Ottawa introduces anti-piracy bill to target movie bootleggers

Last Updated: Friday, June 1, 2007 | 3:10 PM ET

CBC Arts

New legislation meant to crack down on film piracy was introduced by the federal government on Friday, two days after former action star and California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger met with Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

In a noon-hour announcement Friday, Canadian Heritage Minister Bev Oda revealed the government's plan to amend the Criminal Code "to deter the unauthorized recording of movies — camcording — in movie theatres."

The government is seeking to introduce two new offences:

• The recording of a movie in a movie theatre without the consent of the theatre's manager.
• The recording of a movie in a movie theatre without the consent of the theatre's manager for the purpose of selling, renting, or other commercial distribution of a copy of the recording.

Under the new bill, the first offence could draw up to two years in jail, and the second, a penalty of up to five years.

Currently, under the Copyright Act, a person who commercially distributes a movie they filmed in a theatre can be prosecuted, but Justice Minister and Attorney General Robert Douglas Nicholson said there is a gap in the law.

"Sometimes, many times, the individual who is actually doing the camcording is not in the business of commercial redistribution. Afterwards, that individual may be just paid for that particular activity," he said.

"It's that particular activity that we intend to address."

On Wednesday, amid Schwarzenegger's visit to Canada, the U.S. actor-turned-politician met with Harper. Among many other issues, the two are believed to have discussed movie piracy.

The Motion Picture Association of America, a trade organization led by the major Hollywood studios, has long painted Canada as a haven for movie pirates and lobbied the federal government for stronger laws to prosecute those caught illicitly filming in theatres. In the U.S., legislation enacted in 2005 made the act a felony.

The campaign has ramped up over the past year.

Canada put on 'priority watch list'

In February, Canada was named to a "priority watch list" of countries believed to be responsible for high rates of piracy.

Hollywood studios have also threatened to delay Canadian releases and, last month, Warner Brothers announced it would cancel preview screenings in Canada, blaming the rampant, unauthorized pirating of new releases north of the border.

However, online advocacy groups have argued that the studios are shifting too much of the focus on so-called "camcording" versus pirating from legitimate copies of movies.

A study by AT&T in 2003 found that about 23 per cent of online movie file sharing networks got their material from camcording.

The other 77 per cent of movies available on the internet came from screeners — industry-issued, high-quality copies of films sent to people such as actors, reviewers and film award voters — and other commercially sold copies.