This year's Spring Festival movies, represented by "The Wandering Earth", are selling like hotcakes. At the same time, high-definition pirated copies of this year's Spring Festival movies are also flowing out faster than in previous years. Industry insiders said that in the past, the 'gun version' of a film would be leaked on the day it was released, but it was rare for the high-definition version to be leaked two days after its release. Advertising alliances are the blood vessels for illegal websites. Jurisprudence shows that there are well-known advertising alliances such as Baidu, as well as small and medium-sized alliances such as Qiyou, Shanzhangyi, Yiyingying, Qirun, Yougao, etc. that "transfuse blood" for pirated websites.

As of the evening of February 12, 4 high-definition movies in Xiao Chen’s Taobao store had been sold 39 times. These 4 movies are "The Wandering Earth", "Flying Life", "The New King of Comedy" and "Crazy Alien". They are 4 key movies that are popular during the Spring Festival, and each one is priced at 5 yuan.

These four movies are also the targets of Wu Guanyong’s monitoring. As the deputy director of the Copyright Monitoring Center of 12426 China Copyright Association and the chairman of Shanghai Guanyong Technology Co., Ltd., Wu Guanyong has been working overtime during the Spring Festival. “Currently, about 15,000 pirated links have been monitored for these four movies. , about 80% has been cut off." Wu Guanyong told reporters on February 12.

"In terms of the number of pirated copies, this year's four key Spring Festival films are expected to be similar to last year's "Detective Chinatown 2," "Operation Red Sea," "Monster Hunt 2," and "Journey to the West: The Kingdom of Daughters." However, this year's High-definition pirated copies leak out too quickly. In the past, there would be a 'gun version' leaked out on the day a film was released, but it was rare for a high-definition version to leak out two days after it was released," Wu Guanyong said.

As early as February 2, the National Copyright Administration issued copyright protection warnings for eight Spring Festival films including "The Wandering Earth", requiring network service providers, e-commerce websites and app stores to speed up the processing of infringing content and links.

However, early warning, monitoring, and investigation are faced with piracy and black and gray products that are extremely low-cost and have formed an industrial chain. In this industrial chain, illegal small websites and aggregation APPs are the main publishing platforms, and advertising alliances are Provide "blood transfusion" for pirates and provide profit channels.

Half of the pirated copies are hidden on overseas servers

It is understood that after consumers purchase movies from Xiao Chen’s online store and confirm the order, Xiao Chen will send consumers a cloud disk link and extraction code through the chat tool of the e-commerce website. Pirated movies can be watched online through the cloud disk or download.

Xiao Chen said that the pirated movie was "1080 high-definition", and its effect was indeed similar to the "high-definition" level movies on video websites, but the picture contained an advertisement for a gambling website.

According to reports, there are sellers selling pirated copies of "The Wandering Earth" on a second-hand platform, claiming to be a full version of high-definition resources, priced as low as 1 yuan, and even selling a number of popular Lunar New Year movies in a package, priced at no more than 2 yuan.

On February 12, a reporter from 21st Century Business Herald also searched for other online stores selling links to pirated Spring Festival movies on the Taobao platform, but the product links were removed from the shelves a few hours later.

"Currently, high-definition piracy of the format has been discovered, and there are even higher-definition versions of the format," Wu Guanyong said. "High-definition piracy is basically leaked during the film copy and transmission process, such as on-demand screening and overseas distribution."

It is worth noting that more than 50% of this year’s pirated Spring Festival movie resources are stored on overseas servers, and the pirated broadcast media are mainly illegal small websites.

“The trend of pirated movies (dissemination) is internationalization, socialization, and mobileization, which means that pirated resources are stored in overseas servers, illegal small website domain names are registered abroad, and pirated links are spread through social tools such as Weibo, WeChat, and Tieba. More and more people are watching pirated movies on their mobile phones," Wu Guanyong said.

How to govern an ad network

On February 2, the National Copyright Administration released the "Early Warning List for Copyright Protection of the First Batch of Key Works in 2019", which includes 8 films released on the first day of the Lunar New Year.

The National Copyright Administration requires that network service providers that provide storage space should prohibit users from uploading works on the copyright protection warning list; network service providers, e-commerce websites and application stores that provide search links should speed up the processing of works on the copyright protection warning list. Notice from the rights holder regarding deletion of infringing content or disconnection of infringing links.

From February 4 to February 11, WeChat received a total of 631 complaints about piracy of warning works, deleted nearly 500 public account articles suspected of containing pirated links, resources or infringing content, and punished nearly 130 public members for serious infringement. Number.

However, there is a huge contrast between the high-cost monitoring and investigation and the low-cost piracy industry chain. Although the current monitoring technology can already identify which theater and theater the pirated resources flow from, for film distributors, only by cutting off the pirated links as soon as possible can the impact on the box office be reduced.

"Piracy has formed an industrial chain, including the acquisition of high-definition resources, the storage and distribution of pirated resources, etc." Wu Guanyong said.

On December 20, 2017, the Shanghai Xuhui District Court sentenced the operators of the well-known piracy website "Wowo Movie Network" for copyright infringement. The court found that the website was able to collect, aggregate, and link to domestic movies such as LeTV and Tudou. The resources of film and television works from big video websites, and can block the pre-title advertisements of film and television works from chained websites.

There are also pirated website operators who obtain movie resources through online downloads, exchanges with netizens, and purchasing pirated discs.

A reporter from the 21st Century Business Herald reviewed recent cases of copyright infringement for pirated movies and found that a large number of the parties were sentenced for selling pirated discs. However, cases where people were sentenced for distributing pirated films through self-built websites generally had one thing in common: making money through advertising alliances. . For example, the above-mentioned "Wowo Movie Network" operators collected about 530,000 yuan in advertising fees.

"Advertising alliances are the blood vessels for illegal websites." said Zhu Wei, deputy director of the Communication Law Research Center of China University of Political Science and Law. Jurisprudence shows that "blood transfusion" for pirated websites includes well-known advertising alliances such as Baidu, as well as small and medium-sized alliances such as Qiyou, Shanzhangyi, Yiyingying, Qirun, and Yougao.

"In addition to traditional advertisers, advertising alliances also have special entities such as demand-side platforms, data exchange platforms, media platforms and media members. Its business process is: on the basis of integrating advertiser needs on the demand-side platform, through data Through the bidding auction on the exchange platform, the advertising space rented by media members on the media platform is purchased, and finally, the media members display the advertising content to the public," Zhu Wei said.

Why do small illegal piracy websites also become media members of advertising alliances? Zhu Wei told the 21st Century Business Herald reporter, “The problem generally lies with the media platform and media members. Some media members themselves do not have many clicks. In order to earn advertising fees, they subcontract the source code of the advertising alliance to illegal parties. Small websites, the clicks of these illegal small websites can be counted as the clicks of these media members.”

"On the one hand, we should strengthen the management of the alliance's source code; on the other hand, we should smooth the reporting of illegal advertisements and allow all netizens to participate in the governance of the advertising alliance." Zhu Wei said. A person familiar with the matter also told a reporter from the 21st Century Business Herald that relevant departments are preparing new management regulations for advertising alliances.