DIGC102 Information Search Assignment Report
How is the Australian Cinema Industry handling movie piracy and illegal downloading? Due to new illegal adaptations and ways of watching films, The Australian Cinema Industry is having to combat these illicit activities to insure that their revenue doesn’t continue to fall. The Industry is heavily reliant upon the functioning of small businesses as well as the large movie theater chains. The threat to the industry first appeared when movie piracy trade, mainly form Asian countries, started to work its way into consumers accessibility range. Consumers were choosing to illegal purchase a pirated film for a much cheaper price rather than view it at a local cinema. The next problem that arose came form the illegal downloading and streaming of film on the Internet. Movie Theatres are struggling to compete with the free streaming and before cinematic release downloading trend. A Stateline News story shows that West Australian independent cinemas believe the first and largest effect on their revenue has come from the illegal trade of pirated movies from Bali (Bain, 2005). The significance of the Internet downloading has only recently just started to effect small businesses financially in the last few years, as the trend and the technologies continue to develop. To combat the consumers and distributors of illegal movie content, organizations have been established aim at educating people of the impact of choosing the illegal option. Programs like the Intellectual Property Awareness Foundation (IPAF) was created to directly combat illegal watching of film content. These organizations believe that once people have been educated to see “copyright theft is wrong and the detrimental impact it has on the industry” (Enigma, 2009) its will limit activity. Another way the Industry is choosing to fight against illegal distribution is to take legal action. More than 7 industry leading movie and TV networks have filed a suit against a file sharing internet ISP company iiNet for allowing their users to share and distribute illegal content (soulxtc, 2008). The companies are holding iiNet responsible for allowing the sharing of “unauthorized use of copies of our titles by its customers” (Soulxtc, 2008) It is estimated that “DVD piracy costs the Australian film industry more than $200 million a year” (Ferraro, 2004). So police departments are starting to convict and arrest those who are trading movie content underground, but those planning and using over the Internet are harder to track. Most illegal movie streamers reside their company operations overseas, leaving Australia police helpless to combat and convict. Bain, D. 2005. WA’s Cinema Industry in Crisis- Transcript, Stateline WA. (accessed 06/08/09). http://www.abc.net.au/stateline/wa/content/2005/s1448230.htm Decherney, P. 2007. “Copyright Dupes: Piracy and New Media in Edison v. Lubin (1903)”. In Film History: An International Journal, No. 19 Iss. 2, pg. 109-124. (accessed 11/08/09). http://muse.uq.edu.au.ezproxy.uow.edu.au/journals/film_history/v019/19.2decherney.html Enigma. 2009. Anti-Piracy Groups Target Australia’s Children. (accessed 06/08/09). http://torrentfreak.com/anti-piracy-groups-target-australias-children-090602/ Ferraro, P. 2004. “Film Industry and Police Combine to Tackle Piracy”.In ABC News Online. (accessed 11/06/09). http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200411/s1251759.htm Jarett, L. 2008. “The Use of P2P technology for Privacy of Film and Television Content in Australia”. In Intellectual Property, VOL. 74, Iss. 9, Pg. 49-65. (accessed 06/08/09). http://search.informit.com.au.ezproxy.uow.edu.au/fulltext;dn=200813095;res=APAFT Segrave, K. 2003. “Piracy in the Motion Picture Industry”. In Film & History: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Film and Television Studies, Vol. 31, Iss. 1, Pg. 87-89. (accessed 11/08/09). http://muse.uq.edu.au.ezproxy.uow.edu.au/journals/film_and_history/v034/34.1broderick.html Soulxtc. 2008. Aussie Movie & TV Industry Sues ISP for Allowing P2P Piracy. (accessed 11/08/09). http://www.zeropaid.com/news/9852/aussie_movie_tv_industry_sues_isp_for_allowing_p2p_piracy/ Tate, J. 2007. “Over-the-counter Movie Pirates Fined $16,000”. In Inside Film. (accessed 11/08/09). http://www.if.com.au/news?newsid=508 Village Cinema. Anti-Piracy. (accessed 06/08/09). http://wwww.villagecinemas.com.au/Movies/Anti-piracy.htm
