| Cinemas: Fighting Piracy |
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29/09/2008 02:02 (498 Day 08:06 minutes ago) | |||||
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The FINANCIAL -- How are Georgian cinemas fighting film piracy, those making bestseller movies available on free internet sites? The FINANCIAL’s study shows that leading cinema companies are totally helpless, losing thousands of US dollars and counting only on their good relations with the pirates.
Hollywood studios were facing an unexpected slowdown in crucial DVD sales, evident in Shrek 2, which was expected to sell 55 million DVDs, selling only 35 million.
Two of the most popular Georgian movie download sites are www.gol.ge and www.avoe.ge. Their number of downloads per day reaches 15,000, a considerable loss for cinemas.
In Georgia there are no law sanctions protecting cinemas’ rights so the only thing the owners can do is to keep up good relations with net providers and reach agreements with them.
“The situation is extremely different abroad. Similar cases involving internet providers would be equivalent to criminal. The rules of movie renting are regulated by the film producers. They manage when footage can be used by cinemas, DVD and television companies. In Georgia there is no legislation for bidding internet providers’ work. We are happy to have good relations with the main movie sites of Caucasus Online , who consider our request not to put films on the internet at the same time as their first showings in the theatres. But these are only some of them, there are different sites which are out of our control,” Devi Gvaxaria, Manager of the Marketing Department of Cinema Rustaveli, told The FINANCIAL.
On November 18, 2007 Montreal police made the first arrest of a Canadian for illegally videotaping a movie in a cinema. The 23 year old man who recorded Disney’s Steve Carell comedy “Dan in Real Life” in a multiplex, was understood to have had technology at hand to upload the movie to the internet. Canadians found to have profited by videotaping movies in cinemas face a maximum five-year jail term under the new law.
According to Gvaxaria, “Most of the internet providers get movies from other international sites, but they also often use cinemas for recopying the verbal part of the film. After, it’s easier for them to get a shot from the internet and then do a voiceover. Several times hackers have rewritten the verbal part of a movie from our cinema. They put a Dictaphone into their pockets before entering the film, which is impossible for us to stop. We can’t just check each and every person who enters our cinema.”
“Piracy records on internet sites are a global problem. Film companies are trying to protect movies themselves. It depends on a film’s calibre. Once they tried to show a film via satellite but a problem appeared connected to time lapses,” said Natia Meparishvili, PR and Marketing Manager of Cinema Amirani.
As opposed to IT and the internet, cinemas consider the traditions of cinema as the best means of protecting their rules and interests.
“Our best guard against piracy is the quality and tradition of cinemas among the population. We have even had some films which people have come to see three times or more. Going to the cinema isn’t the only way to watch a movie, but it’s a place of recreation, with cafés and other entertainment places for kids, like in Rustaveli Cinema. Today cinemas in Georgia are the most cherished and popular recreation sites for adults and children alike. We already have a tradition of doing events at premiers and on certain holidays and these have become accepted and valued by our viewers,” Meparishvili reports.
Instead of great losses, which cinemas face because of internet providers’ hard work, the two weeks during which new movies are shown at cinemas, are enough for a redemption-fee.
The most popular and successful movie of Rustaveli Cinema was Quirk Of Fate, by Russian First Channel and for Amirani - Pirates of the Caribbean, by Walt Disney.
“We don’t consider Rustaveli Cinema our competitor, rather when there are very big projects, which any one cinema can’t avoid, we share the fee and both of us show them, for example -Alexander. We aren’t afraid of losing clients. Anyway the repute of a blockbuster insures good turnout. Mostly Amirani is oriented at Art house films and so has quite a specific audience,” says Nino Meparishvili.
“We started preparing for the change a long time before the final decision. First we began recording sounds in Georgian, for cartoons mostly, as we had complaints that children couldn’t understand Russian. Moreover, during our relations with Russian distribution companies we faced problems, mainly connected with transportation. Imagine the difficulty and embarrassment when we had announced a firm date for a film’s first showing, then found out later that we had to change it. Even after consulting people with some nostalgia and respect for Russia, it was agreed that the process would start sooner or later. Georgia is its own state and it is no longer necessary to have films play in Russian,” Meparishvili added.
“Russian distribution companies were exchanged for British companies. Fox, Sony, 20th Century. Maybe the fees will be higher but we’ll be pleased to have different, well-planned relations, without any inconvenient mishaps like the transportation problems we had with our Russian partners. So many times we had to move the date of a premiere because of unforeseeable problems like blocked roads,” Devi Gvaxaria declared.
“Film is the peace of art and is always considered in a favourable light, audiences recognize the power of an author’s native language. We had a lot of movies, especially animation, where the main strength was on voices and soundtracks, especially those of famous people, for example Underneath Earth. And these were spoiled by voice dubbing. We will have films in Russian, but they will be only Russian movies. We didn’t interrupt relations with Russian companies,” resumed Meparishvili.
Films will be doubled in Georgian by postscoring companies, which cinemas have based inside.
“We have our private synchronizing company. Including a large number of staff, who will divide work according to genre. At first we tried it with animation which showed good results. Otherwise cartoons show some of the highest income, because the genre doesn’t take in to account any specific taste or age of the viewer,” Gvaxaria commented.
When advertising a film we usually focus on the name and persona of its most famous actor, as this most successfully attracts attention to the movie.
As Meparishvili said, “There are movies which are so famous that we don’t need to pay extra money for their advertisement, like Harry Potter for instance. The only thing we do is to announce the days and times of their performance. Or if it’s Art house of Kusturica, it’s enough just to announce his name. It’s more difficult when we present the movie of a less popular director in our country. People prefer to go to a name that’s familiar to them.”
Waiting for the results of these big changes, Georgian cinemas are going to become more active in changing their friendly relations with internet providers to a language of law, as the number of sites is fast increasing.
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