Indiana Jones Soundtrack Intentionally Muted In Theaters

By Josh Tyler: 2008-06-02 04:47:48

The Hollywood machine’s war against piracy has now officially reached lunatic levels. Their latest effort to combat piracy may, if true, be their most foolish yet. What’s their latest tactic? Degrade the quality of their product.

They did it on prints of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull and if you saw it in a theater, as just about everyone did, then you may have noticed a few spots where the sound mysteriously drops out during the picture. Most of you who did notice those odd silences in the soundtrack probably assumed there was something wrong with your theaters equipment, silently cursed the half-assed projectionist who was undoubtedly slacking off on his work, and then promptly forgot about them before you walked out of the theater. But those silences may not have been accidents.

Late last week, the website Boing Boing posted an email from a reader, who reported spotting a sign in the window of the box office at his local theater, which in short, warned moviegoers that Paramount Pictures had intentionally silenced parts of the Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull soundtrack. Their reason? They’re using the mute button as a method to stop movie pirates.

As far as I’ve been able to dig up crawling around the internet, these are called Audio Cap Codes, and it’s basically like Paramount creating it’s own bar coding system. Basically, each theater has its print of Indiana Jones 4 set for the sound to drop out at different places during the show, depending on the print. If someone makes a pirated copy from that print, then that pirated copy will have the sound drop out in the same spots, and thus Paramount knows in which theater the pirate copy was made.

My gut reaction is to assume this is nothing but a rumor. After all, how could any major Hollywood studio be so stupid? But maybe this really is happening. A little further research led me to the forums on a site called Film-Tech. There, the place is in an uproar over this, theater projectionists are gathering together there and getting seriously pissed off. As they should be. Worse, this may just be the tip of the iceberg. Apparently this is something they’ve been doing in Europe for several months. Now it’s coming to America.

Will this actually help fight piracy? I seriously doubt it. It will however, seriously piss off consumers. Forget about losing money from pirates, what about losing money from intentionally degrading your customer’s theater going experience? Quality viewing is really the only thing movie theaters have going for them. People show up at cinemas to see movies in the best way possible. Now, Paramount has chosen to throw that out the window. Instead you’ll pay ridiculous prices to see movies in the best format possible for stopping piracy. Frankly, I find this absolutely shocking. Note to Hollywood: Next time you start whining about falling ticket sales, remember this. It’s this attitude towards your customers that’s driving people away from the theater. You’re doing it to yourselves, you’re killing your consumers. Stop it. Believe it or not, there really are more important things than combating piracy.

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Mark Kratzner
June 3, 2008 at 15:58

This is stupit. Paramount would have to view the whole pirate video to hear the soundtrack. I would be easier to insert a ID frame into the film at a spot only know by the studio to see which theater the video came from.

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Jason R.
June 3, 2008 at 00:56

For one, it's not as easy as 'taking advantage of the latest technologies', you can't possibly run a business otherwise you would know how ignorant that sounds.

And please explain how the 'film (and record) industry spends way too much time on 'fighting' piracy and not enough on actually taking advantage of the latest technologies'. What are they doing with all this time? Deciding on what old technologies to use.

I don't agree that degrading print quality is a great idea, but it costs next to zero dollars and like the article says the customer, "promptly forgot about them (sound drops)before you walked out of the theater".

If the projectionists are in such an 'uproar' why don't the go find this sign from Paramount. Or is this priveleged information Paramount has entrusted in the minimum wage ticket seller.

The problem with 'latest technologies' is they probably cost too much for their perceived results. Believe me, if something becomes 'proven' to work. Every studio would demand it and every theater would require it.

G. If I were you I'd be contacted the studios. They must not realize you have the answer to end 'piracy in the first place'.

Genuis.

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Jeremy
June 2, 2008 at 15:26

I've heard rumors about this happening with Iron Man too- I noticed the sound dropping out a couple of times during the movie as well, and a few people who've seen it in other theatres have noticed it too.

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G Edwards
June 2, 2008 at 15:26

For years, the studios have been putting visual codes in films for this same reason, a cluster of dots (usually red, from what I've seen) that varied based on which theater showed the print, and only on a frame or two at a time (though about half a dozen times throughout the film). This was relatively unobtrusive, though the attentive viewer could see these flash by in bright scenes. Dropping out the sound, however, is far from unobtrusive, and the clever cam pirate may just eliminate the problem by cutting together video from two theaters. I agree that the film (and record) industry spends way too much time on 'fighting' piracy and not enough on actually taking advantage of the latest technologies to simply make more money through their own distribution of the films. Give the people decent prices and a good - uncontaminated - product, and you won't have to worry about piracy in the first place!

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