Two men aged 44 and 19 have been arrested by officers from Northumbria Police in the north-east of England after they were found to be in possession of an illegal audio recording of a newly-released film.

The arrests took place at the Empire Cinema in Sunderland on March 10th at the end of a screening of The Divergent Series: Allegiant 2016, following an investigation by Federation Against Copyright Theft (FACT), assisted by the film’s producers and distributors and the Motion Picture Association. There have been three previous illegal audio recordings at this cinema.

The men have been released on bail whilst enquiries continue. Conditions have been imposed that they are excluded from any cinema in England and Wales during this period.

Illegal recording of films in cinemas is the most prevalent method criminals use to capture the latest film releases. High cinema security in many countries forces them to seek the English language audio to synchronise with a foreign language version of the film.

FACT works in partnership with the Film Distributors’ Association (FDA) to protect films shown in UK cinemas, through close engagement with cinema operators and the UK Cinema Association.

Categories: Articles, Piracy