Howard Campbell, Gleaner Writer
From left, Melanie Graham, marketing manager of Palace Amusement, presents bumper stickers as part of an anti-piracy campaign to editor-in-chief of The Gleaner, Garfield Grandison, corporate affairs and marketing manager, Karin Cooper, and advertising manager, Yvonne Senior, at the newspaper on Wednesday. - WINSTON SILL/FREELANCE PHOTOGRAPHER
CITING A sharp decline in audience and revenue to the illegal DVD market, the management at the Palace Amusement Company has launched an anti-piracy campaign aimed at making the public aware of the practice.
Melanie Graham, marketing manager at Palace, told The Gleaner that DVD piracy is so rampant it has forced the company to lay off employees at its four locations in Kingston, Mandeville and Montego Bay.
"I don't know how much we have lost, but I can say that the percentage of audience that we have lost in the last eight months has been 30 per cent," said Mrs. Graham.
Using the theme, 'Jamaica Say No To Movie Piracy', the campaign was launched after what Mrs. Graham said were fruitless meetings with government officials.
She said Palace management and members of the recently formed Jamaica Anti-Piracy Alliance have also met with Commissioner of Police, Lucius Thomas.
BUILD AWARENESS
"We need to get the government behind us to build awareness because where there's no market, there's no seller," she said. "If people are aware of this and refuse to buy stolen goods then that would certainly put pay to their (pirates) activity."
Mrs. Graham said, if the DVD black market was allowed to flourish, it would not only affect Palace Amusement but the country. Because Jamaica is a signatory to the International Copyright Convention, any breach of United States intellectual property may compromise assistance from organisations such as United States Agency for International Development, as most of the movies are from the United States. Mrs. Graham said several blockbuster films have appeared on bootleg DVDs before they open here.
In a December 2005 article published in the New York Daily News, it was reported that the illegal DVD market cost the American movie industry US$300 million. The worldwide figure was listed at US$3.5 billion.
The Palace Amusement Company, which was established in 1921, is the lone distributor of movies in Jamaica.
