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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"
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.
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.
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.
Please subscribe to see the more insightful version of th
Well, the Ohio governor has a line-item veto, so he can veto certain parts of bills.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.