Pirate Gangs Compete to Be First to "Release" New Movies
by Curtis Lee Fulton (G2 News)
A growing number of competing pirate gangs are forming on the net. The
gangs compete fiercely to be first to "release" a bootleg movie on the
Internet. A gang that's able to release a movie that's still in
theaters - or better yet, leak a film before it hits the theaters -
earns the respect and admiration of other pirates and users hunting for
the movies. There's even an independent rating service for classifying
the quality of their work.
The bootlegged movies vary in quality and are packaged in various
formats so they can be easily burned onto a CD or DVD. A handful of
obscure standards that allow standard CD-Rs to work as mini-DVDs have
made the 10-cent CD-R the medium of choice for pirated digital movies.
Unlike other digital media formats used on the Internet such as
Microsoft's Windows Media, RealNetworks' Real Media and DivxNetworks'
Divx format, the bootleggers' CD-R-based formats can be played in many
standalone DVD players.
It's a strange twist on the MP3 phenomena. When the Napster
file-swapping network made MP3s the default standard format for music
files, consumer electronics makers began making portable MP3 players.
The opposite is happening with the CDR-based formats. Hackers are
tinkering with ways to coax a standard DVD player into playing the
various disks that can be created with a standard CD burner.
The most common format is the video CD (VCD). VCD is the oldest format
and will work in almost any DVD player with little hassle. VCD quality
is worse than a DVD - it's about on par with a VHS tape. One VCD can
hold 80 minutes of video, so full-length movies have to be split across
two or three disks. VCDs use the MPEG-1 video compression format rather
than MPEG-2, which is used in DVDs. A hacked version of the VCD format
called XVCD is making the rounds. XVCDs use MPEG-1 as well, but differ
from VCDs in that higher resolutions and faster bitrates can be used.
The higher the bitrate and resolution, the higher the quality of the
video. Of course, as quality increases, file size increases and each
disk holds less video. There's no real standard for XVCDs, so there's
less chance that a DVD player can play the disk.
Besides VCD, there's SVCD, or super VCD. SVCD uses MPEG-2 and supports
a resolution and bitrate close to that of a standard DVD. It can be
played in most DVD drive. SVCDs produce a dramatically better picture
than a plain VCD, but a SVCD can only store a 60-minute video. As one
might guess, an XSVCD format is emerging as well. Like XVCD, XSVCD can
ramp up the bitrate and resolution but it's non-standard and works on
fewer DVD drives than its cousin.
The pirate gangs release movies in one of these formats. Each flick is
split into two or three VCD image files, depending on its length and
the format used. The files are then bundled into a single archive file
such as zip or rar and posted on the Internet for free downloading.
Windows users download the files and easily burn the image files onto
two or more CD-Rs using CD-burning software such as Nero, Fireburner
and CDRwin.
But not all VCDs are created equal. Because the pirated flicks are,
well, pirated, there's not exactly any quality control. The movies are
often acquired clandestinely and quick and dirty duplication techniques
are used.
Because the quality is unpredictable from VCD to VCD, various websites
have sprouted up to rate each release. The best-known VCD rating site
is vcdquality.com. The site catalogs each new bootleg movie and who
released it. It rates the movie on a scale of one to 10 and notes how
the bootleg was made.
Vcdquality.com uses the following labels to explain how the contraband
was made:
CAM - Recorded by someone in a cinema with a camcorder; the audience
can be heard. The picture quality is usually fair at best and the sound
is bad.
Telesync - Recorded in a cinema with a high-end camera and a separate
audio source. Both the picture quality and the sound are good.
Telecine - Transferred from film to video using professional equipment.
Screener - Recorded from the promotional videotape that's sent to film
critics before the film is released in the theaters. The quality is
good, although copyright messages may appear on the screen.
Work-Print - Each frame of the film is copied from celluloid. The movie
may be incomplete. The sound is usually good although the visual
quality is unpredictable.
LD/DVDRip - Created from a released DVD or Laserdisc.
The best way for a pirate group to gain instant fame is to release a
movie before it hits the theaters. That's what the Centropy gang was
able to do with the May 2002 movie Spider-Man. The flick didn't open in
the movie houses until May 7, but Centropy released a Telesync SVCD
copy on May 4. Evidently the quality wasn't that bad; vcdquality.com
gave it a rating of 8.8.
A text file that came with the release called for more members. "We are
hiring!" it began. "If u live in .sg (Singapore) or .my (Malaysia) and
have a decent Internet connection, apply NOW! If u live in the US and
can get your hands on screener tapes, apply NOW!"
This kind of internal theft is giving the movie industry a migraine.
Because of modern compression codecs and high-speed Internet
connections, once a title is leaked, it can be distributed rapidly. The
Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) wants to fix the problem
through legislation. It's calling for a law that would force consumer
electronics and computer makers to equip all of their products with a
digital watermark detector.
It remains to be seen if such legislation ever passes or if enforcement
is technically feasible. The only certainly is that as PCs grow more
powerful and the number of homes with a broadband connection increases,
Internet movie piracy will grow. - Curtis Lee Fulton