Chief, Sheriff Vow Crackdown on Movie Pirates

Coming soon to a theater near you: Los Angeles Police Chief William J. Bratton and Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca, handcuffs at the ready for camcorder-wielding movie pirates.

Right behind them: City Atty. Rocky Delgadillo, who issued a Dirty Harry-esque threat to would-be movie pirates Thursday: “If you carry [a camcorder] into a movie theater, you have to say to yourself, ‘Do I feel lucky?’ ” he said. “You better be lucky, because if not, we’re coming after you.”

Under a state law that takes effect Jan. 1, those caught operating a recording device in theaters face a $2,500 fine and up to one year in jail.

At a prop-filled news conference on the steps of City Hall, Los Angeles officials and movie industry executives said they intend to enforce the law vigorously.

“I think this is the most powerful counterattack that I can imagine to combat piracy, which is a virulent threat to the future of this part of California,” said Jack Valenti, president of the Motion Picture Assn. of America. “If we can’t fight and defeat piracy here, we’re dead.”

In recent years, pirated movies have sucked billions of dollars in lost revenue from the movie industry, with films turning up on the Internet in some cases before they have been released in theaters.

This year, movie studios are waging an aggressive campaign to protect themselves from the rampant recording and downloading that have put bootlegged films on the Web and on street corners from Los Angeles to Lagos. They have banned the distribution of free DVDs to awards voters and stationed security guards sporting night-vision goggles inside Hollywood premieres to spot camcorders.

And now they are partnering with local officials, who say piracy poses a pressing economic threat to Los Angeles residents.

“This is about grips. This is about camerapersons ... caterers,” said City Councilwoman Wendy Greuel.

Holding up black-market copies of “Dr. Seuss’ The Cat in the Hat” and “Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World” that he said were purchased just blocks from City Hall, Mayor James K. Hahn said anyone who buys such films is “contributing to a crime ... taking jobs away from your neighbors here in Los Angeles.”

Next week, the Los Angeles Police Department will offer a seminar to train movie theater operators how to enforce the law. Signs warning against camcorders will go up in many theaters. And employees will be instructed in how to make a citizen’s arrest when they catch patrons with recording devices.

The mayor said employees would be trained in “other detention and confrontation techniques, so things don’t get out of hand.”

Bratton and Baca pledged to dispatch officers to arrest suspects caught with camcorders. Baca also called on citizens to report counterfeit movie operations to authorities.

With all the gun violence in Los Angeles, Bratton said, some might ask why the LAPD plans to devote its limited resources to slapping cuffs on lawbreakers armed only with camcorders.

The answer, he said, is because piracy is a “quality-of-life crime

Bratton added that he loves to go to the movies, and will personally keep an eye out for lawbreakers.

Piracy experts said that the new law could serve as a deterrent, but that it was unlikely to fully dam the flow of pirated films.

“A year in jail is pretty serious. I imagine it will stop somebody,” said Randy Saaf, president of MediaDefender, an anti-piracy company. But he said many movie pirates are professionals.

“There’s this misnomer about camcording movies, that it’s some dude in the third row with a handycam,” he said. The reality is that many of the recordings are “inside jobs ... someone with access to the projection booth.”

Still, Saaf said that the movie industry has had some success this year in keeping movies under wraps, and that every little step helps.

“The motion picture industry is the backbone of our city,” said Delgadillo, who added that his office would see to it that pirates would “walk the plank.... They’re going to end up at the bottom of the ocean.”