Saving 'The Dark Knight' from online pirates

Building buzz for "The Dark Knight" was easy. The tough part for Warner Bros. was keeping the film off the Internet before it was released in theaters.

Reporter Dawn Chmielewski takes you behind an unprecedented anti-piracy effort by Warner Bros. to keep the latest Batman film from being bootlegged, which the studio feared would have cut into box-office sales. As she notes, "The success of an anti-piracy campaign is measured in the number of hours it buys before the digital dam breaks." To that end, Warner Bros. employed a strategy that included staggered delivery of film reels, spot checks of theaters and even distribution of night-vision goggles to keep would-be film pirates at bay.

It seems to have worked. She writes:

Warner Bros. executives said the extra vigilance paid off, helping to prevent camcorded copies of the reported $180-million film from reaching Internet file-sharing sites for about 38 hours. Although that doesn't sound like much progress, it was enough time to keep bootleg DVDs off the streets as the film racked up a record-breaking $158.4 million on opening weekend. The movie has now taken in more than $300 million.

Read the full story for more details about the effort and to learn how "The Hulk" provided inspiration for the bootleg-fighting campaign.

-- Chris Gaither

Photo: Heath Ledger as the Joker in "The Dark Knight." Credit: Warner Bros.

Comments

[John Jones]

LOL, I aint dumping $40+ to take my kid to see some stupid movie. It'll show up online sooner or later! LOL, they always do.

JT
www.FireMe.To/udi

[Unk]

They have their logic all wrong! If they think that because they stopped bootleg from getting out is the reason for their great success in theaters, they are wrong. It was a good movie and highly anticipated. That is all it needs to be a good box office hit.

I didn't even check to see if there was a bootleg because everyone said it was worth it to see in theaters. The movie is bad-ass. I saw it three times in theaters, because it was a good movie. Not because it wasn't bootlegged yet.

[Justa Name]

How about this .... people actually wanted to see it in the theatre.

If, perhaps, people involved with making movies actually made more movies worth watching then they wouldn't have as big an issue as they currently perceive they do.

[Gremio]

Ugg, you have to be kidding me.

So they spent millions of dollars to do absolutely nothing is basically what you're saying?

I'm sorry, piracy has ZERO effect on how well a movie does on opening weekend. It probably has 7% effect or so on a movies lifetime in a theater and *that's* for movies that suck...look at the demographic of those the pirate for christ sake.

[Mr Torrent]

A quick search on torrent sits has found 8 perfect copies of this film, the best being from a site called torrent5. Sorry this extra effort has not worked.

[bobbknight]

Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Everyone knows the best bootleg copies come from movie industry produced and distributed screeners, or DVD copies of a movie sent out by the studios themselves.

The reason the Hulk did not make the big bucks is that it sucked. Word of mouth killed it.

This Batman movie has a few things going for it, the buzz of Heath Ledgers death,
it can be seen in Imax, and it's a good movie, word of mouth promotes it.

Like a woman attempting to urinate up a rope, the so called anti-piracy measures are just mental masturbation on the part of the industry.
Movie going is a social experience, that which enhances the experience will create the desire to come back to see another movie. Imax helps here, because that experience is not available at home.

I bet the next movie that has the level of anti-piracy that went into The Dark Knight, and fails at the box office, will rekindle the cry for more protection of an industry that does not wish to keep up with the times.

A thing in digital form is an infinite good, like air and sunlight. When you try to sell an infinite good you need to add something that makes it worth the experience.

Sunlight is free, but people go to tanning salons. Why is that?

[Otto]

I have no idea where they are getting their information, but some CAM versions were available online within 6 hours after the midnight release. Okay, so they were crappy and hurried versions, and basically unwatchable, but then that's pretty normal.

38 hours is ridiculous. Their attempt at stopping piracy was a miserable failure, and they either are simply not aware of that fact, or are just trying to put a good face on it.

[Someone]

So then where where there copies the first day? and they still made over 300 mil.... the MPAA needs to find a better use for their time.

Have had this movie for over a week, yay for torrents!

[David]

The studios are so clueless. They actually believe their anti piracy efforts are the reason for the success of this film.

The reason people flocked to this movie is because Heath Ledger is dead. Look at the opening of batman begins. It was not even close to The Dark Knight.

There were good bootleg versions of this film shortly after it opened.

People wanted to see Heath. Nothng more, nothing less.

[kinker]

I actually wasn't going to go see Iron Man, but I watched the first five minutes of the pirated version on some chinese site and then immediately closed the browser and went to the theater.

If they make a good product we will pay to see it.

[Luke Alaska]

I think what drew people to see this film in theaters was a combination of all the points listed above and more:

Ledger's passing
The buzz from his performance
The Joker in general
The Imax factor
The built-in audience from the original film
The built-in ferociously loyal fan base waiting for a reason to support their favorite superhero
The brilliant viral marketing
The brilliant trailers
The score
The cast
The director
The positive reviews

The list goes on and on. If you're able to combine all of these factors, you'll probably have a bonafide box office smash on your hands. The studio's efforts probably did play a role in curbing piracy, but as others mentioned, there's a resounding respect for the film as a whole. People want to pay homage to Ledger's last complete performance and positive word of mouth has spread that this is a movie that's worth seeing on the big screen.

[The Heed]

Where I live, and in my situation, going to the cinema is not an option. All the local
ones shut down, and we are left with large out of town overpriced multiplexs.
You are looking at £10 taxi fees, £15 entry plus any overpriced food and drink you
wish to purchase, you could be looking at £30 ($60) just to see a film.
Now, imagine you went to see a film, and in todays climate it more than not sucks...
Do you want to go and see another?
Now... a cam copy of the Dark Knight hits the streaming sites, and ofc I take a look.
There is no copy made due to streaming, the quality is bad enough to sway any
desires of making a hard copy, but I get to watch what all the fuss is about.
Bingo! You just got my £15 entry fee right there, as soon as that sucker hits DVD
theres a spot reserved for it right next to Batman Begins. The cam copys WB are
so keen to eliminate have just made them a sale, if I hadnt seen the cam,
then I would probably have watched it 'for free' on Sky or Cable, and if I then bought it
on DVD it would be at a discount price by then.
Same with 'You Dont Mess with the Zohan', I had no desire to watch that at all,
but thanks to a friends reccomendation and a streaming site, that film will soon
be sitting proudly in my DVD collection.

[Joe]

I saw it online the first day. Great job WB,