No one is here to incriminate themselves when it comes to movie piracy. But if you’re reading this website, odds are you’ve seen a pirated movie at some point in the past. If it was more than a decade ago, you probably remember just how bad pirated films were, as most of them were recorded on camcorders set up in a movie theater with shaky video and terrible sound. However, with the ubiquity of streaming/VOD releases, the quality of pirated films has increased substantially. And since COVID caused studios to release blockbusters on streaming the same day as theaters, pristine copies of some of the biggest films of the last couple of years have been made available immediately. This is something that the Motion Picture Association thinks is an absolutely terrible problem for the industry.
Speaking at CinemaCon (via The Wrap), Motion Picture Association CEO Charles Rivkin spoke about the danger of piracy when it comes to the current state of the film industry and theatrical exhibition. The CEO talked about a recent report from the Wall Street Journal that pointed to day-and-date theatrical/streaming releases of films such as “The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It,” “The Suicide Squad,” and “Black Widow” as some of the most pirated films. And while piracy has always existed, with streaming quality being what it is, Rivkin says there has been a surge in film piracy since the COVID era began last year.
“In May, we released a statement from ACE against a group called NTG Release Group,” Rivkin said. “When we took it down, NTG was ripping films since 2018 with 4,600 releases in the last year alone. They uploaded films within minutes of them being made available on digital release.”
Obviously, it’s impossible to truly quantify how much money is lost to piracy when it comes to the release of a feature film. However, when you look at the declining box office totals of Marvel Studios’ “Black Widow” and Warner Bros.’ “The Suicide Squad” (both films with solid reviews and big fanbases), it’s clear piracy probably played a role. And when studios are trying to scrape whatever box office they can right now, the MPA CEO thinks this is a problem that is somewhat self-inflicted, given that those films (along with many more) have chosen to be released on streaming/VOD on the same day as theatrical.
As mentioned, film piracy isn’t going anywhere. But it’s clearly becoming more and more prevalent with same-day streaming releases. We’ll just have to see if studios change how they do business in the future to mitigate this issue. Theater owners are probably hoping something changes…and soon.