[ticking] >> los angeles police department. we got a search warrant. open up the door. >> every month, a special unit of the los angeles police department mounts raids looking for pirates, movie pirates. the business of pirating movies has exploded, and it's costing hollywood billions. virtually every new movie that comes out winds up being pirated on the internet. [ticking] >> i have been asking to see those books. like, this week, okay, is your deadline. >> anna wintour is involved in every detail of vogue: the clothes... >> i like the stripe. >> editing the pictures and articles.

>> can i see meredith, please? >> she's decisive, impatient, and there's a look that says, "i'm the boss, and you're boring." [ticking] >> decades after their demise, some departed stars draw more income than they ever made while they were drawing breath, and there is a growing legion of agents and managers willing to represent them. >> we're a business agent for about 250 entertainment, sports, music, and historical clients, but most of those are deceased. >> dead. >> dead. >> they're working stiffs. >> i guess you could say that. >> welcome to 60 minutes on cnbc. i'm steve kroft. for many people, hollywood, high fashion, and paparazzi-draped celebrities are the epitome of modern-day glamour. this edition features a trio of stories that examine some of the things that go on behind the scenes in those glamorous worlds. we begin with hollywood, whose studios over the years have produced lots of movies about

pirates and mobsters. today real-life pirates, some of whom are real-life mobsters, are bleeding the movie industry out of billions of dollars a year by hijacking its product and stealing its profits. with the internet and dvds, the movie piracy business has exploded, and as leslie stahl reported in november of 2009, law enforcement is struggling to keep up. [clanking] >> los angeles police department. we got a search warrant. open up the door. >> every month, a special unit of the los angeles police department mounts two or three raids looking for pirates. [men speaking spanish] at a raid on this warehouse in downtown los angeles, they arrested two men who they say have been filling orders for counterfeit dvds for years. >> that's a pretty significant amount there. >> detective rick ishitani found one of their order books. >> these are all movie titles that recently came out. angels & demons, they ordered 100 movies.

we got terminator. >> police say the suspects were wholesalers who acted like mobsters. they would pick up customers in this van and drive them around blindfolded before bringing them here to fill their large orders. the dvds are made by pirates who often sit in the back row of theaters and record movies with tiny cameras. illinois police say this man, gerardo arellano, did just that. he was arrested at a multiplex outside chicago and showed up at court with his family. they were also with him when he was recording in the theater, according to investigator gary kissinger. >> he was actually observed with the camera setting on his right leg, along with his wife and small child. >> he brought a child with him to do this? >> yes. we're finding that to be more commonplace because--not only their child but other family members or friends-- because they act as lookouts, and also they're less

conspicuous. they blend in with the rest of the audience. >> kissinger works for the mpaa, the motion picture association of america. i interviewed him and his boss, mike robinson, at the amc multiplex where arellano was arrested. i actually heard once that some--one of these people brought a camera in in a baby carriage. >> sometimes even in the diaper bag. >> ah, in the diaper bag. >> yes, actually, we've seen it where they cut out the cup holder, and they'll set the--cut out the bottom of the cup holder and actually set the camera in here, and then they control the camera with a remote control device and monitor it. >> police say arellano worked out of his home, where they found more than 13,000 dvds he had made from his recordings, along with the computers he used to upload the movies onto the internet. >> rarely do you see an individual that's involved in all three major components of the piracy activities, in other words, camcording,

internet piracy activities, and also selling the movies on the street as well. >> john malcolm, a former justice department official specializing in intellectual property, says pirates like arellano are linked to organized crime rings that are making a barrel of money selling dvds. in mexico, the drug cartels are brazenly stamping their dvds with their logos. >> here, for instance, are pirated dvds by the zetas. >> where is their logo? >> right there. >> here's a leonardo dicaprio film with the drug cartel, and they're advertising. it's just breathtaking. >> yes. >> are they getting out of drugs and into movies? >> no, they want to diversify. they might be doing gambling on monday, human trafficking on tuesday, child prostitution on wednesday, drug dealing on thursday, and counterfeiting on friday. >> but even more than organized crime, it's the internet that has hollywood's hair on fire.

john malcolm says pirated movies are being uploaded onto the internet in a matter of hours and then downloaded very quickly using some gee-whiz computer technology called bit torrent. >> bit torrent. and what it does is, it takes a movie file, which is a very large file, and it breaks it up into very small pieces so that it is easier to trade back and forth via a swarm. >> malcolm showed us what a bit torrent program looks like on his computer. the programs are perfectly legal, but every day, we're told, up to 50 million people around the world are using programs like this to illegally download pirated movies. and you're downloading the movie right now? >> that's right. >> so those little dots going back and forth are the little pieces of the movie. >> that's right. >> the tiny bits moving toward the blue column in the middle of the screen are pieces of the movie we're getting from people all around the world. the bits moving away from the column are pieces we have and

are sharing with someone else. >> and when we get that complete movie, the technology will rearrange all of those little pieces into one complete film that is watchable. >> there's a technology that automatically puts it in the right order? >> sure does. [ticking] >> coming up: how to catch a pirate. >> investigators searching for movie pirates also use a secret method they don't like to talk about. every print of every movie is encoded with a watermark. you can see one stamped into the top of a single frame of this movie. so if you run a movie here, there's a specific watermark just for this theater? >> that's correct. >> that's next, when 60 minutes on cnbc returns. stick with innovation.

stick with power. stick with technology. get the new flexcare platinum from philips sonicare and save now. philips sonicare. and it feels like your lifeate revolves around your symptoms, ask your gastroenterologist about humira adalimumab. humira has been proven to work for adults who have tried other medications but still experience the symptoms of moderate to severe crohn's disease. in clinical studies, the majority of patients on humira

saw significant symptom relief, and many achieved remission. humira can lower your ability to fight infections, including tuberculosis. serious, sometimes fatal events, such as infections, lymphoma, or other types of cancer, have happened. blood, liver and nervous system problems, serious allergic reactions, and new or worsening heart failure have occurred. before starting humira, your doctor should test you for tb. ask your doctor if you live in or have been to a region where certain fungal infections are common. tell your doctor if you have had tb, hepatitis b, are prone to infections, or have symptoms such as fever, fatigue, cough, or sores. you should not start humira if you have any kind of infection. ask your gastroenterologist about humira today. remission is possible.

>> steven soderbergh, one of hollywood's a-listers, is the director of traffic,

ocean's eleven, and erin brockovich. he says piracy is costing hollywood $6 billion a year at the box office. >> as the margins of profit shrink, fewer projects get made, which means fewer people go to work. >> there is a feeling out there that, "boy, i got this, and i'm not hurting anybody but some fancy, overpaid movie star who can well afford it." >> well, in fact, you know, the wealthy movie star isn't hurt by it. it's just everyone else. most of the people in this industry are not the a-list talent that you see in a magazine or interviewed on 60 minutes. >> you're talking about all the people behind the camera. >> supporting cast and all the crew. >> to a perfectionist like soderbergh, it's shocking that what is causing all the havoc is often a product of inferior quality, where the camcorded recordings are shaky, crooked, and can include seats

in the movie theater. i've seen some of these pirated movies, and you can hear the guy snoring in the movie theater. i wonder why people even want to watch these things. >> it's clearly a situation where the people that are buying these are not that quality-conscious. that's not the experience they're looking for. >> they just want to be the first one to see it. >> they want to be first, and they want to pay less or close to nothing. >> in france, the parliament just passed a tough antipiracy law. if you download pirated movies frequently, you not only lose internet service. you could be sent to prison or fined nearly $1/2 million. but in the united states, there's been resistance to punish the downloaders. i'm hearing from the industry that there's this great reluctance to really clamp down in a way that brings people into court or prosecutes people. >> on the internet, you're talking about millions and millions of people who are,

for all intents and purposes, invisible to us, trading, you know, copyrighted material. that's--you know, that's just an avalanche. like, you can't-- you can't drag those people into court. >> that's why hollywood and law enforcement have concentrated on the pirates. before some movie previews, like this one in california... >> turn around, please. >> audience members have to pass through airport-like security. their bags are searched for cameras, and they have to check their cell phones. a security officer inside the theater used night-vision goggles, looking for pirates. in the search for counterfeit movies, dogs have been trained to sniff for dvds. they helped police in the philippines and malaysia confiscate nearly 2 million dvds. investigators searching for movie pirates also use a secret method they don't like to talk about. every print of every movie is

encoded with a watermark. you can see one stamped into the top of a single frame of this movie. so if you run a movie here, there's a specific watermark just for this theater? >> that's correct. >> and it says, basically, it ran here? >> that's correct. >> oh, like a fingerprint or something. >> exactly. >> from watermarks, investigators knew movies were being pirated at this amc multiplex, so projectionists and other employees here began looking for pirates, and that led to the arrest of gerardo arrelano. amc employees have helped police make more than 55 arrests, including some pirates with international connections. but movie piracy is such big business now that frequent raids and arrests have barely made a dent. richard cotton, an executive vice president at nbc universal, says the numbers just keep growing. how many movies are released every year, say, in the united states? >> ballpark, 400 to 500 movies

are released in the united states. >> and how many of those would you say are pirated? >> virtually every movie that's released winds up pirated on the internet. >> every movie? >> virtually every one. >> when the dark knight came out in 2008, it was pirated but not until after it had been seen in theaters for a day and a half. hard to believe, but that was seen as a major victory. >> hugh jackman--come on, wolverine, wolverine, wolverine. >> and then there's wolverine. when it premiered at a party in arizona in 2009... [crowd cheering] it had already premiered a full month earlier to millions on the internet. in this case, a copy of the film was stolen while it was being edited, but wolverine still made a ton of money: $160 million worldwide the weekend it was released.

>> this is part of the problem with discussing the issue and talking about hollywood, because it feels like a lot of people who are making enough money complaining that they aren't making more money. >> yeah. >> nobody's crying for us. >> and yet the movie business is suffering, director soderbergh says, and the studios are less likely to take risks. >> the chances of a movie, for instance, like the matrix being made shrinks. here's a movie--two guys, they've made a small independent film. warner brothers gives them $75 million to make this script that nobody can understand, right? >> right. >> wouldn't happen today. >> and things could get even worse unless something is done in cyberspace to stop people from downloading. >> what we have done for 15 years is not to put any speed bumps, any technological blocks in the way of individuals so that the conclusion that the younger generation in particular

draws is, if it's so easy, it can't be wrong, and that's really what we have to bring to an end. >> can you do anything? >> i think the best you can do is slow them down a little bit. part of the pro-- look, if we could freeze-- >> is that the best you can do? >> i think so. >> it's a game. >> sure. >> it's like sport. >> it is a sport, and there are people that are very, very good at it. >> movie piracy is still a huge business. at the end of 2010, the los angeles police department's antipiracy task force reported that since 2004, it had seized more than $90 million worth of illegal goods and made nearly 500 arrests. as for gerardo arellano, the man illinois police say is a movie pirate, local authorities decline to prosecute, though he remains the subject of an ongoing federal investigation. [ticking] coming up: the most powerful woman in fashion. >> i like people who represent the best of what they do, and if that turns you into

a perfectionist, then maybe i am. >> anna wintour, the editor of vogue, when 60 minutes on cnbc returns.

if hey breathing's hard.me, know the feeling? copd includes emphysema and chronic bronchitis. spiriva is a once-daily inhaled copd maintenance treatment that helps open my obstructed airways for a full 24 hours. spiriva helps me breathe easier. spiriva handihaler tiotropium bromide inhalation powder does not replace fast-acting inhalers for sudden symptoms. tell your doctor if you have kidney problems, glaucoma, trouble urinating, or an enlarged prostate. these may worsen with spiriva. discuss all medicines you take, even eye drops. stop taking spiriva and seek immediate medical help if your breathing suddenly worsens, your throat or tongue swells, you get hives, vision changes or eye pain, or problems passing urine. other side effects include dry mouth and constipation. nothing can reverse copd. spiriva helps me breathe better. does breathing with copd weigh you down? don't wait to ask your doctor about spiriva.

maestro of project management. baron of the build-out. you need a permit... to be this awesome. and you...rent from national. because only national lets you choose any car in the aisle... and go. you can even take a full-size or above, and still pay the mid-size price. (aaron) purrrfect. (vo) meee-ow, business pro. meee-ow. go national. go like a pro. they always have. they always will. that's why you take charge of your future. your retirement. ♪ ameriprise advisors can help you like they've helped millions of others. listening, planning, working one on one. to help you retire your way... with confidence. that's what ameriprise financial does. that's what they can do with you. ameriprise financial. more within reach.

every day we're working to and to keep our commitments. and we've made a big commitment to america. bp supports nearly 250,000 jobs here. through all of our energy operations, we invest more in the u.s. than any other place in the world. in fact, we've invested over $55 billion here in the last five years - making bp america's largest energy investor. our commitment has never been stronger. [ticking] >> she's said to be the most powerful woman in fashion, and she does nothing to dispel that belief. her name is anna wintour, a name that strikes terror in some, loathing in others, and transforms still others into obsequious toadies. she was the inspiration for the novel and the movie the devil wears prada, and since 1988, she has been the editor of vogue, the last word in sophisticated fashion and fantasy. when morley safer sat down with her in may of 2009, the

recession had already begun, and anna wintour was responding with a call for austerity. >> she's been portrayed as darth vader in a frock or less harshly as nuclear wintour. or is she really just peaches and cream with a touch of arsenic? the blurb on your unauthorized biography reads, "she's ambitious, driven, needy, a perfectionist: an inside look at the competitive, bitch-eat-bitch world of fashion." an accurate... >> well, i'm very driven by what i do. i am certainly very competitive. what else am i, needy? i'm probably very needy, yes. a bitch? >> a perfectionist? >> perfectionist. >> let's try bitch first. >> um, well, i hope i'm not. i try not to be, but i like people who represent

the best of what they do, and if that turns you into a perfectionist, then maybe i am. >> high above times square, anna wintour oversees a small army of girls, coiffed, skinny, beautiful, and running scared, the worker bees whose job it is to inspire women to dream. the pages of vogue conjure up a never-never land of beauty, of the sweet life. fantasy after fantasy comes to life on page after glossy page. under anna wintour's direction, vogue has been hugely successful. >> vogue is the best of everything that fashion can offer, and i think we're the leader in the field. we point the way. we are, you know, a glamorous girlfriend. >> but the glamorous girlfriend, like vogue readers, is facing leaner times. >> i do want to make the point that september really has to be about value, but we don't want to give up completely the dream and the fantasy. but i also feel like we need to have a sense of being more

grounded. >> wintour is involved in every detail of the magazine: the clothes... >> i like the stripe. >> editing the pictures and articles. >> can i see meredith, please? >> she's decisive, impatient, and there's a look that says, "i'm the boss, and you're boring." >> i just thought that was a bit banal. >> should i do the faces of the moment because that's what we have on the cover or just still keep thinking? >> keep thinking. >> an editor is, in the final analysis, a kind of dictator. a magazine is not a democracy. >> it's a group of people coming together and presenting ideas from which i pick what i think is the best mix for each particular issue. but in the end, the final decision has to be mine. >> meet miranda priestly, the beastly editor in the devil wears prada. meryl streep is anna incarnate. >> is there some reason that my coffee isn't here? has she died or something? >> i've heard that miranda priestly is just a teddy bear compared to anna wintour. >> it was entertainment. it was not a true rendition of

what happens within this magazine. >> i understand that. but where people made comparisons with you is the coldness, that anna must not be spoken to when she's on the elevator. >> yeah, i heard that. you're not allowed to get in the elevator with me. >> well, you can get on, but just keep your mouth shut. >> that's a complete exaggeration. i mean, i guess, in response, i can only say that i have so many people here, morley, that have worked with me for 15, 20 years, and, you know, if i'm such a bitch, they must really be a glutton for punishment, because they're still here. >> i wouldn't use the word "bitch." i would say a certain coldness. >> we're here to work. >> i understand. >> we're here to work, and there's on-duty time and off-duty time. and in the end, we're drawn together by our passion for the magazine and our respect and friendship for each other. and if one comes across sometimes as being cold or brusque, it's simply because i'm striving for the best.

[ticking] >> coming up: the world's most eminent designers critique anna wintour. >> she has to give a cold image to keep things going. that's not that easy, huh? it's like running a madhouse, a fashion magazine. >> that's next, when 60 minutes on cnbc returns. my customers can shop around-- see who does good work and compare costs. it doesn't usually work that way with health care. but with unitedhealthcare, i get information on quality rated doctors, treatment options and estimates for how much i'll pay. that helps me, and my guys, make better decisions.

i don't like guesses with my business, and definitely not with our health. innovations that work for you. that's health in numbers. unitedhealthcare. is one thing. but shaving without proglide... what are we, animals? gillette fusion proglide, for unrivaled comfort even on sensitive skin. gillette -- the best a man can get.

>> it's not like a tea party here. we work very hard. >> andre leon talley, vogue's editor at large. he's worked with anna for decades. what kind of boss is she? >> let's say that anna can be intimidating. i think that's her armor, to intimidate, to give the people a sense that she is

in charge. >> i have been asking to see those books. like, this week, okay, is your deadline. >> she is not a person that's gonna show you her emotions, ever. she's like a doctor. when she's looking at your work, it's like a medical analysis. some of us can't cope with that. we need to be loved. >> fat chance of that, says vogue creative director grace coddington, another veteran colleague. >> i think she enjoys not being completely approachable. you know, just her office is very intimidating, right? you have to walk about a mile into the office before you get to her desk, and i'm sure it's, you know, intentional. >> have you ever seen her looking less than perfect? >> no. >> never? >> her hair is always... >> that must take terrific discipline. >> i think she's a very disciplined woman. >> also a very pampered one. conde nast, her publisher, picks up the bill for her hair and makeup every day of the week and her rumored $200,000-a-year

clothing allowance. you made yourself the personification of vogue. i mean, look at you: not a hair out of place. do you feel that that's your mission in life, to appear perfect? >> it's very important to me that i look good when i go out publicly. i like looking at my clothes rack in the morning and deciding what to pick out. i enjoy fashion, morley. i mean, i wouldn't be in this job if i didn't. >> why the sunglasses? >> well, they're seriously useful. i mean, i can sit in a show, and if i'm bored out of my mind, nobody will notice, and if i'm enjoying it, nobody will notice. so i think, at this point, they've become, you know, really armor. >> wintour was born in london, the daughter of charles wintour, editor of the london evening standard. he was a tough-minded intellectual. anna dropped out of high school at 16. >> i wasn't academically successful, and maybe i've spent a lot of my career trying to make up for that. >> your father, who i knew only slightly in england,

had a tough reputation... >> yes, chilly charlie. >> not unlike yours. and his reporters were scared of him. >> yes, but look what he created. i mean, he created a great newspaper, and i certainly did learn this from him: people respond well to someone who's sure of what they want. >> and anna wintour is nothing but sure. that's most apparent when twice a year, her majesty takes her place at the ready-to-wear fashion shows in new york, paris, and milan, where she sits in judgment of the work of the world's most eminent designers. to an outsider, these shows are another planet: part dazzling, part rocky horror show, models who seem as angry as they are emaciated, wearing clothes fit for a cadaver and shoes that make stilettos seem sensible, and a legion of camp followers and campy followers chasing the celebrities du jour

and the people who dress them. >> you come here to be inspired. you come here to see the best of the best, and one just wants to rush back and put it in the pages of the magazine and translate it as fast as you can to the reader. >> it's a planet where wintour feels comfortably at home, where she acts as cheerleader, power broker, and consultant. what bores you? >> mediocrity. if you see a collection that is--you feel the designer has been lazy or taking inspiration from other designers, it doesn't so much bore me as anger me. >> neither vogue nor anna will openly criticize designers. she just omits them from the magazine: death by anonymity, the kind of power that makes designers like karl lagerfeld, who, this season, favors the dracula look, sing her praises. >> she is the most famous fashion journalist in the world. she says what she thinks. that's why some people think

sometimes she is a little tough. but i like tough people, and i like tough women. she has to give a cold image to keep things going. that's not that easy, huh? it's like running a madhouse, a fashion magazine. >> it's american designer ralph lauren who calls her an industry leader. >> thank you. congratulations. >> i work with anna, and i have a great respect for her. she knows how to run a magazine, knows how to be in the forefront, knows how to bring substance to a magazine. >> designer domenico dolce and stefano gabbana listen when anna speaks. >> she give to us many, many advice about my job. >> what sort of ideas does she discuss with you? >> the new color, or maybe we are insecure about some clothes, she will advise, yes or no. >> and the devil's own designer,

miuccia prada. her name will always be attached to prada because of the devil wears prada. has that affected your business in any way, positive or negative? >> of course, it made the name of prada very famous, even more if necessary, and her also. >> when she drops in on a designer, it is make-or-break time. >> and it goes with a belt. >> nicolas ghesquiere of balenciaga is anxious to please. >> light. >> yeah, i'm trying. >> do you keep her in mind when you're working on a new collection? >> there is always a moment when you question if anna will like it or not, for sure. i think any designer who says the contrary would lie. >> john galliano, who designs for dior, who some might think needs a better tailor, calls wintour his fairy godmother. >> oh, my goodness, in all my success--i mean, without her support, i certainly wouldn't be at the house of dior today. >> well, he is no more. he was fired in march 2011.

>> bernard arnault, who has a better tailor and owns dior, is the chairman of lvmh, the largest luxury conglomerate in the world. when wintour recommended to the richest man in france that he hire galliano, it was implicit that vogue would feature galliano's designs. >> when i hired john, i discussed at length with her. obviously at the time, it was a risk because he was not as well-known as he is today, but i was comforted by anna about what he could do. and finally, i took the risk. >> that gives you a remarkable kind of power, much more power than any mere editor in chief of a magazine normally has. >> well, we can advise, morley. we can't dictate. and obviously, in the end, those gentlemen will make--are very capable of making up their own minds. >> but they have the remarkable

habit of going along with your ideas. >> well, we can only point them in that direction. >> she does even more. she helps choose the next generation of designers, for example, this young man, alexander wang. >> so what do you have to show us? >> it's a mutually beneficial relationship that gives vogue an inside track on the next hot designer. >> and how much is that one, alexander? >> this one retails for $1,200. >> that's very reasonable. >> reasonable perhaps if you happen to have a $200,000 clothing allowance. [trumpet fanfare] but for sheer glitz, nothing beats the soiree at new york's metropolitan museum. >> thank you so much for everything. >> every year, anna organizes a benefit which so far has raised nearly $60 million for the museum's costume institute. when anna calls, the fashion houses are only too eager to cough up as much as $250,000 a table. this year, there's a certain nervous splendor to this

recession procession. nevertheless, the want-to-be-seens show up in hordes. tonight the rag trade rules, a night to flaunt it, whatever "it" is, anna in total control, despite the rumors that in these really thin economic times and after 21 years on the throne, her days may be numbered. >> are you thinking that it may soon be time to pack it all in? >> not at all. i mean, to me, this is a really interesting time to be in this position. and i think it would be, in a way, irresponsible not to put my best foot forward and to lead us into a different time. >> do you see out there in these outer offices some young upstart quietly taking the measure of this office? >> probably several. >> but when the time comes, will you go quietly? >> certainly, very quietly.

>> while styles and spending habits may change, the aura of mystery surrounding anna wintour remains palpable. she continues to be a paparazzi and gossip column magnet. every twitch, every frown, every suppressed smile is recorded, and her magazine, vogue, is still the last word in the fashion world. [ticking] coming up: the lucrative afterlife of dead celebrities. >> they range from low-end tchotchkes to the playfully prurient outfits inspired by the late pinup queen bettie page. >> that's next, when 60 minutes on cnbc returns.

if yand you're talking toevere rheuyour rheumatologistike me, about trying or adding a biologic. this is humira, adalimumab. this is humira working to help relieve my pain. this is humira helping me through the twists and turns.

this is humira helping to protect my joints from further damage. doctors have been prescribing humira for over ten years. humira works by targeting and helping to block a specific source of inflammation that contributes to ra symptoms. for many adults, humira is proven to help relieve pain and stop further joint damage. humira can lower your ability to fight infections, including tuberculosis. serious, sometimes fatal events, such as infections, lymphoma, or other types of cancer, have happened. blood, liver and nervous system problems, serious allergic reactions, and new or worsening heart failure have occurred. before starting humira , your doctor should test you for tb. ask your doctor if you live in or have been to a region where certain fungal infections are common. tell your doctor if you have had tb, hepatitis b, are prone to infections, or have symptoms such as fever, fatigue, cough, or sores. you should not start humira if you have any kind of infection. ask your doctor if humira can work for you. this is humira at work.

stick with innovation. stick with power. stick with technology. get the new flexcare platinum from philips sonicare and save now. philips sonicare.

[ticking] >> when michael jackson died in june of 2009, he had nearly $1/2 billion in debts. but since then, the king of pop has had a successful concert film, a huge bump in record sales, and been given a new contract worth $250 million from the sony corporation. this postmortem revival of jackson's fortunes is not that unusual. and as i first reported in september of 2009, dead celebrities can be just as lucrative as many live ones and, in some cases, a lot less trouble. >> i was known for going up and down hollywood boulevard. >> no other agent in the world represents more famous people than mark roesler.

>> errol flynn, of course robin hood, natalie wood. >> stroll down hollywood boulevard, and he'll point out 62 of his clients who are immortalized with their own stars on the walk of fame. >> gloria swanson, marilyn monroe. >> his client list includes some of the biggest names of the 20th century: actresses like ingrid bergman and bette davis, singers ella fitzgerald and billie holiday, who all have one thing in common besides their greatness. >> we're a business agent for about 250 entertainment, sports, music, and historical clients, but most of those are deceased. >> dead. >> dead. >> they're working stiffs. >> i guess you could say that. >> you could call roesler's business a william morris agency for the departed, the caa of the doa. it's called cmg, and it's headquartered far from the glitter of hollywood in an office park on the fringes of indianapolis, distinguished only for the orange wind sock for roesler's helipad

and his green bentley. inside is a multitiered office lined with memorabilia from his departed clients. first stop, a suit worn by one of the blues brothers. >> i've represented the family of john belushi, his widow, judy, for almost 20 years. >> it is all tastefully done and quiet as a morgue, a shrine of sorts for a legend whose time on earth has ended but whose career still has a pulse strong enough to produce a stream of revenue. it is part of their legacy now and may be the ultimate show business compliment. they may be dead, but they still have an agent who's finding them work. what do you do for them? >> well, it's really not that much different than if they were alive. >> you can't book them for personal appearances. >> that's correct. we can't talk to them. we can't get their approval. but we'll get somebody's approval. >> his real clients are the heirs and estates of the dearly departed, who ultimately approve or reject the merchandising deals that cmg puts together.

>> this is our basement, where we have kind of the archives of the past 27 years of the company, a lot of the different samples. >> they range from low-end tchotchkes... >> trash cans to handbags. >> to the midrange items like marilyn merlot... >> rated as one of the best california merlots year after year. >> to the playfully prurient outfits inspired by the late pinup queen bettie page. they're marketed as halloween costumes, but roesler says they seem to sell all year-round. >> this is the devil costume. >> is the whip included? >> the whip is included, yes, and the tail and the horns. >> and the horns. the product endorsements run the gamut from paraphernalia to the pinnacle of postmortem prestige, and roesler has licensed more than 200 deals with the u.s. postal service. >> of course, jackie robinson, part of the baseball series, a very successful stamp with malcolm x.

>> so these are all clients. >> yes, these are all clients. >> the agency has created websites for all its deceased clients and maintains and revives their fan clubs. >> we get at least 15 million hits a day that come through this building for the different clients that we represent. >> it is all part of a legal and entertainment niche that roesler pioneered more than 25 years ago after graduating from law school. where did that idea come from? >> i really thought it'd be nice to be an agent, but i really couldn't--being from indiana, i really couldn't represent anybody famous because everybody living would have already been represented, so really, the only opportunity was to represent deceased people, and i happened to notice that deceased personalities didn't have, really, any protection. >> until roesler came along in the early '80s, a celebrity's right to control or profit from their good name was buried along with them. their heirs had virtually no say in how their loved one's image or persona was used and no

claim to any of the monies they generated. so roesler set about trying to change that in courts and in state legislatures around the country... your first client? helping to establish what is now recognized as the postmortem right to publicity. the right to publicity-- i don't remember reading that in the bill of rights. where does that come from? >> we have the right to prevent our name, our likeness, our image, our signature, our voice from being used in some commercial fashion. >> now in a number of states, that right passes on to the heirs, just like a house or a bag of old coins, and one of the first beneficiaries lived right down the road from roesler in fairmount, indiana. marcus winslow is the cousin of james dean, who died in a car accident in 1955, after making just three movies. is this it? but the image of this rebel without a cause has become a commercial icon, and 50 years after he crashed his porsche, james dean is still selling german cars

and italian shoes. but when roesler first showed up at the family farm in 1982, dean's heirs had no idea how big their jimmy had become. until mark showed up, the estate had gotten no money at all from james dean. >> it's gratifying to know that we have something to say about what happens with jimmy, and i don't think he would approve of perfect strangers of making money off of his name and his likeness if his family didn't have something to say about it. >> so he's made a lot more money since he died than he did while he was alive. >> oh, no question. oh, yes. >> he'd be an old man now. >> yup, he'd be 77 years old, but he'll never be any older than 24. >> the image is frozen in time now, and the success of dean's post-career career has helped turn the marketing of dead celebrities into an $800-million-a-year industry. and advances in technology are creating more and more

opportunities for the deceased. personal appearances are still out of the question, but nearly anything else is becoming possible. all it takes is a virtual set like this one at cbs television city in hollywood and some computer-generated imagery, and you can revive long-dormant careers. >> hello. why don't you take one of your big hits and do it over for ricky, tailor it for him? it happened one noche? >> i'm afraid not. >> well, it was just a thought. the ricardos of wimpole street? >> sorry, lucy. [ticking] coming up: elvis is in the building. >> you can't manufacture the affection and the appeal that elvis has. >> he's dead. >> are you sure? >> the king of rock and roll, when 60 minutes on cnbc returns. so i c

an reach ally bank 24/7, but there are no branches? 24/7. i'm sorry, i'm just really reluctant to try new things. really? what's wrong with trying new things? look! mommy's new vacuum! (cat screech) you feel that in your muscles? i do... drink water. it's a long story. well, not having branches let's us give you great rates and service. i'd like that. a new way to bank. a better way to save. ally bank. your money needs an ally. every day we're working to and to keep our commitments. and we've made a big commitment to america. bp supports nearly 250,000 jobs here.

through all of our energy operations, we invest more in the u.s. than any other place in the world. in fact, we've invested over $55 billion here in the last five years - making bp america's largest energy investor. our commitment has never been stronger. yeah. i heard about progressive's "name your price" tool? i guess you can tell them how much you want to pay and it gives you a range of options to choose from. huh? i'm looking at it right now. oh, yeah? yeah. what's the... guest room situation? the "name your price" tool, making the world a little more progressive.

[ male announcer ] facing a season of tortuous conditions

is one thing. but shaving without proglide... what are we, animals? gillette fusion proglide, for unrivaled comfort even on sensitive skin. gillette -- the best a man can get. >> the heirs of fred astaire were able to relaunch his career selling electric brooms during

halftime at a super bowl. >> ♪ if i can dream ♪ of a better land >> and elvis was able to sing a duet with celine dion on american idol. >> ♪ tell me why ♪ oh, why >> elvis, many think, is the perfect business model for the michael jackson estate. elvis is the all-time king of afterlife income and still pulls in $50 million a year. but, then, elvis is more than a dead celebrity. he is also a destination at $28 a head. >> everybody ready to see graceland? >> yes. >> graceland and the rest of the elvis realm is now controlled by billionaire entertainment entrepreneur robert sillerman. >> and this modest, by today's standards, home is the second-most-visited private residence in the united states. it's seen by 600,000 people a year. >> sillerman doesn't just represent elvis. he owns elvis. four years ago, he spent $100 million to buy 85% of the rights

to the presley estate. >> turned out to be a wonderful deal for us and for the family. >> ♪ love me tender >> with everyone now getting their 15 minutes of fame on cable television and the web, sillerman doesn't believe there will ever be another phenomenon quite like elvis, who has turned out to be relatively recession-proof. some parts of his business are actually up. why do you think they're up? >> well, i would love to say that it's because of our brilliant management. >> you just did. >> i said i would love to say it. i didn't say it was true. but the fact is, is that you can't manufacture the affection and the appeal that elvis has. >> he's dead. >> are you sure? >> if he's not dead, a lot of people have wasted money on flowers. then there's the more than 5,000 elvis-related products and all those impersonators. >> in 2002, the bbc did a report on occupations in the united states, and they said that

according to the irs that over 84,000 people said that being an elvis tribute artist, then called an elvis impersonator, was their principal occupation. >> sillerman is not the only billionaire in the dead-celebrity business. the photo archive corbis, owned by bill gates, has branched out from photo and film rights to representing the deceased people who appear in them. the agency, called greenlight, was run until recently by martin cribbs. its eclectic clientele includes the wright brothers, opera star maria callas, and steve mcqueen, who has had a couple of breakout years selling mustangs and watches. and what is the brand? what does the image say? >> i think that the image of steve mcqueen is really the antimetrosexual. it's being sort of sophisticated and masculine without affectation. >> it's not clear whether the macho man would be happy modeling clothes for dolce & gabbana, but that decision now rests with

his family. do you have a name for your deceased clients? >> delebs. >> delebs? >> delebs, yes. >> as in dead celebrity. >> correct. >> who's your biggest deleb? >> albert einstein. he's our number one man. >> bigger than marilyn monroe and james dean? >> huge, huge, the biggest in the world. albert einstein was time magazine's person of the century. >> every 12-year-old in the world recognizes his picture and instantly equates it with genius. and einstein's beneficiary, the hebrew university of jerusalem, has earned millions and millions of dollars from baby einstein videos and nike commercials featuring kobe bryant executing a genius move as the late princeton professor. the last time we saw martin cribbs, he was working up a campaign to resurrect the mildly scandalous career of hollywood siren mae west for a pitch to stationers and perfumers. unlike agents for the living,

he was at peace knowing that he didn't have to worry about her next movie bombing or his client getting sent off to rehab or the headaches of having to deal personally with the notorious diva maria callas. are there advantages to representing people who are dead? >> absolutely. if you are a cosmetics company and you've invested a million dollars in maria callas, i can guarantee you there's not gonna be any wardrobe malfunctions or embarrassing photographs getting out of a limousine in front of la scala without any underwear on, so that's a huge advantage. >> like all agents for both the living and the dead, clients come and go from mark roesler's stable of departed stars. he added clark gable, dizzy gillespie, and chris farley, but vince lombardi, babe ruth, and jesse owens have moved on to another agency, the luminary group. robert sillerman is no longer running elvis' career. he resigned as ceo of his company but remains its

and elvis' biggest shareholder. that's this edition of 60 minutes on cnbc. i'm steve kroft. thanks for joining us. captioning by captionmax www.captionmax.com >> best buy! >> all: go, best buy! hoo! >> this is one of america's iconic retailers. chances are you've got something in your house you bought here. >> they come into our stores. we love our odds every time. >> best buy is a $50-billion-a-year behemoth, bringing in more sales than american express, intel, disney, and coca-cola. more than $1 of every $5 spent on consumer electronics in america is spent here, with a massive army of blue shirts and geeks, 180,000 strong, ready to