Two people involved in post-production of the Oscar-winning Tsotsi and the Leon Schuster comedy Mama Jack have been arrested for producing and distributing pirate copies of the movies, the Sunday Times reported.
The suspects — allegedly 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 South African Federation against Copyright Theft (Safact), the suspects were arrested following a three-month investigation.
The newspaper quoted Safact chief executive James Lennox as saying all evidence pointed to two members of the editing team of both movies.
Both worked at Video Lab, a Johannesburg film-editing company, until they resigned late last year.
Video Lab’s MD, Dave Keets, said on Saturday that staff were shocked and ”very surprised” that former employees were implicated in producing and distributing counterfeit DVDs.
Megan Gill, Tsotsi‘s editor, said she had suspected that illegal copies of the film had been the result of an ”inside job”.
She said editing the movie, and adding the sound and music mix, had taken seven months.
”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 said the counterfeit copies would ”definitely” affect future DVD sales of the movie, the newspaper reported.
The chief executive of Nu Metro, Fay Amaral, said individuals in the illegal industry pocket as much as R60 000 a month. — Sapa