Two new anti-piracy warnings will soon be added to select DVD and Blu-ray movies, the U.S. government announced late Tuesday.
The additional warnings come courtesy of a coalition of copyright infringement fighters that includes the National Intellectual Property Rights Coordination Center (IPR Center), U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) wing, the FBI, and six member studios of the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA).
The first screen (above) is a joint anti-piracy warning from the FBI and HSI, which says that, “The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement is investigated by federal law enforcement agencies and is punishable by up to 5 years in prison and a fine of $250,000.”
Because that’s probably not enough to scare your movie-loving pants off, a second warning (above), this one baring the IPR Center’s logo, includes the following “educational message”: “Piracy is not a victimless crime. For more information on how digital theft harms the economy, please visit www.iprcenter.gov.”
“Our nation’s film and TV business is critical to our economy,” said ICE Director John Morton in a statement. “Its creativity and imagination have made American entertainment one of our greatest exports over the decades, but criminals are increasingly engaging in new forms of digital theft. Law enforcement must continue to expand how it combats criminal activity; public awareness and education are a critical part of that effort.”
As some of you may recall, the HSI is the government organization behind Operation in Our Sites, which aims to seize websites accused of copyright infringement, either through the distribution of intellectual property like music, movies, and TV shows, or through the sale of counterfeit goods, like knock-off sports jerseys or fake Gucci bags. HSI has so far seized more than 760 domains. The organization boasts that this has led to the arrest or charing of 11 — yes, 11 — individuals for criminal copyright infringement, and the seizure of more than $1 million.
These seizures have not all been above-board, however: Recently released court documents show that ICE held popular hip hop website Dajaz1.com for more than a year without a single scrap of evidence that it had been used to distribute copyrighted songs.
The copyright industry asserts that piracy has cost the U.S. economy 360,000 jobs, $16 billion in lost wages, and $2.6 billion in lost taxes. More recent studies, however, show that revenue in the music, movie, video game, and book publishing industries has risen over the past few years.
Regardless of which numbers you believe, it’s clear that the anti-piracy camp believes there is some progress to be made by posting new warnings on DVDs — though, if you ask us, this is precisely the wrong tactic. After all, the majority of people who are going to see these warnings have either purchased the DVD legally, or rented it legally, and are therefore clearly not the ones who need to be taught a lesson in copyright law. In fact, it is exactly these kind of condescending, pestering messages that drive people to pirate movies in the first place.
Oh. How fun.
Good thing nobody buys these anymore…..unless there is a special collectors edition box, then I’m all over it.
Piracy is not a victimless crime… Yes, those poor, rich hollywood executives… They might only be able to afford three solid gold ferraris this year instead of four because of it… What a SHAAAAME! Also, I find it amusing, how when you think about it… ANTI-PIRACY is a multi-million dollar a year industry. If piracy were ever truly ‘defeated’ there would be millions of people out of jobs. including, all of these people whom are complaining about the piracy and fighting against it to begin with, and yet, they claim piracy COSTS jobs? Hrmm…
Crackle TV… A few commercials for free good movies. Make the commercial companies pay. I wont.
Good grief! Like we don’t already have a ton of junk to ignore already?
1. FACT: There has rarely been a time that warnings such as these or worse stopped piracy
2. FACT: Alternatives to piracy such as Netflix, Hulu, etc. have done FAR MORE to prevent piracy.
3. FACT: All it shows is the Government is only listening to Big Movie/TV Businesses, NOT REALITY and NOT FACTS. We need REAL ALTERNATIVE CHOICES such as shows being posted on Hulu or other such free streaming sites.
4. Fact: Do NOT fight Piracy HARDER, because it just made it STRONGER by making PIRATING MOVIES & TV POPULAR!
5. Fact: If you want to kill piracy you need to do it SMARTER. Hulu and Netflix are a great start, but there should be more. Also everyone should post their TV shows on Hulu.
Not to fond of that shiet when I buy my bluray’s. Sure wonder if they don’t like people buying, or remove it! Almost a reason to stop buying films! Remove it!
Twice the reason to torrent and avoid having to watch any of these
The pirated versions won’t
Oh those work so well as evidenced by the total lack of bootleg movies
Probably unskippable, too.
Oh. How fun.
Have to say, the IPR logo is pretty scary
Shame people who have pirated movies probably won’t see this lol
Good thing nobody buys these anymore…..unless there is a special collectors edition box, then I’m all over it.