HONGKONG film industry representatives will meet Macau Government officials and cinema owners tomorrow in a bid to clamp down on pirates making millions of dollars copying new cinema releases and selling them in Asia and Europe. More than 50 newly-released films distributed in Macau in the past six months have been copied and sold to video shops as soon as they are shown in cinemas in the enclave. Pirated tapes are also available in Canada, the United States, France, England and The Netherlands, and at a rental of US$1.75 (HK$13.65) a day, distributors say it is affecting the overseas distribution of Hongkong films and videotapes. The Hongkong film industry is to set up an anti-piracy fund to hire private detectives to investigate video piracy and then recruit lawyers to file copyright lawsuits. This fund will get its capital from the producers' share of a film's box office revenue. A spokesman for the Motion Picture Industry Association (MPIA), Mr Peter Lam said pirates were reaping more than $10 million each year from the trade but said it was hard to put a stop to it. ''It is always possible insiders may be involved as many people have access to them. They include editors, directors, producers, dubbing technicians, photofinishing company and the delivery agent.'' The deputy chairman of the Movie Theatre Owners Association of Macau, Mr Edmund Wong I-mun, said the pirates were getting away with it because there was little control over copyright and little action taken against the offenders. Pirated tapes can be rented for $5 a copy or sold for about $100 in a video shop, or less from a hawker. According to Mr Wong, most of the 200 video shops in the enclave have links to the pirates which supply about 10 copies of popular films to each outlet. He said this had led to a 30 per cent drop in cinema audiences in Macau. The problem extends overseas: Mr Lam said foreign distributors told the MPIA the pirates usually offered three master tape copies of a film for US$1,000 each. Macau's 11 cinemas feared a total boycott or delayed screening of Hongkong-made films if pirates continued unchecked, after some members of the MPIA suggested only allowing films to be shown in the enclave three months after the film opened in Hongkong. But Mr Lam said the MPIA had called for increased security, urging theatre owners to pick up the films from Hongkong and keep them under lock and key. Customs and Excise officers smashed a syndicate two months ago, arrested two people and seized more than 200 copies. Police believe at least two other syndicates are still at large in Hongkong and Macau.
