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MPAA Close to Another "Stealth Victory" in Ohio
Tsar writes "The Ohio State Legislature has passed House Bill #179 (PDF / HTML / Status) which, among other unrelated issues, makes it illegal to make an AV-recording in any theater or retail store where a motion picture is being displayed. Walk into a store that sells video gear and hit 'Record' on any camcorder, digital camera or PDA; the first click is a misdemeanor, the rest are felonies. Oh, and the janitor (or any employee) can detain you in or near the store until police arrive if they think you hit 'Record'. Actually recording any of a film (or even knowing that a film was being shown) is not required for a conviction. This bill now awaits Governor Bob Taft's signature--Ohioans, let him know what a bad law this is!"
for example: wouldnt any news crew that does entertainment pieces, or, ghod forbid does a story after the bill gets passed, (doing a story in front of a best buy for example) be potentially liable for it? any tv screens in front windows, jumbo-trons in times square, large format displayed at music events, anything thats getting picked up even "accidentally" would invite a potential pummeling.
what, you mean it's not a joke ?
#include "coucou.h"
The United States of America are from this day forth called The United States of Insanity.
Seems like they're hiring programmers to debug the legal system, find security holes, etc. /could/ walk in to a store that's showing off one of our movies to promote their new big-screen TV, and stand there for hours as the movie plays, hoping that nobody actually responds to the promotion, blocking the shot"
"Well,, somebody
"Uhm.. would anyone actually do that?"
"In my experience, these theives are willing to do anything, investing thousands of hours and dollars into the piracy of our intellectual property. And let me tell you, when you catch them, you do not want them to be caught without a law specifically forbidding the exact method they employ!"
Not that there's any store which lets you turn a video camera on inside anyway.
-- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All
And if you're in a multimedia store, you not even need to bring your own equipment.
"What did I do?"
"You stand to close to the camcorder which we put up for demonstration purpose. We will arrest you until we checked if you hit any record button."
I know your first instinct will be to insult these polititians, but just read it one more time. These people are clearly unstable, if not flat out insane. They need our support if they are ever going to get better.
can detain anybody, and even get them convicted as it's not needed that they were actually doing it?
i can see this as a bit of a problem on large town squares & etc where there are av equipemnt shops that display tv's and stuff on windows, do they efficiently make it illegal to do any filming in the whole goddamn town?
surely it can't be this boneheaded?
i for one welcome the new ohio janitor overlords.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
Hey, maybe you could make it the law that all consumer-grade video display equipment (TVs, projectors, advertising displays, etc) has to emit light polarised in a certain direction only, and that all consumer-grade video recording equipment (camcorders, etc) only records light polarised in the other direction.
Then, video displays will appear black if filmed.
Problem solved!
Disclaimer: I think this proposed bill is as stupid as you all think it is, but I had this interesting idea.
evil math within Nature's Cubic Creation!
I forget what 8 was for.
According to my interpretation of this law, consider the Circuit City delima. As Circuit City sells televisions and their floor models are constantly playing movies for demonstration purposes, the following things are now illegal inside the store:
* As a customer, taking a video recording of your friends with your own cell phone.
* As a customer, trying out the video recording feature of a cell phone that you are interested in purchasing.
* As a customer, trying out the video recording capabilities of a camcorder or other dv device before purchasing.
* As a salesperson, demonstrating the video capabilities of cell phones or camcorders.
* As the store itself, recording images from their own security cameras.
Because of this law, Circuit City would have to disallow their customers from trying out in the store the very products they sell, stop their salespeople from demostrating their own products, and disable their own security cameras.
Only in America, folks, would we let corporations making such a laughing stock of the public.
Why are they allowed to combine dissimmilar items on the same bill? Each law (and thus bill) should have a single focus, and any clause that is not related to this focus should be stricken. Whether it is stricken by the House and Senate before passing, or by the courts when someone gets charged, these submarine laws should be destroyed.
I can't say that I don't give a fuck. I've just run out of fuck to give.
A hilarious side effect of this law is that you can now block news reporters from filming you at all. Simply film a few minutes of footage of your cat, the traffic, or a blank wall. Purchase a portable video players, such as the Archos AV300. Walk around in public holding the video player in the air for all to see while looping your recording. You own the rights to the recording, but you have not granted the rights to operate recording gear to anyone in your proximity.
You have now made it illegal for anyone to film you. Interestingly, you may be able to carry this device into a bank, government office, etc., and require that they turn off their security cameras as well, lest they are in violation of the law.
I'm getting a video camera (stereo) implanted in my forehead, wiring it up to my heart for power, and hard-wiring the power *ON*.
No matter where I go, what I do, everything is going to be recorded from now on, for *my* uses only.
Lets see if they can turn *THAT* off.
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
1) The provisions of being detained if you're believed to be trying to walk off with copyrighted material has been there already; this bill doesn't change that.
2) This only applies to theaters and retail stores, and appears to have exceptions for government recording for security purposes. (It doesn't mention private industry security, though.)
3) The bill just mentions usage of such a device in the facility; it doesn't mention recording actual copyrighted content (this is the major reason why I'm bothered by it).
4) The bill appears to leave judgement, for the most part, up to the retailers themselves; they're expected to enforce it. (So I doubt demo units are going to be a serious issue, unless there's an overzealous MPAA policeman nearby.)
In short, the only flaws I see are that it covers things it has no business covering (uncopyrighted content) and it doesn't allow for those two common industry practices of demonstration and security cameras. Change those and I think it's OK.
I know that some places already prohibit recordings of any kind anyways, but there's a world of difference between being kicked out of the theater and being arrested. I think being arrested for taking a picture of your kids in the lobby is going a little far. (I'm hoping that theater employees will be relatively sane about such things, though, since enforcement is left to them.)
--
viqsi - See "vixen"
If we do not change our direction we are likely to end up where we are headed.
You head over to Best Buy to look at TV's. While there you happen to swing by the entertainment center display and see one that you think the SO would particularly like. Since (s)he ain't with ya at the time you whip out the cell phone and snap a pic of it to show them later.
Congrats, you've just broken the law. If you snap a second entertainment center for comparison purposes it gets even worse.
No, the problem with laws like these is that they are overly broad, poorly written, and most important don't stop the activity that they're trying to outlaw.
--- I wish I could hear the soundtrack to my life. That way I'd know when to duck.
If a CCTV camera in a video store records whats on the screens can the prosecute the CCTV company. This is partly funny but here in the UK we have so many CCTV cameras it could be relevent.
At first glance this seemed reasonable. Then, I thought about it a bit and came up with a few minor problems.
I find it hard to believe that customers would go in to a store, aim a camera at a tv and stand there for an hour or so to get a movie on video. (Sure a gang of such could get together and have a hundred people or so each grab a couple minutes, but that seems unlikely, difficult to manage, and most importantly unprofitable)
I find it much easier to believe that employees might grab a dvd thats been returned (or otherwise opened), take it home and return it the next day. And I'm not sure this law covers that.
In theatres, it might work, but I suspect that with the improvements in technology it would not be all that hard to get tiny (tiny!) cameras on wireless networks to a van outside the theatre and grab things that way. But if the cameras are small enough they'd be close to undetectable.
And as above the insiders are probably the real problem. Don't forget the employee viewings of films on thursday nights which are (for all practical purposes) private viewings and hence it would be unlikely that the constabulary (or other authorities) would even know it was taking place. (The copies would exist, so you might manage to shut down a minimally profitable theatre in a small town from time to time - but somehow I doubt it would have much of an effect on the process in general.)
If this only happens in Ohio it will have no effect whatever. Which means that the MPAA will need to pass these laws in every state for them to mean anything. But having such a law in one state will allow lobbyists to say "But the folks in Ohio have this law..." If they're smart though, they'll tack on extra provisions each time a law is passed so they can then go back to (say) Ohio and say "Now Indiana has a better law than you do, so you must pass this new law or you'll have a Law Gap and schoolchildren around the world will point at you and laugh!"
So the law is both silly and dangerous.
Which means we should all laugh hysterically while we flee in terror.
I'm not aware of any technology that can harness the mechanical energy of the heart to generate electricity. However, there is a fuel cell that runs on blood, so I suppose you could have a recording device implanted and body-powered; hopefully the fuel cell has been designed to shut off if your blood doesn't have enough stored energy remaining - after all, you need some TO LIVE. The storage medium and data extraction are still going to be a bitch.
I shall simply relabel the 'Record' button on my camcorder to say 'Up Yours.' :)
'No, Your Honour, I did not hit the "Record" button on my camcorder.'
Dear Governor Taft,
I am writing regarding the recently-passed bill Ohio Sub H. B. 179. While this bill has provisions unrelated to my concerns, I wish to voice my extreme trepidation with regards to the provisions prohibiting activation of a video recording device inside any facility where a copyrighted movie is being shown.
The bill is incredibly poorly written. It would prohibit, for example, the following innocuous activities:
* Patrons at retail stores like Wal-Mart could be arrested for testing out the assortment of video cameras if any movie was being shown in the store (and stores generally like to show the movies that they're trying to sell).
* News reporters would not be permitted to record video at retail stores or movie theaters if a movie were being shown at the time; an investigative reporter could be arrested for doing a story on health violations at the concession stand if a movie is playing in the theater and the theater owner decides to call the police.
* Retail store owners and theater owners could be arrested for running security cameras in their buildings if they did not obtain the written permission from the copyright holders for every movie they show. This includes stores like Blockbuster, which shows numerous movies on their TVs in an effort to generate more rentals, and runs security cameras to help prevent crime; each store owner would have to obtain permission individually for every copyright holder of the movies they show, and while they wait for a response, they would either have to let their TVs go dark or their security cameras go blind in order to conform to the law.
Obviously, this bill has numerous issues with regards to these provisions - and these issues far outweigh any benefits that could be generated. This is especially true since a much simpler bill stating that "video recording of a publicly-performed motion picture is prohibited without the permission of the copyright holder" would suffice.
Well... except for the part where we already have federal laws that state that.
Please veto this bill, and demand that the State Legislature return to you a bill that includes only the other unrelated provisions of the bill.
The more this law sucks the better! The more the MPAA are hard-ass bastards enforcing it the better!
A good hard slap in the face is what people need to wake up and see these issues. A bad law now will be quickly repealed, and the leasons learned will stay with people.
When the RIAA threatened a 12 year old girl that did far more good than harm. She settled for $2000, and I bet they did some creative financing so she didn't really have to pay it. The bad press was sooo damaging the RIAA had to make it go away quickly.
The MPAA is even more boneheaded than RIAA (hard to imagine) and I don't think it would play out the same when they threaten a teenager. Just look and how they have gone after the 16 year old author of DeCSS.
Big dumb laws right now are less damaging in the long run than small incremental laws over the course of time. Let's hope the MPAA really shoots itself in the foot with this one.
Just ban all cameras. The possibility of copyright violation is too high. I mean what if I was to take a picture of my house but a bus was passing and it had a copyright picture in one of the advertisments. Oh my god Im going to jail.......... On a serious note as I understand copyright it is regarding DISTRIBUTION not copy.
..
What gets me is there are such sick people in society that they would work for the *IAA. If anybody knows one of these people tell them to get a real job. (Some of you will say people have to make a living... my response is so did SS Stormtroopers.)
How about just buying the %$#@! DVD, taking it home, and copying it there? For a small $15-20 investment, you can avoid all of this nonsense and can aim the video camera at your *own* TV until your nuts fall off in copy-thefting glee. Or just burn a copy of the DVD and leave it at that. After all, if you're going to violate copyright laws, why not go for quality?
What boggles my mind is who in the world is even doing this? Movie theaters I understand. But retail stores? That just doesn't make any sense.
But then, again, not much with the **AA has lately.
I wonder how much time, effort and money is wasted on legislation such as this. We're it not for the fact that I am quickly slipping into a lunch-induced food coma, I'd look up the state appropriations and voting records of the Ohio state representatives and see for myself.
What a model of government Ohio has become. I only wish that my state would solve all of its problems such as unemployment, rampant property taxes, failing school systems, pollution, congestion, crumbling infrastructure, etc, etc, so that it could focus its energies on such pablum as **AA flights of corrupt and perverted fantasy.
Ryosen
One man's "Troll, +1" is another man's "Insightful, +1".
Got a beef with your local video store? Walk in with that portable display, and then have the store clerks, management, owners, etc all charged because they've recorded you via CCTV.
The best bit is the provision that would allow you to restrain them pending the arrival of the police. You may not be an employee of the facility, but you're the copyright holder on your video, right?
That it's cheaper and more convenient to buy a video camera and film a movie playing in your local retail/video store for a few hours than it is to rent a video and copy it at home (either by bypassing Macrovision - easy - or by using said videocamera on your display device).
The only thing it adds is criminal penalties for copying movies in a theatre. From many of the rips I've seen floating around, many of these are coming from the east anyhow.
Only a stupid law is so arbitrary and "off the wall" that people could break it unknowingly. I'm reminded of the Star Trek episode where Wesley is sentenced to death for walking on the grass.
Suffice it to say, this issue was decided for me long ago: I'll not be spending any vacation time in the United Corporations of America, now or ever. Too risky.
The sky is not falling. We deal with poorly written laws like this all the time without civilization coming to an end.
In reality, this is what needs to happen in order for this law to be enforced against someone trying out a camcorder at Best-Buy.
- A local retailer will have to risk not only losing the sale of an item the customer was demoing, but pissing off a potential customer, commiting an employee to detain that customer for some period of time when they could be doing something productive, and risk that customer suing for anything of a number of things that happened while they were detained.
- The police would have to be interested in actually arresting someone for trying out a camcorder. Few police officers are going to do all that paperwork for something like that.
- A district attorney will need to be interested in spending weeks preparing for and trying a case.
- After all that, the court will probably look at the legislative record and decide that the intent of the law was to prevent the piracy of copyrighted works, and dismiss the case.
Anyone who thinks that this law will be used to prosecute the dad trying to buy a camcorder to record his daughter's soccer game is completely paranoid. It will probably be used against the people who bring a camcorder to the theatre in order to sell bootlegs, but that is it.In the current environment, is it still legal for stores like Circuit City to show movies on their demonstration TVs? I remember a story about taxi cab drivers required to *not* play the radio while carrying paying customers. I know RIAA != MPAA, but wouldn't the same "logic" (or whatever-the-hell you want to call it) apply to retail stores?
i dare a janitor, or any security boob with a flashlight and keys, to detain me for any reason. i do not recognize your authority and will not submit to your commands. my response to security, and now janitors, has been and always will be... BLOW ME!
Most stores and movie theaters forbid the use of cameras on the premisis anyway. Besides, the store would have to press charges or care in order for this bill to have any effect on somebody; and I doubt that many stores would unless it was apparant that your intent was to pirate something, as it would generate bad publicity for the store.
Gov. Taft, I am outraged at the proposed changes that are included in H.B. 179. The proposed changes to O.R.C. are overly broad and would make criminals out of any electronics store customers and employees simply by testing out any of the recording equipment in the store. Any store that sold cameras or video-cameras would not be allowed to play videos on the same premises. It could be further suggested that modern cellular phones that include cameras would be considered recording devices and further put citizens at risk for criminal prosecution if the phones were brought into a movie theatre. I feel this wording was adding due to pressure from large corporations such as the RIAA and MPAA and does not serve the citizens of Ohio. Please do not sign this Bill as written.
- David Stein
Computer over. Virus = very yes.
Why would someone stand in a store and tape a movie? I've seen a couple of videos that look like that's what someone did, and they're absolutely terrible. You've got background noise, the camera shakes, and people walking in front of the camera. I can't imagine why anyone would waste their time when they can rent the movie for $3 at Blockbuster. If you want to pirate a movie, do it right and copy the DVD, don't waste 2 hours of your life for a bad copy.
So now we're getting a law to stop retarded pirating. Yay. I think they just want to be able to arrest anyone they feel like for pirating, just for kicks.
"What is Internet Explorer 7? Are you saying we can't access the normal internet?" - I love tech support. Really.