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TEMPTING DINERS IN QUEENS WITH A PIRATED "EL CANTANTE"

By DAVID GONZALEZ
NEW YORK TIMES
Published: September 11, 2007


Queens prosecutors thought they needed specially trained sniffer dogs to root out stashes of pirated DVDs.

All they really needed was an appetite.

Inside many restaurants along Roosevelt Avenue in Queens, roving vendors descending on diners offering pirated movies are becoming a common sight. Their wares range from films rated G through XXX, as well as compact discs of Mexican, Colombian and Caribbean musical stars.

This free-wheeling - and totally illegal - market in many immigrant neighborhoods combines old-country street-vending with big city, high-tech larceny. The quality ranges from crisp and clear copies made during the movie's editing process, to fuzzy and flickering versions taped in a theater (and complete with laugh tracks and bobbing silhouettes of people on popcorn runs).

The jukebox was pumping inside La Norteña #6, a Mexican restaurant and bar in Corona, where the waitresses wear high-cut skirts and low-cut blouses. Two Asian women slowly went from table to table carrying shopping bags filled with movies, each in a plastic sleeve with artwork copied from movie posters or ads.

Like card dealers, they fanned out the titles: "El Cantante," "Halloween," "Superbad," "The Simpsons Movie." Want some action? They offered "The Bourne Ultimatum," in either English or Spanish. Want another kind of action? They rooted inside the bag and brought out some seriously smutty titles.

"Where did you get these?" one of them was asked.

The woman chuckled.

"Five dollars," she said. "Five for $20."

"Who buys this?" she was asked again.

"Everybody," she said.

She might have a point. Figures released by the Motion Picture Association of America this year said that piracy costs the city's movie industry $1.5 billion in revenues and $903 million in lost wages. Such losses prompted the city to pass new laws providing fines and possible jail time for pirates who secretly tape movies inside theaters. (Nearly two weeks ago, investigators for the Queens district attorney's office, using trained dogs, said they seized 5,200 counterfeit DVDs hidden in stores.)

Miguel Lopez, the manager of La Norteña, said he sometimes did not let the vendors into the restaurant, since customers complained. "They're trying to survive," he said of the vendors. "But it's hard when they bother the customers. And it's illegal."

One of the more popular titles on the street is "El Cantante," the biopic of Salsa legend Hector Lavoe, starring Jennifer Lopez and Marc Anthony. This is no surprise to Leon Ichaso, the film's director. He has been offered copies of his own movie at Latin restaurants in Miami and in Union City, N.J. His niece just bought two different versions of the movie in Quito, Ecuador for $1.50 each.

"The pirates have better distribution than the real distribution companies," Mr. Ichaso said. "They get the movie to places where it isn't playing or where people don't have the time or money to go to the theater."

But a copy of the movie bought on the street might not be what plays on the screen. Mr. Ichaso said there were four pirated versions of "El Cantante," with different music and scenes and even endings. The version sold in Queens had time codes indicating it was still being edited, as well as "Property of Picturehouse," which released the movie, in the frame from beginning to end.

Mr. Ichaso said it was typical to send out discs of a work in progress to studio executives for comment or to dubbing companies for technical feedback. "Somebody gets careless," he said. "It's inevitable. I heard there was a 50 grand bounty for a copy of 'El Cantante.' " He suggested that one way to get back at the pirates was to release the movie on DVD and in theaters at the same time, which is what Steven Soderbergh did with "Bubble." He knew of one Dominicanfilmmaker who pleaded with pirates in Washington Heights to let him have a one week theatrical head start before flooding the streets with their copies.

"The pirates are now ahead of the distributors," Mr. Ichaso said. "It's a big business; they know what they're doing. The police don't bother them, so it's great. Except for me."

LINK:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/11/nyregion...amp;oref=slogin