Hong Kong – On August 15, following a call from an employee of the Taoyuan Venice Theater in Taoyuan, a suburb of Taipei, Taoyuan County Police officers, accompanied by Motion Picture Association (MPA) Taiwan representatives, arrested a 23-year-old man attempting to illegally camcord The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift with his mobile phone.
The officers seized the phone and a memory card found by MPA representatives to contain the first four minutes of the film. An additional memory card was also seized. The man was charged with violating Taiwan’s Copyright Act and could be subject to imprisonment of up to three years and a fine of up to NT$750,000 (US$23,860).
A second illegal camcording of The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift was interdicted on August 20 at the Taoyuan Venice Theater when cinema staff caught a 21-year-old man in the act of recording the movie on his mobile phone. The man was not charged because his phone failed after he was confronted and the recording was erased. As part of an anti-camcording program the MPA has instituted in Taiwan, the Taoyuan Venice Theater employee who spotted the illegal camcording will receive a monetary reward for his vigilance and quick action in alerting police to the pirate’s activities.
I've been interested in P2P since the early, high-flying days of Napster and KaZaA. I believe that analog copyright laws are ill-suited to the digital age, and that art and culture shouldn't be subject to the whims of international entertainment industry conglomerates. Twitter | Google Plus
