REEL PIRATES ALL TOO REAL MOVIE MAKERS, ACTORS FEAR GROWING LOSS OF INCOME TO DVD BOOTLEGGERS.

Byline: Greg Hernandez Staff Writer

HOLLYWOOD - The movie industry could lose as much as $15 million in revenue over the next four years if it doesn't take dramatic steps to curb piracy, the Motion Picture Association of America's head of worldwide anti-piracy said Thursday.

The MPAA's John G. Malcom said the movie industry ``is in serious danger of suffering the same fate as the music industry,'' and he applied music's rate of decline in determining his estimate.

``People in the entertainment industry would be out of work and out of luck,'' Malcom said at the Roosevelt Hotel during a panel program on what the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce billed as ``pirates of the silver screen.''

Los Angeles Mayor James Hahn also weighed in on the problem he called ``just plain old theft'' threatening an industry that brings $30 billion to the Southern California economy each year, as well as 200,000 jobs.

``If the entertainment industry isn't doing well, you could say that the economy in Los Angeles isn't going to do well either,'' Hahn said. ``These movie pirates aren't just stealing films; they are stealing from our economy.''

Hahn recalled that someone was caught trying to make a camcorder copy of the religious film ``The Passion of the Christ'' last spring in a theater at The Grove shopping center in Los Angeles.

``Imagine stealing that movie,'' the mayor said.

Hahn also lamented the proliferation of unlicensed street vendors who illegally sell pirated DVDs in sections of downtown, at swap meets, at farmers markets and elsewhere in the city.

``Everywhere you look, there's someone trying to sell pirated DVDs,'' he said. `If we don't do something about it now, we are going to be paying for it for a long time to come.''

The mayor cited stepped-up law enforcement efforts against people caught making pirated discs. He said it is crucial to make people aware that they ``are part of the theft ring,'' in effect, if they buy a movie on the street.

``Purchasing that DVD is as bad as copying it,'' Hahn said.

Pamm Fair of the Screen Actors Guild pointed out that piracy also hits working actors hard because they rely on residuals from DVD sales for part of their income.

``This is not just about stars and celebrities but the working-class actors who lose every time one of those DVDs is stolen,'' Fair said.

With modern technology making it possible for movies to be copied and sent around the world even before some are released in theaters, Malcom said there is a real threat to the industry's revenue from international markets that he fears could be taken over forever by bootleggers.

Malcom points to Germany, where Internet piracy is rampant. He said the practice has resulted in a downturn in movie attendance and in legitimate DVD sales in Germany.

California Film Commission Director Amy Lemisch, who was also on the panel Thursday, said Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger plans to support protection of the state's intellectual properties on future foreign trade missions. The governor has signed Senate Bill 1506 into law, making it a crime for the state's file traders to use file-sharing Web sites without supplying their e-mails to the state.

``We are the first state to do that,'' Lemisch said.

Greg Hernandez, [phone]

greg.hernandez(at)dailynews.com