Camcorder Jamming Devices Announced

Adam Carrington writes "I'm definitely not behind things like DRM, but Virginia-based Cinea has an idea that I do support... jamming camcorders in movie theaters. CNET has some interesting details on how they plan on going about it. They even throw an unrelated jab at Microsoft." This might be the technology that drives the stake in analog projection.

Comments

Great for Kazaa!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Ending this form of piracy will result in the Hong Kong pirates coming up with better ways to steal movies. Hopefully the next time I download a movie off Kazaa it will be better quality than the last one I downloaded which was made from a camcorder. While I could wait for the DVD rip I prefer watching recent movies without paying

Re:Great for Kazaa!!

[dildatron]

Because neccesity is the mother of invention.

Re:Great for Kazaa!!

[netsharc]

Right on! "Cam" movies are so shitty they're not worth the time it took to download. I'm not sure if most movies are pirated in Hong Kong though, they usually have Chinese and Malay subtitles on-screen, the piracy was proobably done in Malaysia (which has a substantial amount of Chinese people), or any Malaysians know in what languages the subtitles are over there? It's interesting to see that in SE Asia most films come on VCD at the same time as they show up in theaters, but the quality of those VCDs are so bad it makes me wonder if people wouldn't rather go to the movies anyway, both options cost about the same anyway (if you're going alone to the movies, that is).

It's also interesting to note how the MPAA is so mad about "digital quality" copies being made by handheld camcorders. They're simply spreading FUD in saying that camcorders hurt movie sales, true movie lovers wouldn't watch cam'ed shit..

On the other hand, sure this company has developed this new tech, are they going to deploy it in SE Asia though, considering most of the pirated movies come from there?

Re:Great for Kazaa!!

[micahmicahmicah]

I believe that would be, Measure, Counter-Measure. Why haven't they done it already? How can you ask that? I have made a bootleg using my Sony IP5 Camcorder of Spiderman - just to see how it would turn out. The quality was great. However my arm was killing me by the end of the movie. With a proper digital camcorder or a decent capture setup, a bootleg can be of very good quality, barring the washed out colors which plague nearly all bootlegs. As for this new protection - I'd say it's a good guess that using a slightly slow shutter setting would circumvent it. I've already used this on my camera to record from Macrovision protected sources. It's also a great way to capture from TV's and Monitors @ C.E.S. so that you don't get the resulting scanlines. If you were insinuating that there are no better ways. ( when you said "So, why exactly aren't they using the 'better ways' already?" ) You're wrong, there are already better ways, most high quality rips are leaked during post production. Jaxon X, and both American Pie films were leaked with "Insert Credits Here" at the end and a timecode running the full length of the film. Piracy will never die. Any attempts made at stopping it only result in the inevitable reverse engineering of such. In the end, you can view it as a good thing. This saves me money by allowing me to decide which films I am willing to pay for. This also creates countless jobs for those clever people who continue to re-invent security measures. By learning to circumvent such measures, we all become a little smarter.

Re:Great for Kazaa!!

[susano_otter]

"This product is so shitty that I can't justify paying for it! In fact, it's so shitty that I'll take it without paying for it, and use it anyway!"

So let me get this straight: you think these movies aren't worth paying for, but they are worth breaking the law for?

Might as well be honest, and say, "I believe laws to be meaningless and unimportant; breaking them to suit my whims and is ethically--and financially!--sound."

I'm beginning to suspect that being a good citizen may actually be more important than warezing bad movies, largely due to the utter inanity of arguments such as yours. If you have a rational, ethically coherent argument to support the claim that warezing movies = good citizenship, I'd be interested to hear it.

Re:Great for Kazaa!!

[susano_otter]

Majority what?

More like "majority sucks": that seems to be the lesson of history, anyway.

"Majority rules" is just an excuse to disenfranchise dissenters, really. How about this: let's all vote on a law. We'll all agree ahead of time to abide by the law, whether we voted for it or not. We'll agree to this because we all believe that a system of published conventions that everybody follows is better than the alternatives. Having agreed, we'll vote, according to the principle that our laws will be determined by the approval of a simple majority of authorized voters. Once the vote has been taken, and the results tallied, the law will be passed, and we will all abide by it. Those that don't will be punished according to rules that we have also voted on. Once we've got all that taken care of, then we can talk about "majority rules".

Using "majority rules" to defend an opinion held by you and maybe some other people (note that you haven't even established that the opinion is held by a majority, anyway) is possibly the second or third most retarded thing I've ever heard.

Re:Great for Kazaa!!

[arkanes]

Might as well be honest, and say, "I believe laws to be meaningless and unimportant; breaking them to suit my whims and is ethically--and financially!--sound."

Okay. That should get me in good to be successful in either politics, buissness, or law. Or do you really think that the movers and shakers of the country DON'T think that?

Re:Great for Kazaa!!

[FreeUser]

Might as well be honest, and say, "I believe laws to be meaningless and unimportant; breaking them to suit my whims and is ethically--and financially!--sound."

Some laws are meaningless and unimportant. Laws like those banning couples living together "in sin," laws against various sexual acts between consenting adults, laws against spitting on the sidewalk, or mowing the lawn on Sunday.

Others are quite meaningful. Laws against driving a white van around the greater DC area and sniping individuals while they pump gas or wait for a school bus, for example.

Most fall somewhere in between, and people make reasonable value judgements. Some you may agree with, others you may not, but one thing is certain, even a law worshipping person such as you portray yourself can hardly make it through a single day in the United States without breaking some law or regulation, in some fashion, somewhere along the way. Jaywalking? Speed Limits? Parking too close to the corner, to a fire hidrant? Sneezing in public?

It should be no surprise that so many people's value judgements place a low premium on copyright law, given that it flies in the face of most people's instincts as to right and wrong ("but it isn't wrong to share, is it? According to the cartels, it is now).

Given the plethora of absurd, often outright unjust laws we have to contend with, no one should be the least surprised that a growing segment of the population is finding a growing portion of those laws, particularly those which create and maintain the legal fiction that is "intellectual property", absurd and of no real value.

Nor should anyone be stupid enough to assume that, because some people consider some laws of no value, that automatically, or even frequently, implies that they ascribe no value to all laws. Quite the opposite, in fact.

Re:Great for Kazaa!!

[itwerx]

In literal terms, and as a percentage of net worth, the contents of my wallet will be worth far more to me than the $7 will be to any corporation.
It becomes a matter of scale and perspective.
If a clerk shortchanges you a penny (on purpose or otherwise) do you go back and get it? Of course not.
In fact you probably toss a penny or two into the little penny bowl from time to time for the poor sod that needs one...

Re:Great for Kazaa!!

[Registered Coward v2]

Except piracy deprives the copyright owners of money.

It does?

Explain how a 12 year old (assuming the minimum legal age for labour in the country is 14, and their allowance is $5 per week, starting when they were 7 years old, and that they spend $4.50 already on candy/lunch per week) pirating Photoshop deprives the author of money. I don't think you'll be successful without getting the 12 year old some kind of loan...

I'll ignore the obvious "either stealing is moral or immoral" for a bit.

If your arguement is that it the producer loses no money by your mythical 12 year old's actions, let's establish that as the standard for judging OK in the digital realm. By that argument, it's ok for Kazza or other companies to put sypware on your machine to serve up ads or use unused cpu cycles - which, for flat rate bandwidth pricing, costs you no money - and the cpu only works when you've already decided to turn the PC on. Of course, you may say that their is some infitesimal cost associated with cpu use, the copyright holder alos spends money on copy protection and anti-piracy efforts as well - all because people pirate software. So even the pirate that never would buy still costs the copyright owner.

In fact, the piracy is a benefit to the company in these cases. Now the pirate likes and knows the product they are much more likely to ask to use it at work, which will pay for it to avoid another illegal BSA search 'n siezure.

By that arguement, spam is OK because you may buy something - so stealing time from you is OK if you may eventually find something useful amongst the junk.

Of course, they could just as easily use Linux and some free alternative instead of pirating a copy. Then, if they really liked it, they could eventually convince their employer to use it instead of the commercial alternative.

Re:Great for Kazaa!!

[susano_otter]

I can't really claim to have any special knowledge of what the movers and shakers think, but it often seems to me that they think like that.

I thought this conversation was about you and me, and what we think and do, though. How is the behavior of politicians relevant?

Do you mean that because politicians do it, it must be right for us to do it? Or do you mean that because politicians do not live up to this standard, there is no value in us living up to this standard? Or do you mean that the politicians have established a paradigm in which the only way to improve society is to break the law at our convenience, to satisfy our personal desires? Or have I missed your point entirely?

Re:Great for Kazaa!!

[Catbeller]

Copyright infringement is not "theft". It used to be a civil offense, until RIAA/MPAA/Scientology wrote themselves a really bad law.

Theft is the illegal removal of property, depriving the owner of its use.

Copying a bad recording of a movie screen costs the MPAA absolutely nothing, BS to the contrary. Copies of that quality are worthless in the U.S. market. They would never be offered for sale.

The issue is control, not money.

But I do hate semantic rape such as copying=theft. Such assaults on logic are now ruling the U.S. in so many ways, not the least of which is the semantic manipulation (lying) now flying to justify an attack on a non-aggressor country.

Semantics is important, perhaps the most important thing in the world... the abuse of word logic can kill millions and steal trillions, ultimately.

Re:Great for Kazaa!!

[susano_otter]

I should apologise. I'm not nearly as law-abiding as you seem to think I am. I've lately begun to suspect, though, that my reasons for breaking this law or that are not well thought out. I suspect that my lawbreaking doesn't benefit me as much as I thought, and doesn't benefit my community at all.

When I break a law, it is almost always because I find it too difficult to keep, or change, or repeal: my lawbreaking is a matter of immediate convenience. Sometimes, when challenged, I parrot various catchphrases as an excuse: "The infraction is trivial!"; "The law is unjust!"; "I'm not hurting anyone!"; "Or if I am, they deserve to be hurt!"

On closer inspection, these excuses seem to be unsubstantiated, poorly reasoned, or obviously weak. In the end, my lawbreaking is nothing more than the instant gratification of my desires--hardly a good reason to abandon the conventions of my society (and note that one of these conventions is that all laws, no matter how trivial or annoying must be kept, and those that do not keep them should be punished).

Saying "such and such a law has no value" is very different from saying "keeping the Law has no value". If I find value in the Law--a system of rules to govern peaceful interactions between individuals--then I'd be very upset indeed by bad laws, since I must bear the burden of keeping them even though they do not improve society. It's precisely because I (hypothetically) value keeping the Law that bad laws are so burdensome. But if I find no value in keeping the Law, then specific laws are meaningless to me, whether good or bad. I'll ignore them all at my convenience.

Breaking a law might be the best way to improve society, but it might also contribute to a culture that devalues the Law. How does warezing movies make me a better person and a better citizen? How does it improve my community or enrich society? The answer is not clear to me, except that I know that as long as my arguments are weak, breaking the law does not do any of these things.

Any argument that began, "warezing movies improves the individual and the community because..." would interest me greatly. The arguments I have actually seen show little evidence of any attempt at reasoning, or any real concern for self- or social improvement. Should our motto really be "breaking the law is easier than fighting it"? That hardly seems a solid foundation on which to build a better system.

Re:Great for Kazaa!!

[plumby]

If your arguement is that it the producer loses no money by your mythical 12 year old's actions, let's establish that as the standard for judging OK in the digital realm. By that argument, it's ok for Kazza or other companies to put sypware on your machine to serve up ads or use unused cpu cycles - which, for flat rate bandwidth pricing, costs you no money

If it cost me no money, takes up precisely no cpu and bandwidth that I was using for anything else, and I'm certain that it's not doing anything else, I have absolutely no problem with it. Why should I?

- and the cpu only works when you've already decided to turn the PC on. Of course, you may say that their is some infitesimal cost associated with cpu use, the copyright holder alos spends money on copy protection and anti-piracy efforts as well - all because people pirate software. So even the pirate that never would buy still costs the copyright owner.

That's a bit of a fatuous arguement really, isn't it? If it was the 12 y/o boy's piracy that they were trying to prevent, and the copyright holder was aware that this would not cost him anything, then spending money on copy protection would be a stupid waste of money. The reason that they do spend vast amounts of money on copy protection is to stop pirates who would cost them money (in other words people that would have bought the product if they couldn't have stolen it - this is stealing, is bad, immoral, etc - see the difference?). The 12 y/o's actions are irrelevant to this, and therefore are still not costing money.

By that arguement, spam is OK because you may buy something - so stealing time from you is OK if you may eventually find something useful amongst the junk.

This would only be a valid comparison if the pirate was asking the copyright holder to spend time copying the disks himself. The problem with spam is that it's intrusive. It has an opportunity cost to me. It takes my time (admittedly usually a small amount per mail, but it all adds up) to delete this junk. The copyright holder has no knowledge of this 12 y/o's copying taking place. It doesn't affect him at all.

Of course, they could just as easily use Linux and some free alternative instead of pirating a copy. Then, if they really liked it, they could eventually convince their employer to use it instead of the commercial alternative.

And this helps the copyright holder how? Or are you claiming that piracy of commercial software actually damages open source? You have a point with that last one.

Re:Great for Kazaa!!

[plumby]

So by copying PhotoShop, the makers of PaintShopPro are being damaged? Hmmm. Take the arguement only a little further. He's probably spent that $79 on something else (e.g. some books). If he'd bought PSP, then he'd be depriving the publishers of $79.

Re:Great for Kazaa!!

[Registered Coward v2]

and the cpu only works when you've already decided to turn the PC on. Of course, you may say that their is some infitesimal cost associated with cpu use, the copyright holder alos spends money on copy protection and anti-piracy efforts as well - all because people pirate software. So even the pirate that never would buy still costs the copyright owner.

That's a bit of a fatuous arguement really, isn't it? If it was the 12 y/o boy's piracy that they were trying to prevent, and the copyright holder was aware that this would not cost him anything, then spending money on copy protection would be a stupid waste of money. The reason that they do spend vast amounts of money on copy protection is to stop pirates who would cost them money (in other words people that would have bought the product if they couldn't have stolen it - this is stealing, is bad, immoral, etc - see the difference?). The 12 y/o's actions are irrelevant to this, and therefore are still not costing money.

If you truly believe that taking something is stealing if you could or would have paid money for it, then you have a different view of stealing than I. By that view, it's ok to seneek into no sold out movies, concerts, etc because I wouldn't have paid the cover to get in.

It also means its ok for commercial companies to take open source code and incorporate it into closed projects because:

- doing so costs the original developer nothing because they aren't getting paid,

- the comercial company wouldn't or couldn't buy the code anyway

By that arguement, spam is OK because you may buy something - so stealing time from you is OK if you may eventually find something useful amongst the junk.

This would only be a valid comparison if the pirate was asking the copyright holder to spend time copying the disks himself. The problem with spam is that it's intrusive. It has an opportunity cost to me. It takes my time (admittedly usually a small amount per mail, but it all adds up) to delete this junk. The copyright holder has no knowledge of this 12 y/o's copying taking place. It doesn't affect him at all.

A company still has to sort out who is the casual copier and probably not worth chasing down vs teh serious pirate - which costs money. If only big time pirates existed, it would probably cost less to shut them down. So, just as with spam, their is a marginal cost to the copyright holder.

Of course, they could just as easily use Linux and some free alternative instead of pirating a copy. Then, if they really liked it, they could eventually convince their employer to use it instead of the commercial alternative.

And this helps the copyright holder how? Or are you claiming that piracy of commercial software actually damages open source? You have a point with that last one.

If pirated code results in wider use of commericial products (the key to the "piracy ultimately helps the copyright holder" arguement), then by extension it hurts open source by displacing them from the marketplace. SO yes, part of my argument is that it hurts os projects - the data version of collateral damage.

Re:Great for Kazaa!!

[plumby]

By that view, it's ok to sneek into no sold out movies, concerts, etc because I wouldn't have paid the cover to get in.

If you had absolutely no intention of paying for it, then yes it would. Why not? Who's losing what? If you go into a bar and find a discarded newspaper there, do you feel it's theft to read the paper despite the fact that you haven't paid for it? Do you see how this would be different from walking into a newsagent, picking up the newspaper and walking out without paying? In both cases, you've ended up with a free newspaper.

A company still has to sort out who is the casual copier and probably not worth chasing down vs teh serious pirate - which costs money. If only big time pirates existed, it would probably cost less to shut them down. So, just as with spam, their is a marginal cost to the copyright holder.

The company has absolutely no knowledge of me doing it, so why would they be chasing me down? I copied some CDs last night (of ones that I already owned, so that I could have a copy at work). I suspect the artists haven't noticed yet, nor will they ever. I got 3 pieces of junk mail last night, which took time to download on my phone - time I could have spent reading the real messages I'd been sent.

If pirated code results in wider use of commericial products (the key to the "piracy ultimately helps the copyright holder" arguement), then by extension it hurts open source by displacing them from the marketplace. SO yes, part of my argument is that it hurts os projects - the data version of collateral damage.

As I said before, you do have a point here, but then as I've mentioned in a different post, you could then argue that as this person will probably spend their money on something in the long run, then by buying the commercial software they would be hurting the people that they would otherwise have spent the money on. And anyway, this might make open source projects raise their standards in order to compete with commercial software entirely on features rather than price (I know many already do, and in that case I'd already use that rather than a pirated commercial tool).

Re:Great for Kazaa!!

[Registered Coward v2]

By that view, it's ok to sneek into no sold out movies, concerts, etc because I wouldn't have paid the cover to get in.

If you had absolutely no intention of paying for it, then yes it would. Why not? Who's losing what? If you go into a bar and find a discarded newspaper there, do you feel it's theft to read the paper despite the fact that you haven't paid for it? Do you see how this would be different from walking into a newsagent, picking up the newspaper and walking out without paying? In both cases, you've ended up with a free newspaper.

So is it OK to use open source code in closed source projects, because no one loses any money as a result? After all, it's as free as the newspaper left lying on a table - neither owner expects any renumeration for it.

And, to answer your question - if I discard a CD and you pick it it up and listen to it, that's fine - but walking into a store and taking a copy isn't - which is what your newspaper example is equivalent.

I got 3 pieces of junk mail last night, which took time to download on my phone - time I could have spent reading the real messages I'd been sent.

How is that different from a company spending money to figure out who are the most serious pirates on Kazza? You spent what, all of a few minutes eliminating the spam? If you argue that the small cost of identifying and ignoring small fry pirates still makes it OK to copy stuff you wouldn't buy, then the small cost to you of eliminating spam is OK and not a reason to be against spam.

Quite frankly, I don't have a problem with someone pirating a copy of software, checking to see if it meets their needs, and then either buying it or deleting it. I think companies ought to have a way to let people try a product before they shell out money and find it doesn't live up to its hype. But if you pirate a copy, use it because you find it useful, and don't buy it, I don't buy the "I can't afford it so it's OK" argument.

If you can't afford it, go without or find a free alternative, instead of rationalizing theft by saying it didn't hurt anyone (a disputable point, IMHO.)

Re:Great for Kazaa!!

[NeMon'ess]

You're exactly right, but you forget this kid could save the money and it could go with him to the grave. Now apply this situation to copying music and movies. Is it fair to the music and movie creators to deprive them of revenue just because the money might go to books instead? If this kid wants something, he should pay for it.

Re:Great for Kazaa!!

[NeMon'ess]

Seeing a concert without paying because there was never any intention of paying is the same excuse logic people who play emulated games without the original cartridge or disk use. The cost is instead of watching the concert, I could be working at my job, earning money, I could be SPENDING my money on something else to entertain myself. If I had no intention of spending money that night, perhaps I'd go home and play a video game. If I play that game for three hours, I'm three hours closer to getting tired of that game and possible buying a new game.

Think about the video game industry. If I can play for hundreds of hours on Final Fantasy II and Cybernator, those are hundreds of hours I'm not playing a new game I PAID for. This is why the copyright holders of old games don't like emulation. While I'm playing FF II, I'm potentially costing Square a sale. Arguing the potential is very low doesn't mean jack when you multiply a 1% potential times 100,000 people playing emulators. That's potentially 1000 copies of FFX Square lost.

Going to that concert for free potentially costs video game makers, newspapers, pay-per-view, music and movie compainies, authors, artists...etc, money. It even potentially costs the advertizers on TV money because you won't see their ads that you might have. This costs TV stations because they can't charge as much for advertizing.

Re:Great for Kazaa!!

[plumby]

And, to answer your question - if I discard a CD and you pick it it up and listen to it, that's fine - but walking into a store and taking a copy isn't - which is what your newspaper example is equivalent.

Which was exactly my point. In your example, you've aquired a CD for nothing, the artist hasn't benefitted by you doing it, but yet you don't consider this to be stealing. Why not?

So is it OK to use open source code in closed source projects, because no one loses any money as a result?

If the open source software was not available, would they have not put that functionality in the software? If they would have paid a developer to do it, or bought a third party library, then they are damaging the person/company that they would have paid. If the feature would not have been put in without the open source code, and the author is not aware that it is being used that way, then, no, I don't have a problem with it. No one has lost out.

Quite frankly, I don't have a problem with someone pirating a copy of software, checking to see if it meets their needs, and then either buying it or deleting it.

This then totally invalidates your arguement about the cost to the companies for pursuing pirates. Does it somehow cost the companies to chase down people who use it but would never buy it, but not cost them to pursue people who are 'trying it out'?

If you can't afford it, go without or find a free alternative, instead of rationalizing theft by saying it didn't hurt anyone (a disputable point, IMHO.)

You're right. We wouldn't want to be rational would we? What are laws there for? To protect people from getting hurt, one way or another. If no one is getting hurt then why should it be illegal? Surely, in order for a crime to have been committed, there must have been a victim.

Re:Great for Kazaa!!

[plumby]

The point was that the act of copying the software was not depriving the music or movie creators of revenue, because he was not going to buy it anyway. If you are prepared to buy it, and still copy it, then it would be depriving them of revenue.

Re:Great for Kazaa!!

[plumby]

By this arguement, going for a walk is depriving peole of revenue in exactly the same way.

Re:Great for Kazaa!!

[NeMon'ess]

You are right, but going for a walk is free, unless you go to a park that requires a wilderness permit. Going to a concert for free when you should be paying is possibly depriving other commercial companies revenue, and its why copyright infringment is wrong, at least to me. Presumably going for a walk is less entertaining than the concert, so bang for the buck must be considered.

Re:Great for Kazaa!!

[Registered Coward v2]

>>So is it OK to use open source code in closed source projects, because no one loses any money as a result?

>No, this is a different crime. This is the crime of fraud. You are defrauding the author by putting your name on their work.

The original poster made the claim that piracy was OK if the person doing it wasn't intending to purcahse the product in question - so teh copyright holder doesn't lose any money. Open source developers don't lose money if tehir code gets incorporated into someone's closed project, so by the "it's OK because X didn't lose money" argument, incorporating od code is OK as well.

>>Quite frankly, I don't have a problem with someone pirating a copy of software, checking to see if it meets their needs, and then either buying it or deleting it.

>But that is stealing! Why?

Sure, but I'm willing to accept the argument that someone who uses a copy of a piece of software just long enough to see if it meets their needs, and then either deletes or buys it, is different from some one who simply pirate s the software and continues to use it for their benefit while rationalizing it by claiming " I would bnever buy it."

Re:Great for Kazaa!!

[Registered Coward v2]

And, to answer your question - if I discard a CD and you pick it it up and listen to it, that's fine - but walking into a store and taking a copy isn't - which is what your newspaper example is equivalent.

Which was exactly my point. In your example, you've aquired a CD for nothing, the artist hasn't benefitted by you doing it, but yet you don't consider this to be stealing. Why not?

Because I no longer own the physical copy and won't use it while you do - just as I could sell it to you, under the doctrine of first sale.

So is it OK to use open source code in closed source projects, because no one loses any money as a result?

If the open source software was not available, would they have not put that functionality in the software? If they would have paid a developer to do it, or bought a third party library, then they are damaging the person/company that they would have paid. If the feature would not have been put in without the open source code, and the author is not aware that it is being used that way, then, no, I don't have a problem with it. No one has lost out.

Wether they would pay someone is irrelevent - since the opens ource developer isn't losing any money, by the original argument using their code is OK.

Quite frankly, I don't have a problem with someone pirating a copy of software, checking to see if it meets their needs, and then either buying it or deleting it.

This then totally invalidates your arguement about the cost to the companies for pursuing pirates. Does it somehow cost the companies to chase down people who use it but would never buy it, but not cost them to pursue people who are 'trying it out'?

Hardly. First off all, I didn't say it wasn't theft - it is, but I view the try before buy or delete as a defendable response to unreasonable EULA, different from someone pirating the software and continuing to use it for their benefit without paying, and rationalizing their actions by saying they wouldn't have bought it in the first place.

Re:Great for Kazaa!!

[plumby]

Because I no longer own the physical copy and won't use it while you do - just as I could sell it to you, under the doctrine of first sale.

I thought that what was at issue was that piracy is getting something for free that the producer wants you to pay for. You've still got your CD, you've not paid for it, and the artist hasn't benefitted in any way.

Wether they would pay someone is irrelevent - since the opens ource developer isn't losing any money, by the original argument using their code is OK

How is it irrelevant? Again, the point of the original arguement was about whether you are gaining something that should be being paid for, and not paying for it.

First off all, I didn't say it wasn't theft - it is, but I view the try before buy or delete as a defendable response to unreasonable EULA,

So you are admitting that it's theft and then trying to rationalising it? Hmmm. I'm sure that's what you accused me of about three posts ago. You feel that you can justify theft in your case, and I think I can justify it in mine. It's still legally theft, and neither instance is depriving anyone of anything.

Re:Great for Kazaa!!

[Registered Coward v2]

Because I no longer own the physical copy and won't use it while you do - just as I could sell it to you, under the doctrine of first sale.
I thought that what was at issue was that piracy is getting something for free that the producer wants you to pay for. You've still got your CD, you've not paid for it, and the artist hasn't benefitted in any way.

No - in the case of a physical object that changes hands, you have a legitimate copy that is used by one person at a time - which is different than making a copy and keeping the original. Just as I can lend a book to someone - the copyright owner ight wnat someone to buy it instead, but it's pretty well established that I can lend something out to someone else.

Wether they would pay someone is irrelevent - since the opens ource developer isn't losing any money, by the original argument using their code is OK

How is it irrelevant? Again, the point of the original arguement was about whether you are gaining something that should be being paid for, and not paying for it.

Way back when, it was stated that it was OK to make copies if you never intend to buy th eproduct - since you don't dpeprive the owner of revenue - I said that if denying someone money was the criteria, than anyone can do what they want with OS code, even incorporating it in closed projects and ignorining the GPL, because the owner doesn't lose any money.

First off all, I didn't say it wasn't theft - it is, but I view the try before buy or delete as a defendable response to unreasonable EULA,

So you are admitting that it's theft and then trying to rationalising it? Hmmm. I'm sure that's what you accused me of about three posts ago. You feel that you can justify theft in your case, and I think I can justify it in mine. It's still legally theft, and neither instance is depriving anyone of anything.

Sure it is - but I think it is a far more defensable position than "I won't pay - so it's OK". I never said it was as black and white as the RIAA/BSA would like us to believe.

Re:Great for Kazaa!!

[itwerx]

Boy did you read a lot into that! :)
Your response actually argues my point. Except that you failed to allow for the scale:

Of course, to a homeless person, or to a bankrupt person, seven dollars to them is much more important than seven dollars to you. Perhaps someone should take away your money and give it to a homeless person.

Rephrase that to be the penny of my example above and yes, I would hardly begrudge a homeless person a penny. Even as it is rather silly for corporations to begrudge the loss of $7.
There are those that would argue that it isn't $7 but rather whatever the software costs to purchase normally, but if the thief could never have afforded the full price, (and yes, I do still agree that it is a theft), then it hardly equates.

Just my 2 cents (er, I guess that would be 1 cent! :)

Re:Great for Kazaa!!

[prisoner-of-enigma]

Actually, no I'm not reinforcing your point. You think that it's alright to deprive the movie industry of the $7 ticket price, but you still want to enjoy the fruit of their labors. It is irrelevant how much money someone does or doesn't have with regards to whether you owe them anything for their products. McDonald's is a multi-billion dollar enterprise. Does that entitle you to a free sandwich? Hey, it's only $2.59, right? They don't really need that money.

Your argument lends absurdity to itself all too easily. Billion dollar companies employ tens of thousands of people, and hundreds of thousands more are connected in some way to those very same industries. When you steal, you aren't stealing just from some fat-cat movie mogul, you're stealing from everyone who has anything to do with movies. That includes the minimum-wage guys sweeping the floors as surely as it does the actor with a $30 million salary.

To further put perspective, which is something your argument obviously lacks, into this debate, suppose for just one tiny microsecond that a few million people felt the same way as you do about that $7 movie ticket. After all, if it's good for you, why not someone else? You're not special, so why not? Suddenly that $7, something that "no one would ever notice" is now $7 million. If nobody paid to see a movie, movies wouldn't get made.

Further, you put forth the argument that it's not really stealing because you wouldn't have paid to see the movie anyway. Well, perhaps you're not depriving them of income in that manner, but you are helping yourself to some very undeserved entertainment in the process. If I decided to employ you but then refused to pay you, do I "deserve" your labor? Absolutely not, but that's what you're arguing.

No, you make my point rather well, but in an inverse manner. Scale is something you are lacking in this debate. You think it's just fine and dandy to steal so long as it does no harm, yet you fail to realize the implications of what would happen if others thought like you. Like so many Slashdotter's, you think only of yourself and "the oppressed", and never about the actual consequences of your actions.

Re:Great for Kazaa!!

[itwerx]

Oooooh, got it, I think we got our wires crossed!
The $7 I was referring to is the actual (typical) production cost of a package of software, which can retail for anywhere up to hundreds or even thousands of dollars. (I.e. completely out of my, and many other people's, price range).
I completely agree on the movie thing...

Geez, no wonder you thought I was a flaming idiot (and vice versa :).

Justice, At Last

[ksw2]

..because we all know how those high-quality camcorder-bootlegs are robbing millions from the movie producers.

Re:Justice, At Last

[dildatron]

I know. Everybody and their dog has broadband and is downloading gigs and gigs of movies off IRC servs with DCC!

Hesus, most people don't even know what IRC is! Is there anywhere else to go for movies?

Re:Justice, At Last

[Huge Pi Removal]

Hesus, most people don't even know what IRC is! Is there anywhere else to go for movies?


Hotline (if you can stand the fools), Carracho (if you've got a Mac), Kazaa(et al) if you've got a PC, ummm, Cinemas (if you've got the cash). Guess that's about it :)

Re:Justice, At Last

[CMiYC]

According to the article, Cinea found that they are losing $3 billion a year. If you take the reported losses from piracy of movies, games, and music does that even add up to a credible dollar amount? It'd be funny if they added up to more than what the average economy produces.

Re:Justice, At Last

[scott1853]

Calculation: You ask the CEO how much he wanted his bonus to be this year, multiply by 20, and that's how much was lost to piracy.

Re:Justice, At Last

[IdleTime]

alt.binaries.vcd
alt.binaries.svcd

Bravo. Telesyncs blow.

[Faggot]

This will deal a well-deserved shot to the disgusting practice called "telesync". Let us pray that from hereon in, all our pirated movies will be DVD rips.

Telesyncs are *SO* 1985.

Re:What about lasers blinding cameras?

[aridhol]

And how would you use these without also blinding your audience?

Different Jammer Needed.....

[echucker]

... one that turns off the timestamp and REC on the LCD. They always get in the way! ;-)

Frees bandwidth...

[orionpi]

Just think of how much bandwidth will be saved by people not bootleging StarWarez Episode III, at least not till the screeners come out.

jam camcorders? blargh, start with mobile fones!

[mysticbob]

camcorders to rip off content, ok, nice, who cares.

but to jam mobile fones, that would be a good thing,
and actually increase the value of the experience
for consumers, not just for the movie houses.

for that matter, how about jamming screaming babies,
and that person in front of me with the big head,
and the person behind me who keeps kicking my seat.

rant off.

From the article

[chazzf]

The movie studios have been in search of a new DVD encryption scheme since the industry standard, known as CSS, was cracked by Linux programmers in 1999.

I'm getting out of the way right now before the flames hit. Trolls and Editors first! Run for your lives!

~Chazzf

Re:Don't forget...

[aridhol]

Not evil. Misguided. Remember that you should never attribute to malice what is perfectly explainable by stupidity.

Subliminal Messages

[sam_handelman]

I want to see "They Live" relreased in digital format.

No, subliminal messages don't work, but you could still print messages on the screen (invisible to the naked eye) using this system, and then only people trying to pirate the movie with a camcorder would be treated to the messages like:

OBEY

NO ALIENS LIVE AMONG US

and so on. Then, they turn themselves in when they reveal the subliminal messages to the press! Pure genius. Alternatively, you could sell sunglasses that let you read the subliminal messages (they'd have digital camcorders built in with displays on the inside of the glasses,) AND let you see that hilarry rosen is really an alien.

Re:Subliminal Messages

[Christopher Thomas]

No, subliminal messages don't work, but you could still print messages on the screen (invisible to the naked eye) using this system, and then only people trying to pirate the movie with a camcorder would be treated to the messages

This would actually be pretty easy to do. Just shine a bright near-IR light onto the screen, and any camcorder without an IR filter will be washed out. Ditto with soft UV, though fluoresence will be a problem.

Aleternatively you could project with "white" light made from colours that muck with the colour balance of camera detectors. What looks white to you would look ugly on camera (or to someone with partial colour blindness, though).

Alternatively, you could sell sunglasses that let you read the subliminal messages (they'd have digital camcorders built in with displays on the inside of the glasses,) AND let you see that hilarry rosen is really an alien.

If you're using the colour-balance approach, ordinary coloured filters should let you see the patterns your fake white light is making. IR and UV are a bit harder to catch cheaply (UV could be seen cheaply by focusing an image on a slide painted with fluorescent material, but near-IR is harder).

Re:What about lasers blinding cameras?

[docbrown42]

Simple. Have a theater employee sit in a booth above the screen, facing the audience. When the lights go out, he puts on night-scope googles and uses a laser pointer to blind any camera he finds.

How to get your story posted on Slashdot.

[alexmogil]

They even throw an unrelated jab at Microsoft.

Instantly, the story was rushed to the forefront of the other waiting stories. I can see this put to use:

WarCraft IV Announced; Microsoft Sucks!

Matrix 2.0 Details; Bill Gates hit in face with pie

NPR reports bin Laden dead; New Microsoft IIS bug found

Ah, Slashdot.

A different perspective, perhaps

[ekrout]

While I understand that the media conglomerates are opposed to people stealing their content (which costs millions of dollars to create), most people who purchase $2.99 "ShakyCam" copies of new release films off the street probably wouldn't have the money to actually *go* to the movies and spend $8.50 on a ticket, $6.50 for popcorn, and $5.00 for a soda.

This is similar to how the 12-year old kid who obtains a pirated copy of Photoshop to fool around with isn't really causing a net loss for Adobe because he wouldn't be able to shell-out the $650.00 (or whatever it is these days) for Adobe Photoshop 7.0.

Re:A different perspective, perhaps

[spinkham]

So then they can wait till it comes out on DVD or vhs and rent it.
It's not your job to enforce what you think would be a good business model on the content producers, if they thought they could make money selling tapes for $3, they would do it. The truth is it is their content to do what they want with.
If someone started violating the terms of my GPL code because they didn't like my license, I'd be quite pissed.
If you don't like their business method, don't do business with them. But don't steal their stuff either.
What the heck comes out these days that is so great you can't wait for 6 months to see it on DVD anyway?

I appreciate our point that they tend to inflate the perception of their losses, but that doesn't stop the fact that bootlegging is illegal (and most everyone would agree, immoral.)

Re:A different perspective, perhaps

[Suidae]

My 3, 5 and 7 year olds all love both Photoshop and The Gimp. They are getting pretty good with the tablet interface too, I'm thinking of getting them their own Fark.com accounts...

Re:A different perspective, perhaps

[SirSlud]

Let me steal your TV and copy all the software that you paid for on your computer .. and then we'll see which one you want back.

Re:A different perspective, perhaps

[Dr. Evil]

I would argue that the software author gains from the piracy, since the inferior albeit adequate $50 product looses mindshare. With the mindshare and the $50, that inferior product could grow to be a competitor. That won't happen precisely because the 'victim' isn't enforcing their own business model. They should be prosecuting every teenage kid in their basement, and suffer all the negative publicity that comes with it... rather than just going after what is profitable at the moment.

Software companies are profiting from a ridiculous business model which only works because taxpayers are paying law enforcement to enforce it. Just imagine if law enforcement was 100% effective at combating piracy. What would happen to the industry?

Re:A different perspective, perhaps

[cybermace5]

Another interesting point: by pricing the software out of reach of people who want to fool with it, they run a big risk:

Kids fooling around with a C++ compiler.

With time, a free alternative can arise, and provides those kids the ability to modify the program to do things they never could do with Photoshop. How long before GIMP becomes polished enough that it starts replacing Photoshop even in the graphics industry?

Sometimes people might not have a lot of extra money, but they have a little extra time to make their own tools. A Beowulf cluster of these...and you have a free replacement application.

Re:A different perspective, perhaps

[kwhite]

This sounds all well and good, but what happens if this person who can't afford to go to the movies suddenly can?

Or what about the 12 year old kid who becomes a graphics artist. Both will begin to "expect" things this cheap and could continue to say who cares I can get it cheaper somewhere else. This is the problem I have with most of these arguments.

Ohhh and here's another thing, why not wait the obligatory couple months and go see it at the cheap theatre. Plenty of people do this, and the enjoyment is just as good. Or for that matter the kid can go pick up a used copy of Photoshop somewhere.

Why not admit that what they are doing is wrong instead of saying hey they can't afford it anyway so who cares?

Re:A different perspective, perhaps

[Danse]

It never ceases to amaze me how common it is for slashdotters to fail to understand that there is a difference between something which is infinitely reproduceable for virtually no cost and something which is not. Trying to treat them exactly the same is simply moronic.

Re:A different perspective, perhaps

[NDPTAL85]

Well of course you'd argue in support of piracy. You're morals are nonexistant and you have absolutely no respect for intellectual property. In short, your a unrepentant theif and or sympathsizer.

Have a good day!

Re:A different perspective, perhaps

[King_TJ]

Huh? This argument of yours has more holes in it than swiss cheese.

1. If someone suddenly earns a big increase in pay, they quickly adapt to it. It's called "living within one's means" and it happens all the time. People don't automatically expect it should cost "no more than a McDonalds dinner" when they start earning enough money to go to fancy restaurants. They won't suddenly expect movies should be nearly free either, just because they were getting pirated movies dirt cheap in the past.

2. Plenty of things are "against the law", yet people opt to ignore that fact anyway. That's because morality doesn't equal legality. How many times have you chosen to exceed the posted speed limit when driving? How often did you choose not to report that sales tax you technically owe on your mail order purchases? Did you have a problem with your conscience afterwards? (I bet not!)

When it comes to movies, I see it as quite parallel with entertainment software. Almost nobody can afford to see everything (or buy everything) that's released. You have a certain monthly budget you can allocate towards these entertainment expenses, and that's about it. Most people *do* occasionally go see a movie in the theater. If they download and watch several more, so what? Yeah, once again, it's technically "illegal", but they most likely have a clear conscience about it - precisely because they know they're already spending as much as they're going to spend on going out to see movies. They might not go see the ones they downloaded, but they'll go see others. The industry achieved their goal: "Get the consumer to pay to watch as much of our material as possible."

Can *real* jamming be done?

[lute3]

When I read the headline, I thought there could be real jamming performed. By that, I mean totally disrupting (or close to it) the camera's ability to capture images. This method seems like it would be very useful in situations like this.

Since Americans generally are apalled by the thought of voyeurs and law enforcement alike capturing images without 'proper' permission, then a weapon like this seems like it would be incredibly useful.

I wouldn't be shocked...

[Anonymous Coward]

if it's later discovered that this screen interference can be removed by drawing a line along the bottom edge of the screen with a .39 cent magic marker.

Somehow better mousetraps just don't seem to be the answer.

But but but?!

[LordYUK]

But if people can't record movies, then how am I going to download my 100 movies a day off of KaZaA???

License...

[dex22]

This ticket is a license to watch one movie. You may occupy one seat. Due to recent problems with piracy, this cinema has installed a DRM enforcement facility. Your memory of the film will be erased when you leave the cinema, to prevent you violating our intellectual property rights by telling people what you saw. The wearing of hats or sunglasses constitute use of a circumvention device, the penalty set forth being life imprisonment.

Enjoy your film.

If people would just SHUT UP!

[Squareball]

I would go to movies if people knew how to SHUT THEIR DAMN MOUTHS! I went to see Spiderman and I had a jack-ass next to me who wanted to impress his friends that were across the theatre, by talking all through the movie... putting in his comments and thoughts. I leaned over and said "Excuse me, could you shut the hell up?" and he said "OH sorry!" and kept talking. Went to see Star Wars Episode 2... Baby started crying.. for 2 minutes until people starting shouting at the parents! Went to see Lord of the Rings. Jerk sitting next to me kept talking. On and on... EVERY movie I go to is spoiled by jack assses talking. This is why I've stopped going to the movies. It's not about price. It's not about the "evil" movie companies. It's about enjoyment. I get more enjoyment by sitting in my room and watching a grainy pirated copy of "the others"... because no one is talking and interupting my movie!

Re:If people would just SHUT UP!

[revery]

Dude, it's called, go see a matinee... Or wait until the film has been out a a couple of weeks and go see it then. I personally enjoy being in a full theater, but then as my wife says, I am a freak. Anyway, the point is, go when no one else is there, then you don't have to worry about someone's running commentary during a movie.
Having said that, I go to the theater almost every weekend, and I have never had someone talk throughout the film, or had a baby cry during a movie.

Re:If people would just SHUT UP!

[forged]

Let me guess: you're one of those who prefer to watch the screen from far-back near the last rows, right? I never have a person in front of me (I'm a front or second row movies watcher), so I can't hear the moanings coming from the mop behind :)

Re:If people would just SHUT UP!

[aridhol]

go during a working day, they are generally less crowded

You know, I would try that, except that, in order to get the money to watch the movies, I have to go to work. Go figure.

Re:If people would just SHUT UP!

[sebi]

And recorded comments on your bootleg tape don't piss you off?

Re:If people would just SHUT UP!

[friscolr]

I personally enjoy being in a full theater,

definitely. half the fun of a movie is the experience of the peeps around you too. if i wanna see a movie by myself in quiet and all, then i'll rent it and watch it at home.

Re:If people would just SHUT UP!

[cmckay]

I would go to movies if people knew how to SHUT THEIR DAMN MOUTHS!

I feel your pain, man. My favorite movie theater is this one in a lecture hall on campus. No, it doesn't have a THX-certified sound system. No, they don't sell popcorn. Heck, they still use the two-projector system, so you occasionally notice the reel change if the projectionist is off. But, it's dead quiet.

I can't really satiate my desire for first-run movies there-- almost everything they show is independent, and the few big-name movies that come there are about a year old. But gosh darn it, that's the best theater I've ever been in.

(In case you're wondering, I go to the University of Colorado in Boulder, and I'm talking about the International Film Series.)

Re:If people would just SHUT UP!

[pogen]

I concur. It seems that there is a lot more talking in theatres than 5 or 10 years ago.

I blame cell phones.

I don't think cellphones are to blame for talking in theaters. I blame home video. People are so used to getting away with talking during a movie (at home), they think nothing of doing the same thing when they're out in public. Home video breeds bad habits.

Of course, now that I have two kids under 4, I'm starting to appreciate the (rare) theater experience again. Even with all the talking and electronic beeping, it's still much less distracting than the baby waking up.

Re:If people would just SHUT UP!

[Amazing Quantum Man]

Anyway, the point is, go when no one else is there

Actually happened. Took my grandmother to see Star Trek V (she was a huge trek fan, and loved Shatner), and until 5 minutes before showtime, we were the only ones in the theatre. I was wondering if they would have shown it if we hadn't been there...

Re:If people would just SHUT UP!

[crow]

Yup, that's one reason I don't go to movies very often (the ever-increasing price being the other).

I believe much of the problem is based on people having grown acustomed to watching movies at home. When you're watching a DVD at home, you're free to talk; if you miss something, you skip back. At the theater, you still have the same habits.

Re:If people would just SHUT UP!

[NeuroManson]

Especially since those crappy quality pirated movies are shot IN movie theaters, forever preserving every cough, conversation, cel phone ringer, and screaming baby! Way to get the "experience"!

Hacking it

[scott1853]

They claim that they're going to introduced controlled disturbances that the human eye can't see, but a digital device would, like the sync lines you see when recording a TV screen.

So wouldn't it be possible to record at double the frame rate and eliminate the bad frames? Or if it's just a preprogrammed watermarking technique, strip it out?

Re:Hacking it

[dattaway]

Frame misalignment, their protection scheme if I understand correctly, is easily defeated. Simply adjust the "shutter" speed of the recording device to a longer duration. This will eliminate blank captures they intend to project.

I'd imagine their copy protection scheme will be *hell* on people with epilepsy. I have done work in offices that had lighting offensive to sensitive people and can just imagine what these theaters will do for an entire audience. The people investing their money in this have no idea what they are in for...

Re:Hacking it

[dattaway]

I thought about defeating this for a moment and realized this may be a bad move for the content producers. Why? There will be people with too much time on their hands modifying cameras learning a few tricks. One such trick is to synchronize the camera and screen frames. This is an easy trick that may be familiar with those doing rapid screen captures with webcams. Since the projection camera uses a "clocked" framerate, it is easy to sync on one bright frame and adjust the recording device to that clock rate. What this does is eliminate the information loss between mismatched recording frames. Blur is decreased, motion is much more crisp, and image quality slightly improves. Requiring people who sneak cameras into theaters to chip a syncing circuit on their recording will only create higher quality recordings. Nice.

And how difficult is this to do? Synchronized ripping to a computer is a no brainer. Modifying a VCR tape to change frame rates variably would be interesting. Perhaps an infinite number of high school kids with an infinite amount of time on their hands can crack this problem. They do frequent movie theaters and have an affinity towards camcorders, so I'm sure its only a matter of time...

Re:Hacking it

[Suidae]

What happens if you simply rotate the camera 90 degrees?

Re:Hacking it

[dattaway]

It would depend on how the shutter of the camera of the projector and camera work. If they both are digital and latch the picture immediately, then we would have the blank frames problem. If the camera scans the pixels rapidly after enabled by the frame clock, then this would indeed alter the distortion pattern 90 degrees. If the digital projector serially writes the pixels in a scan format, the rotated camera may pick up dark and blinding fading triangles during the blanking and flashing times.

The easiest way to find out *exactly* what they do would to bring in a high speed digital camera and take a few hundred frames during a second. We could easily see the abnormal events.

Is talking about how the entertainment industry is trying to intrigue the public with media manipulation a violation of the DMCA?

Re:Hacking it

[dattaway]

The flickering flourescent lights in our offices sent our accountant to the hospital one day. Since my paychecks come from that office, I changed the lighting and recommended many fine plants and a mood change with nicer furniture. Approved. The deed was reciprocated: everyone at the site didn't get just one raise that year, but two big increases!

If movie theaters go in the opposite direction and enforce an image disrupting technology on its patrons, those customers will find alternate sources of entertainment fast. Having people get nauseous, sick, or going into physical fits isn't cool when the media hears about it.

Re:Hacking it

[MillionthMonkey]

I do have epilepsy, although it is not sensitive to strobe lights. Unless the protection scheme being used here causes a flickering in the range of 8-15 Hz (which may be possible), there should be no problem for strobe-sensitive epileptics. Bad fluorescent lighting can flicker within that range, and there are plenty of other natural strobe sources, like sunsets behind picket fences.

The most common artificial sources are things like Japanese cartoons and TV commercials. Advertisers especially love to use strobe effects. I was subscribed to an epilepsy mailing list a few years ago when some car commercial came out that used them gratuitously. It gave several list members seizures every time it came on. One of them had to quickly turn off the TV every commercial break because this commercial would leave her writhing on the floor every time.

They wrote a letter to the company, and got back a reply that basically said "Gee, that's a shame, but there aren't enough of you to really matter, and our research has shown that people are more likely to buy SUVs if they see strobe lights."

Re:Hacking it

[GigsVT]

Funny, the fortune at the bottom of the Slashdot page your post was on:

Contemptuous lights flashed flashed across the computer's console. -- Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Two problems with this

[Charlton Heston]

One problem is that there are a lot of different CCD chips out there. Certainly there are some that have a lot of "lag" that would not be affected as much by this.

The other problem is that these artifacts could be cleaned up with digital processing. With giant hard drives and fast processors, all that is needed is an app to do it.

It took about...

[f97tosc]

3 days after the US release until Epsiode 1 VCDs where widespread in South East Asia. The producers must have taken the very first flight out after the first showing, and then started large-scale dupliation immediately.

Some friends of mine - Star Wars fans - were backpacking at that very time. They wanted to wait until they could see the movie in a proper theater but found this almost impossible as every other bar/ restaurant/ hotel was showing the movie...

Tor

Re:It took about...

[poot_rootbeer]

The producers must have taken the very first flight out after the first showing

Why would they do that? There's this thing called an Internet now, where you can transfer 650 MB of data from the US to Asia in a matter of minutes, rather than the greater part of a day...

Re:jam camcorders? blargh, start with mobile fones

[aridhol]

While jamming the screaming babies, etc. may be a bit difficult, I don't see why phone-jamming should be too much of a problem.

We already know that tunnels cause dead areas in cell networks. All we have to do is create this artificially in the theatre. Is it possible to create an electromagnetic jamming field that would surround a single theatre in a multiplex? That way if you absolutely must use a cell phone, you can go out into the hall or the lobby to make your call.

Plugging my analog hole

[brandido]

I must say, it is quite amazing the lengths that Intellectual Property manufacturers will go to in ofrder to "plug the analog hole". I know that there have been stories about how movies appear on Kazaa the same day the sneak preview has been shown because somebody brought in a videa camera and filmed it, but please. These videos are of terrible quality, and only help promote interest in the movie - "Hey all you hyped up fans - look at this crappy copy you can see two days early - really whets your appetite for the real thing, doesn't it?" I am just amazed that people would go to the extent of adding significant cost and complexity in order to prevent a very small group from trading crappy copies.

And most improtantly, I am sure that there will be a hack to get around the distortion - whether it is a run-time hack that fixes it as you record (difficult) or go back with some sort of filter to post-process it (maybe easier), I am sure it will happen. But bottom line, it won't matter - the people who watch these video-taped copies aren't in it for the fidelity, they are in it for seeing it first - a little more distortion won't stop them.

Re:Plugging my analog hole

[Tetrad69]

and only help promote interest in the movie

Ah, but you see, if people saw how bad most of the movies are before they spend X dollars at a theatre, then they probably won't go. The movie theatres are afraid that if people "try before they buy", then they probably won't buy shit.

No Problems!

[Tuckdogg]

Just line the outside of your camera lens with Post-It notes and you'll be fine...Wait a minute! Did I just violate the DMCA??? Please disregard the previous statement.

Unfortunately

[wiredog]

Jamming cell phones in a theater/restaurant/library/etc is illegal. Violates FCC regulations.

Re:Unfortunately

[aridhol]

Blah. With all the laws that the entertainment industry is trying to push through, you'd think they'd be able to propose this one that would be beneficial to the consumers as well as themselves?

Re:Unfortunately

[gclef]

Jamming cell phones in a theater/restaurant/library/etc is illegal. Violates FCC regulations.

You know, I wonder about that....what if the theater just puts a good Farraday cage around the actual screening area? That's not actively jamming, but it does interfere with the signal that the cell phones get. Would that be illegal? I'd hope not (it's just a feature of the building, not an active attempt to jam the phones), but then, I don't know, which is why I'm asking....

Re:Unfortunately

[XorNand]

Yes, it would be illegal. Whether the actual technology is "passive" or "active" doesn't matter. If an establishment intentionally blocks cell signals, they're breaking the law.

What I would like to see is something that forces a phone to go into vibrate mode.

Re:Unfortunately

[aridhol]

We didn't intentionally block the signal, Your Honour. The copper wiring around the theatre to enhance the viewing experience.
Hey, you don't have to lie. It does enhance the experience, and there's probably something else beneficial you can attribute to the wires (extra insulation to block out sound from the lobby/outside, for example).

Re:Unfortunately

[Anonvmous Coward]

"You know, I wonder about that....what if the theater just puts a good Farraday cage around the actual screening area?"

I have a car alarm with a 2-way remote. That means if the alarm goes off, my keychain goes off. I'd be pissed if I left a movie to discover my car was stolen. heh.

Re:Unfortunately

[sporty]

Heh, I didn't think jamming a cell phone up someones ass was legal else where :)

Re:Unfortunately

[Anonvmous Coward]

"I'm the guy sitting next to you in the theater. I don't care if your car is stolen, if it keeps that beeper quiet."

Actually it has a vibrate mode. (And yes, I do set it.)

I certainly wouldn't care if my car getting stolen interrupted your movie for 10 seconds. Your trips to the bathroom'd take more than that.

And, btw, you would care if it were your car.

Re:Unfortunately

[Anonvmous Coward]

You seriously missed both the point and the light-heartedness of my post. You're not even close to understanding what I was saying. You wasted a lot of energy there.

It's just a friggin comment, get over it.

Why embed the signal into the picture at all?

[poot_rootbeer]

I can't imagine that hiding a camcorder-stopping signal in the picture being projected from the back of the theater WOULDN'T adversely affect the quality of the picture in someway.

Camcorders are much more sensitive to infrared light than the human eye... why not just mount some infrared strobes in the front of the theater, aimed out at the audience? The people won't notice it, but the camcorders would effectively be blinded.

Re:Why embed the signal into the picture at all?

[dmaxwell]

That's nothing that piece of filter film placed in front of the camcorder lens wouldn't take care off. Such filters are used to keep from oversaturating regular photos in some applications and would work for this as well.

Re:Why embed the signal into the picture at all?

[Maran]

The problem with that is that over the course of the day, with lots of hot, sweaty people, hot-dogs, dodgy air-con, etc, the cinema would become even more uninhabitable than it is now.

Maran

Re:Why embed the signal into the picture at all?

[Speare]

Camcorders are much more sensitive to infrared light than the human eye... why not just mount some infrared strobes in the front of the theater, aimed out at the audience? The people won't notice it, but the camcorders would effectively be blinded.

That was my first thought too. Mount an infrared projector behind the screen writing various patterns and anti-piracy images. Sucks to bring home a video with "DAMN YE, PIRATE, ARRR!" written in huge letters all over the best scenes.

But the issue isn't the public recording in the public theaters, it's the employees and publicity hacks who set up a tripod in an empty theater, or better yet, rip it off the proofing screen in a projection room, or better yet, just rip the DVD press copy.

The movie industry's worst enemy is itself: it has inserted so many middlemen that it can't trust. Those middlemen have no fealty, they just want to make a buck. With every move to eliminate the middlemen, the middlemen find new ways of keeping involved.

Re:Why embed the signal into the picture at all?

[SirSlud]

> [Ever noticed how the national chains have been going bankrupt and consolidating over the past couple years? Used to be any city of 100k or so would have four or six independent duplex or quadplex theatres. Now such towns have four or six theatres owned by a single chain.]

Thats because the studios insist on bigger-louder-faster multi-million-dollar-weekend-then-to-DVD movies ... they dont spend enough time in theatres for the theatres to make any money off.

Typically, a theatre doesn't start to see returns on a movie until the 3rd week or so. Since movies stay at threatres for *way* shorter time than they used to, theatres are having a very difficult time doing anything other than simply covering the cost of showing the movie. Making a profit today is way harder than it used to be, thanks to hollywood demanding more for movies and creating movies that lose the populations interest not long after its initial release.

Re:Why embed the signal into the picture at all?

[t]

That would work great until someone gets the bright idea to turn the camcorder at the audience and video everyone seemingly naked.

"Hollywood helps voyeur-porn industry!"

Macrovision?

[c.derby]

"The company "will modify the timing and modulation of the light used to create the displayed image such that frame-based capture by recording devices is distorted,"

This is basically how macrovision works for VCRs.

All or nothing

[KFury]

The trouble is that, with this particular problem of movie pirating, it has to be 100% effective or it's no good.

It doesn't matter if they find ways to block 95% of camcorders from being able to read the signal, since most or all pirated copies of a given movie come from one point source, so as long as there is *any* camcorder or other solution out there, the copy will be made, and once one copy is made, that's the ballgame, since VCD-Rs and mpegs will propogate from there.

Of course, the vast majority of these copies come from Asian countries, and are often recorded in poorer neighborhoods. I'd like to see how their business plan will get this digital protection mechanism into every theater in the East, regardless of the economic level.

If they only manage to get it into 80% or even 98% of the theaters, then it doesn't do any good at all.

$3 Billion and 50% cut in piracy

[burgburgburg]

According to their grant, the movie industry loses $3 billion a year to piracy and that Cinea's system will cut piracy by 50%. Considering that most piracy comes from insiders and not the theater camcorder person, how did Cinea come up with 50%? Was it through market research? Nope: It's "our own estimate." Well, that makes me feel better.

Re:What about lasers blinding cameras?

[Cy Guy]

Yeah a laser pointer should do it as shown in this article.

But with any scheme that attempts to use light, you have to consider the safety of the audience topmost, including audience members that may suffer from photosensitive epilepsy.

Re:jam camcorders? blargh, start with mobile fones

[ksw2]

Yeah, I'm sure the vibration of my phone ringing is a real nuisance to you.

Now, a screaming baby jammer, that I can agree with.

Yeah, this guy is headed for another bankrupcy..

[k98sven]

Ok.. let's see.. he want -every- cinema to install this gadget which no doubt will cost money, and might degrade the image quality..

Now why would Charlie Cinemaowner want to install this? No reason at all.
True, the studios often own the cinemas and can force him to install the gadget, but that's no guarantee that he'll actually have the thing plugged in.

Not to mention that many Asian camcorder grabs are done with the concent of the cinema owner.
(The ones where the cinema isn't fulled with
people speaking Javanese or whatever)

It's just stupid. Need I say it's not going to stop piracy,
it's just going to cost the money for the theaters.
(And that means even more expensive movie tickets!)

Sorry, Robert...

[Gruneun]

"The customers... loved it... it was a great technology that didn't get great market support."

You don't get one without the other. Your new technology is interesting and may even disrupt piracy for a while. However, that period of time will be remarkably shorter than the time it takes you to develop your technology.

Instead of Jamming them...

[RebelTycoon]

WHY don't they look for them? Cams aren't the smallest of shapes, a little enforcement of theatre policies would go a long way.

Also, who says flickering monitors don't cause eye damage? Just because we can't easily see it doesn't mean our brain doesn't.

Stop fscking with my eyes!

Re:Instead of Jamming them...

[UrGeek]

Because the modern megaplex has too many rooms for individual attention. Go to the first showing of a movie sometime, on a slow day. You will be surprise how often the projector is set wrong. Then you will be angered at how long it will take for them to notice this. It will only be AFTER one of the patrons complain. Recently, this happened and after they fixed the focus, I had to complain a second time because the registration was not fixed!

They don't want people to have to do anything. They want machines.

Re:Instead of Jamming them...

[chialea]

... and some of us CAN see it with our eyes. Movies already really screw with mine, and I've switched entirely over the LCDs, since CRTs give me terrible headaches. (yes, I hate florescent lights too)

Caveat here: most people don't have six-degrees-of-prism lenses in their glasses, but it will REALLY piss me off if they decide to "fight piracy" in such a way that I can't watch the movies at all. Hopefully the cinemas that play the movies I want to watch will not have any part of this. Somehow I can't see anyone videotaping "The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys", which I saw last night. (Ditto music "protection" schemes in which the quality of the sound is sacrified on the altar of illusary profits.)

Lea

Re:Instead of Jamming them...

[PhotoGuy]

WHY don't they look for them? Cams aren't the smallest of shapes, a little enforcement of theatre policies would go a long way.

Oh, I'm sure the /. crowd will be all over you for suggesting such a horrible "invasion of privacy" or something. Sigh.

The same thing did cross my mind, except using bright infrared to light up the crowd, and infrared camera to check out suspicious activity. Heck, bright infrared flooding the theatre would probably blank out a lot of camcorders anyway.

The fundamental problem with encryption

[The Red Rooster]

There is a fundamental problem with encrypting things for mass consumption:

At some point, it has to be decrypted and viewed. As long as that happens, then there won't be any way to prevent people copying it.

Remember the /. article about ebooks being decrypted? the 'Print Scrn' button on your keyboard takes care of that...

The same thing with this. People can develop a program that eliminates the screen flicker, or turn down the gain on their camcorders or tap into the feed before the projection ocurrs or any number of things...

Another useless arms race.

My $0.25

Why?

[teamhasnoi]

Are camcorders in theaters really that much of a source of pirated copies? In the music biz, the source of most pre-release copies comes from pre-release reviewer CDs OR the engineer/assistant (insider) on the project.

Besides, the people who don't care about the (piss-poor) quality of 'camcorded' movies aren't going to care about some stupid watermark floating on the screen.

Another piracy-battling idea that will be ignored (by pirates) and yet make lots of $$$ for the company that brings it to market.

It seems that piracy-battling solutions are the only thing that makes $$$ while not working. That and Congress.

bad!

[DrSkwid]

I made the mistake of reading your post. It was such low quality. It bad phrasing and not much point. Even the spelling was poor. With digital dictionaries available on the 'net there's no need to do that any more. I saw the English version (substandard) while it was still dynamic.

Higher quality piracy, right around the corner

[hillct]

I was never vary impressed whan viewing a movie which was taped from within a theater. Neither tha audio nor video quality was even close to satisfactory.

This will force a new era in piracy. We've already seen the beginning with the availability of the second LoTR movie on the net before it hits theaters. All this means is that pirates will have to accept a small reduction in their proffit margins since they'll now have to bribe productuin and editing staff for advance copies of films, which will inevitably be of higher quality than those tapes by audience members in theaters.

I'm not entirely clear on why NIST is handing out grants oor research in this field though. Seems to me the products resulting from this research will have applications in limited areas of the security industry (in addition to the initial target of the motion picture industry) but have no larger societal benefit so they shouldn't be handing out grants in thie area.

--CTH

Why I love DRM! (Yeah, seriously...)

[Eric_Cartman_South_P]

Gonna made CD's uncopyable, so the only way is to crack it within the code?

Result: S/W available only as compelte .iso image with crack implemented.

Going to make theater movies unrecordable?

Result: P2P shared movies are all nicely ripped screaner DVD releases.

DRM, cleaning up the warez and vids available on P2P.

Re:jam camcorders? blargh, start with mobile fones

[suicidal]

I would venture to guess that the liability factor would be too great when someone's pacemaker stopped as they passed through the field. Or whatever artificial medical device, etc....

Oh, give it a rest.

[Wakko Warner]

It's illegal. This company figured a way to stop it.

So, you can't download the latest Lord Of the Rings DiVX? Cry me a river.

- A.P.

Re:Oh, give it a rest.

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem is that because it's been so convenient to steal things in the past, people have become used to it to a point that they -actually- believe that breaking the law with a computer is a world away from, say, lifting a sweater from a department store. They'll come up with all sorts of arguments to justify it of course..they'll likely say that software isn't a tangible good so it isn't the same as stealing a physical object, some even make the ridiculous argument that software in its most basic form is composed entirely of electrons, and that no one can claim electrons. I think it'd be kind of difficult to find any consumer item that's electron free :)

The truth is, it's just stealing. Plain and simple theft. It's more comfortable than shoplifting, because you can do it from the comfort of your own home with relatively little chance of being caught, but when you get right down to it, it's still theft. Apparently, however, some seem to believe it their right to steal.

Re:Oh, give it a rest.

[SirSlud]

Cripes, even a lawyer wouldn't agree with you.

It's illigal, yes. It's breaking the law. However, its not theft .. its copyright infringement.

I mean, even the law calls it something other than theft.

Fans of The Grateful Dead or KRS-One were encouraged to bootleg shows by the copyright owners, but no formal agreements were signed by anybody .. should we just call these people 'theives' and arrest them? Or should we start understanding that theft != copyright infringement? Nobody ever wants to be robbed, but there are times where authors do not mind the supposed act of 'theft' .. er, copyright infringement.

Both are illegal, both are (arguably and to varying extents) ethically wrong, but they are not the same thing. Folks who claim they are the same thing are simply parroting the cries of their sad and embattled heros, the Business 2.0 reading media/content exec. Save your breath, they have enough money and time to get their message across without you tagging along behind them waggin your tail ..

When it gets down to it, it behooves your survival skills to differentiate between the real world and the real world according to its current wealthy conformists. Now _theres_ a world of difference I hope you can appreciate.

Re:Oh, give it a rest.

[MonkeyDluffy]

So, by ripping a new Britney album, it reduces the incentive for her to make the next one. So what is the downside to that? -MD

Re:Oh, give it a rest.

[cjpez]

I'm pretty sure the point was, "Precisely NOBODY is losing money because of camcorder recordings of movies." Do you know anyone who downloaded a camcorder-copy of a movie and then didn't go see it in theaters because of it? Maybe if it was a direct copy, but via a camcorder? Have you ever seen a camcorder DivX of a movie?

Sure, whatever, they're spending hundreds of thousands of dollars (millions?) to prevent people from ripping off a movie using a camcorder. That's great, cool, but who cares? Who is seriously so thrilled with their camcorder DivX that they abandon their plans to see the movie in theaters?

Of course, now they will be able to say that they have some monetary losses due to camcorder-movie thefts. Just take the budget for this project, copy, and then paste.

Re:Oh, give it a rest.

[Waffle Iron]

they -actually- believe that breaking the law with a computer is a world away from, say, lifting a sweater from a department store.

Of course, department stores keep a watch over their sweaters. They don't try to make a business model out of, for example: Leaving piles of sweaters unattended at busy street corners, with a sign saying "Sweaters $39.99. Please take one and put your cash payment in this evelope"

Anybody who understands human nature would see that that scheme would be utterly unworkable. Likewise, nobody should be surprised when people cheat on copyrights as soon as technology makes it cheaper and easier than buying a real copy.

Copyright infringement may not be right, but your righteous indignation isn't going to change things. The only way to stop this behavior is to make it more like a department store: physically protect the merchandise. However, this is just about impossible with copyable stuff. Too bad. If the content producers go out of business under the current model with current human nature, there'll be a shortage of content. Then somebody else will come along and figure out a new way to make money on entertainment that is more workable, and not dependent on the honesty of millions of anonymous consumers.

Re:Oh, give it a rest.

[kubrick]

Yeah, that's what I meant, the price has nothing to do with the cost of presenting it, it's more based around what people are willing to pay. :/

I'll pay to see a good film, or a bad film that only looks good on a big screen... but I don't have the time or the money to waste on bad films, so if I do watch a bootleg I'm also likely to have seen it at least once on the big screen. Saw LoTR: FotR twice in the cinema, and I'd like to again prior to the release of the second movie. Not great, but definitely very good. :)

Re:Oh, give it a rest.

[ksw2]

It's illegal. This company figured a way to stop it.

So, you can't download the latest Lord Of the Rings DiVX? Cry me a river.

Personally, I'd don't give a shit. In fact, I all but boycot the motion picture industry. I was simply pointing out something maybe nobody immediately thought of: how expensive is this jamming technology, and how much "cost" will really be recovered by it? I'm betting the answer is "exteremely" and "little", respectively.

Re:Oh, give it a rest.

[mosch]

There's a farm stand near me that operates in exactly that manner. They have some tables with corn or tomatos or whatever is in season at the moment, and a locked box with a slot on it.

It'd be trivial to steal the flowers, vegetables or the cash, but so few people do so that it's more profitable for them to just trust that people are basically good than it is for them to pay some kid $8/hr to stand there.

As for the way to make money despite consumers feeling free to steal your content, I've got a great idea. Legally mandated DRM.

Re:Oh, give it a rest.

[Waffle Iron]

As for the way to make money despite consumers feeling free to steal your content, I've got a great idea. Legally mandated DRM.

DRM would be fine for those companies who think anybody would buy it and it wouldn't be cracked.

But if it was legally mandated, that would be like going to the authorities and complaining that since people seem to be stealing from your unattended fruit stand, there need to be new draconian fruit licensing and tracking laws enacted. In the real world, the authorities would just tell you to hire somebody to watch your fruit stand. That's a cost of doing business, and there's no need to infringe on everybody else's rights to enjoy unencumbered fruit.

The authorities don't seem as clued in w.r.t. content producers.

Re:Oh, give it a rest.

[kableh]

Actually, my big concern is that this will degrade the quality of the film. The DV to film print of SW Ep 2 I saw was AWFUL.

Re:Oh, give it a rest.

[mosch]

No, you don't seem to be clued in w.r.t. content producers.

Content producers make a product that's available for sale. You steal* it. They're trying to create laws and technology to stop you.

Where's the problem? You want the RIAA and MPAA to stop giving a fuck about DRM, stop stealing!

Slashdroids love to think that the RIAA and MPAA are evil witches, hiding out in the tower and trying to think of ways to torture everybody. Trust me, they're not. They just want to get paid when people use the product that they paid to create.

Off-topic: do you think your sig** is clever, or is just that your way of letting the world know that you're a total fuckwit?

* stealing doesn't have to involve taking a physical good e.g. 'That asshat stole GPLed code and put it in a commercial product!'

** for the sake of the archive, his sig is ':%d!wq'

Re:Oh, give it a rest.

[Cryogenes]

They'll come up with all sorts of arguments to justify it of course.

Oh dear. How silly of them. Nobody should use arguments. Insults work a lot better.

Do you believe in death after life?

Re:Oh, give it a rest.

[Waffle Iron]

Where's the problem? You want the RIAA and MPAA to stop giving a fuck about DRM, stop stealing!

Apparently, you have no capacity to comprehend English. I just got done saying that the RIAA and the MPAA can put all of the DRM they want on their products. I said that it makes sense for them to do so, so that they don't depend on the self restraint of millions of teenagers for their profits.

The problem is expecting the government to help them out with special laws to cram it down everybody's throats.

BTW, I hardly even watch movies or listen to CDs, much less "steal" (or using proper terminology, illegaly copy) the crap that they're dispensing these days.

Off-topic: do you think your sig** is clever, or is just that your way of letting the world know that you're a total fuckwit?

Yeah, my sig is getting kind of old. But you've given me a good idea for a new one. How about this one:

"mosch is an abrasive asshole"

Re:Oh, give it a rest.

[mosch]

The problem is expecting the government to help them out with special laws to cram it down everybody's throats.

The government isn't helping them out with "special laws". Most of the laws just say things like 'stealing things is bad, even if those things are bits', or 'helping people steal bits is bad'. They're still a bit overbroad, but burglary tools are illegal in the meatworld, they should be in the electronic world too. A lot of the stuff the slashbots like to get excited about is stuff that will sort itself out over the next few years.

Right now there are more important things to take care of, like trying to convince our fearless leader not to piss off the rest of the world any more than is actually neccessary.

"mosch is an abrasive asshole"

I prefer to be referred to as a real bastard or simply a bad person, but whatever floats your boat.

I'd suggest you make mosch a link to this page, so they can see what an asshole I am. Or maybe you could just link to a specifically chosen post, such as this one, or maybe this anti-rationalization comment whichgot a few people to mark me as an enemy. And this comment speaks of drug use, which clearly allies me with the axis of evil.

Love ya you sexy thang,
MWAH

Re:Oh, give it a rest.

[mosch]

It's hard to believe that an arrogant, authoritarian prick like you can ALSO be sane enough to see that the U.S. is being too internationally arrogant for its own good.

hey now, I'm not authoritarian.

Never did I say globally mandated DRM would actually stand, nor do I think it will. But I do think it's what will happen if the entertainment industry can't find a way to put the kibosh on music-stealing and movie-stealing networks like kazaa.

There's a lot of law that's in the 'shit, what do we do about this?' stage, and people need to realize two things. First, that those laws aren't passed simply because some megacorp wants to restrict their rights. Secondly, most of the laws slashdot visitors are upset about are direct responses to "cool, stick it to the man" activities, like creating massive global networks designed to efficiently move copyright protected works to people who don't have the copyrights.

That reminds me of a time..

[Jonny Ringo]

My friend lived in New York and he bought a bootleg copy of the movie "Ghost", yeah the one where they mold clay (don't ask why). Anyways it was still in theatres at the time, and when he got home he put it in the vcr. Well all it was was some guy with a sheet over his head making "ohhhhh" sounds for 20 minutes. Super funny the fact that the guy who sold the bogus bootleg went to the trouble of filming himself for 20 minutes being a dumbass! ahhh it can only happen in New York.

Re:That reminds me of a time..

[dr_dank]

Have him play it backwards. It'll say:
"Kill your parents, worship Satan, and dude, you're seriously gay".

Re:That reminds me of a time..

[SeanAhern]

What really gets me is that you know that he did it for 20 minutes. Watched it all the way to the end to see how that plot twist resolved eh? ;-)

Laser pointer

[splume]

Well, they could use this

Re:Don't forget...

[oldmacdonald]

I really don't understand why people hated the DIVX thing so much. People are perfectly happy to rent a videotape for $3 and have to return it in a day or so, why not get a DIVX DVD for $3 and simply NOT have to return it?

Now, if legislation like the DMCA is used to keep you from trying to crack the thing, _that_ is bad, but DMCA didn't even exist when Circuit City was pushing DIVX.

The one bad thing I remember thinking at the time was that one was in danger of buying a DVD player that couldn't play DIVX and being left out, or buying one that could and paying extra for something which might (and did) become completely useless.

The irony

[DrSkwid]

Is that, with CCD jamming in place, the best way to pirate the on screen movie will be via a 16mm analogue film camera and then teleciné to digital back at base !

Re:jam camcorders? blargh, start with mobile fones

[aridhol]

Hmm...true.
How 'bout making the theatre into a Faraday cage? Blocks the transmissions, but does't have any active components.

Uh...

[Flamerule]

The camcorder-jamming project comes as directors, including "Star Wars" legend George Lucas, are creating movies designed for digital projection that aim to provide sharper and more astounding visual effects than traditional film. But the technology has raised concerns that audience members might eventually create high-quality copies of movies using handheld video cameras smuggled into theaters.

What the fuck is this supposed to mean? With digital projection, the camcorders will suddenly begin recording at 5x video quality? Morons... the awful quality of bootleg recordings is from the inferiority of the devices they're recorded with. This sounds like some really fucking stupid FUD to me.

Re:Uh...

[MyHair]

I was wondering when someone would point that out.

Besides, digital projection currently has poorer resolution than 35mm film. I doubt it will overtake 70mm film anytime soon, and I suspect the theaters will have to upgrade projectors frequently as the technology gets better.

Come to think of it, if some piracy is an inside job don't you think someone could modify the projector to get a digital rip? That would be a better pirate movie than a camcorder pointed at a screen could get.

Plus, how do you get every theater in the world to buy new digital projectors? If they figure that out then the stock market will finally recover in the projector manufacturing boom.

Then again, this idea is from the guy who marketed DivX discs when DVD was coming out. Great idea. Sure people want to pay for a movie disc that is pay-per-view.

tell me about it

[Frothy Walrus]

flash back to watching my first rip of LOTR... gorgeous love scene in the woods... Liv Tyler looking stunning (in an elven sort of way)...

and the cameraman burps. gawd.

MPEG artifacts, I can deal with. but please no more of this.

Re:tell me about it

[isorox]

You get audiable artefacts when you go to the cinema. Some are funny. I was watching first contact 6 years ago - picard mows down the borg with the tommy gun. Somewhere at the back some guy shouts out "RAMBO!!"

Re:jam camcorders? blargh, start with mobile fones

[Didion Sprague]

We went to see XXX not long ago and a couple of losers sat down in front of us with an infant. The kid mighta been six, eight months old. An infant.

He/She -- whatever -- cried through the whole first part of the movie. Then something weird happened. Some noob in the projector booth flipped the volume switch up -- way up.

The move was painfully loud. My buddy Winky, ordinarily not a do-gooder, started mumbling about the annoyingly loud sound and wondering if it's actually *safe* for the baby to be there.

My other buddy, Drummer Todd, said it wasn't our business and we should just sit back and chill. In the Impala on the way over, we *did* say that we wanted a loud fucking movie with a lot of explosions.

Well, with the sound jacked, it was a loud fucking movie.

So Winky actually got up, went out into the lobby, and -- we learned all this later -- told one of the people at the popcorn booth that there was an infant in the movie and that with the sound as loud as it was, it might be a good idea to (a) turn down the sound, and (b) eject the infant.

So a few minutes later Winky comes back, sits down, and a few moments after *that*, a manager and a little guy in a red vest come looking for the info. They're shining their little light sticks all over the place trying to figure out where Winky was sitting.

Drummer Todd is telling all of us to shut the fuck up and chill, that the sound's fine, that the baby's not our business. Winky starts signalling for the ushers and a guy two rows behind us tells Winky to sit the fuck down.

Winky ignores him and nearly trips over Drummer Todd trying to get out in the aisle to flag the ushers. The couple in front of us -- the couple with the crying baby -- actually turn around to see what's going on and tell me -- me! -- to quiet down.

All this is going on while Vin Diesel has just let on that he really *is* a secret agent to the hot Russian chick while they're sitting in the cafe. She's explaining to him that there's a sniper outside and is about to cap him when he walks out. So they get up, walk over to the waiter, and whack the silver tray out of his hand. Now, it's a fine scene -- a pivotal scene in the movie -- but imagine this scene with the sound turn up so fucking loud you can't really hear anything. And then imagine a metal tray clattering and bullets flying -- all in 6.1 DTS -- or whatever they have. It was absolutely mind-numbingly loud. Truly, the single loudest experience I have *ever* had in my sixteen years of life.

Anyway, the ushers locate Winky, head on over to us, and ask the couple with the infant to please leave. They don't want to leave and it looks like a confrontation is gonna happen. All the while they're arguing with the ushers, the kid -- the fucking infant -- is balling his/her -- whatever -- head off. Balling and balling.

Finally, common sense prevails. The couple get up, glare at Winky, and -- with the infant in tow -- leave the theater. The ushers nod toward Winky, Winky nods back, and Drummer Todd tells him to sit the fuck down.

And a few moments later, the sound drops back down to normal.

And that was that. Very weird.

But I agree: forget the camcorders. Turn off the mobile phones.

And for the love of god: don't bring infants into films like XXX. It's insane.

Great news!

[gpinzone]

Now with all the amatures with handhelds out of business, we can now get professional rips of new movies by organized crime syndicates! No longer will we have to sit through grainy VHS camcorder copies of Hollywoods latest tripe. The mafia (asian and otherwise) will now have a viable buisiness model for peddling their illegal wares. Throw in P2P networks as a method of distribution for the geeks and we can't loose! Thank goodness for copy protection!

They'd use IR

[purduephotog]

or some form of pulse modulated laser. Best still would just pick a spectral response that the cameras see that humans do not- easily accomplished.

Re:They'd use IR

[aridhol]

I'm not sure, but I think that even frequencies we can't "see" can still damage our eyes.

Re:They'd use IR

[clockworkbox]

Why not an IR strobe light directed at the screen or an IR lamp focused on screen with the words "you suck" emblazened accross the screen. Or an IR laser scribling accross the screen "Drink Coke".

Re:Don't forget...

[CMiYC]

They really weren't Evil. They simply produced a product for stupid people. Remember. There are NO stupid products. There are only the stupid people who buy them.

Re:jam camcorders? blargh, start with mobile fones

[andrews]

Don't Jam, just put copper mesh in the walls and make the theater a big Faraday Cage. No jamming needed so your not violating FCC regs and the RF won't get in or out. A company I used to work for had one in a lab for RF testing, no pager or cell phone could receive a signal inside.

I've seen the same effect in older buildings that used a metal mesh for plaster lath. I had to put an 802.11 AP in every room of an old house because the RF couldn't get through the walls. Cell phones wouldn't work either. Same effect in buildings whose glass windows have a high metal content.

Quality and Cell phones

[hether]

I really don't think further deterioration in quality is going to hurt the pirates. Its not as if their current versions are without considerable disruptions. The only way to effectively stop people taping movies is to find a way to completely disable the ability of a camcorder or other recording device to function. And to be effective it would have to work in all types of theatres, and be cost effective enough for even the smallest theatres in remote countries to afford. Or maybe even give the technology to the them for free.

While they're at it, I hope they block cell phones too. The last couple of movies I went to, people actually took calls throughout the whole thing. One guy took five of them!! And of course he had one of those cutesy ring tones.

Some considerations

[Ektanoor]

A: It's silly to jam camcorders. 90% of piracy is made of near to genuine copies and not of "screen" copies. No matter the efforts, every "screen" copy is bad enough that even if you get your lovely blockbuster such way you wil probably avoid to look at it.

B: "screen" copies are not a product of modern piracy. They were here since videoplayer/recorders. The only difference Divx;) made was that the quality of a "screen" copy was a little better than the cassete. Anyway, people never loved "screens" and don't love them till now.

C: "screens" are usually a vector to move people to theaters. At least in the region where I live. There is a big difference seeing a good film on the monitor/TV and going to a good cinema to see it. However prices on a good cinema are not so cheap to risk going on every silly film. I remember that "The Matrix" was a box-record just because everyone has seen it before. At least, for the first week, the cinema here was stormed by a crowd of fans who knew that the Matrix has you...

So, what will be the consequences of jamming camcorders, I only guess. People go to cinema for quality. And people are different. I hope that this "jamming" will not affect some people I know about. People who are sensitive to light and frequencies with some deviation from the norm. Even most "normal" people are able to have some good deviations in their capacity to see things. I know this because I saw a lot of fantastic things while working with lots of monitors and people. So I wonder how this "jamming" would reflect on the quality of the shows.

Digital movies?

[Java Pimp]

...will stop audience members from videotaping digital movies off theater screens.

Ok, so this really won't be useful for another 10 years anyway. I mean, after all, how many digital theaters are there now? Additionally, what's the likelyhood many of these bootleg movies were even taped in a digital theater. I know we don't yet have a digital theater where I live. And it doesn't look like we are going to get one any time soon.

Re:jam camcorders? blargh, start with mobile fones

[tc]

What are you going to do when it vibrates then, smart guy? Answer it and have a conversation in the middle of the movie? Perhaps stand up and disturb everyone in your row plus the people immediately behind you on your way to the exit?

Face it, if you're likely to receive a call that is so stupendously important that it couldn't wait until you pick up your messages, then perhaps you shouldn't have gone to the movies in the first place.

Hell Ya! Ph34r my l337 cl04k1ng t3ch!

[Treeluvinhippy]

I want one for my car for the next time I'm driving in D.C. Go ahead run red lights and speed all you want! Those cameras privacy advocates are worried about? Bah, null and void, million dollar paperweights on a pole.

Next time I'm pulled over, that nifty little camera in the front of the police cruiser won't be used agaisnt me in a court of law.

Re:jam camcorders? blargh, start with mobile fones

[benwb]

Or you could do what I do when I want to see a movie and might need to take an emergency call- sit in the back row in an aisle seat.

Re:jam camcorders? blargh, start with mobile fones

[KelsoLundeen]

How does a guy get a name like 'Winky?'

Anyway, I'll agree. The idea of 'jamming' camcorders is insane. How many times have you actually been bothered by someone with a camcorder?

The answer is none. Anybody desperate enough to film the movie is gonna be as low-key and low-in-the-seat as possible.

It's the mobile phones and beepers that oughta be jammed -- in movie theaters, restaurants, and anywhere where you, the cell phone owner, are surrounded with people who are not using cell phones and aren't even thinking about cell phones.

Re:jam camcorders? blargh, start with mobile fones

[JordoCrouse]

Beleive it - in Utah, where its painfully normal for early 20 somethings to have babies, they always bring them to theaters.

To paraphrase Chris Rock: you can either get your kid on, or your movie on, but not both. If you decide to spit out a kid at the age of 22, you pretty much give up your ability to do anything but sit and look at the walls for the next 6 years.

Jamming Screaming Babies

[looseBits]

That's easy, just increase the O2 content in the room. As I understand the process of screaming implies hyperventalation. Can't do that in an 80% O2 environment. Might even make the movies seem a little better. No smoking, please :)

The key to success...

[TheTomcat]

is this paragraph:
"There's a difference in the way a camcorder and the human eye see the world," Schumann said. "We've figured out some ways to exploit that. The trick is to make sure there is no negative impact on the viewing experience for the audience."

I would completely quit going to see movies at the theatre for $10 a show if they start to flicker to avoid copying. I'm already ticked off that most theatres are run by 17 year olds who can't focus properly.

S

Seziure inducing?

[Dubber]

I wonder if this "technology" is going to exacerbate the propensity for seziures in epileptics?
Refresh rates (on some monitors & televisions) already have this effect and I know a few folks who've narrowly missed having seziures during quick back and forth scene changes in some film theatres.
Sure, sucks to be the epileptic, but it sucks even more to be the one trusted to protect them from themselves while in a crwoded theatre watching a movie in what used to appear to be a mostly safe theatre environment.

"unrelated jab at Microsoft"

[goldspider]

"They even throw an unrelated jab at Microsoft" ...as if that somehow adds substance or credibility to the article.

Re:stupid commercials

[slipgun]

...$3.00 for a coke, and $4.50 for a box of popcorn

What, you don't smuggle food in under your coat?

Re:Conflicting message

[EllF]

"Event horizon" probably isn't the phrase you want here. I'm sure it makes you feel all fuzzy to say it, but you should look it up, first:

event horizon: The region, usually described as spherical, marking the outer boundary of a black hole, inside which the gravitational force is strong enough to prevent matter or radiation from escaping. [dictionary.com]

I know these new anti-pirating measures are nifty, but good god - let us *hope* they haven't found a way to keep all energy and matter from escaping from the clutches of the MPAA, lest we all be really screwed.

Love the math

[TheTomcat]

I love their math:
"According to Cinea's grant abstract, the motion picture industry loses some $3 billion a year due to piracy, including the sale of illegal copies made using camcorders in theaters."

I bet this is how that was calculated:
- Seeing a show costs $10.
- "Pirate" tapes sold on the street: 18.75 million
- Said tapes viewed by 4 distinct people
- each viewer sees the movie four times.

So:
18,750,000 tapes
* 4 viewers
-------------
75,000,000
* 4 views per viewer
-------------
300,000,000 views total
* 10 dollars to see the movie, legit
-------------
3,000,000,000 dollars "lost" to piracy

Give me a break.

S

My consumer camcorder has an anti-Cinea setting...

[dpbsmith]

My consumer camcorder has a variety of settings that affect the way it "sees" rapid motion. When transferring 8 mm films through one of those cheap reflector boxes, for example, the normal settings give a pulsating and unevenly bright image because of strobing. But if I use one of the "simulate slow shutter" settings, I can get very good results. The LONGEST of these settings does smear and blur motion, but one of the intermediate settings removes the flicker while adding very little motion blur.

And this is just a cheap consumer camcorder--and it's a feature that it has ALREADY.

I can easily believe that Cinea might be able to introduce short "tachistoscopic" artifacts that might screw up a camcorder on its normal settings, but if the camcorder's effective "simulated slow shutter speed" is 1/20 of a second or so, the artifacts will have to last 1/20th of a second or so to be visible to the camera--and at that speed, they'd be pretty visible to the naked eye.

I find it very hard to believe that the people who take videos off a movie screen don't know how to adjust their camcorders. Or that, if the Cinea scheme becomes popular, camcorder vendors will not respond with settings that are called by some other name but nudge, nudge, wink, wink designed to overcome the problem. Or that it can't be taken care of by some kind of digital processing afterward (analogous to using timebase correctors on analog VCR copy-protection schemes.)

In other words, it's a scam perpetrated on theatre owners.

Also, undoubtedly the "camcorder-jamming" artifacts are actually just as visible as, say, dirt specks flashing quickly by on individual frames of a dirty print. It may not make a lay audience walk out and demand their money back--they don't do that for dirty prints now. But people will be aware that the image quality isn't what it should be.

To a critical eye, DLP is currently SLIGHTLY inferior to traditional film projection in some regards (superior in others). Anything that tips that balance is going to be a problem. If the ordinary UNCRITICAL lay audience judges that "perfect" digital DLP actually isn't quite as good as 35mm and starts thinking of it as a cheap-and-cheesy alternative. I would think a cinema manager would be nuts to shell out a couple of hundred thousand for a DLP setup then add anything that would make the image quality worse.

Re:jam camcorders? blargh, start with mobile fones

[buysse]

Nope. Let it go to voice mail and leave the fucking theatre to call them back. People can handle a slight delay in response. I generally don't answer my phone while driving, or even in a conversation with another person who's standing next to me or with me at a restaurant. I'll let it go, then say (based on caller-ID) whether I need to check the message then or later.

Dammit, people, it's not that hard to be polite. You don't need to be reachable immediately at the press of a button all the time.

All you need is two black markers...

[Anonvmous Coward]

I can get around this protection scheme with only 2 black markers. The first marker is for taking dictation, the second is for rapidly drawing pictures of what's on the screen.

They'd have to blink the film A LOT in order to break that scheme.

Re:$3 Billion and 50% cut in piracy

[Contact]

Look on the bright side - every dollar Hollywood spends on pointless snake oil, is one less dollar they can spend buying politicians. :)

Re:jam camcorders? blargh, start with mobile fones

[the_machine]

They don't care about jamming phones. Phones ringing do not figure into their perceived revenue loss.

$2 million grant

[pmineiro]

i hope everybody noticed they got a $2 million dollar grant from NIST to develop this technology.

your hard earned tax dollars, not going to towards things like a faster internet, faster genome sequencing, or an aerospace plane, but instead to pay to develop a technology that will make some guy rich helping hollywood fight a fringe form of copy protection that will be dwarfed by the possibilities of direct digital piracy that will be opened up by the digital distribution/projection infrastructure this proposed technology depends upon.

wtf.

-- p

$2 million dollars!!

[morcheeba]

Why so much, and why didn't the MPAA foot the bill? It's not like this technology is going to benefit anyone else. Why are taxpayers footing the bill?

My simple design for this would be a strobe light (or maybe an arc light capable of producing IR) at the back of the theater, projected through a piece of silicon or other cheap IR filter. Since camcorders are sensitive to IR and people aren't, the recording will have any annoying artifact you want to project.

So, where do I claim my $2 million?

but are unauthorized recording illegal?

[night_flyer]

http://www.crgazette.com/go_article/0,1336,42457%2 52D1,00.html?cks=0

Against this for medical reasons

[moc.tfosorcimgllib]

What about people with epilepsy?

It doesn't matter if it's visible to the human eye or not. If adding extra frames that degrade the quality of the film causes a strobe-light effect of any sort, you can set off some serious seizures.

I hope they do a lot of research with this before implementing it.

DIVX threatened the new DVD format.

[ZorinLynx]

I didn't hate DIVX because it let you "rent" discs and throw them away. I hated it because it was potentially affecting the library of movies available on regular DVD. When DIVX came out, DVD was just starting to become popular. It really had the potential to totally make or break the success of DVD as a format.

Disney, for instance, was one company planning DIVX-exclusive releases. Even if you bought the "DIVX-gold" releases, which theoretically you could play forever, they still had the right to revoke your ability to view that disc at any time.

I don't want studios to have that much control over something after I buy it. This is the same reason why DRM is evil and should not be supported in any way. DVD's region coding and copy protection are nothing when compared to the evils of DRM. Period. EOF.

Camera rips will probably fizzle anyway...

[SheepHead]

Seems to me that if all projection booths go to digital projection, that many fewer movies will be pirated using camcorders anyway, because someone will figure out how to intercept the signal and rip it straight from the projection booth, somehow.

You can't do that now because the film is on a big canister that needs light shone through it... but if it's just bits on a HD, the bits can be intercepted, or even copied when the movie isn't being played.

This DivX company seems doomed to failure. Now they're trying to introduce something akin to stopping people from copying CDs onto audio tapes. Sure, it might work, but those who want a copy of a CD now just rip it...

And, seems that the industry's biggest problem now is untrustable DVD screeners, honestly.

If you're about to say that there aren't HDs big enough to store a full digital projection movie, well, my HD used to get pretty full ripping an audio CD, too...

Rip the digital stream, bring it home, reencode. If it's at all possible, it'll be done. It's essentially an early copy of the DVD playing on a really nice projector. Capturing that video through a camcorder won't be necessary for much longer.

sheephead

Re:Camera rips will probably fizzle anyway...

[cei]

The "full digital projection movie" for Episode II was only 68 GB and fit nicely on 14 DVD-Rs... (plus another two for trailers)

Why not use IR?

[jridley]

Camcorders are sensitive to IR that our eyes are not. Why not just project a nice 60's style spinning swirl pattern in IR? You could build this out of garage sale junk for about $50 and it would make any videotaped version of a movie pretty much unwatchable, and not be visible to humans.

As a side benefit, it would also allow MIB to root out unregistered space aliens; they'd be the ones complaining about the weird patterns on the screen.

Re:Why not use IR?

[jridley]

The filter gets flipped out of the way when you turn on Nightshot.
It's true this blocks a lot of IR, but not all of it. A remote control puts out a fair amount of light, it's easy to see it lighting a small chunk of a bright surface (such as a movie screen); a projector should be able to do better.

True, when the Nightshot is turned on, removing the IR block filter, you can use a remote control as a flashlight.

Still, it wouldn't take much. Just an IR laser (VERY CHEAP) being panned around the screen by a rotating mirror would bug the hell out of anyone trying to watch the movie on a recorded version.

DAMN! Not what I was hoping for...

[gdyas]

I got all excited and everything 'cause I thought someone had invented a way of jamming camcorders by some sort of radio frequency emission.

Would've been great for all those jackasses I see at museums.

Re:jam camcorders? blargh, start with mobile fones

[beanyk]

It's the mobile phones and beepers that oughta be jammed -- in movie theaters, restaurants, and anywhere where you, the cell phone owner, are surrounded with people who are not using cell phones and aren't even thinking about cell phones.

I disagree. Just in places where silence is expected and needed. There's no reason someone in a restaurant can't take/make a mobile phone call, if they know to keep their voice down to the level of normal conversation. But in a cinema or theatre or library, it's totally unacceptable.

You will LOVE this movie!

[soupmaster]

"show lines that are invisible to the naked eye. Rather than produce accidental disturbances, he said, Cinea plans to create specific disturbances that it can control"

This smells more of subliminal advertising, than copyright protection...

If everyone is drinking Sprite and wearing Nike shoes 10 years from now, we'll know I was right.

Not Offtopic

[wunderhorn1]

I really wish the moderator would have read the story before s/he went around dispensing moderations.

Re:stupid commercials

[ncc74656]

...$3.00 for a coke, and $4.50 for a box of popcorn

What, you don't smuggle food in under your coat?

When it's still 80-something outside, showing up at the theater in a trenchcoat looks suspicious. That assumes, of course, that you can get inside without roasting first.

It's all too easy to bring your own munchies to the drive-in, though...

Re:stupid commercials

[Amazing Quantum Man]

What, you don't smuggle food in under your coat?

Obviously you missed this part: I live in southern california

A coat would be a tip-off, even in the dead of winter. In the summer, it would probably get him arrested as a terrorist.

Re:jam camcorders? blargh, start with mobile fones

[jt007]

How many times have you actually been bothered by someone with a camcorder?

I agree with your point about banning mobile phones, but the whole point of this system is not about stopping people being 'bothered' by a camcorder, its about film companies/cinemas using this technology to protect their investment.

$3Billion

[Amazing Quantum Man]

Has any studio actually put the $3Billion in "piracy losses" into their annual statement?

If not, they should shut the fuck up, or prove the statement.

Re:jam camcorders? blargh, start with mobile fones

[ingvar]

There is an even easier way of handle that.

On-call, don't go to the cinema. If nothing else
because getting paged in the middle of the filml and having to interrupt and see what's up is such an nicredible pain anyhow.

And if you're about to say "what about those who are always on call?", all I can reply is "get another job".

Re:why does no one see other uses for this tech

[akhaksho]

Read the article. This isn't a "camera jammer". It's just a way to make the recording of a movie from a theater screen have artifacts that will make it unwatchable. It has no effect on camcorders in the real world.

lol

[cjpez]

From the article:

According to Cinea's grant abstract, the motion picture industry loses some $3 billion a year due to piracy, including the sale of illegal copies made using camcorders in theaters.

I think I figured out their math:

• Money lost due to people not seeing the movie because they have a cheap-ass camcorder copy of it on their computer that they spent days downloading: $7.50
• Money lost due to piracy in other forms (direct copy, etc): $2,999,999,992.50

I'm so glad people are spending money on this research.

Kazaa? Paying for crap movies

[phorm]

And those that download it off of kazaa pay nothing. However, they may have gone to see the show otherwise. I watched a rip of Austin Powers 3 on DivX. The movie was a horrible disappointment, so I'm glad I didn't pay $8 to see it in theatre. That's their loss.

Meanwhilst, I've downloaded a few movies that I absolutely loved, and ended up buying the DVD's.

So really, I suppose in one way they lose out, and one way they win. If all that proliferated were the so-called "ShakyCam" copies then it probably wouldn't be so bad. Were I even less honest than already stated I could have downloaded the DivX DVD-Rip of said movies and saved $20, but for me it's worth it to buy the DVD.

Often it's not really a case of cannot afford, so much as a "paying for shit." If less shit (especially in the form of bad sequels) were brought out, maybe people would be more willing to pay for worthwhile movies. I think the last movie I saw in the theatre was Spider-man. It was worth every penny, and I wouldn't think about getting the DivX for that (DVD for me).

If quality is cheap then people will be too, decent movies would probably sell more DVD's - phorm

Re:Kazaa? Paying for crap movies

[isorox]

I download Stargate SG1 episodes as and when they are broadcast in the U.S. My landlord wont allow use ot have satelite TV, and theres no cable available, therefore I cant watch SG1 on Sky. A shame, as when itvdigital was still arrond (fucking football nerds) I subscribed to sky one no problem.

Instead I download episodes of the net. When they come to DVD, I buy them. I currently own 25 DVD's, each costing between $20-$30, just of Stargate. had I not, all those years ago, downloaded the episodes, I would never have bought dvds to watch on my computer, I would never have bought a dvd player so I could watch dvd's on my tv (after realising the advantage), I wouldnt have bought a widescreen TV, and I wouldnt have bought a Dolby 5.1 Audio System.

Had I not downloaded SG1 episodes a few years ago, I can safely say I wouldnt own
~20 Films ($15-30 each - $500)
3 Thunderbirds disks ($70)
6 Seasons of friends (sorry :( - $500)
4 Seasons of SG1 ($500)
Futurama season 1 ($45)

Arround $1600 of DVD's

I would also not own a
28" widescreen TV - $450
DVD Player - $150
Panasonic Amp - $200
Surround speakers - $100

Arround $900 of equipment

to be far, I would own a cheap ($150) TV and a cheap ($100) mini hifi system.

Therefore total gain to industry of my downloading sg1 episodes: $2500

total gain to industry had I not downloaded: $250

By downloading those SG1 episodes, I cost myself $2250. Over 2 1/2 years. As a student. Shit.

Re:Kazaa? Paying for crap movies

[isorox]

Fine if I lived in america

Just wait till every squad car has one

[FreeUser]

It's illegal. This company figured a way to stop it.

Yeah, its innovations like this that make the world safe for ... what, exactly? More mindless Hollywood tripe that is selling like crazy already, despite the avialability of Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter in divx format?

I wonder how many Rodney King's are going to be caught being victimized on tape now, once the LAPD installs those buggers in their squad cars. Or how many bank and convinience store robberies are going to go unmonitored, once Joe Thug can go out and buy (or steal) a cheap video camera jamming device.

Not that you can ever put Pandora's box back together again (to mix my metaphores), but spending the kind of money on this sort of research the way the entertainment industry is doing is anything but a positive contribution to the net human condition.

Not that cartel thugs like that will ever know or feel shame, as their past actions and words already attest.

Re:Just wait till every squad car has one

[rutledjw]

Read the story before posting please. One cannot install those buggers in their squad cars. It has to do with how images are projected from the viewing apparatus screen).

It's not some Romulan cloaking device...

Re:Just wait till every squad car has one

[FreeUser]

Um.............did you read this? It's not portable.

Yet.

Yes, I did read it. But as we all know, technology is hardly static, even with the built-in slowdown of innovation inherent in the patent system.

It will become portable, at some point. How long until only government issue, hardenend cameras can operate in many places, while consumer cameras become useless for anything other than taking pictures at home (assuming you don't live too close to a theater, or a restaurant playing copyrighted music, or a police station)? Cringley's looking for predictions ... maybe this time next year?

Re:Just wait till every squad car has one

[FreeUser]

Read the story before posting please. One cannot install those buggers in their squad cars. It has to do with how images are projected from the viewing apparatus screen).

I did read it. I just reread it again. It is still not entirely clear whether it is a timing issue (which is easy to clean up digitally, interference pattern or no), or a strobe-like device to confuse luminescence detection of the camera itself (which was my assumption the first time I read the article). A strobe like device, of low intensity (but enough to confuse the camera's light setting) would actually strike me as more viable, though I suppose one could induce luminescnence variations in the film with less irritation to the viewing audience.

In retrospect my strobe interpretation (or, more likely, misunderstanding) seems unlikely, so you are probably right, this device won't be deployed all that widely. Now of course I've just planted the idea for something that might be more portable ...

Reading it a third time, it finally hits me over the head that they're playing with timings (perhaps even frame rates), which have to be one of the easier things to clean up digitally. What, exactly, do they hope to accomplish with this. "Oh, there's a slow, or fast, horizontal line moving up and down my camera's recording, oh no!". That'll take one easy filter in post-production to clean up, then its on to the divx conversion and some anonymous remailer site to post the result to the web. Perhaps my most erroneous assumption was that they had something that would actually work, rather than just more of the same snakeoil the gullible folks in Hollywood seem so eager to spend their money on. Oops.

Re:Just wait till every squad car has one

[rutledjw]

Weeelll, I think it's more than that. Given what I know about the human visual system:

Human eyes sample images at a fairly slow rate (about 12 Hz). Also, when the eye gets a particularly bright flash of light, the photo-receptors are "bleached" (like when you look at the sun and part of your vision is gone for a bit, unless you stare and then it's just gone). They have reacted to the flash with a ton of chemical reaction (think nerve communication) and it takes a while for them to generate more chemical AND for the existing to dissipate.

So as I read this, the conecpt to to fire high intesity VERY short lived blasts which will produce the same effect on a digital photo-receptors, but which will not effect human photo-receptors. I doubt this will be perfect for stoping pirates, esp if one doesn't want to hurt the viewer experience. They're probably hoping to make it just "annoying enough" (kinda like the CD copy protectiong that adds pops and static when you rip the songs).

Even so, I think you may still be able get most of it out with the filter you're talking about. Or how about this, you change the sampling rate for the digital device to 12Hz?

And to think they spent all that money... ;)

Re:Just wait till every squad car has one

[the gnat]

It's little idiocies like this that make reading Slashdot comments both a delight and a pain in the ass. You sound like the inverse of that fake poster that says "When you're using Napster, you're supporting Communism!" Your comment is more like "Fight police brutality: support copyright infringement!"

Re:jam camcorders? blargh, start with mobile fones

[Danse]

Perhaps stand up and disturb everyone in your row plus the people immediately behind you on your way to the exit?

How is that any different than someone getting up to go to the bathroom? Give me a break. Some people are a bit oversensitive.

Re:Here we go again

[NDPTAL85]

You can't dismiss morality by calling it a troll. Stop running away from the way of the moral lifestyle. Embrace the way of the light! Choose the side of the LAW ABIDING LIGHT!

Re:jam camcorders? blargh, start with mobile fones

[KelsoLundeen]

You're right.

And that's the point: why should I care about something that doesn't benefit me? I'd much rather support a cell phone *ban* that benefits me, the movie consumer, than a slow, technological paradigm shift that will (a) raise prices, (b) create new glitches, and (c) be cracked within weeks and will only benefit rich guys like Valenti wearing Italian suits.

Re:What about lasers blinding cameras?

[homer_ca]

There's the slight problem of this being labor intensive and night vision scopes being expensive. If theaters could afford your plan, they could just get the usher to kick out any customers they find with camcorders. Not to mention no risk of blinding your customers.

Where ate the tech folks? This sucks.

[aiken_d]

Damn, I wasn't even going to post because I was sure someone would have gotten to this first. Apparently not, unless it was moderated into the dirt.

The technology in question works by "modulating the light from the projector" in such a way that it interferes with video cameras "much the same way computer monitors do."

My read is that they're introducing an artificial refresh to movies -- right now, each frame from the movie is put in place, then lit up all at once, then moved out of the way for the next frame. What these bozos want, by my read, is to put each frame in place and then run a horizontal bar of light down the frame, so that in the "real world" only part of the screen is illuminated at any given time.

This would take advantage of the relatively slow refresh rate (sort of) of our eyes, while causing problems for CCD-based stuff, much like computer monitors do (that monitor you're looking at -- it's flashing really quickly).

The thing that sucks here is that it will probably degrade the movie-going experience for *everyone* in the name of anti-piracy. Part of what makes the movie theater experience nice (or at least superior to TV sets) is the way film looks. This will likely degrade that.

Sure, they could try to compensate by upping the frame rate, or scanning each frame two or three times, but the bottom line is: this will change the way movies look. Not dramatically, and Mom and Pop probably either won't notice or will only come away with the subliminal (subluminal?) impression that movies aren't as engrossing as they used to be.

I haven't seen this technology in use, but I've played with film quite a bit, and my expectation is that it will be the equivelent of replacing nice incandescent lights in an office with flourescent lights -- you can still see, noting really *seems* to be flashing, but something is just *not right*.

And that pisses me off, and if my expectation is right, this will likely keep me out of any theater adopting this technology and make me wait for the DVD release, which I will hopefully be able to continue to play on a good DLP or LCD projector, sans refresh.

I suppose the studios won't care, as they'll just get my cash for the DVD rather than through movie tickets, but this could hurt movie theaters as film buffs stay away in droves (and talk down the theater experience to the general populace).

Cheers
-b

Bad idea

[Joe U]

"Face it, if you're likely to receive a call that is so stupendously important that it couldn't wait until you pick up your messages, then perhaps you shouldn't have gone to the movies in the first place."

Never heard of a doctor on call, have you? Or do you expect him/her to just sit in the hospital 24 hours a day, just in case.

There are exceptions to every rule.

No more Rodney King videos

[eyeball]

I wonder if the cops will adopt a similar technology to stop people from videotaping their brutality ^h^h^h^h^h^h^h arrests.

Re:jam camcorders? blargh, start with mobile fones

[jafuser]

Dammit, people, it's not that hard to be polite. You don't need to be reachable immediately at the press of a button all the time.

UGH. This reminds me of a brainwas^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hdisplay at Epcot by Motorola where they give you their view of the future of communication, and basically everybody's interconnected instantly by various devices.

The worst part was someone who took a call on their wristwatch-videophone while he was in the middle of bungee-jumping.

I'm sorry, but if I'm in the middle of bungee-jumping, I'm not taking a call.

Re:Don't forget...

[Mikeytsi]

The point was it was like $10-12 for the DIVX DVD. And the players were shitty and expensive, and didn't meet up with specs for regular DVD's. There's a reason it failed, it was a crappy product that no one wanted to buy.

Will it be raspberry?

[miTTio]

Radar Tech: Sir. The radar, sir. It appears to be...

(Jam starts running down the screen.)

Radar Tech: ...jammed.

Helmet: Jammed? (takes a taste of the jam) Raspberry. There's only one man who would dare give me the raspberry. (pulls down mask) Lone Star!

Re:jam camcorders? blargh, start with mobile fones

[jafuser]

Wouldn't that make you a copyright circumvention device, and therefore effecitvely make YOU illegal under the DMCA?

Not "digital" copies at all

[timeOday]

The camcorder-jamming project comes as directors, including "Star Wars" legend George Lucas, are creating movies designed for digital projection that aim to provide sharper and more astounding visual effects than traditional film. But the technology has raised concerns that audience members might eventually create high-quality copies of movies using handheld video cameras smuggled into theaters.

The fact that the camcorder and the projector are both digial is irrelevant. It is not a digital copy because movie screens reflect photons, not bits. The projecter is a D/A converter and the camcorder is a A/D converter.

I'm not being pedantic. The reason this matters is because camcorder copies are crap and not worth watching. And this company is claiming that stopping camcorder bootlegs would bring the industry an extra $1.5e9 per year, yeah right.

They should worry about the REAL digital copies, leaked by insiders and mass-produced in the far east. (Well, they ARE worried about those, but this camcorder stuff is a joke).

Problem with that.....

[Fallen Kell]

Like the article says, the problem is insiders working in the theaters who are allowing the movie to be video taped in the first place. If its a hardware solution that is done in the theater, then that means that the people who work in the theaters will be in control and in charge of that hardware security measure from being activated and used. The entire setup would have to be fool-proof to keep the people who work at the theater from allowing the copying, (fool-proof as in, it always activates when a movie is being played, power to the system is completely secured and running on the same circuit as the projector's (to keep them from just going to the circuit breaker and hitting the switch), the emitters will have to be in locations that is it physically impossible to get to to place something in front of them to block the signal (which will be absolutely impossible since they need to be physically located somewhere in the theater and the employee's can easily setup a ladder and block them), the list goed on as well).

Tickets sales will plument

[Treeluvinhippy]

Flickering might render a camcorder copy unviewable, but it also might render me a huge headache.

In other words...

[kavau]

they are going to create an artificial flicker similar to the flickering of a TV screen? Just great. Goodbye flicker-free digital cinema!

Besides, just how much do the producers think the videotaping of a movie off a theater screen will hurt their sales? If it's a movie I want to watch, I'd definitely not be content with watching a inferior-quality camcorder rip. The only occasion I can think of is where such a rip might prevent me from watching the movie is if the movie does not meet up to my expectations. Therefore, only the makers of awfully bad movies have to be afraid of this.

But then... 90% of Hollywood's movies are awfully bad. Okay, I understand now why they are concerned ;)

Shhh...don't tell them about ...

[johnlcallaway]

It has been discovered that some people that go to movies don't pay. They have friends that work at the theaters that let them in for free, or go see more than one movie after getting their ticket. Some have even gone as far as hiding in the trunks of cars at what few drive-ins remain.

To combat this piracy threat, estimated at 20 million samolians a year, theaters will require all persons entering the theater to have barcodes branded on their foreheads. They will be cross checked against a central database to ensure that they only see the movie they paid for, and that only one person with the unique bar code is in any theater at the same time.

Since every major cinema will have different standards, the FCC will use an auction to allocate the portion of your forehead to be branded. Those sections in the middle region, which are flatter and easier to read, will of course bring the highest dollars.

Privacy advocates are already concerned that the 'movie police' will now be able to tell what movies each and every person in the world have seen, and began lobbying for legislation prohibiting this practice. But since it was released that Ralph Nader often visits www.goatse.com, all lobbying efforts have mysteriously ceased.

In other news, following recent examples of airport security checks, movie theaters are installing food detectors at all entrances to ensure no dangerous food items are brought into the facility. The theaters will provide certified safe foods at concession areas for those that wish to eat or drink during a movie.

love the comment

[Archfeld]

"...Divx was a great concept that didn't get market support...."

err DUH how clueless can you get, no market support implies it was NOT a great product because NO ONE wanted it. The only people behind DIVX were the movie companies that stood to gain bazillions by controlling your every viewing choice. The so-called market, or the paying customers HATED the crap and refused to buy it. Must be nice to be the center of the universe...

Re:good !

[Gruneun]

To be honest I wouldn't spend mondey on developing this product

The developers agree with you. Apparently they spend mondey on other projects and reserve tuesdey through fridey for this one.

Screeners?

[anonymous cupboard]

Um one of the biggest problems isn't the poor quality cam movies, it is the screeners. In former days the screeners were on VHS and generally were not particularly high quality to start with. Now the screeners are DVD and the rips (particularly to DIVX) are to be seen to be believed.

Where are those screeners coming from? Well, the film industry of course!!!!!

Re:Screeners?

[JonWan]

I get VHS screeners all of the time. They all have the no-copy warning and 1-800 number randomally thru out the movie. Some even randomally change to black and white. The DVDs seem to be for the theaters, although I have been sent some for anime and Indie films. A big part of the problem is the security of the prints. Give a $6.00 an hour floor employee $500 and "borrow" the print make a tele-cine copy and return it in a few hours. I think that is the reason behind the digital push. Not quality, but more security. It will be harder to borrow the hard drives than the prints.

Re:Screeners?

[anonymous cupboard]

A 35mm print is big, 70mm is enormous (and very heavy). Sheer physical size makes borrowing difficult (but not impossible). A VHS cassette or DVD is small and can even be smuggled out in a pocket. OTOH, a removeable HD is extremely compact. If the theatre can read it then so could a better equipped illegal duplicating facility.

The film companies aren't going to send out an HD to a critic, or a buyer for a theatre/theatre-chain. They didn't send out prints, just VHS, or more recently DVD. Around major competition time (i.e., like the Acadamy Awards), the DVD screeners seem to go to everyone and their dog (as long as they are industry related).

Whilst in far places, I have even seen screeners broadcast with shit dubbing on TV and even shown by the national airline.

Re:Screeners?

[King_TJ]

Furthermore, it sounds to me like if digital becomes the de-facto standard for theaters and projection -- they'll begin doing such things as downloading new movies via satellite.

Once this happens, you can be sure the hackers will be right there, finding ways to break whatever encryption is used - and streaming the new movies onto their hard drives from the comfort of their own homes.

Re:Screeners?

[anonymous cupboard]

On the principle that the decryption s/w will have to be at the theatre and that somewhere along the line someone has to have the keys. It doesn't particularly work with sat tv so why would it work for films via sat?

Re:Screeners?

[cei]

Not that anybody makes 70mm prints anymore...

Re:Screeners?

[anonymous cupboard]

Not quite, what about IMAX? That is still in a 70mmm flipped format (the thing runs and is projected horizontally). However I don't think too many people would be copying those.

Infrared, anybody?

[AyeRoxor!]

I learned back in my teens that camcorders' photosensors display remote control patterns as bright white light. I don't know, but I imagine that this is still true for modern cameras, to a degree. To do otherwise would be to ultra-refine photosensors to only capture visible wavelength, for no legitimate purpose. How difficult would it be to set up UV "floodlights" on the edges and corners of a movie theater's screen? Like remote controls, it's beyond the range of human sight, and that would sure fsck up any recorded image.

Oh yeah, and I hereby claim first thought on this subject 10/11/02 at 13:56 EST. :)

Divx

[lostchicken]

Founded by the same world class engineering team behind the highly regarded Divx(TM) encrypted DVD system
Yeah. I'd really be bragging about that.

Babies in Movies Tips

[dubiousmike]

I know this is the exception to the rule but:

I have a 17 month old child. My wife and I have brought him to about 20 movies since he was born. This includes ATATC, LOTR, Spiderman, ect.

For those of you who have an infant child and want to bring he/she to the movie, try some of the following:

- Your kid naps. Usually like clockwork. Time your movie for when the kid is about to fall asleep. We would keep our child from napping until we actually got to the movie. This usually can get you through about half of the movie with a sleeping child.

- Breast feed/bottle. Have these ready to go when the child wakes up.

- Biter cookies (Gerber). These are intended for teething infants/todlers. These cookies are hard and if your child has yet to have much of any teeth, one cookie will keep the kid busy for a good 15 to 20 minutes. We'd bring at least 4 to 5 of them. Overkill is necessary as they get dropped on the floor.

Out of 20 or so movies, we have had to remove the baby from the theater twice. Once was because we didn't follow our own rules (family corraled us to go against our better judgement) and the other time, his teeth hurt so bad, that nothing (short term) would keep him from crying. We've learned since then that having our child pre-party with a bit of kiddie ibuprofren with a bit of ambesol if needed works wonders.

Yes, I know that those two movies that we attended with a cranky baby, likely caused a few frowns, but as we care about our own movie experiences, we were extrememly quick to remove him from the theater once he wouldn't settle down. We'd never think of staying in there with him crying.

We are getting to the point now where he usually walks where he pleases and if the movie doesn't keep him attentive, he wont want to keep in one place. We don't go as often at this point (and very rarely with him).

But maybe he could hold the video camera. That might keep him busy. After all, he can minimally use the Replay TV to start *shudder* Barney, Sesame Street, ect. 17 months old. I can barely believe it myself.

Re:jam camcorders? blargh, start with mobile fones

[tzanger]

Yeah, because anyone who has a child of course is sitting looking at a wall for 6 years, missing out on all the great movies (well...at least for 4 months or so until it's on DVD, which is the route which many people without babies follow...and presuming that their area is backwards and doesn't have special movie showings [cinebabies.com] for parents). It's not like they're having an experience that almost all of them will forever describe as the best time of their life. Oh wait, yes it is.

I have three small children. My wife and I see movies all the time. The secret is called a sitter.

Jesus christ are /. types that far removed from the real world? Sure, it costs you $50 every time you want to take 4-5 hours off without the kids, but that's part of what being a parent is about -- spending time with your kids.

Re:What about lasers blinding cameras?

[EvanED]

And if he misaims, the theater suddenly has a couple billion dollar lawsuit on its hands.

Re:And give me a break

[zapfie]

Uh.. have you ever gone movie searching with any major P2P app? There are TONS of camcorder rips.

Nice personal insult you added in, by the way. It added a lot of credibility to your argument.

Disney fun with Divx

[mbourgon]

I remember this... Divx gold was an abomination. Say your daughter bought a Disney Divx-Gold (Disney was going to go exclusively Divx), and took it to a friend's house. When it was watched over there, a $3 charge would appear on that person's bill, since _their_ player hadn't already paid for it. A real sleazy way to make money off little children - real nice, Eisner.

The original idea had promise (Aside from all the ecological fun with millions of thrown-away disks). Trust greedy bastards to get greedier and totally screw themselves over. Divx: designed by Circuit City and a Law Firm. Does that tell you why it was avoided?

The cops need these

[terrymr]

Call me paranoid but how long before camcorder jamming devices are installed on COPS to avoid Rodney King type scandals ?

Blind people with digital implants

[grummerX]

How will this affect formerly blind people with the new digital cortical implants? I'd be quite annoyed if I spent all that money on regaining my sight only to have the theaters jam my implants.

I see a disabilities suit in the making...

--grummerX

Re:jam camcorders? blargh, start with mobile fones

[SanLouBlues]

Yeah, this would be great. That way my sister who's doing her residency wouldn't be able to go to movies three out of four weeks a month for which she's on call. It's hard enough for her to have a nice social life as is. Unless doctors could get an exception to the jamming, it would be a bad implementation.

I have a better suggestion

[docwhat]

Why don't they just bathe the auditorium with infrared light. The digital cam-corders and video-tape cam corders are sensitive to the IR light . It wouldn't stop good old film cameras, but I don't think they are as easy or cost effective to pirate with.

You heard it here first. Anyone want to patent this idea so?

Ciao!

Re:jam camcorders? blargh, start with mobile fones

[n9hmg]

We've already discussed the cellphone jamming option , here, referencing this.
Too bad it's illegal.
On the kid thing: sure, it's rude to the other patrons, but more importantly, the poor kid is bored and ignored. I've seen three movies in the theatre since I became Dad over 5.5 years ago, and two of them were in the past 6 months (Lilo & Stitch, and Jonah(Veggietales RULE!)).

isn't this easy?

[Splork]

just have a bright varying intensity infrared light shining on the movie screen. people won't see it but video cameras should. (ever pointed a TV remote at a video camera?)

Plus One. Insightful.

[gaudior]

There is no difference between corrupt corporate executives, and Copyright Infringers, morally speaking. You are either morally and ethically correct, or you are not. The sooner people start understanding that there is NO grey area when it comes to morality and ethics, the sooner we can get on to the important business of mankind. Theft, Copyright violations, fraud, murder. whatever. It's ALL wrong.

Re:Plus One. Insightful.

[plumby]

Well, I'm glad that you've managed to solve all of the world's great moral and ethical issues in your mind.Better tell all of the world's religious leaders and thinkers that they don't need to worry any more 'cause someone's got all the answers.

what does that have to do with analog projection??

[Eric Smith]

This might be the technology that drives the stake in analog projection.

I can't read the CNet article due to the firewall at work, but how does blocking camcorders have anything whatsoever to do with the projection technology being analog or digital?

Re:jam camcorders? blargh, start with mobile fones

[buysse]

Hey, with a video phone, I might make one (to someone that could record it). Especially if it was someone who wanted to go jumping and couldn't.

Of course, I'm a bastage.

Re:jam camcorders? blargh, start with mobile fones

[ksw2]

What are you going to do when it vibrates then, smart guy? Answer it and have a conversation in the middle of the movie?

More likely, look at the caller id so I can call them back at a more convenient time. I'd sooner die than have a phone converstation in the movies.

Or (and you probably didn't think of this) see which one of my servers is down and decide if it's urgent enough for me to leave.

Not that I go very often... fuck Hollywood, bunch of mindless trash anyway.

Re:DLP versus film

[dpbsmith]

Well, I've read a number of reports from very critical people that inhabit rec.arts.movies.tech , and that group tends on the whole to be anti-digital, pro-film. And some consumer-type columnists (including Roger Ebert). All of these reports were on theatres showing the same film at more or less the same time in film and DLP, and the viewer walked back and forth between houses to compare.

What's remarkable, to my way of thinking, is that without exception ALL observers who have actually seen DLP and compared it to film under real-life conditions have come up with the same judgement: Not much difference. Of course they all go on to slice 'n' dice the differences that exist (on the one hand DLP is steadier, on the other hand DLP has visible pixelation and softness at viewing distances that some like for film, etc. etc.)

But the bottom line: there's not much difference. I have yet to see any eyewitness account in which the reporter said that there was a big difference. No great raves about DLP, no great pans.

I've personally seen DLP only once, and didn't compare it against film. All I can say is, it was a bit steadier and less flickery. But if I hadn't known it was DLP I never would have noticed.

70mm versus 35mm is a "Wow! what a difference" experience. DLP versus 35mm? "What's the difference?"

Now, as for dirty prints: it's all a matter of degree, and I have to say that the local multiplexes in the Boston area AIN'T that bad. I saw "Lord of the Rings" at the Randolph showcase when it had been showing for three or four weeks, and the print looked absolutely perfect to me. Plenty of dirt and scratches on the previews and "no smoking" stuff, but the feature itself was fine.

I don't think DLP has won by any means. It's perceived that the main cost is to the theatre owners and the main benefit is to the distributors.

Another unknown is the durability and reliability of the DLP gear. I WANTED to see DLP TWICE. I schlepped out to Framingham specifically to see "Fantasia 2000" in DLP, and the projector was down the day I went. How much of that is there? Can the DLP gear be run by people with the same amount of training and professionalism as the people they hire to run the film projectors?

And film projectors last and make money for theatre operators for decades and decades. The spiffy new DLP setup will probably still FUNCTION in five years, but what are the chances that the format of the distribution media won't change and that there won't be a constant "upgrade treadmill" cost?

Re:jam camcorders? blargh, start with mobile fones

[jpt.d]

i wouldn't mind them jamming mobile phones in cars that are moving, and the person using the phone is the driver.

Re:What about lasers blinding cameras?

[Jonny 290]

That's why you mount the laser in the barrel of an M-16 and offer the Maryland sniper a job. Looks like he's the right guy for the task. :)

block hidden cams in dressing... == BETTER IDEA

[thaigan]

A great use for this would be to jam all the hidden cams in dressing rooms, bathrooms and locker rooms. I was considering building a pocket size jammer for my wife to use when using public bathrooms or trying on clothes a few years ago.

Re:jam camcorders? blargh, start with mobile fones

[mbogosian]

Dammit, people, it's not that hard to be polite.

Empathy (a prerequisite to politeness) is one of the few abilities that distinguishes (arguably) a select few species on this earth. You're assuming that most humans possess this ability and are proficient enough at it to apply it.

My anecdotal research shows differently.

I'm currently debating whether or not to encourage the ability in my (yet to be born) children. While it is a noble and admirable quality, because it is so rare, it is rarely rewarding (i.e., due to the "it takes one to know one" effect, so few people recognize empathy when they see it, much less acknowledge it, that it yeilds more frustration than anything else).

Does this qualify me as a cynic?

From the same guys who brought you Divix DVD

[ONU CS Geek]

The Company's senior engineering team, formerly the developers of the highly regarded DivxTM encrypted DVD platform, have an unblemished track record in providing highly scalable, highly secure content security systems to the motion picture industry.

Hrmms...from one side to the other one; going to preventing people from viewing DVD's to recording it.

balling

[sacrilicious]

All the while they're arguing with the ushers, the kid -- the fucking infant -- is balling his/her -- whatever -- head off. Balling and balling.

Balling and balling, eh? Sounds like this kid has life wired! :) I'd have felt sorry for him if he'd been bawling, but apparently no need.

.

No need to jam phones

[jquirke]

I've seen this issue come up so many times on Slashdot and I can't figure out why the hell you USians want to jam phones so badly in cinemas and stuff - or are there really that many inconsiderate people in your country who let their phones ring?

I remember this came up a bit in Australia a while back, but it's illegal to jam private spectrum. However, after those reminder notices at the start of each movie the problem went away almost completely. Now we don't even get the reminder notices because people do the right thing. I go to a lot of movies and only remember a phone ringing once in the past year. The person was so embarassed that it's unlikely they will let it happen again.

And I don't know about US technology, but if people can't take a call they discreetly send an SMS, or reject the call. No big deal.

--quirky

Re:And give me a break

[SuperKendall]

And I share home movies of my cat chasing imaginary creatures. Just because something is shared doesn't mean that anyone actually WATCHES it. How many people DL those things and then just chuck them, or use them for sharing padding? I seriously doubt any movie company has lost more than a few hundred $ from camcorder rips. DVD copies is a whole different matter of course.

I would add a bit about your personal hygene here, but you seem to be down on personal attacks so I'll keep it professional. Does that add the extra credibility you were seeking? Odd, I feel just as credible as before.

Re:Here we go again

[plumby]

Oh dear. Please don't attempt to claim that morality and legality are the same thing. Do you find that your morals change whenever the law changes, or when you enter a different state? Morality is your own personal belief as to what is right and wrong, and should not be driven by the laws of the day. Think for yourself instead of letting the state dictate your beliefs.

Be wary of advising other parents

[Galvatron]

My mother has told me in the past about how after I was born, my parents thought they were absolute geniuses. I almost never cried, I slept all the time, and when I did make noise, there was some particular toy they could give me to make me quiet down again. So, when other parents would be complaining about the noise their kids made, my mother would smugly say "oh, it's really not that hard, you just give them this toy and they quiet right down.

Anyway, a few years later my younger brother was born. He cried all the time, never slept, and was totally inconsolable. Suddenly, my parents realized that they weren't actually so smart after all, they had just been lucky that I wasn't a crier.

So, my point is, what works for one family may not work for others, take any "helpful advice" from a parent who has only had one kid with a grain of salt. Some babies are just too loud to take to the movies. My parents used to go to drive-in movies when they had babies, which strikes me as remarkably clever, it's too bad drive-ins don't exist anymore. I suppose the home theater experience is better these days than the drive-ins anyway, even if it does mean waiting a couple months after the movie is released to watch it.