Now an annual fixture, seventeen employees from cinemas across the UK have been presented with awards totalling over £7,000 for their efforts in preventing illegal recordings taking place. Illegal recordings of films are said to be the primary source for pirate copies worldwide: recordings are uploaded to the internet and made available within hours to millions of people.

The Federation Against Copyright Theft (FACT) operates a training, prevention and reward scheme for UK cinemas funded and supported by Film Distributors? Association (FDA).

FACT works closely with cinema operators to ensure that staff are trained to detect and prevent recordings, as well as assisting in raising awareness with police on this issue so they are able to assist when called to an incident. Night vision devices supplied by FDA form part of the best practice deterrence, as digital recording equipment is not easy to spot.

The FACT/FDA programme has engaged the support and co-operation of exhibitors UK-wide. It says tt has achieved great success in reducing the number of recordings taken from UK cinemas, making the UK one of the most secure environments for releasing movies.

Kieron Sharp, FACT Director General, said that the actions of those present had prevented the recording of films and that those recordings would then have been uploaded to the internet and made available to millions of people globally, harming the livelihoods of industry employees as well as the prospects of the films.

According to FACT, film piracy in the UK alone costs legitimate businesses over half a billion pounds a year and directly threatens the jobs of tens of thousands of people who work across the film sector.



Awards were presented to:
Salimah Azim Adatia and Muhammad Imran Wattoo (Empire Slough), Spencer Owen (Cineworld Aberdeen Queen?s Link), Rachel Hewer (Vue North Finchley), Destiny Okoh (Odeon Bournemouth), Victoria Landale (Empire Newcastle), Stephanie Mortimore and Kevin King (Cineworld Leigh), Parthiban Subburaj and Siddharthayappan Rajkumar (Cineworld Wandsworth), Grishma Bam (Vue Wood Green), Danielle Carver
(Empire Newcastle), Richard Brammer and Paul Bannister (Odeon Manchester), Gemma Humphreys (Cineworld Weymouth), Paul Whale (Cineworld Boldon), Rebecca Cartwright (Odeon Blackpool).

Story filed 09.07.12