In a recent report, it was revealed that fifty percent of the pirated films in the world come from Canada prompting Bruce Snyder, president of domestic distribution at Fox to consider delaying releases in Canada."Canada has become a hotbed for film piracy. It's a serious problem," says Snyder. Montreal is seen as a preferred city to capture movies in cinemas as Hollywood films are screened in both English and French. The day-and-date release pattern means pirates are able to get a jump on satisfying demand for bootleg DVDs in Europe.
Douglas Frith, head of the Canadian Motion Pictures Distributors Association, said that Fox's wrath underlined growing anger among studio executives over lax Canadian laws governing movie piracy and copyright protections. "We share the frustration. We're working in a legislative and enforcement vacuum, and certainly a prosecution vacuum at every level in this country," Frith said of fruitless efforts so far to make camcording in cinemas a criminal offense in Canada.
Local police are not responding to calls from cinema operators when pirate camera operators are spotted and detained. "We're doing the surveillance. We have them (camcorder operators) in our crosshairs. But we require a police force to enforce the law, which is why we are pressing so hard to get camcording made a criminal offense," says Firth.
Its the public that is going to suffer the ill effects of the studios changing or delaying releases, so movie going public needs to get involved in stopping these camera operators.
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