UK piracy market worth £1bn within three years

Film Theft in the UK, published by the UK Film Council, makes a string o fproposals to tackle the problem, including a crackdown on counterfeiters operating at car bootsales, the threat of exemplary damages to increase the financial risk to film pirates, and better legal internet film distribution (see below for full list of proposals).

The report says the problem of film theft is growing at an alarming rate and that the UK has one of the highest piracy levels in Western Europe.

Figures from the Federation Against Copyright Theft (FACT) reveal that seizures for the first half of 2004were 1.4 million - a 207% increase on the first half of 2003 and a staggering 1768% rise on the same period in 2002.

FACT has seized in excess of 3 million pirated film products already this year - around 5% of the total 60million estimated to be in circulation. The main sources of imported pirateDVDs in the UK are Pakistan (36%), Malaysia (31%) and China (14%).

UK Film Council Chief Executive Officer, John Woodward, commented: “Film piracy is the single largest threat facing the UK film industry today. We have to act now to tackle thisescalating problem.

“Film pirates are not harmless ‘Del Boy’ characters, they are professional criminals with links to organised crime and drugs. The pirating of films on DVDs or the internet is not a victimless crime - counterfeiting threatens future film production and in the end it is our culture, our economy, and the jobs of thousands of people that will suffer.

The report will now be submitted for consideration to The Creative Industries Forum on Intellectual Property which has recently been created by the Government. Headed by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, Department of Trade and Industry and Patent Office, the group contains Ministers from eight Government Departmentsincluding the Treasury and Home Office. The UK Film Council is a member of theForum as well as representatives of a variety of creative industries.

Recommendations for the UK Government

• Make it legally possible to extract financial damages from those pirating film by extending the legal concept of ‘exemplary’ and ‘statutory’ damages to cases of copyright infringement.
  
  
• Introduce a comprehensive package of legislative reforms designed to curb the sale of pirate products at street markets, car boot sales and via other forms of informal trading.
  
  
• Make the act of camcording a film in a cinema a criminal offence.
  
  
• Through the Creative Industries IP Forum, and working in conjunction with Ofcom and other appropriate organisations, promote the development and spread of open cross-platform global standards related to Digital Rights Management (DRM).
  
  
• Recognise that theGovernment target for “the UK to have the most extensive and competitive broadband market in the G7 by 2005” needs to be supported by complementary measures which ensure protection of intellectual property rights.
  
  
• Ensure that the Patent Office’s national IP 8 enforcement strategy remains sufficiently flexible to respond to changes in the sourcing and supply of illegally copied films.
  
  
• Through the EuropeanUnion, prioritise cooperation with other EU Governments to further harmonise regulatory and anti-piracy enforcement measures.

• Work with otherinternational trade organisations (eg the World Trade Organisation) asappropriate to encourage enhanced protection of intellectual property rightsacross the globe, especially in those countries which have been identified as significant sources of pirated material.

• Ensure that the CreativeIndustries IP Forum on Intellectual Property results in a productive dialoguebetween rights holders and Internet Service Providers on the most effectivemeans to stem piracy.

Recommendations for the film industry

• Work with the Government’s Creative Industries IP Forum and individual Government departments to develop a strategy to deal with unauthorised Internet P2P filesharing that fairly balances consumer interests with the legitimate rights of the industry to exertcopyright ownership and contain misuse.

• Through the relevant tradeassociations, work with Ofcom, the UK Film Council and other relevantstakeholders to ensure that regulatory barriers to the development of new,legitimate business models for the online delivery of film are minimised.

• Through the relevant trade associations, work with the BFI, Film Education, First Light and other appropriate organisations to help ensure that young people are aware of the damage that piracy can inflict on their enjoyment of films.

Recommendations for other public sector organisations and trade bodies

• Consult with all relevant stakeholders and with research experts on developing improved methodologies toquantify the scale and impact of all forms of film industry piracy, paying particular attention to the impact of Internet P2P file-sharing.
  
  
• Develop best practice securityprocedures for the handling of film prints and digital materials throughout theproduction process and make these procedures a condition of support schemesadministered by the UK Film Council and other public sector funders. Theseprocedures to build upon the Film Print and Digital Disk Management Protocolpublished by the Film Distributors Association in July 2004.
  
  
• Further develop publiccampaigns to highlight the dangers of piracy, in particular focusing on the links between piracy and organised crime, the illegal nature of piracy and file-sharing; the threat to the development of creativity and culture in the UK and the dangers of unsuitable material becoming available to children andteenagers younger than 18.
  
  
• Through the UK Film Council, forge links with EFAD (the forum of European Film Agency Directors) tofurther European co-operation in the fight against copyright theft.

• The UK Film Council to convene discussions to consider ways to expand the financial resourcesavailable for enforcement activities. Our report also includes a review of themany lessons to be learnt from the experience of the music industry in the faceof digital piracy. Two of these are of critical importance:

• Take into account the industry’s relationship with the consumer, and manage consumer expectation moreskilfully.
  
  
• Don’t wait; act now.