KEY POINTS:
New Zealand film star Temuera Morrison is fronting a campaign to stop movie pirates, who are costing the local industry millions of dollars in lost revenue each year.
The star of Once Were Warriors and Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones is the face of
a Buy Original, See Original campaign to curb the distribution of illegal DVDs which cost the local film industry $70 million in 2005.
Morrison said piracy was not a "victimless crime" and jobs were under threat.
Globally, video piracy cost the film industry more than $10.1 billion in lost revenue in 2005 - a figure made worse by broadband internet and peer-to-peer file sharing.
"It's up to all of us to reject pirated movies and put these movie thieves out of business," said Morrison.
Tony Eaton, executive director of New Zealand Federation Against Copyright Theft, said the campaign would target pirates who took camcorders into new-release movies, recorded the film and then distributed it on the internet.
He said this form of piracy accounted for more than 90 per cent of all movies downloaded from the internet.
In the past six months there had been five incidents of cinema staff confronting camcorder pirates in New Zealand cinemas.
No arrests had been made as the people left the cinemas when confronted, but investigations were continuing.
Mr Eaton said cinema staff were being asked to be more vigilant and monitor movie-goers, particularly during the opening days of new releases when illegal copies were most likely to be made.
New Zealand's largest locally owned cinema company, SkyCity, said it took a "zero tolerance" approach to movie piracy and it was working with the federation to combat the problem.
"The vast majority of SkyCity Cinemas' customers obey the law and we are grateful for the example they set," said general manager Matthew Liebmann.
Mr Eaton said the federation was involved in more than 100 video piracy investigations throughout the country. He said the penalties, which included five years' imprisonment and a maximum fine of $150,000, were a definite deterrent.
Last year a first-time offender was jailed for two years.
