The motion picture industry supports over 100 million jobs worldwide and contributes nearly $150 billion each year to the global economy, according to the Motion Picture Association of America and film organizations worldwide. You know how much revenue have you lost while others continue to take your valuable innovations.

It happens every day in the world of piracy. Counterfeit DVDs are sold on the street. Pirate websites stream illegally copied first-run feature films and copyrighted television shows without any compensation to those who created and worked on them. While people might think they’re getting a steal when they download an illegal copy of the next big movie on the cheaper sites not knowing that they might be illegal or even free, they’re actually stealing from GLOBAL workers. It’s theft, plain and simple, and people need to understand the detrimental impact it has on the working men and women employed in the motion picture and television industry and on the greater economy.

Let us all be clear: It is no time for philosophizing. It’s not film piracy, It’s stealing. It’s theft. And this theft represents an existential threat to our cinemas, our businesses, our employees, our customers, our indies, our studios, the global film industry and everyone else who is part of the film profession, business and consumers.

If we cannot protect our content, we will not protect our future. The unvarnished truth that all of us understand is this “our content is being stolen every day all around the world.” According to a RAND report issued just two years ago, when someone, however innocently, buys a stolen movie, “there is a good chance that at least part of the money will go to organized crime and those proceeds fund more dangerous criminal activities, including terrorism.”

Sen. Chris Dodd Chairman/CEO, Motion Picture Association of America stated in his recent speech that the “Producers, Distributors, Theater owners, and we the integral part of Motion Picture and the film industry need to educate the public about this threat. Our challenge is at once simultaneously to educate, to innovate, and to discourage illegality. We need a distinguished approach that is balanced, one that respects individual rights and freedoms, and one that includes all the members of the film community.”

TRANSMEDIA GUARD™ has developed patent pending technology which not only finds the pirate and the pirated content but also the uploaders and the downloaders of that content. Uploading or downloading illegal content is theft.