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Schwarzenegger, PM talk film piracyDate: 30.05.2007
Posted by: Anabolic Info Team United States
OTTAWA (CP) - Stephen Harper found a fitting moment to announce his plan to crack down on film piracy: while sitting in his office with a bad-guy-busting ex-action hero who's now governor of the world's movie capital.
The prime minister made the pledge to Arnold Schwarzenegger on Wednesday after the California governor arrived on Parliament Hill under the kind of security usually reserved for the head of a G8 country.
Sources on both sides of the border said Harper raised the issue and one U.S. official said Schwarzenegger was pleased to hear Canada address a problem plaguing his state's film industry.
"We think it's a good first step," said one American official.
The government said it will introduce legislation that helps police charge people who use camcorders in theatres to tape movies, which are later distributed on the Internet or sold as DVDs.
Sources said the Criminal Code already has stiff penalties for distributing unauthorized material, but does not currently contain specific measures against taping movies.
The Criminal Code will be amended to make it illegal to tape in theatres, they said. The current law makes it difficult to arrest people caught with camcorders at the movies.
"You have to prove that the guy in the cinema is going to make DVDs and sell them on the street," said a Canadian official.
"It's that hard."
Reports have estimated that pirated movies cost Hollywood more than US$6 billion a year - with almost half of such movies coming from camcorder taping in theatres.
Just this month, Warner Brothers announced it would cancel all preview screenings in Canada of its summer blockbusters - like Harry Potter and Ocean's 13.
The studio cited Canada's lax laws on 'camcording' for its decision. Estimates of Canada's role in the problem vary widely, with some figures pegging it as the source of 20 per cent of illegally taped movies while others place the number at higher than 50 per cent.
Ottawa was one of several stops on a three-day Canadian tour that saw Schwarzenegger announce deals with the Ontario government on climate change and stem-cell research Wednesday. He flies to Vancouver on Thursday for a meeting with B.C. Premier Gordon Campbell to discuss that province's climate change agenda.
Schwarzenegger entertained his Toronto hosts with self-deprecating jokes about his Austrian accent and his former job as a Hollywood action hero.
"My name is Governor Schwarzenshriver," he said in reference to his wife Maria Shriver, as he introduced himself to scientists and staff at a Toronto research facility.
"I've come so many times to Canada, with the bodybuilding and the weightlifting and promoting my movies and doing movies here, the last thing I thought when I said, 'I'll be back,' is that I would be back as the governor of the great state of California."
Dozens of Toronto residents lined the streets wherever Schwarzenegger went Wednesday, applauding and cheering in a clear sign that politics has not tarnished his celebrity.
Schwarzenegger said his fame is only useful if applied to good causes - such as climate change and embryonic stem-cell research. He has pursued those objectives despite opposition from many fellow Republicans, including the Bush administration.
"Every one of us knows somebody that has one of those terrible diseases," Schwarzenegger said, adding his father-in-law Sargent Shriver suffers from Alzheimer's disease.
"Sargent Shriver is one of the most brilliant minds in the world. . . . Today, he does not even recognize his wife. This is why I feel very passionately about supporting (stem cell research)."
Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty managed a reference to the governor's former movies.
He noted that the research facility he and Schwarzenegger toured Wednesday morning to observe stem-cell research was known as MaRS - short for Medical and Related Sciences.
"Governor, you may not recognize this, but this is your second trip to Mars," McGuinty joked.
"The first was in that movie 'Total Recall.' It's just a lot easier getting here now. Our streetcar, called the Red Rocket, actually stops right across the street and it costs only $2.75."
In Ottawa, Schwarzenegger received a star's welcome on Parliament Hill.
Parliament's Centre Block underwent a security lockdown as scores of fawning Hill staffers snapped photographs and cheered from behind roped-off areas.
Schwarzenegger's security guards - standing inside Harper's office - forced reporters out of the room when they tried asking the governor a question.
The question that cut short the photo op: Which team would win Game Two of the Stanley Cup finals, California's Anaheim Ducks or the Ottawa Senators?
Upon entering the building, Schwarzenegger made a beeline for a young parliamentary intern wearing a Ducks jersey.
As Hill employees applauded his entrance from behind their security barriers, Schwarzenegger spotted the young man, pointed in his direction and walked over.
The intern - Ziad Elhady - says it's not any commitment to Ducks that made him sport their jersey in a hockey-mad capital otherwise awash in Senators black and red.
"I'm from Detroit. I kind of hate the Ducks," Elhady said later.
"I just bought it for the attention."
Well, he got it. The Terminator-turned-governor shook his hand and signed his jersey while his colleagues snapped pictures.
At a speech rife with jokes to the Economic Club of Toronto, the governor touted California's environment-friendly agenda for transforming him from the Terminator to the Green Giant.
Under Schwarzenegger's leadership, the state has passed laws to cut greenhouse gases by 25 per cent by 2020, and an additional 80 per cent by the year 2050, among other environmental policies.
"When the seventh-largest economy in the world does something, it has consequences," he said. "California is sending the world a message."
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