Despite the ubiquity of film festivals around the nation and the world, there was something remarkable about the 15th annual Cinequest Film Festival, which ended Sunday in San José, Calif. It was one of the first festivals—perhaps the only one so far—to offer commercial-free, DVD-quality downloads of its films to a desktop or laptop computer.
At a time when legal questions about peer-to-peer file sharing are before the U.S. Supreme Court and the actors' unions are wrestling with how to stop the illegal piracy of films and television programs—a problem costing actors money each year—Cinequest's innovation, courtesy of Kontiki, a file-sharing program, could be expected to raise eyebrows.
And raise them it did. After learning of Cinequest's digital-download option, Pamm Fair, the Screen Actors Guild's deputy national executive director for policy and strategic planning, said the union remains "vehemently opposed to any unlawful use of copyrighted materials" and would want to know more about Cinequest's antipiracy efforts before condoning or condemning the innovation.
"While peer-to-peer is a format many embrace for a litany of purposes," Fair noted, "whenever this and other technology is used to steal copyrighted materials, we firmly object. Our members are paid by unit sales for DVDs and this practice takes money directly out of their pockets."
Ben Hess, Cinequest's director of content acquisition, said the festival used "digital rights management" software tied to Windows Media Player and that "all content is encrypted," thereby preventing illegal peer-to-peer sharing.
His comments also came in response to a query regarding an interview with the festival's executive director, Halfdan Hussey, in Wired magazine. In it, Hussey touted Cinequest's digital-download capabilities and predicted that in the future, "the Internet will be a staging device for direct delivery of indie movies to a user's desktop or home entertainment center." This, he added, would likely "bring new revenue to independent filmmakers and distributors outside of the realm of Hollywood within the next two to four years."
The Cinequest Film Festival, Hess said, "respects the jurisdiction of the union and expects producers to observe the terms of their contracts." Once downloaded, "the films can be shared with others, but since films are downloaded with 'time-out' features, it makes them unusable after a certain date—the date determined by the filmmakers who gave us permission to have the films available for download."
In addition the application employed by the festival this year worked only for PC users: Mac owners could not use the Kontiki-powered system to play the encrypted films.
Hess also said the festival is keenly aware of SAG's stepped-up antipiracy efforts on behalf of its members. The union recently joined four other labor organizations representing the country's actors, writers, directors, and musicians in complaining of the injury caused by illegal downloads in a 21-page "friend of the court" brief filed in support of film and music companies led by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Last fall the Supreme Court agreed to hear a lawsuit brought by a fleet of major studios against Grokster Ltd. and StreamCast Networks Inc., two file-sharing services, arguing that the services illegally provide music and films over the Internet. The court's decision, expected later this spring, could force a rewrite of current copyright law.
"New technology does mean new revenue streams," concluded SAG spokesperson Ilyanne Kichaven, "and when there is no copyright infringement—when it's contractually 'covered'—there's no problem. But we must be vigilant. SAG has been very aggressive in working with other entities to prevent piracy and to find solutions to prevent the illegal use of performers' work. Our goal is to protect performers' rights."