Anti-Piracy in Asia Pacific
in this section:
PEER-TO-PEER (P2P)
In many ways, the Internet represents the distribution dream for copyright owners — true video-on-demand via high-quality streaming or super-fast high-bandwidth downloads to the home or to an individual. However, it is equally clear that technology can be used as both a positive and a negative social force. Thanks to technology, movie pirates can now redistribute perfect copies of their stolen content, worldwide, within minutes of obtaining it.
Peer-to-peer (P2P) Internet piracy is the fast-growing online piracy problem facing copyright holders and is inextricably linked to so-called "hard goods" piracy involving illegal videotape and optical-disc copies, which the MPAA estimates costs its member studios $3.8 billion a year. Losses due to Internet piracy are estimated at US$2.3 and growing.
Every theatrical release of MPAA members’ motion pictures in recent years has been pirated over the Internet and put on P2P file-trading networks, usually after the film has been illegally videotaped in a theater. In turn, hard-goods pirates have used those illegal digital copies to make illegal tapes and discs of the movies. Internet traffic management and network intelligence firm CacheLogic has estimated that 50-65 percent of all Internet download traffic, and 75-90 percent of all Internet upload traffic is P2P- related. The P2P research firm Big Champagne estimated that in September 2005 the average number of files available for download at any given moment on P2P networks worldwide was nearly 2.8 billion.
In Asia-Pacific, P2P piracy is a significant concern in countries with high broadband penetration rates such as South Korea and Japan, and is a threat in all countries with growing broadband user bases. In 2004, Japanese law enforcement authorities effected landmark criminal prosecutions against P2P network pirates and the developer of a P2P network designed specifically to provide users with anonymity and as a result with protection from identification by police. In 2005, a Hong Kong court jailed a man for three months for illegally distributing MPA member company films via the Internet in the world’s first criminal case against a user of BitTorrent technology.
CIRCUMVENTION DEVICES
A circumvention device is any physical medium or digital file that allows for the circumvention of content protection devices put on films, videos, discs, etc. to secure the content. One such circumvention device is the software utility DeCSS. Other common circumvention devices include "black boxes" and other illegal signal theft boxes and Macrovision defeaters.
DOWNLOADABLE MEDIA
Downloadable media refers to online formats that allow motion pictures to be compressed and up- loaded for direct download onto a computer. Pirates use downloadable media formats such as DivX, ASF and MPEG to illegally offer motion pictures to other Internet users. Typically, a pirate host will use illegal VCD copies of motion pictures to create digital copies that are recorded into computer files. Using online communication avenues, including chat rooms, Internet Relay Channels (IRC), FTP sites, newsgroups, file swapping utilities and web sites, the host offers these files to other Internet users, who then download the files onto their own computers.
HARD GOODS
Hard goods piracy refers to the illegal sale, distribution and/or trading of copies of motion pictures in any format, including videocassettes and all optical media product. Illegal hard goods are sold on web sites, through auction sites such as eBay and Yahoo!, and via e-mail solicitations. To combat the problem, in late 2002, the MPA launched its "Tactics Against Auction Piracy" (TAP) initiative, taking quick action against several online sellers across the U.S. who were selling significant numbers of pirated DVDs via online auction houses. The MPA has since launched the TAP program in a number of countries around the Asia-Pacific region. It is our hope that this program will not only help protect unsuspecting consumers, but also send a message to those engaging in the illegal sale of movies that the motion picture industry is serious about protecting its copyrighted works.
STREAMING MEDIA
Streaming media are technologies that allow for the transmission or transfer of data that is delivered to the user or viewer in a steady stream in near real time. Streaming is a more efficient format for those who do not have sufficient bandwidth to download media files. Streaming allows data from the file to be opened and watched while the remaining data and the file are still transmitting. Many legitimate sites, such as CNN, stream their shows for video-on-demand online.