Tanya Batson-Savage, Freelance Writer
A scene from 'The Matrix Reloaded', one of the two movies with which Palace returned to Mandeville in 2003, after a five-year absence. - CONTRIBUTED
PALACE AMUSEMENT Company Limited is currently singing a Marley tune declaring that their profits are being looted by pirates and they need redemption.
According to Melanie Graham, marketing director of Palace, for Jamaicans it is increasingly not in to go out to the movies as pirated DVDs have taken over the marketplace.
At the Editor's Forum looking at copyright and piracy issues held at the Gleaner Company's offices last week, Graham noted that Palace Amusement's box office receipts were significantly down and the blame was to be laid at the feet of pirates. Some moviegoers would beg to differ.
Yet, piracy today is probably able to rival the days of Henry Morgan. The high seas of cyberspace are open for all to roam and pirates need neither 'arrghs', 'ahoy mateys', parrots nor eyepatches to go into business.
According to Graham, the proliferation of such piracy in the local market is stifling legitimate business.
She revealed that box office receipts are down by 30 per cent and that the problem is particularly chronic in Mandeville.
Palace Amusement had parted company with Mandeville in 1998, then returned to the town in 2003 with hope and a bang, armed with The Matrix Reloaded and Anger Management.
However, the current outlook is dim. "There isn't a month there that we don't lose money," Graham said.
The company launched an anti-piracy campaign last month, and in a related story published The Gleaner, Graham was quoted as saying that the fall-offs in revenue had resulted in personnel being laid off from four of the Palace Amusement theatres in Kingston, Mandeville and Montego Bay.
ILLEGAL DVD CULTURE
Graham noted that the illegal DVD culture in Mandeville was allowed to permeate because the town had been without a cinema for some years.
Interestingly, as cinemas currently exist only in Kingston and St. Andrew, St. James, St. Ann, and Manchester, it means that this same illegal DVD culture is probably getting a great chance to take root elsewhere.
Of course, not all pirates are equal. While some peddle in low quality merchandise, others engage in creating more expensive counterfeit that can appear to be the real thing.
Pcpro.co.uk reported in May that according to a Motion Pictures Association of America (MPAA) commissioned survey the film industry had lost £3.3 billion to piracy.
The story explained that the report was significantly higher than previous estimates as it had included the effects of illegal downloads, not just illegal DVDs.
Since 2001, the MPAA has been lobbying to have bills passed in the U.S. courts to combat piracy. Some of these bills, however, have seemed to critics like attempts to curtail and control the speed of technological advance.
ECONOMICS AND QUALITY
However, with the record industry's flogging from file-sharing sites like Napster to fuel their efforts, the movie industry is attempting to protect their pockets before they can be pilfered further.
Until recently, the industry was relatively protected by the cumbersome nature of movie files but, with Internet connections gaining speed, chances for piracy may well be catching up.
While Palace Amusement cries piracy, moviegoers cry economics and quality as the reasons for the fall-off in attendance.
Last year, Hollywood wailed and gnashed their collective teeth at the box office and they, too, blamed piracy. Yet, this year's results indicate that the cause was probably the bad crop of films that Hollywood shovelled out.
Twenty-seven year-old Christina James says she owns about three dozen illegal DVDs and maybe one legal copy.
Seventeen-year-old Mark Wright says he owns about five illegal DVDs and one legally made DVD.
David Burns, however, simply downloads or borrows, then deletes and moves on.
Interestingly, both Christina and Mark explain that there are some films like The Chronicles of Narnia or the Harry Potter series that they would like to own the authentically created version of. Other films may also deserve consideration.
Christina argues that she sees nothing wrong with buying pirated Hollywood films, but one can pay for independent films from places like Africa.
David argues that, as he is not a movie collector, he needs no originals.
All three, however, stated that other factors dictate their attendance at the movies and that there are some films that must be enjoyed in the cinema first. Additionally, going to the movies remain a form of socialising.
HIGHLY-ANTICIPATED FILMS
The decision to see films in the cinema is also dictated by the type of film.
"Well, it depends on the movie, worse now like how dem get expensive," explains David.
Films worth seeing in the cinema vary from highly anticipated films, action flicks and, for Christina, those that are very posterior-friendly.
Cost also affects the decision to buy a pirated copy as opposed to an authentic one.
"Why me a go pay $2,000 plus, when me cyan pay $250?" argues Christina.
For those peddling the DVDs on the street corner, such as Richard, it is also a matter of economics.
The Sunday Gleaner came across him last Tuesday when he had spread out his wares as the rain eased. Richard is adamant that the DVDs he sells are legitimate and argues that he does not believe in people profiting from illegally made DVDs.
"I am just a walking shop," Richard says. "Normally a lot of people will come to me or me try to develop a small market and take people number and dem take my number and call me and order tings," he says.
His wares vary from cartoon to porn, some martial arts films like Fist of Fear and Street Fighter 2 in between.
As such, Richard is not one of the sellers who seem to be immediately affecting Palace Amusement's bottom line, but he could get swept up in crackdown attempts.
He explains that he has chosen this line of work in an attempt at independence, as working for others has not proven profitable.
Richard maintains, too, that he is engaged in a legal business and so he has nothing to fear from the police. Others are not so lucky.
In the past Jamaicans had to wait until month after a movie's U.S. release for it to hit local shores. This has changed with major box office draws and, as such, has narrowed the field within which pirates have to work.
PROSPEROUS INDUSTRY
Yet piracy prospers. A unit in the Fraud Squad, run by Detective Sergeant Faulkner, is responsible for handling piracy and breaches of copyright.
Graham maintains, however, that the unit is undermanned and under-equipped and thus cannot adequately deal with the mobile DVD privateers.
Faulkner states that although the unit faces "challenges" they are attempting to do their best in dealing with the situation.
"We could do with more, but we are trying to deal with our limited resources," he said. "I've never got a complaint and told anyone that we don't have anyone to go out."
