Piracy is prolific in the film industry worldwide. Advancements in technology have provided increased avenues to both illegally copy and distribute unauthorized copies of feature films with ease.
Regrettably the origin of piracy has sometimes come from within the film production’s cast and crew, who have unwittingly contributed to this epidemic. Trusted members of the production may be given a DVD screener for perfectly legitimate reasons, but on occasion these have fallen into the hands of friends or family who have the capability to copy or distribute the film. These people may not realize the harm they are causing – but none the less have still seriously impaired the film’s theatrical and DVD potential and undermined the distributor’s confidence in releasing the movie.
More often that not, piracy originates from a DVD copy of the feature film. The best way to combat this form of piracy is by watermarking the DVD with a symbol or text which immediately identifies the original recipient of the DVD. Guidelines for the use of watermarking (aka spoilers, security text) can be found on the attached anti-piracy guidelines also. The film industry worldwide is trying extremely hard to crack down on piracy on but it’s near impossible when unmarked copies of DVDs are made available. It is our preference that that DVD screeners are not produced at all unless absolutely essential to the production, sales or marketing of the film.
Unauthorized copies of feature films almost always find their way to the fastest and easiest form of distribution – the internet. Feature films can be downloaded and made available to other viewers at a blistering pace – thus cheating the film makers, investors and distributors of their income. The NZFC does it’s best to comb the web for illegal copies of it’s films, but unfortunately we often discover the illegal downloads when it’s too late.
In the last few years we have reviewed our own systems so that we do everything possible to protect our films in the marketplace, most particularly prior to their market premiere and to their first releases.
Our anti-piracy guidelines can be downloaded by clicking on the link below: