Steal this post!

My copy of the Family Guy direct-to-DVD film, "Stewie Griffin: The Untold Story," arrived today, encased in plastic and abject corporate paranoia.

This cover letter (click to enlarge) set the tone, advising me to "Please take care of your DVD screener," which did not mean wiping the shiny side in a straight line as opposed to a circle, but rather meant that if someone at Fox should find this disc ("individually watermarked"!) in someone else's hands, I would risk severe career damage, or at least "the loss of your screener privileges."

The disc was also plastered with warnings, and then when I popped it in I got a lovely PSA:

YOU WOULDN'T STEAL A CAR (...see kid eyeing parked car)
YOU WOULDN'T STEAL A HANDBAG
YOU WOULDN'T STEAL A TELEVISION (...shadowy figures heisting TV from apartment)
YOU WOULDN'T STEAL A DVD
DOWNLOADING PIRATED FILMS IS STEALING
STEALING IS AGAINST THE LAW

Okay, okay. We get it. (But just in case we didn't, a "Property of Fox" message flashed on screen after the credits. You can't see it when fast-forwarding, only at normal speed. That's a new one on me.)

The question is, does this stuff do any good and -- more to the point -- are Fox's corporate lawyers correct in their assumption that (a) screeners like me are responsible for piracy and (b) that piracy is doing irreparable harm to the home video business and (c) that the entertainment industry's enforcement tactics are no more onerous than they were in the Betamax days?

I still think the most effective anti-piracy device is putting out product that doesn't suck and, by the way, is packaged thoughtfully for the collector. I think even Seth MacFarlane, the creator of "Family Guy," who stands to profit directly from the sales of this DVD, knows that. The opening scene of the Stewie movie takes place at the red-carpet premiere of ... the Stewie movie. Or as the local TV reporter on the scene puts it:

Tonight the stars are out for a special sneak preview of a straight-to-DVD feature that will soon be in the 3.99 bin at your local car wash.

Yup.

Update: A reader writes, "Just thought you'd like to know, I got my illegally downloaded copy about 3 weeks ago...from the amount of seeders on the web site, looks like anyone who really wants it can get it."

Comments

[Johan]

Indeed, a large portion of pirated movies are sourced from screeners such as the one (that reader) received. It's possible to actually measure this, but I'm too lazy to do it right now, so I will make a qualified estimate and say that around 10-15% of all pirated movies come from sources "within" the industry.

As far as the Family Guy movie goes, it was released into the wild about three weeks ago, although the source was NOT the screener copy but rather a pre-release copy of the actual retail DVD which will be shipped later this Fall (i.e. it had no scrolling warning messages on it). This means that the leak in this case is even more internal than a simple screener - it came directly from within the industry.

In regards to question (b) - does it to irreparable harm to the home video business? I don't know, probably not. You see, the majority of the pirated movies that reach the "regular janes and joes" out there are poor copies most often recorded with a handycam in the movie theater. They are not substitutes for a crisp retail DVD, that's for sure. When buying a pirated DVD off the street or downloading one with a P2P program, most people have no idea of what they're getting. The perfect DVD copies that also are released onto the Internet (albeit at a later stage, closer to the actual DVD's official release date) rarely finds its way to regular users, thus they pose a lesser threat to teh home video market. A bigger threat in my opinion is the ease by which you can rent a DVD to copy it for later rewatching. That surely will take a bite into the DVD sales, right?

[Bob]

Im in europe and I have seen this add a lot recently... what I dont get is why is it that in the version they are showing here its the men doing the stealing and a woman who stops the download....

[Nbkvqzm]

http://2.freesexxnet.info x

[Nbkvqty]

http://sexocolor.info x

[Nbkvqty]

http://sexocolor.info x

[Zmajrne]

http://sexxearch.info x

[BagGirl]

The curious irony about this post is, when addressing copyright and stealing, isn't Family Guy essentially just duplicating the content of The Simpsons, albeit with a more mature, adults-oriented line of joking? Every time I watch the show I can't help but notice how the visuals seem so very much like the Simpsons, or how certain dialog "sounds like Homer", etc.
I've figured that the only way Fox gets away with it is because it owns copyright to both titles and thus wouldn't bother suing itself.