MPA Disappointed as Movie Cammer Walks Free From Court

enigmax
April 5, 2009
72
cammer,
PreVail
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During recent months Australia has become a hot source for camcorded movies. Now, an Australian man accused of ‘camming’ movies and supplying the copies to well known ‘Scene’ group PreVail has been found guilty and convicted. However, the MPA is very disappointed as the court let the man go with just a slap on the wrist.

One of the stated main aims of the MPA(A) is to reduce or eliminate the availability of ‘camcorded’ pirate movies. Having taken strong actions against camming in the US and Canada, the movie industry has made some progress in its battle but of course, other countries are also prolific sources of cams.

One of these countries is Australia and local anti-piracy group AFACT has been very active in addressing this problem. During February we reported that Australian officials had arrested and charged a man in Sydney on 18 counts of copyright infringement, after it was alleged he was a cammer for well known ‘Scene’ group, PreVail.

New South Wales Police and AFACT (on behalf of the MPA) carried out a raid on 26 year-old Craig Farrugia’s residence on February 13th and seized “sophisticated” video camcording and computer equipment after watermarks on movie releases by PreVail allowed investigators to discover the cinema they were cammed in. Among others, the equipment was linked to cammed versions of Bedtime Stories, Beverley Hills Chihuahua, He’s Just Not That Into You, Marley and Me and Yes Man.

Presiding over the trial, Magistrate Keady said that Farrugia was “part of an organized criminal conspiracy,” and went on to say that the movie industry was “entitled to the same protection of their property as are householders whose house is broken into and property removed. It is a property offense similar to that of larceny.”

Since release group Prevail had released more than 200 movies onto the Internet in the last 3 ½ years, it was expected that Farrugia would be taught a harsh lesson by the court if found guilty. Each offense (that’s each camming offense) could have earned Farrugia a $60,500 AUS ($39,000US or €31,000) fine and 5 years imprisonment.

However, the Blacktown Local Court in Sydney surprised everyone, not least the MPA. Although Farrugia pleaded guilty and was convicted, he was fined just A$5,400 (US$3900), placed on an 18 month good behavior bond and set free.

AFACT Director of Operations Neil Gane said that the case had been a success and that the outcome would prove a deterrent to others but the boss of the MPA in the region was entirely more realistic. “While we are pleased with the very prompt closure of this matter, we are disappointed in the sentence meted out by the Court as it has failed to recognize the damage this particular crime can have on the industry.” He added that he hoped in future sentences would be tougher.

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TorreN

They are so full of fail its ridiculous.
Smith

Fk the MPA and you go Craig! PreVail FTW!
The first

f**k MPA
7SeVeN7

hey Neil Gane here`s AFACT for ya

your an EPIC FAIL YA LOSER, YOU WILL

NEVER KEEP US PIRATES DOWN!!!
anon2

to say that the movie industry was “entitled to the same protection of their property as are householders whose house is broken into and have property removed” is a load of bollocks. you get no protection from the police at all and if you try to protect your own property, you end up in court accused of God know’s what offence by the criminal. he then walks away free! every likely hood of YOU then ending up with a criminal record and a sentence of some sort, not the criminal!
The Laugher

Tee hee hee
RyanJ

“… has failed to recognize the damage this particular crime can have on the industry …”

I think we need a new definition for crime, one that removed copyright completely. Also we should have the people who claim damages when there aren’t any, as here, with the price they tried to screw from the innocent people. Maybe that should shut them up for good.
Virate

How is making a COPY of a movie and giving it to someone who would NEVER have paid for it anyway in any way alike burgling a house??

Prosecution Fail.
The P!nk Pr!nce

He cammed some really shit films!
p0rk

He’s a lucky bloke.
PirateDave

“Bedtime Stories, Beverley Hills Chihuahua, He’s Just Not That Into You, Marley and Me and Yes Man”

I’ve never seen any of those–and don’t want to.
iShare

I would have payed the man to have been brave enough to try and give those movies to the pirate community XD
Now if only…

They’ll never understand, goddamn dinosaurs……..
Hacker/pirates of the world UNITE

Presiding over the trial, Magistrate Keady said that Farrugia was “part of an organized criminal conspiracy,” and went on to say that the movie industry was “entitled to the same protection of their property as are householders whose house is broken into and property removed. It is a property offense similar to that of larceny.”

The above is actually a group a kids saying YOU COST to much screw you we will have a copy we can share cause YOUR not entertainment YOUR an AIG style product and industry.

Keep sucking money out of whats left of the capitalism economy and you will sooner rather then later see your results dear biden

OBAMA + BIDEN = FORBIDDEN
Mr. Legal

Oh you pirates, poor and middle-class people – you’ll never understand our business models:)

I’m driving my Ferrari as we speak.
theman

he payed to enter the cinema so… no theft at all!
ralonto

Piracy =/= theft. Some people still can’t get that into their thick skulls aparrently. 18 months on good behavior is still utterly reticulous.
BadMoJo

Save a Cammer , Harpoon an MPA
netzdamon

people still watch crappy ass cams? Really?
VPNer

@17 ralonto

“reticulous”

Is that meant to hurt my eyes or something.

Go away MPAA bumlicker.
Nobody

18 counts..five years per offense. That’s just a little unrealistic for cam’ing movies. You can get less prison time for killing somebody, say an MPAA stooge. Personally I think the court’s response was appropriate.
riaatard

I can see how the movie industry loses money by cammer pirates.

When someone downloads a movie they get to see if it’s worth buying or not. Most movies suck which is why they would never buy or pay to see a movie.

I’ve bought movies before without previewing them being suckered by the movie trailers. Most of the movies I bought were never what they were made out to be. I got ripped off. Had I previewed them first, I probably would never have bought them.

That is how the movie industry loses money. They rely on people falling for the glitzy trailers, then once they’ve paid for the movie you can never get your money back. The words “rip off” comes to mind so whose stealing from whom?
P-Rated

“Similar to larceny”? Hmmm… How did the media industry newspeak happen to infiltrate courthouses?
anonymous

That just proves that entertainment is not as valuable as the MPA thinks it is. Beverley Hills Chihuahua,LOL. You’d have to give me a million dollars for me to watch that movie, seriously.
MPAA

hahahaha LMFAO good for him!:)
http://www.10ch.org/ www.10ch.org

Do you really think that this kind of injustice is acceptable? How would you feel if you were sentenced to a $5000 fine? Merely because this person is not you, doesn’t mean that it should not matter. We ought not to let penalties like this happen – and to do this, we must unite to engage in political activities against the MPA. Pirates of the world, unite!
Charax

the effect the crime CAN have on the industry is irrelevant. The punishment should be based on the extent to which this single person’s actions broke the law – NOTHING else
Maroan

Ralonto, are you still buying the “1 download = 1 loss” nonsens? A lot of reasearch have allready proven thats iys not the case… On the other hand, the sentence proves that the court judged fairly, and in a way wants to show that its tired of the majors complains… My opinion.. :-)
Jeff

@20 & 28: I think you got Ralonto wrong. He didn’t say piracy = theft – I take the =/= in his comment to mean not equal.

And his other comment is directed at all the MAFIAAtards who continue to insist that copyright infringement is the same as theft.
Mysterio

I find it rather amusing to say that this guy was a member of the scene group Prevail. I would beg to differ. Prevail never had their own cammer. They either purchased silvers or re-encoded releases from various p2p releases. Whoever came up with the idea this guy was camming for Prevail must have sniffed alot of glue.
Welshie

“…and went on to say that the movie industry was “entitled to the same protection of their property as are householders whose house is broken into and property removed. It is a property offense similar to that of larceny.”

Well… they DID get the same type of protection as you or I would get if a criminal was taken to court for invading our home… they let him off practically scot-free!

I’m not a big ‘cam’ fan, and I wasn’t impressed with the movies he copied, but he definately did not deserve to go through the legal system for camming some movies.

Glad he got out of it relatively unscathed.

Whether you agree or disagree with camming, we should stickk together on these issues, so … where’s the ‘DONATE’ button so I can send him a few quid?

After all… why should the ‘man’ intimidate him?

I know many of you would resent giving money that will end up going into the industries pockets, but they will probably spend it on more drugs and OD, so… CA-CHING!

So how about it torrentfreak. Wanna set up a fund for people like this?

G’wan… I trust you…

;)
Nobody

@28 – Agree completely. More often than not, I’m not downloading a movie because it’s free, chances are I’m downloading it because the movie probably sucks and/or wouldn’t pay money to see it in the first place.

The new Star Trek film for example, I’ll pay to see that on the big screen, even if there was a copy out the day before. LotR I bought the collectors edition because I thoroughly loved the movies. But 99% of movies, like Beverly Hills Chihuahua.. I’d be hard pressed to actually watch it for free on HBO, let alone pay for the damn thing to begin with.. I feel ripped off just wasting hard drive space on most of the crap Hollywood is shoveling out lately.
Anonymous

“How is making a COPY of a movie and giving it to someone who would NEVER have paid for it anyway in any way alike burgling a house??”

because it’s taking something that isn’t yours? because it’s against the law? because you can’t prove they would never have bought it anyway?
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Anonymous

“because it’s taking something that isn’t yours”

Wrong.

It isn’t taking anything.

Come back when you’ve learned how filesharing works. Or are you so mentally disturbed that you actually believe creating a copy of something is the same thing as taking it?

In that case, don’t come back until you’ve received psychological help.
Anonymous

They should have sentenced him to HOME CONFINEMENT. :)
Anonymous

@34 (roze)”Come back when you’ve learned how filesharing works. Or are you so mentally disturbed that you actually believe creating a copy of something is the same thing as taking it?”

i don’t have any problem with someone making copies of something they’ve purchased for themselves.

it’s when other people TAKE those copies without paying the creators that i TAKE issue.

you are a little semantics straddling child. you do this because you know your position is weak. someone trying to stay afloat will grab for anything, no matter how small, to keep their head above water.

if copying a copyrighted file isn’t theft because the original file remains unmoved and unchanged then “sharing” that file isn’t really sharing since the original copy also remains unmoved and unchanged…you think the word “theft” can only apply to something tangible. it is only natural then, that the word “share” be held to that same standard of semantics. after all:

“SHARING is the joint use of a resource or space. In its narrow sense, it refers to joint or alternating use of an inherently FINITE GOOD, such as a common pasture or a timeshared residence. It is also the process of dividing and distributing…”
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharing
Anon

He could have been filming it for a copy for himself after all he paid for it shouldn’t be be entitled to review it (just as you can re-listen to a song or re-read a book). Movie studio’s need to get with the times people are not liking their business model anymore and now have home cinema setups that are better than going out!
magicanimal

Nobody ever answered this question for me back when the original story about this cammer was published– and I’m dying to hear one of the so-called “knowledgeable” scene people actually answer it this time around…

Why would someone spend all the money to cam these in the first place? In the last article, tinted windows, miniature cameras, etc were mentioned– this time, someone is talking about Prevail “purchasing silvers.”

I know how shit works– nobody is going to drop any real money on camming something (and possibly getting caught) unless there is something actually in it for them. Somewhere, maybe even down the line, there’s someone benefiting from this in a financial manner. Who is it? How?

I can’t think of any bootlegger who is going to invest so much effort/money to sell discs on the street, especially when they can download the torrent themselves. Someone “upstream” from these street vendors is making money. I wouldn’t be surprised to find out that its rival studios, looking to kill another studio’s project.

Anyone know the truth?
Khmuprince

The man should have never been arrested and brought to court the first place. He should have been left a alone because he had no intention to make money for what he did. To compare what he did to home robbery crime is preposterous and irresponsible.

Where is their basic commonsense? Great article! Keep up the great work!
Anonymous

@Anonymous(MPAA sockpuppet)
“it’s when other people TAKE those copies without paying the creators that i TAKE issue.”

Taking a copy doesn’t equate to taking the original, so any and all imaginary parallels to theft you can come up with fail, and fail hard. There’s no escaping that fact.

@Anonymous(MPAA sockpuppet)
“you are a little semantics straddling child”

Do the world a favor and learn English. Then you won’t have to hide behind the semantics card when you don’t understand the words being said to you.

@Anonymous(MPAA sockpuppet)
“if copying a copyrighted file isn’t theft because the original file remains unmoved and unchanged then “sharing” that file isn’t really sharing since the original copy also remains unmoved and unchanged”

HAHAHAH

Okay, this is sad. Moving and/or changing the original object isn’t a prerequisite to fulfill the criterea for proper usage of the word “sharing”. Just like Wikipedia(which isn’t a dictionary, BTW, that’s what Wiktionary is for) says in the paragraph you copy & pasted but were apparently too illiterate to actually read, sharing “is also the process of dividing and distributing”.

Filesharing fits the bill of dividing and distributing quite nicely, so you lose the semantics game that your own foolish ass tried to start.

So once again, I suggest you learn English.
MAFIAA CRIME BOSS

he should’a got life for camming garbage
Ghostofchris

Go Australia! *cheers*
Ghostofchris

AFACT sucks balls, they all should get a real job
chris

I just don’t get it, the movie industry generated more profits last year then ever before and yet they still worry about some crappy cams getting put on the web. A 5 grand fine seems pretty harsh to me, after all those movies listed are all awful and that dude woulda sat through them. That alone sounds like penalty enough.
Anonymous

“Just like Wikipedia(which isn’t a dictionary, BTW, that’s what Wiktionary is for) says in the paragraph you copy & pasted but were apparently too illiterate to actually read, sharing ‘is also the process of dividing and distributing’.”

dividing and distributing SOMETHING TANGIBLE. who is illiterate again? you’re just picking and choosing which pieces of which definitions suit your view best, as was i. and as i said, semantics. thanks for proving my point.

here are some completely valid, readily available definitions for the word “steal”:

“1. to take (the property of another or others) without permission or right, esp. secretly or by force.

2. to appropriate (ideas, credit, words, etc.) without right or acknowledgment.

3. to take or appropriate (another’s property, ideas, etc.) without permission, dishonestly, or unlawfully, esp. in a secret or surreptitious manner.”

gee, piracy fits the bill of taking someone’s ideas or property unlawfully and without (copy)right nicely…

here is the legal definition of “property” just for reference:

“Not only money and other tangible things of value, but also includes ANY INTANGIBLE RIGHT considered as a source or element of income or wealth.”

oh lordy. so intellectual property really isn’t a myth? fellow pirates! dole out the cotton and plug yer ear holes! gather the anchor and set sails towards the winds of ignorance! we shall ride and drink until we forget this terrible news was ever uttered aloud.

if you live by semantics, you die by semantics. it’s an easy game to play. and while it can no doubt draft gullible recruits, it’s hard to win a war with it.

or an argument.
Berg

We will PreVail, but camcorded movies will suck anyway.
Thruster

Neil Gane is a pommy wanker who used to work in the Hong Kong Police… he treats people like monkeys and is trying to clean up Australia all by himself. TOSSER.
xman323

F u c k the MPAA, the RIAA and their mafioso counterparts. Death to all of them…
logic voter

im glad the judge was a fair guy.
heh.

“…Among others, the equipment was linked to cammed versions of Bedtime Stories, Beverley Hills Chihuahua, He’s Just Not That Into You, Marley and Me and Yes Man….”

yeah… and i’m just dying to fork out money to see ALL of those movies anyway… pfft…
JTK

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SnLB8wysMbY <-that video sums up my feelings on the MPAA, RIAA and such.
DiasFlac

A US$3900 fine is a pretty severe punishment just for recording a stupid movie, lol.
just me

So, if I break into house and take a picture of tv, that’s the same as actually stealing it?
Anonymous

piracy happens on the high seas near somalia.
Anonymous

“So, if I break into house and take a picture of tv, that’s the same as actually stealing it?”

no potential revenue is lost through taking a picture of a TV. there is no law that says you can’t take pictures of TV. it is not conceivable that someone would take a picture of a TV to save themselves the cost of buying a TV. so no, taking a picture of a TV is not the same thing as stealing a TV.

your analogy is ridiculous.
Rorshach

To the particularly vehement anonymous poster,

It is clear from the definitions you have noted that types of filesharing may be illegal. However, because something is illegal does not necessarily make it unequivocally wrong. If this was the case, laws could never be altered. I, for one, believe that the current current copyright and IP laws are wrong, behind the times, and need to be updated based on hard facts obtained through credible and transparent methods, not piecemeal studies conducted by lobbyist corporations in the hopes of influencing new legislation for profit. You may be right about the legality of filesharing, but I nonetheless disagree with your analysis. I believe it (filesharing) should be legal, that laws concerning this topic and the internet in general are outdated, outmoded, and ineffective, and that the nature of technology in question should be understood by lawmakers before laws are enacted. I wish to explain my position to as many people as possible and attempt to convince them the filesharing should be legal. If enough people are convinced of this fact a democratic society (regardless of its previous laws) must change the definitions causing the illegality of filesharing, or else cease being a democracy. It is not within the rights of any person to force me to change this point of view or stop me from voicing it (provided I act in a peaceful and legal manner).

To sum up: if semantics are the problem, the solution is to use the democratic process and alter the definitions in question.
TommyFlorida

Het ‘tards, I’m going to steal your shit, come find me if you want it back. If you can’t do the time, don’t do the crime pussies :O
neonblue2

@TommyFlorida

You make me laugh.

1. I don’t keep my feces. If you want it, take it.

2. I don’t “do”* crime pussies. What is a crime pussy, by the way? Some sort of law-breaking cat?

*By “do” I assume you mean “have sexual intercourse with”.
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Dooh!

I guess the judge figured anyone having to sit (much less record) Bedtime Stories, Beverley Hills Chihuahua, He’s Just Not That Into You, Marley and Me and Yes Man was punishment enough. Since when was taking rubbish a crime?
rofl

“It is a property offense similar to that of larceny.”

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAA!
Turbis

AHAHAHAHAHA I laughed so hard at just reading the title :D
rash

MPA and all the anti-piracy organisations are full of shit. they should respect the laws in other countries and not force them to amend the laws to their benefit
Greg

Where can I donate?
hot sex gary

I’m interested to know if he’d get in the same amount of trouble if he actually broke into the cinema and physically stole the film reel
Neverhood

He gets “A$5,400 (US$3900) (fine), (and) placed on an 18 month good behavior bond and set free.” And they are not satisfied?
That’s a huge sentence for something as small as what he did.
Did he put anyone’s life in danger? Did he stand to earn a lot of money?
Did he harm culture?
Hell no!
Taking a box of candy without paying is a smaller offense in my book.
Neverhood

He gets “A$5,400 (US$3900) (fine), (and) placed on an 18 month good behavior bond and set free.” And they are not satisfied?
That’s a huge sentence for something as small as what he did.
Did he put anyone’s life in danger? Did he stand to earn a lot of money?
Did he harm culture?
Hell no!
Taking a box of candy without paying is a bigger offense in my book.
Hoho

The bitch wanted big money. It is better to sell his ass (MPAA)
prodigydancer

MPA offices must be burned to the ground for that! An innocent man had to pay $4k just because he didn’t want to give up one of his basic freedoms…

It’s a horrible world we’re living in. A world ruled by fat pigs and their political lapdogs. A world where freedom is considered a crime. I don’t really believe in democracy, but old-style democracy was 1000 times better than what we have now.
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MPA Disappointed as Movie Cammer Walks Free From Court

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