Interwar Piracy Ring!

An article published on June 10, 1926 in The New York Times. The parallels with contemporary digital piracy, the current situation with The Pirate Bay, ongoing legal maneuvers by the MPA and RIAA against downloaders, the sensational talk of lost profits, the involvement of the American government, and even the tone of the whole piece, is simply uncanny! Not to mention that most of the counties listed as culprits are still the ones active in piracy today...

GIGANTIC FILM PLOT EXPOSED IN WARSAW

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New York Girl Uncovers Conspiracy Costing American Producers Millions of Dollars.

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COVERED ELEVEN NATIONS

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Book, Picture and Music Rights Were Also Pirated Through Lack of Copyright Treaties

WARSAW, June .—The existence of a gigantic case of piracy through which American motion picture companies and music and book publishers are being robbed of millions of dollars in eleven Eurpean countries has been uncovered here by the efforts of Miss Esther E. Rosecan, an American girl representing the Pathe Exchange of New York.

Single-handed, Miss Rosecan has been waging her battle against picture pirates, which, so far, has involved melodramatic incidents, including threats of death, her lone raid upon a secret cellar and laboratories, and legal struggles.

Although the entire situation has been laid before Minister Stetson and the Commercial Attache, Mr. Allen, they find themselves unable to check these wholesale losses because of the fact that the United States has no copyright treaties with any of the eleven countries now being flooded with American films, books and music.

Miss Rosecan, however, has complete data on the situation, which are to be forwarded to Washington in the hope that State Department will take steps to stop the big leak.

"Borrowing" Scheme Is Described.

The system consists of Warsaw's ring "borrowing" of films that are being legitimately shown in Vienna or other cities, making duplicate negatives during the night, replacing the films before morning, and then making sufficient prints in Warsaw to supply the Baltic States, Russia, Bulgaria, Greece, Turkey, Persia, Rumania, Poland and Egypt.

Books, pictures, sheet music and phonograph records appear in all these countries in a similar mysterious manner.

When Miss Rosecan arrived in Warsaw and signed a contract for a series of Harold Lloyd films she suddenly discovered that they were already being run. At the same time she found legitimate buyers of United Artists and Paramount pictures being beaten several days by rival exhibitors, who purchased through the film bootleggers.

On behalf of her own company she brought a criminal action, but was unable to prove the source of the negatives until she made her stealthy way to the underground laboratory where the counterfeit pictures were turned out. She snipped the ends from the negatives, thus establishing the fact that they came from Vienna.

She was discovered in the cellar by the gang of men who were guarding the secret workroom and was pursued through dark streets, where she escaped by a daring leap to a speeding taxicab.

Since she has been constantly followed by secret agents day and night to the very doors of her apartment and she has received personal threats and anonymous letters warning her to drop the fight under pain of physical violence.

American Case Loses in Court

The courts finally ruled, however, that since there is no copyright law here the American company had no grounds for action.

Therefore the Board of Censors, who at first were inclined to favor the American producers, placed the stamp of approval upon the local films as an aid in the war against the so-called invasion by American distributors.

One attorney for the film pirates, in a newspaper article today, declares that while the practice is not strictly ethical the Polish picture men were forced to take such measures to combat the American invasion, and that America might be stealing Polish films at the same time. He laid the entire fault upon the American delegates, who, he said, refused to sign the copyright conventions in Berne.

Miss Rosecan estimates that already several million dollars have been lost by American companies through piracy, and she has been informed of plans to duplicate some of America's biggest features, including "Ben-Hur", "The Black Pirate", "The Merry Widow", "The Volga Boatmen" and others which are arriving in Europe for future release.

Two short observations:

1. How was Miss Rosecan able to escape a gang of men when they accosted her in a cellar. Did she run through them, and out the door?

2. How much more appropriate a film title can there be in an article about East European pirates than "The Volga Boatmen"!

And, a conclusion:

Things don't change, Hollywood will never die, and, most importantly, you can't stop the rock!

Long live piracy.