24/10/2005

At the Beaune Film Encounters organised last week-end by the ARP, the director general of the National Film Centre (CNC) Véronique Cayla revealed that cinema professionals and internet access providers agreed a deal last week on the principal of a graduated riposte against the illegal downloading of films on the Internet. Threes stages are programmed against identified pirates: a warning email followed by a recommended letter then a fine (the amount is being discussed by the authorities) which would mount up with each infractions and could end up in the courts.

Also at Beaune, the CNC and ALPA (Association Against Audiovisual Piracy) communicated the results of a study on the availability of pirate films on the Internet. Having analysed from August2004 to the end of July 2005 the files available on piracy on the network "Peer to Peer", the authors put at 37,9% the number of films coming out in French cinemas in this period which were pirated and for sale in French version on the Internet. Nevertheless, this phenomenon concerns essentially American films since 72,7% of the US features distributed in France in 2004/2005 were pirated against 26,8% of French films. Elsewhere, the lead time for films on the Web follows this tendency. In fact, American films in French version appear, on average on the network "Peer to Peer" only 4 days after their release in the French cinemas, while French features appear illegally on the Internet 3 months and 25 after their first distribution in theatres. Worth remembering, videos (DVD and VHS) are released in France six months after their theatrical release. Finally, piracy before a film has even reached the screens is still a marginal phenomenon for French films since only three were downloadable in 2004-2005 before their official arrival against 53% of American films (which had already reached other territories).

The study by the CNC and the ALPA also looked at the sources of piracy, 70 % of the files available on "Peer to Peer" came from available DVDs , 14% were promotional DVD, 11,1% were recorded in the cinemas and 5,1% were digital transfers from film. Pirate copying in the theatres seems to have diminished by the same amount for French films (4,2% against 9,3% in 2003-2004) as for American films (16,4% against 23% last year).

(Translated from French)