Canada taking strict anti-piracy measures

Looks like Warner and the IIPA managed to rack up a minor victory in the Great White North, as new legislation has officially been introduced in Ottawa which would result in the permanent crackdown on camcording in movie theaters. While we don't really hold with Montreal filmmaker Kevin Tierney, who supported the new anti-piracy bill and said, "you can't go to a concert and put a tape recorder on and steal it" (yes, you can -- and many venues and musicians encourage fans to do just that), we also don't necessarily think it's wrong to not want users to make bootleg recordings of movies. Now, is it something that should be punished by two years in prison even if you're doing it for personal use, as this new Canadian law predicates? Hell no. Can't we please go back to the days of hard time for, you know, hard crime?

[Thanks Jason, everyone who sent this in]

[tekdroid @ Jun 2nd 2007 6:57PM]

enduring the movies coming out of Hollywood is the definition of "hard time", IMO.

[Paul @ Jun 2nd 2007 6:57PM]

piracy is what makes my computer great! windows vista ultiate,photoshop cs3, nod 32 antivirus, nero 7 ultra. and the list goes on and on.=)

[Manuel @ Jun 2nd 2007 7:08PM]

and office 97, plus more than 800 gb of movies & music ... torrents ftw !

[XGM @ Jun 2nd 2007 7:34PM]

Hmm thats always been illegal. Oh well nothing new, back to my torrents.

Oh and BTW i love Canada

[Nogami @ Jun 2nd 2007 7:46PM]

What annoys me the most (as a Canadian) is that the government is just taking the word of these idiots about the "big piracy problem". Maybe they could look beyond the MPAA doublespeak and do their own analysis of the number of "camcorder in the theatre" incidents.

The fact of the matter is that most popular movie downloads are "inside jobs", either by theatre staff, or by reviewers or industry people themselves who leak productions, not joe smith in the theatre.

[LPH @ Jun 3rd 2007 1:37AM]

I don’t know where you get your info from, but as someone who work very closely with the CMPDA (in case you don’t know, they are the Canadian MPAA), and have dealt with movie pirates first hand. I can tell you that it’s almost never an “inside jobs”. These movie pirates are professionals who work with the black market, using some very sophisticated equipment to get the DVD like quality. The reason why the numbers of incidents have gone up here in Canada is because the US has very strict criminal law against piracy, therefore the black market have moved up here in Canada. It’s good to see the Canadian government finally put its foot down.

[Nogami @ Jun 3rd 2007 4:00AM]

Sorry, but I want some hard, verifiable proof before I just allow a US organization to start pulling numbers out of their a$$ to get politicians to knee-jerk some laws into effect in MY country.

Why should I believe anything they say? They're a foreign government, and they certainly don't care one iota about citizens of MY country.

[ATT @ Jun 2nd 2007 7:56PM]

make then pay $30 per movie when they exit they get free DVD
if not F the MPAA

go to concert pay your ticket get free CD if not F the RIAA

[Iain @ Jun 2nd 2007 8:05PM]

And this will stop piracy exactly how? Oh yes our magical new law in Canada will now completely eliminate piracy everywhere because it will make it impossible to film movies. Not to mention people just adore watching horridly made bootleg copies of movies... For some reason I am not convinced. Are you?

[Tom @ Jun 2nd 2007 8:33PM]

Oh come on, it's theft, it's awesome that they're giving jail time. Stupid techies who will take advantage of anything.

[Jason Masters @ Jun 3rd 2007 1:20PM]

No, it's not theft. Do you know why? Because for them to steal it that would mean that the movie theatres wouldn't have a copy once the film is taped. Personally 2 years is way too harsh. It should be at least two years if your caught selling not just taping.

[LPH @ Jun 3rd 2007 6:58PM]

Thank you Tom,

Stealing a copyright material does not require one to physically remove it.

The current law on copyright materials is that you can only prosecute someone if you have proof that he/she is making profit out of the pirated materials.

[Mark @ Jun 2nd 2007 9:20PM]

You're worried about the injustice to folks pirating for personal use? Yeah, right.

[paul34 @ Jun 2nd 2007 9:37PM]

Oh, dear Engadget, didn't you hear? Everytime you pirate a movie, God donates $1 to Osama Bin Laden.

[Jason Brown @ Jun 2nd 2007 9:55PM]

who cares about camcorder movies anyway? I only download reviewer screeners which are not reels but dvds sent out. who is to blame for those besides the reviewers uploading the movies they received in the mail. In the end there is still piracy just not the piracy that can be enforced. Only the production companies can fix these problems as it is their product that is being leaked. this topic, engadget, and its writers have yet again dropped the ball and are reporting on useless information as this act is a complete waste of time. p.s. I just watched hostel 2 3 days before it came out and it was dvd quality. Have fun crying over your crappy camcorder movies being taken away.

[Jorge @ Jun 3rd 2007 1:07AM]

Who care about camera recorded movie. they have bad video and audio quality. The audio is so bad that it can damage audio speakers.

Also whoever said piracy funds terrorism they are stupid(aka the important u.s. person whose last name is a type of plant.) Everyone knows that most piracy money ends up in china or some Asia country's mafia.

lol

[SigmaProjects @ Jun 3rd 2007 2:47AM]

@Steve,

I'm with you, all of the things ive downloaded I would have never purchased.
Windows XP? If it hadn't came with the computer and I couldn't get it for free, I would use linux, who pays hundreds of dollars for an OS?
Photoshop CS3? If I couldn't download, I would use a free alternitive.
As far as movies, I still go see movies I want to see. The movies I download, I would Never, ever pay to see them, they are just there because I was bored.

[hackedbyjoe @ Jun 3rd 2007 7:23AM]

Use Paint.NET it is the free alternative to photoshop. I think it is far superior.

[Jason Brown @ Jun 3rd 2007 8:08AM]

LPH if you watch a movie with a watermark from a production company it is a dvd screener that was mailed out to all reviewers. they do not do reels anymore. the simple fact is some of the reviewers break the rules and upload them. go to a torrent and type the letters dvdscr in your search and you will see them. the ones around 800mb are dvds and the ones over 1gb are hddvd. your credentials only proove the obvious and that is your organization is far from "being in the loop". Also as a form of technology you should also realize there is no solution to piracy just as there is no solution to hacking. they only get better with restrictions as it forces alternate methods which almost always improves quality. recently a dvd in china was the unreleased spiderman 3 that video was not a camcorder release it was a dvd screener. duplication is illegal but downloading is not. the only big pirates are the production companies themselves. camcorder material is unsellable and therefore not a big deal other then to take money out of the box office. what is illegal is attacking a country under false pretenses, selling arms to a country for political gain, child labour, imposing political & religious beliefs on another country for political gain. Does canada top that list? no the US does. Am I worried about piracy...no.

[LPH @ Jun 3rd 2007 8:47AM]

Sure, some of the copies are leaked screener, and this will always be a cat and mouse game. But FYI, almost every 35mm print out there does have watermarks. And camcorder material can be very high in quality to the point where you will not notice much difference unless you are looking for them. Also in country like China and Russia, very high number of their population don't care much about picture quality like we do (same reason why VCD is very popular over there), therefore these camcorder copy can easily be sold on the street.

[Evan @ Jun 3rd 2007 10:42AM]

I'm Canadian and I've seen plenty of bootleg DVDs. Most are from screeners (complete with watermarks and messages) or recorded from booths (the framing is perfectly aligned and steady, so the camera must have been on a tripod). Older movies are sometimes from laser disks (can see the pause when the original changed sides). But never have I seen a handheld camcorded movie! Also, the bootleg DVDs usually appear before the movie shows in theaters so by the time someone camcords a movie, there's no commercial market for it.

[Salvation @ Jun 3rd 2007 11:08AM]

Kevin Tierney is one to talk. Like most Canadian film producers he gets his money from the Canadian tax payer in the form of provincial and federal tax credits, Telefilm Canada, SODEC, OEDC, etc. If he is smart he doen't have to put a penny of his own money and still get a salary and offices paid for. And, if he is good he gets a cut of the profits but never has to assume the loss of a flop. As a Canadian I have paid for Mr. Tierney to pretend to be a player.

[Evan @ Jun 3rd 2007 11:41AM]

"Not to mention people just adore watching horridly made bootleg copies of movies"

It's true!

I know many people who are perfectly satisfied with pathetic quality downloads and bootlegs. When we've watched low quality videos, I've asked them how they stand the quality, and they don't seem to care. They've all bought HDTVs and they don't care about quality! The reality is, they only bought the tvs for the size. One guy even records cable-tv programs on VHS, and watches them on a 42" 1080P HDTV! It's a travesty!

I figured, if I'm going to spend $2000 on an HDTV, I should spend at least $500 on quality content to watch on it. I've even bought official DVDs when I've already owned the VHS or had access to a download or bootleg copy. But I've come to realise that I'm in the minority.

Sorry for my rant, but it just bugs me the way people seem to be oblivious to image quality.

[vlad.m @ Jun 3rd 2007 2:37PM]

Directed at LPH

[pete @ Jun 3rd 2007 11:23PM]

Why would you bring a camcorder into a movie theatre to record something for 'personal use' anyways? Who does that?

[John Stracke @ Jun 4th 2007 10:48AM]

The comparison to concerts is inappropriate, because a concert is not a prerecorded experience. Even if it's some astroturf band that's lip-syncing to a recording, you've still got the fan reaction and so forth. If you record the concert, you get a memento of an event you personally witnessed; that's popular enough that some bands permit it. If you tape a movie in the theatre, you're not getting anything like that. (Well, maybe if it's the Rocky Horror Picture Show. :-)