started, he said.
Studios say they are using the metal detectors and night-vision goggles only at "sneak previews."
Godsick and others say they have no plans to use the technology on customers after a movie's release.
Ken Jacobsen, head of security for the Motion Picture Association of America, said the actions are the result of a serious piracy problem.
Last year, the industry lost an estimated $3 billion or more to the sale of pirated DVDs, video CDs and laser discs, Jacobsen said.
In addition, 28 movies showed up on pirated discs or on the Internet before they hit theaters, he said.
The industry association said 35 million illegal discs were confiscated in 2002; the majority of those were camcorder copies of movies, he said.
The association issued a report to the studios that outlined the security technologies.
"We left it up to each individual studio to decide which practices they wanted to implement," he said.
The new tools and get-tough policy have produced results.
Night-vision equipment played a role in the arrest last week of Johnny Ray Gasca of Los Angeles, the first person charged with movie piracy under the federal Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Christopher Johnson said Gasca was making between $1,000 and $4,500 a week selling illegally copied movies.
A studio used night-vision equipment to videotape Gasca recording a movie with a camcorder and turned the evidence over to the FBI, Johnson said.
Godsick, the Fox executive, said that the studio has had no complaints from moviegoers about the measures and that there are no privacy issues surrounding the use of the technology.
"We don't think of it as military technology," he said. "You can buy the night-vision equipment at Sharper Image."
However, AMC Theatres has balked at having the detectors and goggles in its facilities, forcing Fox, Warner Bros. and others to move screenings to competitors' theaters.
An AMC spokesman would not comment except to say that the chain and the studios are in discussions over "some differences."
One privacy advocate said the measures could be more of a public relations problem than a question of law.
"That's a quirky one," said Stephen Keating, director of the Colorado-based Privacy Foundation. "Certainly people don't expect to be under surveillance in a movie theater."
Word of the tactics has prompted complaints by file-sharing enthusiasts that the movie industry has gone too far.
While some cry foul, the high-tech practice is probably merely misguided, said Chris Hedgecock, president of Zeropaid.com, a San Diego Web site for fans of file sharing.
Hedgecock said camcorder copies of motion pictures are typically of low quality. The bigger problem, he said, stems from industry insiders who sell high-quality copies to counterfeiters.
The MPAA's Jacobsen said the association is equally concerned about pirated copies coming from industry insiders.
Copies of "The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers" have been available on the Internet for weeks, although the movie isn't out on DVD, Hedgecock said.
"That's a DVD-quality rip. That's not coming from a camcorder." |
