Film piracy now a misdemeanor in NYC

With the summer blockbuster movie season just ahead, Mayor Michael Bloomberg signed legislation on Tuesday that upgrades film piracy from a violation with a $250 fine to a misdemeanor that carries up to six months in jail and penalties of up to $5,000.

The stricter law coincides with an advertising campaign against film piracy.

The Motion Picture Association of America says more than 40 percent of bootlegged films are secretly videotaped in New York City theaters. The duplications are typically sold for mass reproduction or posted on the Internet, sometimes just hours after the movie has premiered.

Pirated movies cost major U.S. film studios more than $6 billion in 2005, according to the MPAA. And a new study by the group shows that the New York movie industry loses an estimated $1.5 billion a year because of piracy, and the local economy suffers further with lost earnings, tax revenue and jobs.

"We're going to keep the heat on the con artists, so that the real artists who make up our film industry can continue to thrive," Bloomberg said after signing the law.

He said piracy is not only hard on the industry and the city economy, but cheats average New Yorkers who purchase illegal versions, which can sometimes be blurry, shaky and generally poorly made.

And that is the message that the public service announcements will send.

The PSAs feature film clips from movies like the animated hit "Happy Feet" as they might look in illegally recorded copies, emphasizing the poor quality and urging New Yorkers not to buy pirated DVDs on the street.

The New York Police Department recently began cracking down on the distribution of pirated films. Officials said Tuesday that police have seized more than 195,000 counterfeit DVDs and made 29 arrests so far this year.

The city's efforts to target film piracy were applauded Tuesday by many in the entertainment industry, including the Screen Actors Guild and NBC Universal.

Rick Cotton, executive vice president at NBC Universal, said the city's work is particularly significant for the industry because many other states have already made film piracy a felony offense.