The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) is the trade association of Hollywood's major studios. One of its chief functions is to facilitate and promote the development and implementation of
anti-piracy technologies and campaigns to combat the illegal copying and distribution of the filmed entertainment products its members spend hundreds of millions of dollars annually to produce, distribute, sell on DVD, and exhibit.
On September 19, 2005, the MPAA announced the launch of "a new non-profit research and development company called
Motion Picture Laboratories, Inc. (Movielabs). The new entity will create new technologies to protect the distribution of films and other works as well as to protect against electronic theft, particularly on the Internet."
Entertainment Technology World ("ETW"), an
Etopia Media News Networks web site, submitted a list of questions about this new anti-piracy research institute to the MPAA, which yesterday responded with a set of answers which
ETW is pleased to now make available to its readers:
1. How big a problem for the MPAA's member studios is digital piracy?
The MPAA estimates that worldwide the film industry loses between $3-4 billion a year – and this does not include the growing amount of Internet piracy. A Smith Barney study said that the film industry lost $5.4 billion to piracy this year alone.
2. How actively and by what means has MPAA been trying to combat it up until now?
The MPAA has a multi-pronged approach to fighting piracy, which includes educating people about the consequences of piracy, taking action against Internet thieves, working with law enforcement authorities around the world to root out pirate operations and working to ensure movies are legally available using advanced technology.
Since November of 2004, several individuals have been sued and named in the smallest of towns and biggest of cities. Fines range anywhere from $30,000 to $150,000 depending on the infraction and if there is criminal action could include up to five years in jail.
3. What was the impetus for this new initiative?
MovieLabs is a smart investment that will help the entertainment industry adopt new means of fighting piracy and protecting copyrights.
4. Which studios are involved in it?
The six major studios include – Walt Disney Pictures and Television, Paramount Pictures Corporation, Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation, Sony Pictures Entertainment Inc., Universal City Studios LLLP and Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc.
5. What organizational form will it take?
It is a non-profit joint venture organized under the National Cooperative Research and Production Act. It is separate from the MPAA and has its own staff and board of directors.
6. How much funding will it have and where will that funding come from?
The funding comes from the studios. The NY Times story said it was more than $30 million.
7. How much preliminary research has already been done with promising anti-piracy technology and what will be the relation of MovieLabs efforts to existing research?
The MPAA's Office of Technology has in the past coordinated outside research in the anti-camcorder area and has worked with outside tech companies developing digital rights management solutions. The establishment of Movielabs will now allow for more extensive funding of basic research in anti-piracy and rights management technologies with both past and new research companies and universities.
8. To what extent is piracy combatable by technical means? Is there a possible "silver bullet" that will render pirates totally ineffectual or will there always be a human element that needs to be addressed? Can a system tight enough to stop in-studio theft by employees be devised? Are efforts like that already in place and are they working?
There is no silver bullet to totally eliminating piracy or absolutely protecting content. But if we develop better tools for protecting content and fighting piracy, it will greatly decrease the impact of piracy on our industry. "Insider" theft is a particularly easy thing to trace but it doesn't happen very often and is pretty much under control. Forensic watermarking and other techniques help identify the source of pirated content and better target enforcement.
9. The press release announcing this initiative mentions: "developing new technology to detect camcorders; evaluating and exploring network management technologies for traffic shaping, port access controls, client software detection, data management and other related tools." Could you explain what each of these possible projects involves?
Technologies that can detect camcorders in the theater can be used to target enforcement during the illegal act. Network traffic management tools, port access controls and P2P client software detection tools can help corporations and universities to control illegal peer-to-peer traffic on their networks.
10. It also says: "These new technologies will also be recommended to universities, corporations, Internet service providers and other network services operators to reduce piracy." How important in the anti-piracy effort is collaboration between MPAA and such institutions and how well have they been co-operating so far?
Education is one of our main goals; by reaching out to universities it allows the MPAA to talk directly with students about the importance of intellectual property protection in the digital age. Dan Glickman, Chairman and CEO of the MPAA kicked off a college speaking tour in September.
11. How will MovieLabs be organized? Will each studio provide members for its board? Will it use existing facilities or build or rent its own? Will it hire a lot of staff or outsource the research? How long is it funded for? When do you expect to have some results? Who will own the intellectual property rights in the technologies it develops?
It is a non-profit joint venture organized under the National Cooperative Research and Production Act that will be located in Los Angeles. Any IP will be licensed on reasonable and non-discriminatory terms.
12. Does the emergence of high capacity DVDs (Blu-Ray and/or HD DVD) figure into the timeliness of this effort now?
The establishment of Movielabs was not driven by the emergence of the blue laser optical disc formats.
13. Could you use a "video key device" (VKD) that would combine contactless smart card and flash drive capability, digital identification, encrypted keys, payment functionality, and registration with the MPAA ("MyMoviePass") to control access to streamed and stored digital content, as well as admission to movie theaters?
There are a lot of methods for secure digital content distribution that could be investigated by Movielabs.
14. What do you see as the return on investment of this effort in terms of its costs and the potential benefit to the MPAA's member companies?
Movielabs is a non-profit research organization. It does not operate to generate a financial return on investment. It seeks to fund research in undercapitalized areas of technology development that are critical to the future of the motion picture industry. It does this all with the hope that commercialization of these technologies can lead to better combating the damage caused to our industry by piracy.
15. Tell us again about the importance of combating digital piracy for the future of digital movies.
Piracy is the single biggest threat to the health of the movie industry and its evolution to digital distribution. And it is stealing. If people want to continue to see quality movies, we have to combat piracy in all forms. There are plenty of ways to download movies online legally.
