Digital Home Thoughts: 50% of Movie Piracy Coming From Canada?

"As much as 50 per cent of the world's pirated movies come from Canada, prompting the film industry to threaten to delay the release of new titles in this country. According to an investigation by Twentieth Century Fox, most of the illegal recording, or "camcording," is taking place in Montreal movie houses, taking advantage of bilingual releases and lax copyright laws...Jacob said he was warned in a letter from Bruce Snyder, president of Fox's domestic distribution, that if Canada doesn't do something to curb its growing piracy problem, Hollywood will. "They are definitely thinking about delaying releases in Canada," said Jacob. "This is very, very bad for our Canadian consumer and it's bad for the industry as a whole.""

It's not often that I side with the big Hollywood movie machine, but in this case I will: when a movie studio spends $100 million on making and releasing a movie, someone in the movie theatre recording it is immoral. Period. The movie studios have every right to protect their own product from theft in this manner. The fact that this activity, perpetrated by a tiny fraction of all movie-goers, has the potential to delay movie releases for the rest of us, really ticks me off. So much so that I pity the fool who has a video camera pointed at a movie screen when I'm in the theatre. :twisted: