The first step was to determine a target audience, which was 16-24 year old pre-college to college students. This age group is technologically savvy, and is more likely to steal movies electronically. Understanding this group allowed us to determine the video style and method for creating the message. After two brainstorming sessions our team developed a number of strategies to reach this audience and then choose what we believed to be the best strategy.

This strategy was to create an association between a known illegal act and one that they might not realize is illegal. (Piracy) The reason for this is that people this age are not fully aware of what they are doing when they steal a movie electronically. The producer decided to use a grainy film look and a driving music score in order to make the message more likely to be seen and understood by the target audience. Because the target audience is often in a rebellious stage of life, no voice over was used for the reasoning that it would be seen as parental.

The goal was not to create an accusational PSA, but an educational PSA in order to assure that the target audience did not turn off the message. So the decision was made to use 24p film style shooting, with grainy high contrast lighting in order to divorce the viewer from the situation by making them feel that they are watching someone do it as opposed to doing it themselves. This black and white grainy look makes the viewer almost believe they are watching surveillance tapes. All of these production decisions were made in order to create a situation in which the viewer realizes the seriousness of stealing intellectual property.

Most importantly, was shopping the PSA to the public. Multiple efforts have and are being made to gain exposure. Three newspapers have published articles, two television stations have the spot in their PSA rotations, one television station wants to feature it as a news story, an on campus awareness program has been run, a website was created, and it has played on campus in numerous locations. The spot has been played at three on campus locations: the SIFE Café, dining hall, and residence hall. It was used in a program to teach residence hall students about piracy and its effect on the economy. On campus it has been given countless exposures and has run repeatedly in all three locations. Off campus the PSA is in two local television stations PSA rotations and will air on each station.

Our one minute spot is easily summarized in a quote by Barry Meyer, CEO of Warner Bros. Entertainment. When explaining his excitement about this SIFE/ MPAA competition he stated that “It gets to the heart of what illegal file-swapping is---stealing, plain and simple.” That is exactly what our spot is all about, showing that “PIRACY IS A CRIME.”

Piracy is the manufacturing, selling or distributing motion pictures or television programs without the consent of the copyright owner.

The Motion Picture Association of America and Students In Free Enterprise (SIFE) have teamed up to create a anti-piracy awareness PSA contest. Each SIFE team wishing to compete in the contest created a 60 second public service announcement promoting anti-piracy and/or procopyright.

Our Hilbert College SIFE Team submitted a PSA for this competition and can be played on the right side of the screen. To learn more about anti-piracy, please visit http://www.mpaa.org/piracy.asp

Our one minute spot is a parallel between stealing a DVD off the shelf of a movie store and downloading it electronically. The spot is a combination of video footage and graphics. The video is used to depict a teen stealing a DVD of a shelf and the graphics are used to depict the link to and seriousness of piracy.