Two people involved in the post-production of the Oscar winning ‘Tsotsi’ and Leon Schuster comedy ‘Mama Jack’, have been arrested for producing and distributing pirate copies of the movies, the Sunday Times reported.
The suspects – key members of a suspected syndicate – are in prison and will face charges of fraud, theft and corruption in the Johannesburg Magistrate’s Court on Monday. According to the SA Federation Against Copyright Theft (Safact), the suspects were arrested following a three-month investigation. It seems that the twowere members of the editing team of both movies, and thatboth worked at Video Lab, a Johannesburg film-editing company, until they resigned late last year.
Video Lab’s managing director, Dave Keet, said on Saturday that staff were shocked and “very surprised” that former employees were implicated in producing and distributing counterfeit DVD’s. Megan Gill, Tsotsi’s editor, said she had suspected that illegal copies of the film had been the result of an “inside job”.”It’s so sad that after all the hard work, someone would steal the master copy and distribute it illegally to the public,” she said. Gill added thatthe counterfeit copies would “definitely” affect future DVD sales of the movie
Chief executive of Nu Metro, Fay Amaral said individuals in the illegal industry pocketed as much as R60 000 a month.
