"The early, inferior copies often are soon replaced by better versions that pirates make by bribing a theater projectionist and mounting a camera on a tripod in a projection booth."

Does this really happen?

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3% Body Fat. 1% Brain Activity.

I think the elimination of screener VHS tapes would help stamp out piracy to a noticable degree.

If you don't know what a seagull prickle is, (I call it that for a better lack of a name) they are devices used to keep seagulls from perching on the light standards. Too many people have been "whitewashed" by seagulls while walking under the lights.

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Actually a very good image could be had from the booth.

First you prop a flat black surface in front of the lense at a 45 degree angle. FOCUS. Then you put a DV camcorder at a 90 degree angle to the lense, or 45 degree from the projection surface.

Now for the sound. Bring your own mixer and your own hookups and just hotwire them to the amp inputs on the back. Then mix to your hearts content from the digital sound and right into the camcorder. Really it would not be hard at all if you had the equipment, a good contact to let you do it, and the technical savvy to do it in no time at all. You can even run both feeds into a lap top computer if you want and record it right off to a hard drive. The newer camcorders can adjust to the flicker and remove it. Great quality picture. Hell you can even just get a high quality web cam and skip the camcorder all together now that I think about it. hell, you can adjust the frequency to 48 hz and do some fine tuning and BAMMO its perfect. With the right sound card, you can have 5.1 inputs and mix it onboard AFTER the fact.

Hey, I should do this! Imagine ME A PIRATE!!!

But why bother? A rather SUPERIOR version comes out on dvd within a year, why the hell would anyone want a NOT superior version? How desperate are these idiots?

Dave

The reporter showed how people just set up their tripod, plug into the headphone jack, and get a near-perfect copy:

But still, most are indeed screening tapes or DVDs from the studios themselves. There's a site that posts "info" on releases of anything from Movies, TV shows, Videogames and Computer Software available for download from various "groups" called "ISOnews" but it seems to have disappeared or is not working. Some websites post still images of the bootleg so you can check the quality before you commit to a 300+MB download. Most of these pictures are evidence that they are screeners or in some cases even WORKPRINTS of the movie. (Things such as counters on the screen, "Property of FOX", etc.)

Can't the MPAA just go to these websites, contact the ISP and find these people who are bragging about their warez?

(never mind)

Even then, I would say, "Naaah! Forget it!"

It's not about the money, really. It's about reputation.
People can take just about anything from you except your dignity. That's the only thing you have to sacrifice yourself. They can take all your money, your house, your possessions and even your family. Once you have given up your dignity you have nothing left.

Besides, if films are CAP coded,(and we KNOW they are) it's too easy to get busted. All "they" have to do is ask, "What theatre had that copy of the film?" Once they get that far, it's only a matter of time before they zero in on the projectionist and nail him/her.