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Canadian Movie Pirate Arrest Was “Personal Favor” for Studio Exec

(Zero Paid) – Wikileaks cable reveals the Royal Canadian Mounted Police only arrested Geremi Adam, better known as the cammer for the “maVen” movie release group, “as a personal favor” for a Canadian Motion Picture Distributors Association official; didn’t consider camcording “a major issue.”

It’s been a little over a year since Geremi Adam, the 28yo Canadian better known as the cammer for the “maVen” movie release group, was convicted and sentenced to two and a months in prison, and now thanks to Wikileaks we have learned that the whole affair was a “personal favor” for a Canadian Motion Picture Distributors Association official.
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police have a different perspective on intellectual property issues, choosing instead to dedicate limited resources on issues that “have health and safety components (e.g., counterfeit pharmaceuticals) or that have a large, demonstrable financial impact.”

When it comes to illegal camcording the RCMP said they don’t view it as “a major issue.” It believes the civil code is a better avenue for copyright holders to take, and that although they admit a conviction under the civil code would only result in a relatively small fine and no prison time, it would still allow the RCMP to focus its resources on more pressing concerns.

So when the RCMP was approached by the CMPDA to pursue Adams it initially balked, opting only to arrest Adam “as a personal favor” to a CMPDA official. The RCMP called Adams a “small player” that they believed was “being manipulated by a larger piracy organization(s), and not receiving lucrative financial rewards for his work.”

One unidentified RCMP officer even expressed concern that actions like this could make it appear to be “the enforcement arm of industry,” especially since the CMPDA “comes to [the RCMP] more and more” with requests for law enforcement action.

“Although the RCMP officers suggested that industry representatives could pursue litigation through the civil code on their own, they commented that proving an individual had a commercial purpose to his camcording could be difficult.
Adam initially pleaded guilty to two counts, under the Copyright Act, for distributing copies of the Hollywood films “Invincible” and “How to Eat Fried Worms” back in 2006, but was eventually released because camming wasn’t a crime at that time.

He was nabbed again in 2008 while recording the movie “Street Kings” at another movie theatre, and was charged again , this time under a revised Criminal Code that outlawed camming for personal use as well as commercial purposes. He was eventually sentenced to nine weeks behind bars plus 100 hours of community service, and was prohibited from entering any movie theater for two years.

Soon after his release from jail, however Adam died of an accidental drug overdose from the antidepressants and tranquilizers he had been taking to deal with all of the anxiety he was suffering from the whole affair.

Now that it turns out the prosecution of Adam by the RCMP was little more than a “person favor” let’s hope controls are put in place to prevent this from happening in the future.

Stay tuned.

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Categories: Broken Force, Whistleblower.

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One Response

  1. This story is very difficult to follow… they way it is written makes it hard to understand what happened.

    I don’t understand what is wrong with what the police did, they charged a fellow with committing an offence and he was convicted.

    Whoever wrote this article needs to explain this wikileaks document and what it says, because it sounds like this was a typical police complainant and now someone is saying it was a “personal favor”. Did one particular officer do the favor, or the entire organization do the favor.

    I will “stay tuned”.

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    Grammy2011.05.4 @ 16:12
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