Read Online Until Proven Innocent by Gene Grossman - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Gene Grossman
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company. There’s a big problem with motion picture piracy of newly released movies, and we intend to launch our new service along with the release of our film. Tony would be a good addition to that division, because we want to have armed people delivering major studio films for showing at sneak previews and premiers.”
“ That’s fine, but if you throw him out for his acting, I’m afraid that there’ll be too much permanent ego damage for him to accept a lesser position.”
“ It wouldn’t be a lesser position… we’re prepared to make him security supervisor of the whole operation. We’ll be offering an entirely new service to the motion picture industry, with a security guard present during all showings of the feature films we deliver. They can’t knock off the film onto a digital copy unless it’s being projected at the theater, and we’ll have one of our guys in the projection booth during all showings.
“ Tony can be put into a position to do all the hiring and training of the security guards. It’ll be his show from day one.”
“ I don’t know, Joe. There’s still a chance that he can get reinstated with the police department, and I know that’s the job he’d prefer over anything else.”
“ Peter, he’s already been on the force for over twenty years. His pension is vested. If he retires now, he gets a full pension and can still take the job with us. It’ll be like a double income, and there’ll be no one shooting at him.”
“ I’ll talk to him. Maybe if he sees the whole picture, he’ll be more inclined to go along with the acting directions. I think that the loss of the acting job hurt him more than anything else, because he probably told everyone he knows about his being in a movie. When the picture comes out and he’s not in it, it’ll be a big letdown for a macho guy.”
“ Okay Peter. You win. First, you let him know about the courier service and get him to agree to go along with the acting direction. Then have him come back to the stage, and we’ll do a run-through of his scenes. Maybe we can talk about that other position some time in the future… after he’s appeared in the movie.”
Mission accomplished.
*****
I’ve heard of motion picture piracy before, but never knew how serious it was until I did some research on the internet and discovered that a recently released report from the International Intellectual Property Alliance found that the U.S. economy lost an estimated 9.2 billion dollars in 2002 as a result of unlawful copy and sales of our movies. In China, approximately 91% of all movies sold and shown are pirated, and Brazil isn’t even a close second, with a piracy rate of only about 50%.
Methods of the crimes range from theft of a print from a theater, tapping into cable TV, and individual VCR copying, to bringing a camcorder into a theater and capturing the movie right off of the screen. And the almost ten billion will certainly grow exponentially when there is enough broadband access to allow peer-to-peer exchange of movies on the internet. I’ve also heard that some theaters are using special spy devices to detect when someone in the audience is using a video camera to tape a movie while it’s being shown on the theater’s screen.
Now I’m beginning to understand why Joe Caulfield’s company wants to have armed security guards stay with those first-run prints while they’re being projected in theaters. There are some reports of bootlegged movies being sold on the streets of China and Brazil before they even reach the movie houses in the U.S. I guess that if the studios can save a couple of billion bucks, it’s worth it for them to pay Joe Caulfield’s new service to guard their deliveries of prints to theaters for sneak previews and premieres.
It would be almost impossible to guard up to 3,000 prints of a film that goes into wide distribution, but it sure would be nice if they could keep copies of the film off of the streets of China and
“ That’s fine, but if you throw him out for his acting, I’m afraid that there’ll be too much permanent ego damage for him to accept a lesser position.”
“ It wouldn’t be a lesser position… we’re prepared to make him security supervisor of the whole operation. We’ll be offering an entirely new service to the motion picture industry, with a security guard present during all showings of the feature films we deliver. They can’t knock off the film onto a digital copy unless it’s being projected at the theater, and we’ll have one of our guys in the projection booth during all showings.
“ Tony can be put into a position to do all the hiring and training of the security guards. It’ll be his show from day one.”
“ I don’t know, Joe. There’s still a chance that he can get reinstated with the police department, and I know that’s the job he’d prefer over anything else.”
“ Peter, he’s already been on the force for over twenty years. His pension is vested. If he retires now, he gets a full pension and can still take the job with us. It’ll be like a double income, and there’ll be no one shooting at him.”
“ I’ll talk to him. Maybe if he sees the whole picture, he’ll be more inclined to go along with the acting directions. I think that the loss of the acting job hurt him more than anything else, because he probably told everyone he knows about his being in a movie. When the picture comes out and he’s not in it, it’ll be a big letdown for a macho guy.”
“ Okay Peter. You win. First, you let him know about the courier service and get him to agree to go along with the acting direction. Then have him come back to the stage, and we’ll do a run-through of his scenes. Maybe we can talk about that other position some time in the future… after he’s appeared in the movie.”
Mission accomplished.
*****
I’ve heard of motion picture piracy before, but never knew how serious it was until I did some research on the internet and discovered that a recently released report from the International Intellectual Property Alliance found that the U.S. economy lost an estimated 9.2 billion dollars in 2002 as a result of unlawful copy and sales of our movies. In China, approximately 91% of all movies sold and shown are pirated, and Brazil isn’t even a close second, with a piracy rate of only about 50%.
Methods of the crimes range from theft of a print from a theater, tapping into cable TV, and individual VCR copying, to bringing a camcorder into a theater and capturing the movie right off of the screen. And the almost ten billion will certainly grow exponentially when there is enough broadband access to allow peer-to-peer exchange of movies on the internet. I’ve also heard that some theaters are using special spy devices to detect when someone in the audience is using a video camera to tape a movie while it’s being shown on the theater’s screen.
Now I’m beginning to understand why Joe Caulfield’s company wants to have armed security guards stay with those first-run prints while they’re being projected in theaters. There are some reports of bootlegged movies being sold on the streets of China and Brazil before they even reach the movie houses in the U.S. I guess that if the studios can save a couple of billion bucks, it’s worth it for them to pay Joe Caulfield’s new service to guard their deliveries of prints to theaters for sneak previews and premieres.
It would be almost impossible to guard up to 3,000 prints of a film that goes into wide distribution, but it sure would be nice if they could keep copies of the film off of the streets of China and
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