(Berlin, November 2003) The kick-off of the nationwide "movie thieves are criminals - Initiative for the Protection of Originals" in Germany is one of several measures undertaken by the German film industry to curtail the theft of films. But what are the strategies behind the campaign, and have they shown any success so far?

23.5 million Germans have access to a CD-writer in their own household, 570,000 to a DVD-writer, and 250,000 to a DVD recorder.

53% of those who make their own CDs said they had copied films for use in their own household.

The primary source for material are previously copied film CDs or DVDs (54.6%). Downloads from the Internet are a close second (56%).

Altogether in the time period surveyed (January to August 2003), 53 million blank CDs and 9.6 million DVDs were used to reproduce cinema films. This was already more than the figure for the entire year of 2002 (59 million blank CDs/DVDs).

Some nearly 63 million blank CDs, were used to record a total of 30.3 million films (on average 2.2 blank CDs or 1.5 blank DVDs per film).

79% of blank DVDs were used for cinema films.

In the first eight months of this year, 13.3 million films were downloaded. That is nearly as many as in the entire year of 2002 (15.5 million).

One out of two downloaders copies or downloads the film following its cinema release but before it becomes available on the German DVD market.

Each of the 5.1 million persons who have copied films copied an average of 6.2 films to disk.

Of the two million who downloaded films, 33.5% did so to circumvent censorship restrictions (to see films they would not otherwise have been allowed to see).

Source: German Federal Film Board (FFA). September 2003. Period surveyed: January to August 2003. Written questionnaire to members of the GfK panel, 10,000 individuals, representative for 63.2 million Germans over the age of 10.

Download the detailed study (PDF/only in german language available)