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Movie fans watching the Academy Awards ceremony did not have to head to the theater to see the Oscar winning performances. They did not have to purchase or rent the films either. Weeks earlier, pirated versions were available online, for free.

Putting copyright protected films online, thereby enabling millions of Internet users to view them, is a growing, global problem. The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) estimates that illegal downloads and streams are now responsible for about 40 percent of the revenue that the industry loses annually to piracy. Antipiracy efforts have been underway for years. Most recently, in December 2008, the MPAA released a position paper discussing the use of Internet filtering to impede copyright infringement. The organization supports a system that would enable Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to match files sent by Internet users to a database of known movies and music provided by copyright owners. Files on this list would be blocked and those attempting to circumvent restrictions could risk being dropped by their ISPs.

In this ongoing battle, better information could help shape a more successful strategy. Andy Baio, a Portland, Oregon-based journalist, has been tracking distribution of Oscar-nominated films for the past seven years. His data¹ shows that when the Oscar nominees were announced on January 22, 2009, 23 of the 26 movies, the highest proportion since he began tracking, were available in DVD quality on Peer-to-Peer (P2P) file sharing networks. By February 7, every film was available. On average, pirates needed six days from the date of releases to get copies circulating on the Web.

The Treasure Map

The Pirate Bay, a popular, Stockholm-based file sharing Web site, lets users search for and download BitTorrent files (torrents) – small files that contain metadata necessary to download data files from other users. These torrents are organized into categories, including audio, video, applications, and games. The service is free. Registration requires only an email address and registered users may upload their own torrents. The Pirate Bay does not directly host copyrighted content: it helps its 22 million users access such movies, music, or software by hosting the torrent files that point to where the content lives on uploaders’ computers.

The site recently released a Google-powered global map that charts in real time the number of people connecting to The Pirate Bay trackers (http://geo. kef.org). To show the percentage of connected users from given countries, it uses icons, including flames for high numbers and snowflakes for a handful of users, or none at all. For example, on a recent Wednesday afternoon (United States Central Time) the map showed that China was by far the most active country. It accounted for one of every six connections – earning it one of three flame symbols on the map – even though The Pirate Bay’s IPs and domain name are blocked by ISPs throughout that country. The United States accounted for one in twelve connections, and Spain one in eight.

TorrentFreak, a blog about file sharing, recently reported that The Pirate Bay’s administrators plan to release more usage data in the future. This could provide valuable insight on P2P piracy trends.

No doubt piracy will continue to be a hot topic among consumers and government officials, as video game, music, and movie industry officials have filed lawsuits against alleged file sharers. Administrators of The Pirate Bay are currently on trial in Stockholm District Criminal Court, accused of contributory copyright infringement, and face up to two years in prison each, in addition to fines as high as US$180,000. Prosecutor Hakan Roswall has summarized the charges as “promoting other people’s infringements of copyright laws.” Stay tuned to hear more information on the piracy debate.

¹ http://waxy.org/2009/01/pirating_the_2009_oscars/