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Projectionists Using Night Vision Goggles in Theaters
sam0ht writes "Los Angeles police arrested Ruben Centero Moreno, 34, after the projectionist used night vision goggles to spot his video camera in a showing of The Alamo. He has been charged under the new California anti-camcorder law, and could face up to 1 year in jail if convicted. The BBC reports that 'The MPAA has established a nationwide telephone hotline for cinema employees to report violations, and studios and cinemas are also investing in metal detectors and night-vision goggles'. Motion Picture Ass. Head Jack Valenti said he hoped it would 'send a clear signal such crimes will not be tolerated'. Clearly, the 'War on Copyright Violation' is following the successful strategy used for the War on Drugs, with significant resources of technology and police time mobilised to send violators to jail for a long time. Soon, copied films will be as rare as students lighting up a joint after their exams." The lesson is clear: stay out of movie theaters and you won't get arrested.
Next time the camcorderist should sit in the upper right or upper left part, that way he can't be seen.
Somehow, I just don't see these crappy video CD and DivX distributions of zero day movies a threat to their profits. Sure, bored kids with no money might sit at home wasting hours downloading them but anyone with income to afford the DVD copy will most likely buy it.
Wasn't it Europe where the movie industry wanted to stop text messaging because people were messaging each other and giving advice as to which movies sucked, which supposidly undermined the advertising campaign that overhypes crap?
Just like software piracy, some 14 year old running 3dStudio Max on mom's PC is not a loss in profits.
Southeastern Virginia REPRESENT!
I run a college movie group that sometimes does sneak previews of upcoming films. I was blown away when I heard that for our most recent preview (Gothika, total crap btw) they wanted to bring in night vision goggles. They wound up basically frisking everyone that came in too, and even turned away kids with cameras in their cell phones. The people who got in didn't actually seem to mind the search that much, they kind of understood. Nonetheless, it was the first time we had a major external security force at one of our screenings.
Yes, it is good that they caught them. That's a good thing, most people on here would agree.
What we disagree with is the fact that they're enforcing copyright violations as if it's drugs, or terroristic activities, or whatever. Putting someone *in jail* for filming a movie for "a long time" is what I disagree with. I don't think they should even go to jail, that's too harsh for a copyright violation. Simply slap them with a large fine, and be done with it.
It's very similar to slashdot's general attitude towards malevolent hackers. We don't think it's right that someone is spreading a virus, or cracking into systems, and defacing a web site, but we also don't think it's right that these people are being punished like they killed someone.
This is where Slashdot really ticks me off sometimes. Yes a lot of us (myself included) choose to copyleft our works, instead of copyrighting them. However, this doesn't mean everyone else is obligated to do so. Taking a camcorder into a movie theater is wrong, plain and simple. People laid down a serious investment into making the movie, and if you think it is too much, then wait for it to come out on video, don't steal it through the use of a camcorder in the theater.
Further more, hey Michael, what's with the comment, huh? The lesson isn't to "stay out of movie theaters", it is, quite simply, DON'T STEAL! If you come into a bank and try and rob it, and get busted, the lesson is not "stay out of banks", but "don't rob banks". Do you truly think people should just give everything to you Michael? Then perhaps you should just donate your time to your job, huh? I have friends who work for special effects companies in the movie industry, and yes it is an industry. It's about producing something that people want to buy. If you don't buy it, and see it illegally, you're stealing.
Grow up guys, and learn to respect the rights of others. The responsible thing to do is either pay for the movie, or don't see it. If a movie comes out that I think I might want to see, but don't want to pay $8 for it, I wait for it to come out on video, and then pick it up from the local video store on their two for $0.99 tuesday deal. At under $0.50 for a show, split amongst five people, I don't think there is a pricing problem here at all. This isn't even like the software industry where they charge $300 per copy. I pay less than $0.10 to view a movie, and I'll gladly do that any day.
I wish that the readers and submitters here would learn to respect other people's hard work, and that the editors, and Michael in particular, would keep their editing professional and not post idiotic comments that have no bearing on the substance of the article, and no basis in reality.
you probably won't have much disagreement about the action in question being illegal.
but I imagine many will question the penalty.
so under 3 strikes, an 18 year old goes to prison for a very long time, if caught 3 times?
Say I'm a tourist (where doesn't really matter) and decide to take a 2 hour break from walking around and entertain myself by taking in a movie. Out of mistrust for my fellow man, I take my possessions inside, instead of leaving them in the lobby. As a tourist, I happen to have a video camera. Maybe I set it on the armrest beside me so I can keep a firm grasp on it and out of a thief's hands.
Would a projectionist have a duty to interrupt the movie and ask me why my camera is there? A duty to question my answer? Say the fuzz shows up and decides to do the questioning for the projectionist, who is at fault for the false accusation? Or am I resonably considered guilty for merely having a camera?
What's funny to me is that I was under the impression that some of the biggest offenders were the projectionists. I have several friends who do/have done that job and they frequently brought home high quality copies of films. They got perfect angles to the screen from their location and it was easy for them to hide the cams.
Steal anything I want? Listen asshole, if I, broke into the projectionist booth, grabbed the actual reels of film, and left with them, then I would be "stealing the film".
This liberal use of the term "stealing" and "theft" is what got us into this mess to begin with. The monopoly media turned "fair use" into "piracy" into "theft".
Since we're talking about the Alamo here, the only people being robbed are Mexicans and Texans, of their cultural heritage so that Eisner can make a profit.
Eh.. IR LEDs.. Most "Night vision" rigs are sensitive to IR/UV. Blind him invisibly.
.sig: Now legally binding!
I never have and never will film a movie with a camcorder. I do sneak in food and drinks all the time though. I sure hope I can't get a year in jail for that.
That aside, I don't think I would care to attend the movies if an usher was going to stand next to me the whole time and watch me pick my nose or whatever. I guess we'll have to see how widespread this becomes.
From now on everyone should wear caps with a IR emitters on the button.
WTF is that supposed to mean? You should have put: "The lesson is clear: break the law and you will go to jail."
I'm tired of all of this petty whining BS. Yes, the MPAA can suck at times, but this is the law. Oh wait, I forgot. This is America - no one resposible for their own actions. I suppose it's the usher's fault or the policeman's fault that someone went to jail.
Get a clue.
-Nick
"A plan fiendishly clever in its intricacies"- Homer Simpson
slightly offtopic, but have any of you guys seen the hilarious Hong Kong comedy/horror Bio Zombie? (www.imdb.com/title/tt0277605/)
The movie starts just like someone is taping it with a camcorder, with people passing in front of the camera, and people shushing, telling others to stop smoking, etc.
Proof that camcordering movies is seeping into pop culture.
I wouldnt be surprised if at some point some hollywood movie uses such a reference.
Failing model? Slashdot really is caught in a reality distortion field. The movie industry has enjoyed record profits every year for the last 5 years, partly due to their enforcement efforts to crack down on ILLEGAL copying of copyrighted works.
Other fallacies often repeated by Slashbots:
- Software is a commodity
- You can't make money selling IP like software, music, etc in the 21st century
- Linux is ready for the desktop
The lesson really is "stay out of movie theaters" if they are going to treat you like a criminal.
The theater in my little university town was in financial trouble (they were paying too much rent), and then 9/11 came along, and they saw $$. All of the sudden, you couldn't bring in backpacks because of "security". This is a town I specifically moved to because I could walk to where I wanted to go -- and that often involved my backpack. (remember, this is a college town). It's pretty funny that they were trying to pass off their fear that someone might bring in outside food as a more justifyable fear that someone might blow up the place. People would be safer if the theater didn't pile their trash up against the emergency exit doors.
Anyway, the place was hostile to customers. I took my business down the block where they allowed backpacks. And I bought a lot of their popcorn.
HIV Crosses Species Barrier... into Muppets
Having worked in the theater side of sneak previews and film festivals, I'll tell you the result. Instead of being kicked out by the studio reps with the night vision, you'll have a theater employee coming down at you to kick your ass out on the street and ban you from the theater. And your fellow patrons will be happy to turn in the jackass with the flashlight (or laser pointer). It gives quite a bit of respect for the human race when you walk down to the middle of the aisle, loudly say with authority: "laser pointer?" into the crowd, and the entire mass of humanity all swivels to point at the asshat.
--
Evan
"$30 for the One True Ring. $10 each additional ring!" -- JRR "Bob" Tolkien
If you agree with any of this, feel free to repost it in the future.
(1) I don't personally believe in copying CDs illegaly-- but I think we should
avoid using unkind words like "piracy" to describe those that do -- instead, we
should describe it as an "infringement", much like a parking infringement.
(2) I don't believe in the record companies emotively abusing the word "theft",
but I do believe in emotively abusing words like "information" and "sharing".
(3) I believe that piracy is driven by "overpriced CDs" even though CDs have
dropped in price over the years.
(4) I believe that piracy is driven by overly long copyright duration, even
though most pirated works are recent releases.
(5) I believe that illegitimately downloading music is giving the author "free
advertising". I don't buy any of the music I download, of course -- but lots of
other people probably do.
(6) I believe that ripping off the artists is wrong. The record companies
always rip off the artists. Artists support P2P, except the ones that don't
(like Metallica), and they don't agree with me, hence they're greedy or their
opinion doesn't count or something.
(7) I believe that selling CDs is not a business model, but giving away things
for free on the internet is.
(8) I believe that artists should be compensated for their work -- preferably
by someone else. I mean, they can sell concert tickets (which someone else can
buy) or sell t-shirts (to someone else) or something. As long as someone else
subsidises my free ride, I'm coooooool with it.
(9) I believe in capitalism but only support music business models which
involve giving away the fruits of ones labor for free.
(10) I believe that copying someone elses music, and redistributing it to
my 1,000,000 "best friends" on the internet is sharing. Music is made for
sharing. It's my right.
(11) I believe that record companies cracking down on piracy is "greed", but
a mob demanding free entertainment is not.
(12) I believe that it's not really "piracy" unless you charge money for it,
because, receiving money is wrong, but taking a free ride is fine.
(13) I believe that disallowing copying and redistributing music over Napster
is the same as humming my favourite song in public. Because when I hum my
favourite song in public, everyone likes it so much that they run home, get
out their tape recorders and once they've got a recording of it, they aren't
interested in hearing the original any more.
(14) I believe that when illegal behaviour destroys a business, it's "free
enterprise at work".
What I find amusing is that the pirates seem unable or unwilling to distinguish between creative activity and brainless copying.
Since a lot of the people here are GPL/OSS advocates: the "OSS way" applied to
this domain is to learn how to play an instrument. Or how to sing or whatever.
Then get together with a bunch of other people who can also play music, and
make some noise.
One of the unfortunate things that has happened to the OSS movement is that a
lot of the loudmouth advocates for it don't understand what it's really about.
They view it primarily as a means to get free stuff, and then they turn their
eyes from the free stuff to the non-free stuff and think to themselves "maybe
I'm entitled to get that one for free too". The noble ideals of grass roots
participation in the creative process, and/or supporting it in a principled
way (namely, boosting the "free foo" movement by preferring free foo to
nonfree foo), or for that matter, any other form of moderately principled
codes of ethics, are completely lost on them.
I think it's a shame that these leeches use OSS, but there's not a whole lot
that can or should be done about that. But I'd be much happier if at the very
least, they wouldn't confuse the OSS movement (free as in freedom) with the
Napster driven movement (free as in "loader")
Really? That prevalent?
As one other poster noted, this may have been done by a projectionist who didn't want the competition.
My then-girlfreind worked as a manager for one and another local theatre with one of the Big Chains. There was a "gentlemen's agreement" between all of the managers for all of the chains allowing the "build screenings" (where they watch the movie after it is first spliced together to make sure it is in the correct order & direction... which was not always the case) were open to any local theatre employee, with one significant other allowed as a guest.... which is how I got to see this first hand.
The managers and some of the more senior trained staff generally took care of the projection duties. At the main theatre for the Other Big Chain, one of the projectionists had a $10K pro-level video camera up in the projection loft for every major release, making a quality copy for his cousin in NYC to redistribute. None of the other theatre managers cared, since it wasn't their theatre, and thus not their problem. The manager for that theatre didn't do anything either, since he was presumably getting a cut of the sale to the DVD maker, and was certainly busy doctoring the books to rob the chain of half the popcorn sales. I cared a little, but not enough to risk pissing off every other manager in town at my GF.
The projectionist had a better sense of timing than the manager-- he quit and left town about three months before the manager was audited and fired for theft. To the best of my knowlege, though, neither were ever caught for their piracy.
The majority of theatre employees, in my experience, are underbright, underpaid, overworked, and consider anything they can get away with five-finger discounting a "perk". (However, restaurant workers are worse on par.) And anyone who deals with computer threat assesment can tell you, the biggest threat to security is from an employee doing an inside job.
//Information does not want to be free; it wants to breed.
I have a great solution...
have 5-10 people go into the theatre with camcorders WITHOUT a tape in it. hell let's get flagrant and make sure the record LEd is blinking!
have them all get arrested, Be sure that fox news is outside to record it... and watch how all cases get thrown out of court as it is not illegal to bring a camcorder into a theater without the intent to record the movie.
unfortunately finding people with the balls to do this stuff is difficult today...
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
"Its about time people realize that the world was never meant to be a place full of free stuff to take whenever you want it. This idea that its your right to do whatever the hell you want, and when a mega corporation tries to stop you they are suddenly infringing on your god given rights is ridiculous."
I think the problem that I, and some others have with a situation like this is that the law was bought and paid for by Mega Corps. Aside from the fact that no company has any right buying off legislators (campaign contributions? give me a break...), we're turning civil matters into criminal matters, removing even the appearance of distinction between large companies and government. No longer do the movie companies have to bring up civil cases against copyright infringers. Now, with the help of a few bought-and-paid-for politicians, they can get the taxpayers to foot the bill for punishing the infringers. A secondary issue to that is the fact that the distinction between infringement for commercial gain and non-commercial infringement is rapidly evaporating.
Personally, I would have no problem at all if the company that owns the copyright to the film in question were to fire off a lawsuit against the man whose obvious and unmistakable intent was to create a copy of that film. Instead, rather than go through that trouble, the film industry as a whole has essentially bribed members of the legislature to create a criminal offense from a civil matter, thus removing virtually all the burden of copyright enforcement from the copyright holder.
I don't particularly care for copyrights and patents. I think it was a pretty good idea at one time, but I think that it's gotten way out of hand. The concepts behind intellectual property are now being used more often to stifle scientific and artistic growth, rather than to promote it. That being said, I still support the civil enforcement of copyrights by the rightful holder thereof. What I don't support is bribery, pandering, or the criminalization of civil offenses without good reason. This guy brought a camera into a movie theatre and tried to create a copy of a film. Why is it that we're ready and willing to give him more jail time than someone who beats the hell out of his wife? Why is it that we'll send this guy to jail for essentially trespassing across the front lawn of the MPAA? Why are the tax dollars of the people of California being (ab)used to fund the prosecution of a civil offense? These are my problems with this situation, and I suspect it's where much of where other peoples' problem comes from as well.
-- "Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else."
Buying the DVD costs me less than taking my wife out to see a movie in the theater, I get more, and I get to keep it. I buy more movies today than I ever did.
However, anyone who downloads digital copies of movies (like me, terrible person that I am) knows that the vast majority are DVD/CD rips. Anything done with a camcorder is crappy quality (particularly the sound).
These shoddy captures don't hurt the cinema business. Most of the time a cinema customer is there to go to the cinema rather than to see a movie. If they were actually just interested in seeing the movie they would rent the DVD and save some money.
If anything, the proliferation of useless quality rips is helpful to those selling relatively high quality DVD products. A lot of people will get turned right off shared movies on the basis of seeing a couple of lemons.
It's the perfect comparison, if you ask me. Think about it: the War on Drugs" basically did nothing other than fill up our prisons. Drugs are still around, very easy to get, and tolerated by a sizable chunk of the population. Yet tens of thousands of people have had their lives ruined because they got caught doing something that millions of others do. All for no real benefit to society.
Let me relate my own personal "Camming" experience. Last year a friend got free passes to a preview for Disney's Haunted Mansion. Terrible movie, I wish Eddie Murphy would just die, blah blah. It was free, I'm a movie buff, so I went. First, we had our bags searched. Next, out came the metal detector wands. Finally, a good pat-down - as intimate, if not more so, than I've had at the airport. Eventually we got into the theatre and watched a really shitty movie.
I got home an hour after it ended and found torrents for it, as well as EDonkey and Kazaa entries. I even downloaded them to make sure it was actually the movie. It was.
I'm going to go so far as to suggest it's WORSE than the War on Drugs. Think: every single moviegoing patron harassed at the door. Potentially hundreds, if not thousands of new prison inmates a year.
AND ALL IT TAKES IS ONE PERSON TO GET AWAY WITH IT. That's it. ONE. And the entire scheme breaks down. You know damn well they're never going to be 100% on something like this, unless every single theatre does an X-ray and strip search of every patron, and every single projectionist/screener receipient/anyone else involved is also put through the same procedure. All it takes is one person to get away with it, and the internet handles the rest.
And in the meantime, the problem hasn't been solved IN THE SLIGHTEST, we've accepted being treated as criminals from the get-go, and we've created a lot of inmates. Unless of course, we go with what I suggested above.
Personally, no thanks. To properly implement this, we'd have to run our society as something less nice than it is now. You may have heard of it; it's called a Police State.
Endless arguments over trivial contradictions in books written by ignorant savages to explain thunder in the dark.
Sure it's a failure
... well, all of their reasons suck, and I believe yours will, too. Why don't you share them and we can discuss them?
Then it should be abandoned. Except that calling it a "failure" is a huge understatement. It has failed in every single one of its goals, killed and maimed innocent people in the process, and destroyed our freedoms (4th amendment, anyone?).
but that doesn't necessarily mean there's a good alternative
If it has failed it its goals (which you admit), then it is not achieving anything. Going back to the way it was before would necessarily be better, espcecially given that the War on Some Drugs also brings unintended consequences.
You can't say for sure that things would be better if we legalized drugs.
Things would be better because:
a> Citizens would no longer forfeit property (contra the 4th amendment) simply because the government suspects that it was used as part of a drug sale
b> We would have better police protection, as the police would be trying to catch predators rather than people who merely want to use a product that some people don't happen to like
c> Productive members our society who are holding jobs and hiring people that happen to use drugs would not be put in jail
d> The drugs would become less expensive and the profit (and, consequently, crime) motives for selling them would be removed
e> The U.S. military could focus on its real job (protecting the country) rather than enforcing idiotic drug laws
f> The U.S. Government could reduce in size
I could go on and on!
Perhaps *bad* is an improvement over *worse*.
Except that you have assumed that things would be worse if drugs were legalized. You have not shown it. Most people claim that things would be worse if drugs were legalized because
I don't make the rules. I just make fun of them.
No. No. No. No. I'm sick of these "implied contracts" that we've all supposedly agreed to without having seen.
Just because you haven't seen them and don't like them doesn't mean that they aren't there. When you buy a ticket the theater is obliged to show you a movie at that time, and you agree to watch it at that time. Sure you can goof off if you want as long as no one else is going to be disturbed. The point is that it is an impiled contract that the theater will show you the movie at that time and that's when you can watch it.
I have yet to sign a contract regarding my rights to use a ticket, or DVD, or piece of software that I've purchased. Give me a piece of paper with clear terms and a signature line, and I'll be willing to admit that I have a business relationship with the entity I'm buying a product from.
First, you are a consumer, you don't have a "business relationship" with any "entity". Second, as with the ticket, if you buy a DVD you recieve a license to view the DVD privately in your home. It is clearly stated in the beginning of most DVDs. If you don't agree to it return the DVD and don't watch it.
I don't want to piss you off but what I'm saying is that you can't pretend that implied contracts are not real and therefore do not apply to you.
sig?
Agreed. Hell, I work at a theater and I agree.
My managers don't agree and bust my ass when they find out I've let someone in with a bag from Bear Rock Cafe or Wendy's in. I tell 'em, "Hey, do we sell deli quality sandwiches, or spicy chicken sandwiches and chili?"
I figure we have two options: make them eat it outside the theater, or let them eat it inside the theater.
Upside to the first one is that if they want something in the theater, they've got to buy it there. Downside is, they're likely pissed off and won't buy anything anyways. In fact, they're likely to not even come back to the same theater.
If we let 'em eat it inside, upside is they might want some popcorn to supplument it, or some candy or something. Upside is, they won't get upset. Upside is, we get a repeat customer. Downside is we have to clean up their shit if they leave it behind.
You don't even want to know what goes into the concessions at my (20 screen) theater... *shudder* and in actuality, from what I've seen, we break about even on ticket sales. Hell, selling tickets on a saturday night, I pull in probably 3,500 dollars. That's enough to pay the wages for all the workers for the week. In 6 hours. Considering we have 4 people usually selling tickets, that's 14,000 dollars in 6 hours. Multiply that by 4 (evening friday, saturday afternoon, saturday evening, sunday afternoon), and that's 56,000 on average per weekend. 224,000 per month. I'm not sure of the specifics on electricity costs for the theater, or air conditioning for that matter. However, I do know that a 50lb bag of unpopped corn costs approximately 30 dollars, and makes approximately 63 tubs of popcorn ($5.75 each). 362 dollars income for 30 dollars spent? Not too shabby.
And nobody who works at the theater sees any of this dough. Workers get paid 6.50 an hour, 10 cent raise after a year - if you're lucky. Managers get paid around 9 dollars an hour. Projectionists about 8. The only full time staff member we have is the General Manager - so nobody gets benefits. Given that our HR manager drives a fifteen year old toyota, and our GM drives a Porche 911, I can imagine where the money goes.
Anyone else tempted to bring a few IR toys into the theater just to screw with the guys in the night-vision goggles...
I have a girlfriend whose name doesn't end in
Ask the people in jail.
I can look at American history before the 1914 Harrison Act, and failures of alcohol and tobacco prohibition here and abroad, and I can look at the success of harm reduction policies in other nations. It's not like our current drug prohibition is unique in history - failed drug prohibition schemes go back thousands of years.
I can't say for sure, any more than I can say for sure that the sun will come up tomorrow, but I would bet my right arm that under a scheme of outright legalization of soft drugs, prescription hard ones for addicts, and accurate drug education (not D.A.R.E. propaganda), things would indeed be better.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
Bad laws are bad. People who support them, vote them into existence, and enforce them are evil.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
"I can imagine where the money goes."
I hate to break it to you, but there's two huge costs you're forgetting (it's not just you, your fellow employees, and electricity):
1. The Movie Studios (you know, the folks who actually make the movies)
Theaters get the bulk of their revenues from concessions. The studios get 70% of the revenue from ticket sales of new releases, although this declines to about 30% by the time a movie's been out for six weeks. This is designed to ensure that the theaters get about the same $ per showing even as the movies age and screenings get less crowded.
2. Mortgages
United Artists, Carmike, Loews, Regal Cinemas, and General Cinemas (5 of the 6 largest chains) have all gone through bankruptcy in the last five years, mainly because they overbuilt theaters, and didn't attract the audiences necessary to make the payments on the debt they took on to build those theaters.
The problem with your entire argument is that you're talking about prostitution, not drugs. They are two different subjects.
Perhaps prostitution went down because our notions of fidelity have also dropped. The punishments for adultery have gone by the wayside. Divorce is not seen as a necessarily negative thing. Women are more likely to have sex for recreational purposes rather than because their husband wants them to. All of these things lead to the decrease of the demand for prostitutes and have nothing to do with the draconian law enforcement that you tacitly defend.
I don't make the rules. I just make fun of them.
It's an article about a guy getting arrested for filming a movie in a theater. That's already a dumb thing to do, but the submitter posts like it's a tragedy and even references the "War on Drugs."
:P
Then, it gets posted by michael with a headline "Projectionists Using Night Vision Goggles in Theaters." Huh? So now it's supposed to be bad that the theater employees scan for the cameras to begin with.
There is case after case of michael posting troll articles. I remember his insane, all-caps ranting at Intel in the 64-bit article a while back. I wish he'd join JonKatz in...you know...not being here.
I'm in Australia too, and it works out far cheaper for me to buy the movie outright on DVD and get some takeaway dinner than it does to take my girlfriend to the movies and split a large popcorn with her. That's pretty bad. The only movies i've gone to the cinema to see in the last few years have been indy films that will most likely never see DVD release over here, and the Lord of The Rings Trilogy. I don't think i'll go to the cinema at all any more, and you know what? a lot of my friends are in the same boat. It's too cost prohibitive, and there is almost no value for money.
Never fight naked, unless you're in prison...