Posts
12:05am UK, Wednesday May 06, 2009
Cinemas are having to let film pirates walk free because they are powerless to stop them, the boss of one of Britain's biggest cinema chains has said.
Piracy is still rife in the UK despite efforts to stop it
Tim Richards, who runs Vue cinemas, told Sky News that while his staff are getting better at catching film pirates, he invariably has to let them go.
He said: "We catch these individuals and we can't do anything with them. It's extremely frustrating.
"We can't even legally take the film out of their camera - we can't take their camera away from them.
"We call the police and the police aren't interested. So we ask (the pirates) to leave and they leave typically with their cameras and sometimes with their film intact."
The UK is the only major Western country that does not have a specific law making it illegal to use a camcorder in a cinema, he said.
Most people have seen the sort of DVDs that Mr Richards is trying to stop.
They are usually grainy, shot from the back row of a cinema, often with the sound of people shuffling around in their seats.
It is thought nine out of 10 pirate DVDs being sold on the street are filmed with camcorders pointing at a screen.
But a spokeswoman for the Metropolitan Police, which has a unit dedicated to film piracy, said the main problem faced in the UK is the trafficking and sale of illegal DVDs.
She said: "Nowadays the products are more likely to be ripped off somewhere digitally - we're seeing less pirate films made using camcorders in cinemas.
"The people that sell the DVDs are the main problem, profiting illegally from the sale and distribution."
The Met dedicates its resources primarily to cracking the organised crime rings that distribute and sell pirate DVDs, she said.
She also pointed out that if cinema staff could eject people trying to record films, they would not have a finished, marketable product.
And she questioned whether it would be appropriate to give employees the power to seize recording equipment.
"We have a duty to protect the cinema staff and giving them powers to seize equipment could put them at risk," she said.
But without tougher powers, there is little to deter pirates from trying to record films. Those who represent the industry say it is time the Government got tough.
Phil Clapp is the chief executive of the Cinema Exhibitors Association, which represents the majority of cinemas in the UK.
He said: "We would like just a very clear offence, a criminal offence, to record a film in a cinema theatre.
"This is not about catching a teenager who grabs a screen grab of a film on their mobile phone.
"What we're talking about here are highly professional organised criminals who are having a very detrimental effect on the UK film industry."
Camcorder recording in cinemas is already outlawed in the US and Canada, but in the UK ministers say new laws are not the answer.
They argue that instead cinemas should get tough using the relatively new Fraud Act.
Intellectual Property Minister David Lammy MP said: "What we have to do is use the existing legislation that we've got.
"And this is an issue of fraud. You buy a ticket, you go into a cinema to watch a film, not to illicitly record that film and seek to exploit it."
But for those in the cinema industry, that is simply not good enough.
They say Britain's anti-fraud laws are confusing and have yet to secure a single conviction.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Please comment as you wish.