The film industry is no stranger to online piracy. This reality led to the now-famous Hadopi law, the most stringent in the world within its scope. Now, it may very well set a global precedent.
By Eric Wattez
May 11, 2010
Among film detectives, people used to think of Sherlock Holmes’s magnifying glass, Inspector Maigret’s pipe, or Humphrey Bogart’s trench coat. But now, they will have to account for Frédéric Delacroix’s keyboard and mouse. Except that for this former judicial police officer, cinema isn’t fiction, it is a very real field of investigation.
Recruited by the Association for the Fight against Audiovisual Piracy (ALPA, which brings together most French producers and distributors), he assembled a strike force of about ten IT experts, often ex-cops themselves, who infiltrate illegal film downloading sites.
Their track record over recent months? A crackdown on Snowtigers.net, a domain where users could pick from tens of thousands of titles (ten people arrested and 21 servers seized in France); a heavy fine (€400 000) levied against the creator of Emule-paradise, another French site; and a court summons for the administrator of Wawa-Mania. From their discreet building in Paris’s 9th arrondissement, the French film industry’s head of security and his team initiate nearly 150 legal proceedings a year.
It is an impressive figure, yet still insufficient when faced with the roughly 450 000 films exchanged online every day in France, equivalent to daily theater attendance. According to Tera Consultants, the domestic film industry loses €605 million annually to piracy: €205 million in lost box-office revenue, €332 million in lost sales for DVD publishers, and €67 million for video-on-demand services.
That accounts for nearly 20% of its total revenue. To counter pirates, the industry has taken steps to toughen its stance. First, by disrupting online file uploads using high-tech security measures (see below). Second, by pushing the government to crack down on internet users looking for free movies (or music). That is the gamble behind the now-famous Hadopi law, passed last June, with its implementing decree expected before the summer.
France is the first country to adopt such punitive legislation. To penalize the trafficking of copyrighted works, the new High Authority for the Diffusion of Works and Protection of Rights on the Internet (Hadopi) will use a graduated response system,ranging from a simple warning to a complete ban on internet access for up to a year. “It may be a shame to come to this, but we aren’t going to let ourselves be pillaged indefinitely,” justifies Frédéric Goldsmith, Secretary-General of the Producers’ Guild (APC), one of many organizations that make up the film industry’s influential lobby.
This determination could soon inspire others: similar laws are under consideration in the UK, Germany, and Spain, while the approach could be recommended by ACTA, an anti-counterfeiting agreement currently being negotiated internationally. “Everyone is watching what is happening in France with the greatest interest,” notes an enthusiastic Geraldine Moloney, spokesperson for the MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America), the trade association representing Hollywood studios.
Can a single law, no matter how strict, really curb piracy? “If users are afraid of losing their subscription, they’ll stay in line,” assures Frédéric Delacroix. In any case, his team will be responsible for tracking down lawbreakers. To carry out this mission, ALPA recently signed a contract with TMG, a Nantes-based company whose software can detect illegal content circulating across the Web.
TMG will simultaneously track about 200 films, half new releases, half catalog titles, shared via peer-to-peer (P2P) networks, a sharing technology very popular among pirates using software like BitTorrent, eDonkey, or eMule. Downloading via P2P involves retrieving a film in small fragments, with each segment coming from a different computer, which speeds up the process. “Our programs identify users downloading films via their IP addresses, the equivalent of a telephone number for a connected computer. Armed with these IP addresses, ALPA will obtain subscriber identities from internet service providers,” explains Alain Guislain, head of TMG.
The pirate’s identity and records of their illegal downloads will then be forwarded to Extelia, a subsidiary of La Poste tasked with managing Hadopi’s information system. This company will send a first warning email to the user, followed by a registered letter if they get caught again within six months. Upon a third strike, Hadopi can alert a judge. And do not rely on judicial delays: the magistrate will have the power to suspend the offender’s internet access through a streamlined procedure without a court hearing. The government is reportedly planning to dish out 50 000 sanctions per year (across cinema, music, and video games combined), even if it means creating roughly thirty magistrate positions to digest this anticipated flood of cases.
However, numerous questions remain unanswered, casting doubt on the effectiveness of this heavy-handed system. First, IP address tracking does not appear to be 100% reliable. Even more concerning: peer-to-peer downloading, the primary target of the Hadopi law, no longer seems to have wind in its sails. Thanks to faster internet speeds, many users no longer bother saving movies to their hard drives, turning instead to streaming (viewing a file without downloading it), which is far harder to track and prove. Finally, questions remain about how the courts will handle the wave of appeals that accused users are bound to file… On specialized forums such as La Quadrature du Net, Numerama, or TorrentNews, advocates are already sharpening their weapons against a law seen as the harbinger of an increasingly surveillance-driven Web.
In fact, the new LOPPSI bill (an orientation and programming law for internal security performance), passed in mid-February, already includes provisions to force access providers to block a site based on a judge’s order alone. Granted, this radical treatment is currently reserved for child exploitation material. “A simple amendment to this text could easily extend it to sites that violate copyright law,” rejoices a distributor bitterly opposed to the online looting of his catalog. “Anything that can help our industry survive must be tried!” Be warned: in modern noir thrillers, the bad guys sometimes win in the end…
Against Illegal Downloading, Police Deploy Heavy Artillery
Identifying Leaks from “Workprints”
Films shared online are often workprints stolen directly from post-production labs or intercepted while being dispatched to the press and distributors.
The Solution: Every copy, sometimes numbering in the hundreds, now carries an electronic watermark embedded in a corner of the screen. This makes it possible to trace the origin of any potential leak.
Blocking the Exchange of Promo Versions
While watermarking identifies the initial leak, it offers no guarantee against subsequent sharing.
The Solution: Certain producers, including Canal Plus, lock down screeners provided to journalists and industry professionals: files are encrypted and delivered on USB drives readable only with a personalized passkey. French firms Scanlab and Civolution (a spinoff of Thomson) are among the pioneers developing this technology.
Detecting Camcorders in Movie Theaters
Many bootlegs are produced artisanally, quite simply by recording during a theatrical screening.
The Solution: British start-up Technical Lamp Supplies developed the CamScan technology to spot cameras. As soon as sensors detect the electromagnetic emissions of an active camcorder, they alert staff to the pirate’s exact seat in the theater. The system will be tested in France this year.
Flooding the Web with Decoy Files
On the Web, movies are rarely shared as a single piece, but rather as multiple segmented files.
The Solution: French start-ups such as Blue Efficience and Advestigo bait users by uploading truncated files that are virtually impossible to download completely. This technique proves effective in the first few weeks following a film’s release, right when pirate demand peaks.
Locking DVDs Against Copying
DVDs are theoretically copy-protected, but tech-savvy users always manage to crack them, triggering a constant arms race between pirates and distributors.
The Solution: With Blu-ray, the industry temporarily regained the upper hand thanks to the BD+ system, an extra layer of security that encrypts audio and video data. Although this lock was bypassed in early 2008, Sony, the creator of Blu-ray, now issues BD+ security updates every six months.