Just when music companies thought they were the only ones to fall victim to Internet piracy and copyright violation, it has emerged that the new Star Wars epic Episode 1 - The Phantom Menace is available to be viewed on the Internet, a month before it has even been released in Irish cinemas.
According to a report on Wired News, the Internet publication, an industrious student was the first Irish person to see the film when he downloaded a full-length copy from a Czech website. He is reported to have found the same file on offer from a participant in an Internet relay chat channel which offered the film to any Europeans participating in the chat.
The student, who has not been named because of possible legal action, said that he and some friends came across a huge MPEG-format digital video which contained a copy of the epic which had been filmed in a cinema in the United States using a camcorder.
Mr Gordon Radley, president of Lucasfilm, said in a statement that Episode I was not unique in suffering from problems of piracy. He added: "Piracy throughout the world is an extremely serious problem for the whole motion picture industry. The billions of dollars of revenue lost as a result of piracy not only affects the economic needs of the studios and film investors, but also affects the financial benefits that accrue to all of the crafts and talents who have contributed to the making of the movie."
According to Wired News, Zero - the e-mail name of the student - has no plans for further distribution of the film, for fear of piracy violations but said: "On the Net, anything obtained is in the public domain, and a large number of copies are instantly distributed to friends." He has received more than 20 requests for a copy of the video since publicising his find in an Irish discussion forum.
The Motion Picture Association of America estimates that film piracy costs the movie industry $3.5 billion (€3.35 billion) in potential worldwide sales. Lucasfilm is at present working with the FBI and the MPAA to identify those responsible for the pirated version of The Phantom Menace. The 1.3 gigabyte Phantom file would take days for the average user to download, but its circulation is another major blow for the film makers and distributors of Star Wars following reports that the film was available on pirated videodisks in the Portuguese-run territory of Macau last week.
It may prove impossible to identify and prosecute the individuals who posted the digital video, but Lucasfilm is confident the FBI will be able to locate the Internet service providers hosting those sites and have the material removed.
