The campaign “movie thieves are Criminals” has a new internet ad/ keeping an eye on illegal file sharing

(Berlin, May 31, 2006) “movie thieves can’t hide. Not even in the internet.” – this is the message being delivered in the new viral ad from the campaign “movie thieves are Criminals”, starting on May 31, warning of the risks of copyright theft right where it’s going on – in the internet. By no means is this an empty threat as contended in the 2005 business report from The German Federation Against Copyright Theft (GVU): Just in the past year, a large number of movie thieves, offering illegal film copies in the internet have been successfully charged and prosecuted. Congruously, the methods and possibilities for internet tracing are becoming ever more refined.


Click here to watch the spot

In the piracy scene, the internet plays a large role nationally and internationally in creating and spreading illegally programmed data carriers. The hit list of the most requested illegal offers are for blockbusters and current movies, which in some instances are already offered as a download file or as a data carrier even before the movie officially starts in theaters. “Especially such successes as ‘Ice Age 2’ and ‘Da Vinci Code’ are available online and are frequently downloaded”, says Petur Agustsson with the Firm P4M – The internet agency, which has specialized in the online tracing of pirated copies. „We find several hundreds of thousands of these kinds of blockbuster examples illegally downloaded a month.“ For example, in a period of three weeks, P4M was able to trace 383.035 complete downloads of “Ice Age 2” in Bittorrent. In accordance, there are assessments of approximately 190.000 Downloads in eDonkey, Newsservern and AppleJuice in addition. The movie industry is well aware of the online piracy problem and is implementing ever more sophisticated methods in the fight against piracy and has intensified its online tracing.

“The internet is not a safe place for movie thieves anymore, because we are detecting them there now more than ever”, says Jan Oesterlin, managing director of Zukunft Kino Marketing GmbH [Marketing for the future of cinema], which is responsible for the campaign “movie thieves are Criminals”. “This is what our campaign is trying to draw special attention to. In our new ad, we are already dealing with the second movie, made especially for the internet and which points out the dangers caused by pirated copies.”
As of May 31, the advertising agency “Zum goldenen Hirschen” has produced an ad which can be downloaded free of charge at www.hartabergerecht.de. The ad tells the story of an assumed movie thief, who is on the run from undercover agents and hides in a soccer stadium, all in the drastic and humorous tone and quality characteristic of this campaign. In the end, the perfect camouflage as a soccer ball proves itself to be in the truest sense of the word, a shot in its own goal and a score for the other team.

New technologies are constantly improving the success of online tracing

This is not the only example of misconduct performed by online movie thieves, as shown by the GVU annual figures for 2005: Last year alone, of the 2,549 processes conducted, 860 had a connection to the internet. 57.44 % of these “Internet”-cases are related to pirated copies of physical data carriers, otherwise known as “Hardgood” and 42.56 % are related further and clear sign of success concerning online tracing is he fact that there are no longer any illegal exchange markets or networks currently registered in Germany. “Due to the great successes accomplished by tracing, there are no sizable illegal portals functioning within the scene using ‘de’ domains; and only rarely using ‘com’ domains”, according to Ronald Schäfer, managing director of GVU. “These days, the servers are usually located in countries, in which the access laws are completely different to those common here.”

The increased rate of detection is certainly due to the ever more sophisticated technologies used in the tracing process. Thus, the agents are able to identify, via the saved IP addresses, not only the dealers but also the buyers. In addition,  P4M – the internet agency, will implement a software, which has been proven to be successful for quite some time, which will automatically scan the internet for websites, auction platforms and exchange markets comparing the found picture, music and movie data to the original.

The digital watermark functions in a similar fashion, developed by Fraunhofer-Institut für Integrierte Publikations- und Informationssysteme under the aid of the FFA. It already labels movie copies in the production process with an individual code in picture and sound. Congruently, a search engine is constantly searching the internet for movie data containing these codes. Upon detection, the program can immediately trace the movie theater at which the movie was illegally cut.

“Piracy in the internet creates a very real problem for the movie industry and needs to be taken seriously”, says Jan Oesterlin. “Every year, the movie industry suffers damages in the millions. That’s why we want to be a force to be reckoned with for movie thieves and to be at the scene of the crime.” 

Other activities are planned by the campaign “movie thieves are Criminals” in an attempt to draw attention to the problem of online piracy – such as a new street promotion – coming up in the summer months.


Basic information about the viral ad „Soccer“

Length: 30 Seconds
Design and Performance: Zum goldenen Hirschen, Köln
Producer: Rainer Kollender
Free Download: www.hartabergerecht.de