First Charges Laid under Canada's New Anti-Camcording Law

Louis-René Haché of Montreal made history a few weeks ago by being the first person to be charged under Canada's new anti-camcording law (section 432 of the Criminal Code). Mr Haché is alleged to have brought a tripod and a digital camcorder into a Montreal movie theatre and begun to record the Steve Carell comedy, Dan in Real Life. An anti-piracy surveillance system had been installed in the movie theatre, including a night-vision detector that scanned the theatre for digital camera lenses. Once a camcorder was detected, movie theatre management and several private security guards confronted Mr. Haché, and police arrived shortly thereafter. Charged with one count of recording in a movie theatre, and one count of recording in a movie theatre for commercial distribution, Mr Haché pleaded not guilty and he is scheduled to appear in court on January 21, 2008. Developments in the case will be closely watched to provide an early assessment on the effectiveness of the new law in combating movie piracy. Prior to the enactment of the anti-camcording law, camcording was illegal under the Copyright Act. However it was difficult to enforce the Copyright Act provision because it had to be proven that the recording was made for commercial purposes. As a result, Parliament enacted Bill C-59 to create new offences within the Criminal Code (see the E-TIPS® article "Movie Anti-Piracy Legislation Tabled in Parliament", Vol 5, No 2, June 6, 2007). The Criminal Code offences carry penalties of up to two years' imprisonment for anyone who illegally records a movie in a theatre, and up to five years' imprisonment for illegally recording movies for commercial distribution. For more information, see: http://tinyurl.com/39k579; http://www.thestar.com/entertainment/article/281171; and http://tinyurl.com/2jltfv For additional information about Canadian and US anti-camcording legislation, see the following article by the author: http://www.oba.org/en/PDF_newsletter/tecjun07web.pdf Summary by: Andrei Edwards