The current approach of the US film industry to the perceived threat of Internet-distributed film piracy is to cast blame on the consumer and the number of filings of legal action against the creators of DVD-backup software bears testament to this. Perhaps they view the RIAA as their role model in this regard, pursue the consumer, even sue to consumer to try and halt the problem. We and others really do not think this is the best approach. How ever just the protection of their copyright material might be, it is simple business sense, you just do not attack your customers.
Recent AT&T research claimed that 80% of the 300 movies that they looked at on file sharing networks “appeared to have been leaked by industry insiders”. To further underline the fact that it was not consumers who were placing the movies online, AT&T also found that most of the films were available before their public DVD released. This will not come as a surprise to anyone who has a connection to the film industry – they know that film material floats around freely.
If copyright holders continuously blame the consumer and tell them “We don’t trust you”, they will eventually tire of this, lose faith and leave, with the strong possibility that they never return. We’re sure that no-one in the industry wants that.