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.
Re:Devil's advocate (Score:4, 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.
Re:Devil's advocate (Score:5, Informative)
Not necessarily true. We had tickets to some random movie preview 10 months ago. As always, I had my phone with me as required for work (if the servers go down...). The goon at the door saw that my phone had camera capability and denied me entrance. After an extended, polite, kafkaesque conversation, my wife watched the movie while I drank coffee and read a book next door.
Why not tell them you put it in your car? (Score:3, Insightful)
What? What country are you living in? (Score:3, Informative)
WRONG!
The only person who can search you - EVER - is a police officer* with a warrant. Nobody else gets to search you.
Not even a police officer just for the hell of it. S/he has to have a warrant (or probable cause) or they can't search you without your permission.
You CAN NOT get searched by some fucking minimum wage fuckwad at a movie theater. You're going to watch Transformers, not fly to Afghanistan. If they start searching, then stay home. IT IS NOT A CRIMINAL ACT TO GO TO A THEATER.
Besides, most the
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:4, Funny)
Re:Why not tell them you put it in your car? (Score:5, Informative)
http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=1047-7039(199308
http://www.springerlink.com/content/r3n4241065781
http://www.thomsoncustom.com/cj/cases/MOD018.pdf [thomsoncustom.com]
http://www.leaonline.com/doi/abs/10.1207/s1532782
Re:Why not tell them you put it in your car? (Score:4, Interesting)
Maybe you should accept what is. The reality of human interaction is that not only do people not need perfect honesty from others, they don't want it. To a certain degree, we want the imperfections of our existence covered up, only intruding when they must. Do you truly believe that when your wife, girlfriend or significant other asks you "does this dress make me look fat?" that she wants an honest answer? If you do, you're an idiot, because you'll hurt her feelings for really no good reason, and I hope you have a comfortable sofa. In any event, a simple lie is not only the best answer in that case, but is fully expected. Indeed, a liberal application of social grease.
Frequently, such minor dissembling helps us avoid more serious situations that would do neither side any good. A true "little white lie" is generally told in order to avoid a conflict, to avoid hurting someone unnecessarily, not to acquire something undeserved. So yes, a certain amount of lying is essential, because people aren't perfect and neither is any social order we've yet invented. No-one with even basic observational skills should require a scientific study to figure this out. Ever lied to your boss because you know that he'll react inappropriately? More social grease, and it happens all the time. Honesty is not always the best policy.
And science most certainly does "prove" things
Re:Why not tell them you put it in your car? (Score:5, Funny)
How's that for honesty? If everyone was 100% honest all the time, you would probably hear it a lot.
Re:Why not tell them you put it in your car? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Why not tell them you put it in your car? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Why not tell them you put it in your car? (Score:5, Insightful)
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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 su
Re:Why not tell them you put it in your car? (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Why not tell them you put it in your car? (Score:5, Funny)
If you're genuinely thick enough to think the comparison is valid, then you're not worth talking to.
"Right after you go fuck yourself."
Done! Your turn, I have full faith you'll follow through with our agreement.
Re: (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:Devil's advocate (Score:5, Interesting)
Are you serious? If that's the approach they're going to take, pretty soon they'll be showing their movies to empty theaters. Most phones have video recording capabilities these days. And people aren't going to leave their phone at home (perhaps the movies isn't the only place you're going while you're out) and I for one am not going to leave an expensive phone in my car since, if that's the policy, thieves are going to know that cars outside theaters are target-rich environments for cell phones.
I've always seen the warnings that video recording devices aren't allowed and wondered WTF given the cell phones we have these days. It's a lost cause, really.
The day they don't let me in because my cell phone has a camera is the day I stop going to movies.
Re:Devil's advocate (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Devil's advocate (Score:4, Interesting)
Yes... 25 minutes of ads, or more. Thats 25 minutes of ads after the film starts rolling... but theres more ads you don't take into account (and I don't just mean the ones that are inserted into the movie.... or in the case of Transformers, the ones that the movies plot is built around.)
From the time the film actually starts rolling (the advertised start time of the movie) to the time the actual opening credits begin, there are usually about 5 or 6 trailers, each about 3-4 minutes long. There are also a couple advertisements for commercial brands (soda, jeans, vehicles, etc), and an advertisement soliciting donations for a charity organization. The movie actually starts about 20-30 minutes after the advertised start time.
If you think of it, the movie theater is being paid by the national brands of the movies or the commercial products a figure for x-number of people shown advertisement impressions, so they're making an additional money off that above and beyond the pricing of the ticket they sold.
However, thats not to mention the local advertising that is also shwon on the screen BEFORE the film starts rolling. My local theater is also showing several 30-second clips from about 10-20 local restaurants/pet stores/automotive shops. So, even more money in their pocket.
By the way, have you also noticed all the advertising you are exposed to before you even set foot into the screening area? Plenty of posters lining the outside of the theater, and many decorations inside (and in some theaters, LCD-TV's showing trailers non stop, or in my theater, a LCD projector projecting them onto a empty section of wall above the concession booth.) They are definitely also getting paid to advertise those in prominent positions too.
I wonder, if a movie theater was not permitted to show advertisements prior to the movie, what the price per ticket would be... 20-25 percent more? Probably even more if they also allowed us to bring in reasonable size beverages instead of the over priced concession stand.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Some companies are just as serious about protecting their assets. Even a construction site I was on recently allowed no cameras because of
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Re:Devil's advocate (Score:4, Interesting)
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 thoug
Re: (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 authorit
Re:Devil's advocate (Score:4, Informative)
copyright owner, knowingly uses or attempts to use an audiovisual
recording device to transmit or make a copy of a motion picture or other
audiovisual work protected under title 17, or any part thereof, from a
performance of such work in a motion picture exhibition facility,"
Note: A 20 second clip may or may not be protected under title 17.
IMO this is what is over the top:
(d) Immunity for Theaters.--With reasonable cause, the owner or
lessee of a motion picture exhibition facility where a motion picture or
other audiovisual work is being exhibited, the authorized agent or
employee of such owner or lessee, the licensor of the motion picture or
other audiovisual work being exhibited, or the agent or employee of such
licensor--
``(1) may detain, in a reasonable manner and for a
reasonable time, any person suspected of a violation of this
section with respect to that motion picture or audiovisual work
for the purpose of questioning or summoning a law enforcement
officer; and
``(2) shall not be held liable in any civil or criminal
action arising out of a detention under paragraph (1).
Re:Devil's advocate (Score:5, Interesting)
Exactly. Any judge worth his salt is going to see what's going on here, know that she's not some pirate, and give her nothing. Maybe force her to speak out against piracy. Big whoop.
And if he did sentence her to jail, there would be such a major public uproar that it would bring the MPAA and Crown to their knees.
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?
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.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
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).
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: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: (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 s
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: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.
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Re:Devil's advocate (Score:5, Insightful)
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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, Interesting)
The time should fit the crime.
The amount of police time wasted should fit the crime.
The amount of court time wasted should fit the crime.
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?
Re: (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
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)
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?
Common sense? (Score:3, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Devil's advocate (Score:5, Informative)
Year servced: One year.
Money gained for copyright holder/theater: Negative amounts.
Money gained for prison system: Negative amounts.
Total outcome: Hassle for everyone and shitload of money lost all around.
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Re:Devil's advocate (Score:4, Informative)
Not really.
Many different people have to decide this. That is how most crimes get prosecuted. Usually, but not all of the time, someone has to complain. If the theater had not complained, the kid would certainly not have been arrested.
Second, the police have to care enough to arrest you. The police have a lot of discretion as to whom they have to arrest. Most people on slashdot think this is a bad thing, but they need this discretion to do their job. Now perhaps in this case, the policeman was ordered to make the arrest, but in many other cases he might not have to. Say, a kid stealing a candy bar from a deli, or a fight in a bar were no one really gets hurt.
Next you have to get the prosecutor to take the case. Many cases where there are lawful arrests get dropped because the case has no merit. You might be legally arrested for spitting on the sidewalk in front of a cop, but that doesn't mean the prosecutor HAS to follow though with the case.
An finally we get to the Judge. There is a reason that there are ranges of sentences. That allows a judge to fairly weigh a punishment with a crime. maybe a year would be fair for a hardcore pirate that is working in a theater. this kid would never see a day in jail.
Re: (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, e
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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:Devil's advocate (Score:5, Funny)
Stealing the movie would require removing the reel from the projector, so theoretically you can do it at any point in the film.
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.
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Re:Devil's advocate (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Re:Devil's advocate (Score:5, Informative)
The 'time-shifting case' is Sony v. Universal. Let's see what the Court actually said there (emphasis mine):
Yeah right. (Score:5, Funny)
RTFA (Score:3, Informative)
Regal Cinema (Score:5, Insightful)
By itself, no result.
100,000 times repeated, different story.
Re:Regal Cinema (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Regal Cinema (Score:4, Insightful)
Justice (Score:5, Interesting)
Jean-Luc Picard
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Justice_(TNG_episode
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: (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
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
There were many possible "endings" to the story the theatre could have picked, many legal too. e.g. theatre gives them option 1) Cops or 2) "Give us camera, stay while we check to see if you're telling the truth". If lying - cops, if true, tell them "DO NOT EVER DO THIS AGAIN". Theatre could even "forget and accidently" leave the 20 sec clip there instead of deleting it.
I think the theatre picked a crap e
This is what juries are for (Score:3)
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: (Score:3, Funny)
It isn't much (Score:3, Interesting)
the test of civilization (Score:5, Interesting)
otherwise, it's just revenge
that's why sharia law, for example, is wrong: chopping someone's hand off for stealing, or chopping someone's head off for prostitution, is not civilization
in a society where the punishments are worse than the crimes, injustice is perpetrated by the government, not the criminals
and in turn, the society breeds greater and greater atrocities
justice must always exist, and people must always be punished for crime, and the punishment must not be a simple slap on the wrist, the punishment must be severe for severe crimes
but the punishment must ALWAYS be less severe than the crime itself, or instability rather than stability is bred that society. because you are not teaching people to respect a valid concept (justice), you are teaching them (unsuccessfully) to respect an invalid concept (violence)
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:the test of civilization (Score:5, Insightful)
you're wrong (Score:3, Interesting)
and what if i'm penniless? slavery? work off the punishment? wha tif the going rate is $23 million? my great grandkids must remain slaves to pay off my debt?
of course, this doesn't mean that financial r
Just makes it easy (Score:4, Interesting)
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)
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".
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)
Sell someone out, make some cash (Score:5, Interesting)
"What do you want me to do with this guy?"
The poor dude was mortified anyway, homeless, and ultimately probably wasn't going to post a torrent of his recording or make a bunch of copies and sell the dupes on the street. In the end we just confiscated the tape, escorted him out of the theatre and told him not to show up again, and that was the end of that.
However, here's the big secret that no one is talking about: in the employee room at my theatre, there was a sign saying that any employee who witnessed and reported someone recording a movie, and then gave a sworn statement about it to the police, would get $1000 from the MPAA.
I mean, that has to be what's going on HERE, right? Some employee saw someone with a camcorder and wanted to make some fast cash and was willing to condemn a young woman to get theirs. Heck, that's what I was thinking of when I saw the guy recording Star Wars, that's why we called the police in the first place. Luckily, I realized that I was being a dick before anyone was arrested and charged.
Movie pirating cost the industry $18.2 billion (Score:3, Funny)
Can any of us make up figures like this and get them reported in the Washington Post?
Well of course she should pay... (Score:3, Funny)
So put her in jail and make a big story out of it, 60 minutes, 20/20, etc....
I'm sure Regal will lose more than the amount of her fine and her lost wages...
If she is so innocent than how did she miss the posted signs all of the place telling her not to record?
Unless there were no signs.
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
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.
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.
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: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: (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 somethin
The length is VERY important (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The length is VERY important (Score:4, Funny)
Must...resist... crude..joke...about.. her...slip.....and .. fair..use....
Tm
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
I been caught doing something briefly too. It sucks, but thats life.
That should teach you to lock the door the next time you take a Playboy into the bathroom.
Re:So there I was... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)