DRM News

Want to cut down on the impact of movie piracy? James Cameron suggests that making the theatre experience something that people are interested in paying for is the answer.

That was one of the points made during a roundtable discussion at the 2010 CTIA trade show.

"In film we have definitely felt threatened by piracy," he said. "We saw the music industry crash and burn in its efforts to stop it. But with G4 (I think he meant 4G wireless) and Moore’s Law, you can’t fight it."

He said the music industry made a critical mistake by trying to stop piracy instead of innovating to give consumers new experiences that the industry could use to generate more money.

"The music industry saw it coming, they tried to stop it, and they got rolled over," he said. "Then they started suing everybody. And now it is what it is."

And while the chair of the discussion made the claim that the National Broadband Plan’s attempts to push higher bandwidth Internet access to more homes could possibly lead to more piracy, Cameron responded that he felt more high-speed bandwidth could help during the creative process.

Cameron’s latest movie, Avatar, has topped $2.6 Billion in worldwide revenue, helping to offset the fact that it is also the single most pirated movie of the past year. A lot of that revenue came from the fact that people were willing to shell out the money for the full theatre experience, including more expensive 3D showings.

Of course, 3D has to be attractive to consumers to really make an impact. This week’s news that the average charge for a 3D movie showing will be going up by as much as $3-$3.50 per ticket could sour the public’s interest in paying extra to see the 3D version.