Taking a page from the recording industry, the Motion Picture Association of America recently declared war on Internet piracy with a wave of lawsuits against P2P film traders. But studies show it's still not clear that file-sharing hurts sales, and it's even less clear that lawsuits curb file-sharing. We asked Darcy Antonellis, head of worldwide antipiracy operations at Warner Bros., why Hollywood would waste its time and money.
WIRED: There's no real proof that P2P hurts sales, and little evidence that lawsuits deter file-sharers. Why unleash the lawyers now?
ANTONELLIS: It's a mistake to assume that illegal file-sharing translates to a one-to-one loss in sales. But I don't buy the notion that it didn't have a detrimental effect on music sales. You'll always be able to come up with a circumstance where a legitimate sale was replaced by file-sharing. As far as the legal strategy, it will evolve over time, driven by results.
Hollywood has grudgingly adapted to new technology over the years and made piles of money as a result. Do you really want to follow a Luddite industry into the courtroom?
We've tried to learn from the music industry, but we're not going to walk the same path step-by-step. Warner Bros. looks to technology to develop new businesses. We have more than 400 patents in our portfolio. But the issue here is not technology, it's our intellectual property being distributed illegitimately.
Why not go after the factories in Asia that stamp out millions of DVDs a year, and avoid the PR nightmare of suing kids?
Here's a quick case study for one of our titles: Three unique copies made available on P2P networks were used to make packaged goods in 21 countries in less than nine weeks. There is a definite relationship between the two. We have to put out our message about how this is wrong and is hurting the bigger industry. If people are acquiring our content illegally, all bets are off. They're certainly smart enough to know what they're doing.
And smart enough to develop closed networks where file-sharing can thrive unchecked.
That's not going to stop us. I'm an engineer by trade, so I'd be surprised if you didn't see continued development of technology to enable piracy. We expect that.
- Lucas Graves
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Why Film Pirates Must Pay
