Watermark technology leads to arrest of PreVail cammer

This week the Australian police arrested a ‘cammer’ in his New South Wales residence according to an MPA press release. Cammers are individuals that sit in a theater with video and audio capturing devices to record new movies. From there they distribute it to the physical and digital market. The alleged cammer was part of an online release group known as PreVail.

The police was able to arrest the cammer because sophisticated watermark technology gave away his camming location. Movie theatres use watermark technology to identify the exact cinema in which a movie is shown. Each movie has a barely visibile watermark (typically a set of arranged dots), when a cammer records the movie he also records the watermark. Investigators can search for the watermark in illegal copies and determine where the movie was recorded.

It is alleged that the movies illegally camcorded by the 26 year old male and distributed by release group PreVail have been made available on numerous web sites as well as forensically matched to pirated DVDs purchased in Australia and a number of other countries around the world including the USA, Mexico, Britain, Spain, the Philippines and Malaysia.

The alleged cammer has posted bail, and is awaiting arraignment.

Source: MPA International