p2pnet news view Politics | Movies:- Hollywood copyright enforcer the MPAA has scored a victory in Canada.

“Anytime an individual goes into a movie theatre and captures a motion picture by way of photographic or video recording, it’s now considered unlawful.”

But that wasn’t MPAA mouthpiece Dan Glickman. Rather, it was a Calgary detective, Asif Rashid, said p2pnet in January.

And now Richard Craig Lissaman, the subject of the comment, has become the first person in Canada to be convicted under the Stephen Harper Bill C-59, Hollywood’s Canadian anti-camcording law.

Lissaman, who admitted recording  Sweeney Todd, was sentenced to $1,495 in fines and placed on probation for a year by provincial court Judge Catherine Skene, says the Canwest News Service.

He’s also barred from going to the movies or from purchasing, owning or taking  video recording equipment, including on a cellphone, outside his home during his probation period, says the story, which doesn’t explain how the ’sentences’ will be enforced.

But these penalties weren’t even nearly strong enough, says a Hollywood spokeswoman.

“We would have liked to see jail,” the Calgary Herald has Virginia Jones, of the Canadian Motion Picture Distributors Association, stating.

Lissaman was arrested in December last year and the camcorder was, “concealed in his clothing, the National Post quoted Rashid as saying, going on:

Gregory Hagen, an assistant professor of law at the University of Calgary with expertise in intellectual property and Internet law, said the changes to the Criminal Code were the result of a lobbying efforts by the association and other groups representing studios and filmmakers.

“This was not so much a legal effort but a public relations effort,” he said. “It’s to get people associating camcording in theatres with doing something that is criminal.”

But Mr. Hagen said the law could have unforeseen ramifications. Under the new act, even those who record a film for legitimate purposes — such as for criticism or a review — could be charged. Under the old law, copying snippets of films for these purposes was protected as “fair dealing,” he said.

“Under the Copyright Act, it had to be proven that the image in the camera was for some sale, or rental or distribution,” he said. “Now all you have to do is find the image and prove it was recorded without consent and that person is liable for imprisonment for up to two years.”

With America as the top country for movie piracy, Hollywood says Canada is the place for camcording crooks, backed by such as David Wilkins, Hollywood ambassador to Canada.

“Accordingly,” p2pnet posted, “new Canadian anti-piracy laws were introduced with embarrassingly indecent haste, leaping ahead of other purely Canadian problems which needed to be urgently addressed.”

The story also highlighted the case of Gérémi Adam, 25, a Montreal man who, “became the RCMP’s poster boy for the federal government’s recently adopted copyright legislation during a news conference yesterday,” said the Montreal Gazette.

There has grown up in the minds of certain groups … the notion that because a man or corporation has made a profit out of the public for a number of years, the government and the courts are charged with the duty of guaranteeing such profit in the future, even in the face of changing circumstances and contrary to public interest.

This strange doctrine is not supported by statute or common law. Neither individuals nor corporations have any right to come into court and ask that the clock of history be stopped, or turned back.

- Robert A. Heinlein, Lifeline (1938)

Defence lawyer Steve Jenuth said there was no evidence his client was reproducing copies of films and selling them, says the Calgary Sun.

There is, of course, no such offence as movie ‘piracy’.

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p2pnet – 2nd Canadian charged with camcording, January 18, 2008
Canwest News Service – Calgary man convicted of movie piracy, November 15, 2008
Calgary Herald – Movie pirate banned from theatres, November 15, 2008
National Post – Alberta man charged with video piracy, January 17, 2008
p2pnet – Montreal ‘movie pirate’ faces jail, December 5, 2007
Montreal Gazette – Alleged movie pirate faces fine or jail, December 5, 2007
Calgary Sun – Sweeney Todd sinks pirate, November 15, 2008

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This entry was posted on Saturday, November 15th, 2008 at 12:33 pm and is filed under Movies, Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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