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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.
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."
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.
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.
My note reads:
I am writing this note to let you know that I am strongly opposed to House Bill #179, specifically its provision about motion picture recording. Although I do not support piracy, the wording of this law is far too imprecise, and I believe will lead to wrongful convictions and problems for citizens who are not innocent of any crime. There is a world of difference between someone sneaking in a video camera into a movie theater for the purpose of making a bootleg tape, and someone innocently using the record function of a device at a store where a movie may or may not even be shown. I believe trying to sneak this provision in among others is deceitful, and I would strongly oppose anyone supporting this bill in its current form at the next election. Thank you.
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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 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.