A Year In Prison For a 20-Second Film Clip? 1169
PizzaFace writes "It's Jhannet's 19th birthday, so her boyfriend borrows a camcorder to memorialize the occasion, and they head to the mall. They goof around, recording each other in the food court, then decide to catch the Transformers matinee, which started a few minutes earlier. During a big action scene, Jhannet takes the camcorder and records a 20-second clip to show her little brother. A few minutes later, cops who were called by the manager come in with flashlights, arrest Jhannet, confiscate the camcorder, and, at the behest of Regal Cinemas, charge her with film piracy. 'I was terrified,' said Jhannet. 'I was crying. I've never been in trouble before.' If convicted, she could be sentenced to a year in prison and a $2,500 fine. The police say they lack discretion because Regal Cinemas chose to prosecute: 'They were the victim in this case, and they felt strongly enough about it.' The National Association of Theater Owners supports Regal's 'zero-tolerance' prosecution standard: 'We cannot educate theater managers to be judges and juries in what is acceptable. Theater managers cannot distinguish between good and bad stealing.'"
Devil's advocate (Score:5, Insightful)
Isn't that for a judge and jury to decide?
Would it be acceptable to record twenty seconds? Two minutes? Twenty minutes? The entire movie?
(Believe it or not, there actually could be an answer here..."fair use" does have specific provisions for how long clips can be, what they can be used for, and so on.)
I realize most here on slashdot probably won't agree with this, and think that "copyright", or at least its current form in the US, which is the basis for prohibiting things like recording in movie theaters, ought to be done away with completely.
But if any claim on content ownership is supportable and valid in any legal framework, mustn't there necessarily be mechanisms to enforce related laws and prohibit its violation? And when there is a violation, and an agent that is party to the violation chooses to press charges for what may be the violation of a local, state, or federal statute in various circumstances, shouldn't a judge and jury be the ones to decide the outcome?
The article says:
"We cannot educate theater managers to be judges and juries in what is acceptable," he said. "Theater managers cannot distinguish between good and bad stealing."
Macdowell said the trade association, which represents 28,000 screens nationwide, realizes there is a difference between "egregious acts of stealing our movies and more innocent ones." But he said that distinction needed to be made in court rather than by theater managers.
Not everyone agrees.
And then comes the predictable reply:
"The movie industry needs to recognize that their audience isn't the enemy," said Cindy Cohn, general counsel for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a San Francisco-based nonprofit group that specializes in digital rights issues. "They need to stop treating their fans like criminals. . . . What they're doing is extremely unreasonable, coming down on this poor girl who was actually trying to promote their movie."
The "your customers aren't the enemy" reply.
But you can easily argue that recording the entire movie and posting it on a torrent site also "promotes" the movie. Or that posting TV shows not available in certain markets "promote" the TV show. In fact, many make just that argument. Indeed, you can find many examples of how online "piracy" has increased or enhanced loyalty to various music, television shows, and so on.
The only problem is, that's not your decision to make. That's the content owner's decision.
The only way to allow the behavior in this particular instance is to make recording movies in theaters legal, or have ridiculous provisions like time limits on number of seconds or minutes that can "legally" be recorded, that theaters would then have to enforce.
Where do you draw the line?
Copyright may not be perfect, and trade and industry groups may vigorously try to protect content. But that is their right under the current legal framework, and absurd examples don't really serve any function in having any real change, other than being able to be used as a rallying cry for people who DO fundamentally believe that we should be able to record entire movies in movie theaters, or entire TV shows, or entire DVDs, and post them to torrent sites, with no fear of retribution.
And I don't think either extreme makes sense.
I don't understand the thinking... (Score:2, Insightful)
Regal Cinema (Score:5, Insightful)
By itself, no result.
100,000 times repeated, different story.
Stupid... (Score:5, Insightful)
Stupid people will do stupid things. She shouldn't have done that. If this is going to be a criminal case, then hopefully she will be let off easy with community service or something. Hopefully there is no mandatory minimum sentence.
Re:Devil's advocate (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm sorry for the couple, but... (Score:3, Insightful)
The most ironic part of this tragedy is that it was their naiveness (i.e. innocence) that resulted into the guy being treated as an evil criminal, while an expert pirate would've been much more careful.
A sad but true statement: Ignorance of the law is no excuse.
Re:I don't understand the thinking... (Score:5, Insightful)
How does the theater know they were only planning to record a bit of the film? How do they know they weren't trying to film the whole movie?
If they win, nothing will happen. Most people see how stupid someone is for using a camcorder in a movie theater.
Re:Devil's advocate (Score:5, Insightful)
"The only problem is, that's not your decision to make. That's the content owner's decision. "
The theater wasn't the "content owner." And the theatre owner doesn't understand the concept of "de minimus" - the law doesn't deal in trifles. They're just being dickheads [trolltalk.com]. A 20-second clip isn't a clear case of copyright infringement, since copyright allows for short exerpts to be used without the copyright owners' permission, for example, in reviews. Getting kicked out of the theatre should have been enough, but that's what you get for treating your customers like criminals (guess they've adopted the Microsoft CRM model).
The length is VERY important (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Devil's advocate (Score:4, Insightful)
On the pass, it specifically said:
- That customers were subject to search, and
- That any and all audio or video recording equipment, or any device with such capabilities, including phones, PDAs, etc., were strictly prohibited.
Granted, most customers in any theater at any given time probably do have camera phones. But again, this is a case where you can't really make a distinction between what is a "camcorder" versus a PDA that just happens to have enough memory to record the whole movie. If you come in with a Treo, no one is going to say anything. If you come in with your collapsible tripod asking for assistive hearing devices, or you get caught with a video camera out in the theater, you're going to get nailed.
I agree that this situation is ridiculous, and when it goes to trial, she probably (hopefully?) won't be punished. But even in this case it wasn't like the recording was incidental. The theater and others involved can't guess intent. Sure, they had the "discretion" to not do anything, but why is that in their lap? How are they to decide who's going to upload movies and who is "recording a 20 second clip to get their little brother excited"? The only alternative is to make it all legal, and that doesn't make any sense either.
Bah (Score:5, Insightful)
2) No judge is going to give her a year in prison, even if it was just the first 20 seconds before she got caught
3) Teenagers do dumb things, none of us are any different, and learning to deal with the consequences is part of growing up. Next time, I'm sure she'll be much more sneaky and effective in her attempts at piracy, and I'm sure other teenagers will learn from this example and so will be too.
4) That's ONE teenager with a video camera down, and several hundred thousand, plus the legions of others in less corporately controlled countries to go. Good job, MPAA, you'll have this thing nipped in the bud in no time.
Once again... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Devil's advocate (Score:5, Insightful)
INDEED! Finally, someone is making sense here. I mean a theater manager will NEVER be given a jury summons in his or her life, the statistical likelihood that is basically nil, right. That's a given, right? So, prosecute blindly, using no judgment of any kind. And, by that token, every 15 year old girl taking nude pictures of herself SHOULD at least be TRIED for child pornography. I mean, isn't that *really* what a judge and jury is for? To make sure we never forced, as a culture and a as society, to acquire the slightest shred of a collective level of common sense?
Re:Devil's advocate (Score:5, Insightful)
The theater wasn't the "content owner."
The theater is acting as an agent for a trade association, which is in turn acting as an agent for a movie studio, an so on.
That's why they are enforcing this; they are effectively an agent for the content owners.
And the theatre owner doesn't understand the concept of "de minimus" - the law doesn't deal in trifles. They're just being dickheads. A 20-second clip isn't a clear case of copyright infringement, since copyright allows for short exerpts to be used without the copyright owners' permission, for example, in reviews.
I already spoke to that in my post.
Let me be clear: I agree that the theater had the discretion to ignore it, simply kick the person out, etc. And they may have been being dickheads, after the person explained what she was doing, assuming she did.
But why should the theater owner be put in that position? Camcorders and recording aren't allowed in movie theaters. That's what she was doing, and she even admits that it wasn't incidental (e.g., recording of a group of friends that just happened to be in the theater); she was recording the movie itself.
Talking about fair use and so on and how long clips can be is so out of the purview of what the theater should be dealing with that it's utterly ridiculous. As I said, the only way to solve this is to:
1.) Have recording in theaters be completely legal, or
2.) Specify the length of clips allowable, and have theaters police the length of clips recorded in theaters.
Do you really think 2.) is possible, and that 1.) is fair?
Re:Devil's advocate (Score:1, Insightful)
Yep. I am angry about this so I don't think I will be going to any Regal movie theatres any time soon. If Regal is the only chain showing what I want to see, I will just wait for netflix.
Legal or not, I don't want to pay money to people who are inclined to treat their own customers this badly for such trifles.
Nonsense (Score:2, Insightful)
Back in '39 when I was in the Marines, shop owners and schools and others had leeway and a little bit of good sense. If a kid swiped something in a store, the store owner could call the police, call the kid's parents, or give the kid a bit of a bad time to work off paying for the item or whatever seemed appropriate for the situation. Schools could show some good sense as well; but now-a-days, schools go stark staring berserk when a kid brings in a paring knife in to eat an orange, or the school cops use Tasers on 12-year olds having a tantrum.
The days of having a sense of proportion in the United States are over. "Zero tolerance" is a bad tool, and takes away any shred of individual judgment or good sense. It makes it easy to ruin someone or make them miserable with the excuse of "I was just following orders."
I stopped buying music because I dislike the policies and prices of members of the RIAA. I really don't like the movie theater experience any longer: Dirty theaters, insane prices for bad popcorn, and 22 minutes of commercials before the movie begins. My local library is a GREAT place to check out DVD movies and CD music.
If you do not like an entity's policies or prices, don't give them your money.
Good, maybe she'll learn something. (Score:2, Insightful)
Honestly, if someone in front of you opened up a camera and started recording even a short bit of the movie wouldn't that piss you off? It's just something you should have the common sense to not do, moreso because of the people around you than it's piracy.
copyright violations should not equal a felony (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Devil's advocate (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Another KDawson special (Score:2, Insightful)
As an aside.. I've noticed people bitch about
One, submit better stories.. or
Two, go read Digg
Re:Devil's advocate (Score:3, Insightful)
Because it is reasonable to expect that, as the theatre is acting (as you put it in a subsequent post) as an agent for the copyright owner, that a certain amount of enforcement power be granted them. Whether or not her recording, excerpt or no, falls within the bounds of the fair use doctrine is not germane to the case. It is reasonable to ban *all* recording because while the theatre, as agent, should be delegated the authority to remove a recorder and its operator from the theatre premises and destroy any resulting recording, it is *not* reasonable to delegate to that agent the power to make determinations as to what falls under fair use. The harm to the individual and to the public at large in this case is insignificant.
Re:Devil's advocate (Score:5, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Devil's advocate (Score:5, Insightful)
Personally, if I were the girls parents, I'd make sure everybody, and I really mean everybody, in the surrounding area knew the facts about the case and that the girl wasn't trying to pirate the movie. Regal Cinemas is in a position to know whether this act really constituted a willful violation of copyright. They are also in a perfect position to ask for the charges to be dropped. If they choose not to, they deserve to lose every customer they have. Laws can be a good thing, but when a law itself causes people to abandon human decency, it needs to be changed or repealed.
Re:Devil's advocate (Score:5, Insightful)
Law & Order enforces civility on those that aren't capable of it. It's not supposed to be a crutch.
Re:Devil's advocate (Score:5, Insightful)
But more importantly: WHY should she get ANY kind of punishment? "Zero-tolerance" is an american term invented to justify the lawyers actions. It's a shame that the US judiciary system allows itself to be abused that way, for so little and insignificant things.
Let me put it this way: if these things continue, soon we'll be only allowed to hear music on earphones. Because if you listen too loud in your house and SOMEONE can hear it from the street, then you're doing a public playback of your music, and you will certainly go to jail for that!
Re:Regal Cinema (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:So there I was... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:the test of civilization (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Devil's advocate (Score:5, Insightful)
If they whipped it out again (the cell phone cam, you perv!), then they've been warned. The manager should have marched down, and told them they now have to leave the theater. He'd refund their ticket, and it would be a lesson learned.
The association can go on all they want about no being able to train their managers to be judge and jury, but y'know what? If your managers can't figure out how to handle minor situations like this, hire different managers. I mean, this is Theatre Management 101 stuff here. This is a goshdamn INTERVIEW question. "You're on shift, and one of your ushers reports he saw some kids using a camera phone. What do you do?"
I don't buy the theater's "We can't train our managers", and I don't buy any "I was just following orders" from the manager. This whole situation is just a big pile of derailed common sense. If the kids had displayed it, they wouldn't have taped the movie. If the manager had displayed it, he wouldn't have called the police. And if the theater displayed it, they wouldn't have pressed charges.
Re:Stupid... (Score:3, Insightful)
How does a theatre know if you're video taping all of the movie or just part of it? How do they know which person in a theatre is using the video camera for "fair use" or for "piracy"? I think they need to take a stand, but that doesn't mean she deserves a harsh punishment.
I would think a 19 year old would have more common sense, but maybe common sense is relative. Having a camcorder in a movie theatre just seems like a real bad idea to me.
Re:Devil's advocate (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes this makes it harder to stop other crimes, but when it's personal liberties being pitted against corporate profits, I'm going to support the protection of liberties even if it means that companies lose a bit of money due to illegal actions. (In the same way that I'd rather have a guilty man go free than put an innocent man behind bars.)
Furthermore, with increasingly ubiquitous recording technology (built into laptops, phones, etc.), a rule against "recording devices in theaters" makes less and less sense.
Re:Devil's advocate (Score:5, Insightful)
Now I am as anti-gun-control as they come, but even I have to take a pause here.
Air marshals carry guns. That much is true. But their guns are loaded with "light" ammunition to make sure that the bullet doesn't go through the target and damage something important. I don't think I'd feel like I was done a favor if some Dirty Harry type shoots a bunch of holes in the plane trying to take down a hijacker. Also, airplanes have other issues that suggest that having everyone armed to the teeth would be a less than helpful idea:
Combine these points and I think you wind up with a dozen or so extra fatalities every year from incidents that get out of hand.
Of course, we could only really be talking about concealable weapons. Can you imagine trying to stow a 12 gauge under the seat in front of you?
In the year 3000... (Score:4, Insightful)
After all your brain is holding valuable IP and you only paid to experience that IP once. Through your memories you could illegally exchange that IP with others or play back parts of it in your mind.
If i have noticed anything its "if we have the technology to restrict it we will".
Re:the test of civilization (Score:1, Insightful)
When the punishment is more severe than the crime (i.e. locking a person in a cage for anything short of than physical force), there is no justice. I agree with you there.
However, when the punishment is less severe than the crime, there is also no justice. Why? Becuase the victim is short-changed, no matter how you spin it. Not the government or the lawmakers -- their opinions are quite irrlevant, as they are not the victims -- but the actual individual who is harmed by the aggressor.
The answer is simple: restitution [wikipedia.org]. The is only one moral and just system of law, and unfortunately it has never truly existed in this world: every crime should be punished with complete and total resitution for the actual victim (not the state). Only crimes of physical force warrent locking human beings in the cage, because they pose an actual threat to other human beings; all other crimes should be dealt with according to the loss of the victim (including compensatory damages [wikipedia.org]).
Of course, all of this requires that every crime have an actual, real-life victim, which rules out 99% of what passes as "crime" in the US today. Most "crimes" are not real crimes against real people -- they are crimes against the state, the power elite who control the government and decide the law.
Re:Who can argue (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Devil's advocate (Score:3, Insightful)
Many make the case that DRM is worthless, because only one person needs to break it and then the content can be freely distributed. Okay, I buy that.
Well, that's the same case here. The problem is that you can't target redistribution. What are we going to do, "shut down" BitTorrent? Impossible. You stop it at the source, which is recording in theaters, which is where the recordings made in theaters, well, come from.
So while I agree with the spirit of what you're saying, you and I both know it's impossible to "target" internet redistribution of the content. I understand that you are taking a fundamentally different viewpoint, and see no problem with any losses or negative impact that might be sustained by, e.g., content owners, because you believe recording anything you see is a fundamental civil or human right. I firmly disagree with that position, and believe that legal frameworks are allowable to prevent redistribution of copyrighted content, as well as what enables such redistribution.
What you're arguing implies that recording whole movies in the theater is acceptable for personal use. I can almost agree with that. The only problem is that there is no way whatsoever to know what will become of that content. Is that the person who wants to watch a camcorded version of the movie at home for private consumption (frankly, very, very unlikely)? Or is that the person who is going to upload it to BitTorrent for his little ego stroke or points with his movie piracy group (very, very likely)?
I don't believe wholesale recording in theaters is fair or should be allowed, and therefore no recording in theaters can really be allowable from a practical standpoint, and that's where our disagreement will lie.
Better yet... (Score:5, Insightful)
Make it 20 years.
Seriously, how long will it take before people realize that crimes such as murder and rape are much less severe than threatening the profits of a corporation?
Look, we're a capitalist country here. Money is everything. Nobody cares about your so-called rights unless there's a dollar to be made from it. If you don't like it, I'm sure there's some socialist country up north that you could move to. After you serve your year in jail.
Thank you slashdot (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:the test of civilization (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem with Sharia is actually on the "Islamic protestant" movements that began developing from the XVIII century onwards. These guys [wikipedia.org] disregarded (and still disregard) the more reasonable versions of the Sharia developed in centuries past by the orthodox Muslim scholars, and apply the Koranic laws literally. Nowadays they would remain a very minor sect inside Islam weren't for the fact that Western empires (in the XIX and XX centuries) saw their radicalism as an useful tool in destabilizing Islamic regimes in places they were interested in, thus financing and protecting them. So much that even today USA is still giving tons of money to Saudi Arabia, which in turn uses this money to fund the spreading of literalist Islam.
Stop funding Islamic literalists with one hand while promoting anti-Western hatred in Middle East with the other, and in some decades, luckily years, the non-literal, non-absurd, non-terrorism-promoting, non-evil, orthodox Sharia will become mainstream again over there.
Re:Devil's advocate (Score:5, Insightful)
Had an usher taken what you claim to be the common sense approach, there would have been no newspapaer article and no front page Slashdot story. No one would be getting their heavy dose of "we're not kidding around about this no videotaping rule". For the few holdouts still left who think that maybe they are going to get off with a light flick in the face this is a newsflash: We are going to call the police and you will be arrested. This isn't an ethical issue for the theater, like is it for Slashdot. She could legally be arrested so she was, because that is what is best for business.
I know Slashdot conventional wisdom is that if the **AAs treat people poorly enough they'll stop giving them their money, but that does not seem to be the case with the public in general. People seem to be quite willing to put up with nearly anything in trade for pop culture.
Why not tell them you put it in your car? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Devil's advocate (Score:5, Insightful)
Most any zero tolerance policy is, IMHO, a strong indicator of dickheadery in action.
Re:Devil's advocate (Score:5, Insightful)
Would that be just like the public outcry over Dmitry Sklyarov resulted in his swift and speedy release?
I know there'd be some outrage over the incident but there's just too much to be pissed off about recently. They could send her to jail for 10 years and the only response would be that theater receipts would fall a little more. To see what I mean, there are people right here arguing that it's entirely reasonable and fair to take someone to trial over a 20 second clip of a movie recorded on a cell phone.
I find it particularly disturbing that people would actually say it's not fair to the theater owner to expect him to exercise his discretion on whether to prosecute someone. Yeah, it's not like we actually want people to act as thinking beings instead of little automatons with no will of their own.
The only reason this ridiculous travesty of justice is occurring is because the copyright holder lobbies have successfully bribed, wheedled, and lied their way into making recording a criminal offense. If it was still a civil offense the theater would have taken her camera, or kicked her out of the theater and that would have been the end of it. It's because the theater and the MPAA can now force the American public to pay for their vain lawsuits that they are pursuing action on this. After all, why not, when 300 million other people are footing the bill?
here's what I have a problem with... (Score:3, Insightful)
Total bullshit. Pirating didn't cost the movie industry anywhere near 18.2 billion dollars, and anyone who believes those absurd numbers is a fool or a congressman.
In reality, it's coming from a much thinner slice of everyone's entertainment dollar, extrapolated over some imaginary numbers to get a huge number that makes people scared. Follow up with a few million dollars thrown around to the right congressmen (shockingly less than $300k per lawmaker that gets a bribe, er campaign contribution), and you suddenly have legitimacy for a very fake number.
Movie receipts are up. Theaters are doing better than ever these days, primarily thanks to something we never saw at a theater before... 10+ minutes worth of real commercials before the show. Remember when you went to a movie and the screen was blank for 20 minutes, then the trailers happened and then the movie? Hah! Now, you get some form of 20 minutes of semi-entertainment features ("the 20" or "screenvision" or whatever your brand has) which is saturated with advertisements. Then the commercials before the trailers, which at worst used to be an advertisement for the concession stand, now it's a cellphone ad, a mountain dew ad, a car ad and who knows what else, the same as you'd see on television. Pure profit for the theater owners with a captive audience that they can measure almost exactly.
Did the price of a movie ticket go down? Absolutely not, I'm sure it's been steadily climbing in very tiny increments (.25 here, .50 there) and so do the concession prices. We all know that your average carbonated beverage costs at most $.25 per liter, yet in the magical boundaries of a movie theater a large beverage (free refills!) will run you $4+. Popcorn? $4 for even a small bag of popcorn that won't even last through the previews.
So, the price of entertainment keeps going up. We don't devote all of our free resources to the same source of entertainment, especially when the quality of the product isn't necessarily consistent.
If a guy has $100/mo he can devote to entertainment 5 years ago, lets assume that he gets a %5 raise every year, and can still devote the same portion of money to entertainment today. Guy has a whole $25 extra per month to spend on things. (this is assuming that at some point Guy didn't decide to buy a house, a new car, start a family, move across the country or discover a new hobby of course and we're assuming that Guy is still quite boring and does the same things today as he did 5 years ago). 5 Years ago, a movie might have cost $6-7, now it's $10-11. A CD was $12-15, now it's $16-17. DVD movies, $15 before, now $20. Even video games that were previously $40-50, are now $50-60. All of the things you spend your entertainment dollar on, are increasing their prices much higher and faster than the rate of advancement for most people's income. So what happens? People stop buying as much of some things. Less video games, less movies, less music, etc.
Unfortunately, the reaction to their own price increases and lowered value is to blame piracy.
"Ninety percent of recently released films that are pirated are done by camcording in movie theaters," said Kori Bernards, a spokeswoman for the Motion Picture Association of America. "It's happening all over.
Okay, so it's happening. We've got it. We saw it on Seinfeld 10 years ago, and it was clever then, now it's not. But is it doing anything? Are the kind of people who download a crap looking handheld camera recording of a movie really the kind of person who's actually going to pay $10 to see the movie at the theater? I've never met the person who's said that they'd rather sit at home and watch a grain
This is a good thing... (Score:2, Insightful)
To theater or not to theater (Score:2, Insightful)
+ watching it the day it comes out
+ watching it uncut (examples: Batman Begins dvd has Scarecrow CGI scenes reduced and Lion King dvd has Scar vs Simba fight edited into only 3 hits while original was a full blown 5 minute battle)
+ nice surround sound
- expensive ($10 per ticket and lots for food)
- strangers shouting and babies crying
- pimple-faced ushers/managers waving flashlights around
So is it worth it to go to the theaters and put up with the crap? I think it all depends on the individual's set up at home. If you have a nice set up, then staying at home is the better alternative. If you have a 20 year old tv, then go to the theaters. One thing I didn't factor is the movie-hopping experience which WILL mitigate the price issue if you watch at least 3 movies with one ticket.
Re:I don't understand the thinking... (Score:3, Insightful)
The only reason she needs is that she wants to. But in this case she probably thought the current scene being shown was pretty cool and wasn't necessarily in the trailer, she also just wanted to play with her new camcorder
That's just the thing, you don't have to have a reason to do something legal. If I were to spin around in my chair right now for no reason, should I be put in jail?
Oh, I don't know, he could have asked them what they were up to. If a kid is walking around a store putting stuff in his pockets how do they know he wasn't trying to steal all of it? They law is pretty clear about this, you can't stop the kid until he's past the point of no return, ie. walking passed the register without paying. And even if they were planning on taping the whole movie, they probably would have lied and said it was just for a moment, but now they know they're being watched and wouldn't dare try and record any more, potential crime averted. And if the theater manager wanted to be tough about it, he can ask them to leave. It's the theater's property and they don't have to allow them to stay if they break the rules, but since there's also nothing illegal about what they did either he shouldn't be able to take their footage or delete the clip.
Re:Devil's advocate (Score:2, Insightful)
I know you're an anonymous troll, but...
Recording a movie in the theater--even if that's what she was doing--is pointless.
1) Those that are going to pirate the movie are going to get a high-quality copy obtained from somewhere else, not from an in-theater video recording.
2) Those that are going to stay home and watch a piss-poor quality movie aren't the bulk of the people. I suppose I could find brand new movies online even before they're released, but I don't because going to the movies is something I do with my wife to have an enjoyable time, usually preceded or followed by dinner or some other activity. If the movie is entertaining, great. But there's no reason to pay $30-$40 for a night at the movies if what you're really concerned about is absorbing the content. That price is only justified because of the fact that it is a social event that people like to do to get out of the house. That's not going to change just because I can get some lame free copy online.
In short, the number of people that are going to stop going to the movies because they can get some shabby copy online for free is minimal.
The Problem With Zero Tolerence (Score:4, Insightful)
Zero tolerance is simply an abdication of responsibility and common sense.
A friend of mine runs ZeroIntelligence.net [zerointelligence.net], which documents this sort of thing.
Re:Devil's advocate (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Why not tell them you put it in your car? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Devil's advocate (Score:4, Insightful)
I admit it is a "hard line" stance to say that the right to record anything I see is more important than economic concerns. I further admit that the only reason I take this stance is because of my inherent misgivings about copyright law itself. I don't see it as a law that protects the greater good very efficiently, and so I don't see transgressions against it as being all that bad. In particular, I think that when it comes to personal actions (recording what I see, modifying hardware I own, etc.), these should take priority over laws intended to protect the current economics of creative works (e.g. DMCA). So I question the laws themselves.
I don't like being treated like a criminal when I play a DVD in Linux (even though I guess I'm breaking the DMCA), and I wouldn't like being treated like a criminal for recording something I see happening.
Besides, the ethics, of course, is the pragmatic question of how useful such enforcement actually is. As with the DRM example, only one theater has to miss a camcorder (or accept a bribe), and the entire enforcement effort was wasted. The proliferation of bootlegs suggests that current enforcement is not effective (yet it still gets in the way of the lives of normal people). I don't think ever-stricter laws are an efficient way to deal with the perceived problem of widespread copyright infringement.
Re:Devil's advocate (Score:2, Insightful)
I go to at least one movie a week with my wife. In the last year, I can't recall a single time where a cell phone in the theater has rung. Maybe people here are just more polite.
Perhaps you missed the part of my message where I said that people might have other places to go before or after they go to the movie, and perhaps they don't want to leave a valuable in their car. I don't have the phone with me in the theater to use, I have it with me because it's always with me.
Re:Devil's advocate (Score:5, Insightful)
You seem to be using strict legal extremes to dodge the points about common civility. Do you have ANY advice for the theatre owners other than call the cops? Are you advocating an extreme legal state where every action has to be heavily considered due to potentially absurd consequences?
Remember the crime that is trying to be stopped here. Illegal recording. There are MANY ways to stop illegal recording that do not require law enforcement. In this specific example, the girl was caught within 20 seconds. That time includes walking down to her, figuring out it was her doing the recording, and going into the whole "You need to leave, give up your phone, etc" speech. In that same amount of time, they could have stopped the film. That's right. Just turned it off. The illegal recording would have stopped instantly - and there may even be some argument for the theatre being REQUIRED to take this step to protect the content that they control ad hoc. Do that enough times and you'll have the audience policing itself with no added drain on the legal system or loss from the copyright holder.
There are advocates of "teach a lesson" that would let an 8-year old pocket a candy bar and THEN have security shake them down. They are within their legal rights. But everyone knows the real lessons taught here: "Fear the MAN." That same person could have made other choices about the candy bar like calling the kid out themselves. Entirely different lessons learned. It is this gray area of "lessons" where the human element, not legally mandated, is important. I can't tell from what you're saying where you fall on the human side of this issue. The legal side is quite clear.
Re:Devil's advocate (Score:3, Insightful)
First of all, no theft occurred, so you shouldn't muddy the waters by pretending it did. Second of all, there's something called discretion. Do you dial 911 whenever you see someone jaywalking? It is illegal, you know. Is it your responsibility to call the police, ensure that the jaywalkers get arrested, and let a judge and jury decide their guilt? You probably would call 911 if someone broke into your house while you were there, and started stealing things. Catching someone aiming a camera at a screen in your movie theatre is somewhere between those extremes. You could choose to ignore it, to give them a verbal warning, to kick them out of the theatre, or you could call the police.
As for why the theatre should be able to use this kind of discretion, because they're human beings, and they're running a business. A business shouldn't alienate its customers, so before taking extreme measures they should really decide they're justified. And, as humans, they should have some empathy for someone who may be breaking the law, but not in a malicious, calculated, willful way, and not cause them undue hardship.
Does it really? What is the acceptable length of a clip?
Didn't you just say that "fair use" does specify how long a clip is allowed to be?
Re:Devil's advocate (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Why not tell them you put it in your car? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I don't understand the thinking... (Score:1, Insightful)
As for "how does the theater know"? It's actually rather obvious. For one, she was not recording moments later. They should have gone down to talk to her-- tell her that according to policy they need to temporarily confiscate the camcorder and review the recent recording. When she told them about the 20 seconds and the fact that it wasn't recording the should have offered (1) to let her continue watching while they take the camera in and review the last few moments or (2) come with them to review with them the last few moments recorded.
Upon seeing that she was telling the truth and that nothing was stolen, they should have held onto the camera until she was done watching. Then they should have either (1) let her keep the 20 seconds or (2) erased the 20 seconds with her there. Then they should have informed her that their policy does not allow recording devices in the theater and that if she was seen doing this again, she would risk being removed and possibly banned. That should have been sufficient. She would have been a little shaken, but a little wiser, and probably even grateful.
The problem here is, the way the article reads, she seems to be innocent and to have committed no crime and Regal seems to be behaving in a very inappropriate way (quite the reversal of the way Regal wants it to be). The girl made a technical violation of policy and, due to their zero-tolerance action, they are now (in my opinion) just as vile as those who they wish to prosecute, the thieves.
Opposite extremes tend to be very similar and for this reason, fighting one extreme with its opposite solves nothing. It just shifts the problem or adds to it. They want it to be black-and-white, hence the zero-action, but, I'm sorry, life rarely conforms to that ideal. Regal needs to make a reasonable and moderate policy. Yeah they'll be borderline cases, but that's simply how it is everywhere. Adjust it as the policy needs tweaking.
I doubt they will prosecute her because of obviously wrong they were. Not to mention, this is getting them a lot of bad press. It remains to be seen though whether they will appologize or try to get her to settle on a small fine that they will want her to pay. I hope it's the former.
<rant> On a similar side note. My wife told me recently that our 4 year old stole some stuff from a store as she was paying and didn't notice until they got home. Now our daughter is bright and knew it was wrong, but she's not yet fully aware of consequences (to her and to others). She's young. My wife, a few days later, took our daughter back to that store to hand return the and appologize. And you know what, they understood! While they could have said "well, she robbed us and we want to prosecute", they didn't. They realized that there was no malicious intent, it was just a kid making a stupid mistake. (Of course, that a lot more obvious when the kid's _that_ young, but that's not the point. Anyway, I doubt my daughter will try that again. </rant>
My two cents.
--Dave Romig, Jr.
Re:Devil's advocate (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, that whole "plane explodes" bit might actually encourage the hijackers. If the whole goal was "plane explodes" then they'd say to themselves, "Heck, we don't even really have to be able to fly the plane or anything, we can just piss off the passengers and they'll blow up the plane for us. Much less work on our part."
The parent actually mentioned 911, who's whole point was to kill people, not steal an airplane. Having the passengers blow themselves up is really much, much easier than having to take over the cockpit, make sure the passengers are well controlled, etc. In the case of 911, they probably would've been able to hijack many more planes with far less manpower. One guy stands up saying he's taking over the airplane, plane explodes.
Re:Devil's advocate (Score:3, Insightful)
Court is supposed to be a last resort, not a first resort. This is how America has gotten so totally fucked and the lawyers so damned rich.
Re:Devil's advocate (Score:3, Insightful)
Common sense? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Why not tell them you put it in your car? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Devil's advocate (Score:3, Insightful)
Go to the cinema? That is old hat (Score:3, Insightful)
Movie theaters are history. Why would anyone would pay the price equal to a good DVD for the privilege to risk being prosecuted in a sticky theater with farting and sweaty people shoulder to shoulder.
Re:Why not tell them you put it in your car? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Why not tell them you put it in your car? (Score:2, Insightful)
If you're talking about something more serious, well, THERE ARE RULES ALLOWING YOU TO DISREGARD ILLEGAL ORDERS.
Kill yourself now.
Re:Devil's advocate (Score:4, Insightful)
Or what? What would happen if the manager said, "Ok, please don't do that, enjoy the rest of the movie?"
Would anyone *ever* find out about it? If someone did, would there be a huge lawsuit? Would he lose his job? No!
And if the answer is yes, then that's exactly what we're complaining about here.
That's being an automaton. Being a slave to some words on a piece of paper to the point that you put yourself in ridiculous situations that are clearly not the intention of the contract.
This country is going to hell in a handbasket because nobody can distinguish between rules and morality, and it's simply due to intellectual laziness.
Get the manager to give you a refund? (Score:3, Insightful)
There are a couple of reasons for doing so - one is to get your ~$10 back, or possibly to get the manager to tell the goon to let you in, but more important is to keep the management aware that what they're doing is stupid and annoying and will lose them customers.
*Everybody* has phones, and almost all phones these days have cameras whether they need them or not, and it's none of the theater's business to mess with you about them, even though you *could* use them to take grainy out-of-focus clips of the movie. Hassling people who bring in professional-quality shoulder-mounted cameras is a different matter (:-), but even professional-quality stuff keeps getting smaller.
What's really interesting about this situation.. (Score:5, Insightful)
..is that she isn't being accused of criminal copyright infringement [cornell.edu]. That law depends on the definition of copyright infringement, which in turn lists various exemptions, such as Fair Use. It's something most peopel are familiar with, and has centuries of history behind it.
Fair Use is not a factor in this case. It's not a valid defense, even though on the surface and to most laymen, this sounds like a story about copyright infringement. It's not. Anyone who says, "Oh, it won't be so bad, because clearly this is Fair Use," does not understand what is happening here.
She's accused of using an audiovisual recording device in a theater [cornell.edu], which is a different law and which contains no references to copyright infringement, and has no exemptions. It's like the anti-circumvention prohibition in DMCA, where it simply outlaws a possibly non-infringing activity, without regard for why you're doing it, without exempting activities that most people assume are perfectly fair, since those activities do not harm a copyright holder's market in any way. (Though it might harm their other markets, e.g. selling playback devices.)
These are radical new laws. Common sense and centuries of tradition and common law, do not apply! The layman doesn't even know this crap exists, or he thinks it's merely a refinement or update to copyright law.
It's ironic when some Slashdotters say things like, "the media companies need to update their business models and get with the times." Don't you see? They have. They've purchased new restrictions that go far beyond any normal person's expectations or knowledge. It's happening right under your nose, and the scum who are voting for and signing these laws, go unpunished in elections.
Why would they be punished? Only nerds and pedants care about the details of law, and the principles that it rests upon.
Re:Why not tell them you put it in your car? (Score:3, Insightful)
I was "just following orders" is as inadequate an excuse for minor bad behavior as it is for major bad behavior, though the consequences are of course far less in the minor case.
Allowing "just following orders" lets the decisionmakers leave nobody to answer for the trouble their decisions cause -- they are insulated by their underlings, and their underlings are protected because they didn't make the decision, so those subject to the decision must suffer in silence.
Re:Why not tell them you put it in your car? (Score:3, Insightful)
Then he would have gotten the runaround. No one would admit to making the policy, no one would admit to being able to change it. That's the way it nearly always is with unpopular policies. If you try to follow the chain of responsibility, it either loops (someone lied) or trails off (e.g. "for insurance reasons", but you can't find anyone at the insurance company who will discuss it).
Re:What? What country are you living in? (Score:2, Insightful)
But so are they.
The reason being they police their own property, when you don't (want to) comply they have every right to disallow you entry.
Re:This is what juries are for (Score:1, Insightful)
The correct answer to that question is "yes". You will be able to. Whether you are willing to do so or not is a different question.
Re:Devil's advocate (Score:1, Insightful)
I hate tards who can't follow the rules. The shit is printed on the back of every fucking ticket. They have the little clip with pictures saying "no phones, no cameras, etc" after the previews in a lot of them now....
Sorry - ignorance of the rules doesn't stand up, when they are presented to you before you even sit down.
People get pulled over for speeding. "Sorry officer, I didn't realize I was doing 65 in a 60", but yet, you broke the law, you knew the law, "not realizing it" just means you are a fucking retard.
I don't think the kid should go to jail - it's obvious that she wasn't capturing the whole movie to distribute on the net...
But the kid should go to court...deal with the consequences of the actions SHE CHOSE to do, and go about her life. Probation/deferred sentece would be perfect.
I'm sorry, but people claiming ignorance is what causes so many problems in today's world. They need to be fucking slapped in the face from time to time to show them reality.
Re:Sell someone out, make some cash (Score:3, Insightful)
That alone should give anyone reason for pause. If a person making a sworn statement accepts money from a third party as a "reward" for making the statement then it should make the validity of said statement null and void or at the very least *highly* suspect. It is nice to note that in your case you didn't give into the "Dark Side" by selling out the homeless man. Very commendable.
Re:Why not tell them you put it in your car? (Score:2, Insightful)
This is one of the situations where you don't have to lie and you're just being a lazy ass. Be articulate. Instead of being all negative try to also be positive. "Hmm, it would look better with a different belt", try to identify what you don't like about it. Be honest, get your honest opinion across, but try to spend more than 2 seconds forming an opinion or you'll be "in the doghouse". Delicacy in this case is not lying. Delicacy in this case is showing awareness of another person's feelings whilst getting the/your truth across. There are cases where delicacy means lying, but this isn't one of them by a long shot.
Re:What? What country are you living in? (Score:3, Insightful)
If there is determined to be a constitutional right to a certain level of privacy, then there are certain limitations that might come into play as far as waiving those rights are concerned. The contract itself could be illegal.
Re:What? What country are you living in? (Score:1, Insightful)