# 50% of Movie Piracy comes from Canada! **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [April 9, 2007, 9:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/50-of-movie-piracy-comes-from-canada/399379 "2007-04-09T21:52:06Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Cat\_Whisperer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cat_whisperer/32/4839_2.png) [@Cat\_Whisperer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Whisperer)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2007, 12:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/50-of-movie-piracy-comes-from-canada/399379/21 "2007-04-10T00:48:26Z")
We’re Number 1!!! RIAA can kiss my lily white ass. Facist bastards. ---
**Author:** ![Sunspace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunspace/32/1250_2.png) [@Sunspace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunspace)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2007, 1:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/50-of-movie-piracy-comes-from-canada/399379/22 "2007-04-10T01:12:24Z")
Back to the OP. I just noticed something. “ **As much as** 50 per cent…” Those are the weasel words that tell you the speaker is trying to emotionally promote a political agenda rather than present a problem to be solved. The CRIA hasn’t actually _said_ that 50% of the world’s pirated movies come from Canada; the actual amount could be 25%, or 5%, or 0.5%. They just want their audience to panic, and presumably act in some way favourable to them. ---
**Author:** ![Muffin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/muffin/32/4341_2.png) [@Muffin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Muffin)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2007, 1:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/50-of-movie-piracy-comes-from-canada/399379/23 "2007-04-10T01:23:57Z")
[QUOTE=Sunspace] They just want their audience to panic, and presumably act in some way favourable to them. [/QUOTE] They want Canadians to spend more money on enforcing the law. Personally, I’d rather that my taxes go to protecting me from from violent crime than to protecting Hollywood from white collar crime. ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Mudd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f14d63/32.png) [@Larry\_Mudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Mudd)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2007, 1:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/50-of-movie-piracy-comes-from-canada/399379/24 "2007-04-10T01:56:35Z")
> [@The article](#): > > Studios are able to trace pirated movies to specific theatres by examining them for watermarks that are contained within the images, but invisible to the naked eye. If they were invisible to the naked eye, I wouldn’t find them so _fucking annoying_. Oh, right, I forgot: I’m a mutant superhuman, capable of perceiving the groups of dots that periodically partially obscure Natalie Portman’s ass for 1/24th of a second. My eyes are not naked; they are clad in tears of impotent rage. ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2007, 2:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/50-of-movie-piracy-comes-from-canada/399379/25 "2007-04-10T02:12:35Z")
I didn’t think it was possible for the Canadian entertainment industry to sink any lower than Anne Murray, but I was wrong. ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Mudd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f14d63/32.png) [@Larry\_Mudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Mudd)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2007, 2:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/50-of-movie-piracy-comes-from-canada/399379/26 "2007-04-10T02:26:52Z")
[QUOTE=Boyo Jim] I didn’t think it was possible for the Canadian entertainment industry to sink any lower than Anne Murray, but I was wrong. [/QUOTE] Red Green is _waaaaay_ below Anne Murray. I just reflexively visualized “Red Green” _literally_ below Anne Murray. Kill me. ---
**Author:** ![Mindfield](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mindfield/32/19759_2.png) [@Mindfield](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mindfield)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2007, 2:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/50-of-movie-piracy-comes-from-canada/399379/27 "2007-04-10T02:56:20Z")
[QUOTE=Larry Mudd] Red Green is _waaaaay_ below Anne Murray. I just reflexively visualized “Red Green” _literally_ below Anne Murray. Kill me. [/QUOTE] Could be worse. Could be Red Green, Anne Murray, _and_ Reba McIntyre. Seppuku for two? ---
**Author:** ![Sunspace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunspace/32/1250_2.png) [@Sunspace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunspace)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2007, 3:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/50-of-movie-piracy-comes-from-canada/399379/28 "2007-04-10T03:05:42Z")
Rene Simard. Just sayin’… 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Cat\_Whisperer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cat_whisperer/32/4839_2.png) [@Cat\_Whisperer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Whisperer)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2007, 5:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/50-of-movie-piracy-comes-from-canada/399379/29 "2007-04-10T05:50:56Z")
[QUOTE=Sunspace] \Those are the weasel words that tell you the speaker is trying to emotionally promote a political agenda rather than present a problem to be solved.\. [/QUOTE] Absolutely. The RIAA is making record profits in spite of downloading and pirating. They need to STFU already. I have all sympathy for artists who _should_ be getting paid for their work; I have none at all for record company businessmen whose only real concern is for their parasitic jobs going the way of the typewriter salesman. Record company execs are like King Canute trying to hold back the ocean - technology isn’t going away, and trying to put ridiculous controls on it just makes me mad. ---
**Author:** ![Fastidiots](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/51bf81/32.png) [@Fastidiots](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fastidiots)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2007, 9:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/50-of-movie-piracy-comes-from-canada/399379/30 "2007-04-10T09:13:09Z")
This just hit my Google news page. [http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2007/04/09/national/w143837D52.DTL&type=politics](http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2007/04/09/national/w143837D52.DTL&type=politics) Bloody interesting I reckon. Don’t bother to check what your own daughter’s up to in her room, when the neighbor’s daughter’s dirty laundry is so much easier to condemn. ---
**Author:** ![RumMunkey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b19c9b/32.png) [@RumMunkey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RumMunkey)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2007, 1:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/50-of-movie-piracy-comes-from-canada/399379/31 "2007-04-10T13:33:44Z")
[QUOTE=Mikemike2] No, really. I heard it from a representative of the CRIA (the Canadian arm of the RIAA) [/QUOTE] Why would [CRIA](http://www.cria.ca/), the agency that oversees the music industry being speaking about the motion picture industry? Shouldn’t this be coming from the MPAA in the US an/or the Canadian Motion Pictures Distributors Association (in Canada)? ---
**Author:** ![Mikemike2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mikemike2/32/305_2.png) [@Mikemike2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mikemike2)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2007, 3:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/50-of-movie-piracy-comes-from-canada/399379/32 "2007-04-10T15:04:44Z")
[QUOTE=RumMunkey] Why would [CRIA](http://www.cria.ca/), the agency that oversees the music industry being speaking about the motion picture industry? Shouldn’t this be coming from the MPAA in the US an/or the Canadian Motion Pictures Distributors Association (in Canada)? [/QUOTE] I’m sure your right. With all the alphabet soup of the initials I most have got who was speaking wrong. I beleive the reason the motion picture industry is making claims they must know in their black hearts are wrong or at best misleading, is that there is pending legislation in parliment which would shift our current copyright legislation in favor of the industy, and against consumers. ---
**Author:** ![Cat\_Whisperer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cat_whisperer/32/4839_2.png) [@Cat\_Whisperer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Whisperer)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2007, 7:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/50-of-movie-piracy-comes-from-canada/399379/33 "2007-04-10T19:11:04Z")
[QUOTE=Mikemike2] \ there is pending legislation in parliment which would shift our current copyright legislation in favor of the industy, and against consumers. [/QUOTE] Yeah, I hate that, too. ---
**Author:** ![Anaamika](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Anaamika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anaamika)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2007, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/50-of-movie-piracy-comes-from-canada/399379/34 "2007-04-10T19:32:45Z")
Wow, you guys beat India? I have legally purchased indian movies that I’m fairly sure the store didn’t purchase legally in their turn. And yet you guys beat them. Damn Canucks. 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Mikemike2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mikemike2/32/305_2.png) [@Mikemike2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mikemike2)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2007, 9:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/50-of-movie-piracy-comes-from-canada/399379/35 "2007-04-10T21:36:49Z")
[QUOTE=Anamika] Wow, you guys beat India? I have legally purchased Indian movies that I’m fairly sure the store didn’t purchase legally in their turn. And yet you guys beat them. Damn Canucks. 😛 [/QUOTE] I know! No slam against India or anything, but I wish someone would have told me our country is going rogue. After all, I do live here. Up till yesterday I was being all polite and courteous like I thought good Canucks are supposed to behave. ---
**Author:** ![Mikemike2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mikemike2/32/305_2.png) [@Mikemike2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mikemike2)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2007, 3:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/50-of-movie-piracy-comes-from-canada/399379/36 "2007-04-11T03:17:33Z")
[QUOTE=tvvat] This just hit my Google news page. [http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2007/04/09/national/w143837D52.DTL&type=politics](http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2007/04/09/national/w143837D52.DTL&type=politics) Bloody interesting I reckon. Don’t bother to check what your own daughter’s up to in her room, when the neighbor’s daughter’s dirty laundry is so much easier to condemn. [/QUOTE] That’s an interesting article. It drives me nuts when the entertainment industry makes a rough estimate as to how many times a movie may have been downloaded, and then assumes every download would have been a sale if the download was not available, so they have lost **billions.** By the way, interesting username. :dubious: ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Mudd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f14d63/32.png) [@Larry\_Mudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Mudd)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2007, 3:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/50-of-movie-piracy-comes-from-canada/399379/37 "2007-04-11T03:25:15Z")
[QUOTE=Mikemike2] TIt drives me nuts when the entertainment industry makes a rough estimate as to how many times a movie may have been downloaded, and then assumes every download would have been a sale if the download was not available, so they have lost **billions.** [/QUOTE] It is kind of nuts. Typically, if I’m going to download a crappy pirated copy of a movie, it’s because my interest in it is high enough that already seen it in the theatre (at least once) and want to quickly lay my hands on a copy I can beat the ever-loving crap out of (the better to over-analyse the fuck out of it, as anyone who’s read some of my posts in the Cafe about movies I’ve obsessed over will understand,) and I’m certainly going to have money at the ready when the DVD is released. ---
**Author:** ![Sunspace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunspace/32/1250_2.png) [@Sunspace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunspace)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2007, 3:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/50-of-movie-piracy-comes-from-canada/399379/38 "2007-04-11T03:27:11Z")
[QUOTE=Mikemike2] I know! No slam against India or anything, but I wish someone would have told me our country is going rogue. After all, I do live here. Up till yesterday I was being all polite and courteous like I thought good Canucks are supposed to behave. [/QUOTE] And here I thought the rise in stupid non-artistic grafitti in Toronto was due to a rise in the number of jerks. Now I know that it’s because we’re _going rogue!!!1!!11!!!one!_ Graaahhhh!!! _stompstomp_ :: lowers head and charges :: Does that mean we get to say Hi to North Korea and Blackwater USA as we thunder blindly across the savannah? ---
**Author:** ![MonkeyMensch](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/82dd89/32.png) [@MonkeyMensch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MonkeyMensch)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2007, 3:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/50-of-movie-piracy-comes-from-canada/399379/39 "2007-04-11T03:57:20Z")
While _les Quebecoise_ go, what, rouge? ---
**Author:** ![Mikemike2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mikemike2/32/305_2.png) [@Mikemike2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mikemike2)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2007, 4:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/50-of-movie-piracy-comes-from-canada/399379/40 "2007-04-11T04:06:50Z")
[QUOTE=Larry Mudd] Typically, if I’m going to download a crappy pirated copy of a movie, it’s because my interest in it is high enough that already seen it in the theatre (at least once) and want to quickly lay my hands on a copy I can beat the ever-loving crap out of (the better to over-analyse the fuck out of it, as anyone who’s read some of my posts in the Cafe about movies I’ve obsessed over will understand,) and I’m certainly going to have money at the ready when the DVD is released. [/QUOTE] I actually find that the quality of downloaded movies that are ripped from DVDs are quite good, even on a HDTV (I think it has something to do with a very good tv decoder card). In fact they are better than my own rips, and a lot smaller. So I have no qualms downloading a movie I have the DVD for. I download HDTV TV shows for the same reasons above. Now that I have can have virtually unlimited hard drive space, I like having a library of tv shows and movies on tap which I can watch without searching through my very cluttered DVD collection. So I just don’t get that camcorded movies are even worth talking about, except for political extortion. I always check the comments to see if a movie has been camcorded, and would never stoop to downloading one. Life is too short for such a crappy version of a movie. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/50-of-movie-piracy-comes-from-canada/399379.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/50-of-movie-piracy-comes-from-canada/399379.md?page=3)