Internet Film Piracy Becoming a Cybermenace

LOS ANGELES -- Full-length copies of ``Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace'' have been discovered in downloadable form on Internet sites as film piracy enters the cyberspace era.

Other complete motion pictures, including ``The Matrix'' and ``Payback'', are finding their way onto the Internet within days of release or, as in the case of ``The Blair Witch Project,'' sometimes even before the film hits theaters.

put our film on the Web,'' Lucasfilm spokeswoman Lynne Hale said, noting that the copies brought to Lucasfilm's attention thus far have been ``of very poor quality.''

While that may be true, particularly in the case of bootlegs obtained by sneaking a camera into a movie theater, some observers claim to enjoy downloaded dupes with crisp imagery and pristine digital sound.

Although inferior dupes on a computer monitor might not keep customers away from paying to see a film in a theater if it's playing in their area, it does threaten to undermine sales in foreign territories, where people would have the opportunity to view films prior to local release.

``Star Wars'' creator George Lucas has been an early proponent of electronic theatrical distribution, in part, some speculate, because the technology could make the simultaneous worldwide distribution of films simple, pre-empting, to a large extent, piracy problems.

The online service Wired News reported recently that a student in Ireland found a 1.3-gigabyte ``Phantom'' file at an unnamed Czechoslovakian Internet site and downloaded it onto the university computer where it could be accessed by any student with a log-on.

For the average computer user, such a large file would take days to download, making it impractical. Even smaller 200-megabyte movie files that have been reported posted to the Net would be too big for the convenience of an average user.

Such bandwidth problems are expected to disappear with the rollout of cable modems and the broadband pipelines with which to use them. For instance, using today's cable modems and a high-band ASDL hookup, it would take about 45 minutes to download a 200-megabyte file, and as the technology improves, the download times will keep getting shorter.

Reports of the illicit ``Phantom'' Web booty came shortly after reports that the film was being made available on pirated videodiscs in the Portuguese-run territory of Macau and with news that a theatrical print, valued at $60,000, was stolen from a movie house in Wisconsin. That print was later recovered.

More and more films are being pilfered straight from projection booths or even by studio employees prior to their release.

Digitized films are circulating on the Internet via e-mail as well as through postings via the relative anonymity of newsgroups and bulletin boards.

Hale conceded that while it may prove impossible to identify and prosecute the individuals who posted the ``Phantom'' material, Lucasfilm and attorneys Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe are confident the FBI will be able to locate the Internet Service Providers hosting those sites to have the material removed.

The global nature of these infractions also makes it more difficult for copyright holders to enforce their rights. If someone posts a bootleg in Japan, and the buyer is in Germany, differing piracy laws and enforcement policies hamper prosecution. One official summed it up as ``a cyberswap-meet.''

Film piracy costs the movie industry $3.5 billion in potential worldwide sales each year, the MPAA estimates.

While it is too early to estimate if online activity will substantially inflate that figure, observers feel that, as with the music industry and the new MP3 digital compression format, it presents a serious threat.

The prognosis is particularly grim for independently financed films whose chances of securing a theatrical distributor could be diminished by a movie's availability online.

         However, there are those who feel that movie distribution over the Internet will inject new life into a moribund film business.

         It's no secret that Lucas has long anticipated the day when electronic distribution to the home would allow filmmakers to circumvent studio gatekeepers.

         ``Phantom'' producer Rick McCallum has said that while there are kinks that remain to be ironed out, the combination of desktop editing and effects and Internet film distribution ``is going to democratize the process'' of filmmaking and that the barrier of entry for young people is disappearing.

         ``I predict there is going to be a brilliant Internet movie that's going to breakout ... a serious masterpiece created by some kid at home for very little money because he has the tools to do it, and he doesn't have to go through the traditional (bull) of entering the film industry,'' McCallum said.