Slashdot Mirror
Senate Unanimously Passes Anti-Camcorder Bill
jamonterrell writes "The US Senate just unanimously passed a bill allowing the criminal prosecution of recording movies with a camcorder in theatres. Victims of the new bill would face 3 years in prison on first offense (5 if it was done for profit), repeat offenders would get 10 years. As a side note, it will cost taxpayers an additional 5 million dollars per year through 2009 for enforcement." Several states have made recording in theaters a crime, although none of them have penalties nearly as harsh as this Senate bill.
It will make them more elite and thus more sought after by release groups.
I don't suppose anyone is going to come up with an argument saying that they are in the theaters with their camcorders excersizing their right to time shift... :)
I would have thought that night-vision equipment and kicking perpetrators out of cinemas would work.
... if you beat up a video store clerk and steal some real, actual copies of a film on DVD or VHS.
I'm not standing up for the crime, but isn't the punishment supposed to match it?
Sickening...
I was on vacation recently, running around with the camcorder. Almost stopped to see a movie as a break. Glad I didn't....
But why on earth should taypayers have to pay for enforcement of these rules?
If preventing camcorders is movie theaters is so important to their business, they should pay for the cost of preventing it. Anything else is a form of subsidy of the music industry. Taypayer money should be spend on protecting the security of people. Subsidies (in any form) are justified only if an industry which is important for providing necessities of life to the population is otherwise likely to suffer significant harm. In this case, there is no justification: The movie industry does not provide any necessities, just luxerious. Also, the movie industry would be quite capable of paying the costs of enforcing the rules they asked for. By paying for enforcement of this rule, Senate intends to rob the poor (taypayers) and giev to the rich (movie industry).
Under construction: swpat politics overview article
Osmosis_Garett wrote: Not only will this make CAM recordings more rare It will make them more elite and thus more sought after by release groups.
Piracy groups always go for quality first. Besides, once someone cracks the DVD the copying game is over.
I'm sick of shaky camcorder job movies I've been downloading on Shareaza. Hopefully this will make the movies shared on P2P networks better quality.
There's an obvious demand for movies currently playing in theaters to be offered at home. HBO was originally founded on this notion, IIRC.
Solution: offer movies-on-demand at the same time they play in theaters.
Why miss out on profits from those that download these bootleg movies or buy them off the street? They could offer the movies for $4 a pop and people would buy.
I can't wait for an iTunes for movies.
I think that this is totally a legitimate thing to get people in trouble for... but I mean, 3 years if you didn't profit from it? 3 years seems harsh even for the people who sell those bad VCDs of movies in theatres.
If I broke out my cell phone video recorder and took a quick clip of a movie, does that warrant 3 years in prison?
"I hate quotations." - Ralph Waldo Emerson
That will end up costing each of us about 1/2 of one cent per year until 2009 then. I don't know... doesn't really matter to me except I'll have to wait for the movies to come out on DVD. I still go to at least 3 movies a month and purchase 2 DVD's per week, so I never felt bad about watching the occassional cam'd movie. Whatever... I'm guessing that even here on Slashdot people won't find anything too exciting about this.
You have enemies? Good. That means you've stood up for something, sometime in your life. --Winston Churchill
Just out of interest, how does a telesync work? Does it still use a camcorder? They certainly look a lot better than the typical "cam" releases.
How many years would I get if I physically broke into the theatre and started attacking the manager with a baseball bat? Less then 10 years I assure you.
Creative Demolition
Pirating films isn't white-collar enough to warrant a light sentence. The only crimes that have stiff sentences are the ones that wealthy people don't commit.
Welcome to the free world ... free for whom?
Considering most good quality pirated movies are captured in empty theaters with the help of theater employee's I'm wondering how it will be enforced? I'm sure it's easy to bust some guy with a camcorder in a crowded theater but what about the people that record telecine copies?
Since when did the MPAA buy every senator? 3 YEARS for RECORDING light reflecting off a viynl backdrop? Total bull.
as phone camera recording devices get more compact and small, the less this bill would have an effect on the general public that goes out to see movies. hell, i've even taken my sony clie ux-50 to a movie to record part of it just for the hell of doing it. it's not going to change much for the most part ;-P
Think about the victims... of rape laws, murder laws, theft laws, laws against blowing up buildings, laws against screwing your neighbors goat...
These victims serve time when convicted. Don't forget the victims.
Christ they haven't KILLED ANYONE. Three years in a Federal "POUND-ME-IN-THE-ASS" prison. Does that sound pretty messed up to anyone else?
The criminal justice system makes less and less sense as the years go by.
Call on God, but row AWAY from the rocks!
I personally pledge to download and share one movie for every commercial that I see in a movie theater.
"Victims of the new bill would face 3 years in prison on first offense" -
Whoa! Victims are prosecuted now? Sheesh, where I come from, its perps that get it...to each their own it guess.
-- Sig meltdown immine...
if a reporter tapes a part of a movie shown by some criminal (or even terrorist) organization, or maybe just as part of investigating a sekt?
Now, the reporter can be thrown in jail for that.
You would probably not even be able to film audience reaction to a movie. Of course, people will say that those are exceptions and the main purpose of a camera in a movie theater is to commit a copyright violation, which the mere filming would not be, because copyright is about distribution.
***Quis custodiet ipsos custodes***
In Soviet Russia,
:P)
Camcorder reports on YOU!
Bad joke, I know
Seriously though, how is this any different from what we have now? Movie theaters already try to prevent this kind of piracy; is it merely the penalty that has changed, or are the cops going to be expected to enforce it? (not that they have anything better to do
RsG
This is good! It looks like if you blatently go in a theater and tape you are free in clear. Fuck this secret business, I want my cam download to look like MST3k with heckling. Oh, and the shadows of heads holding camcorders is a bonus for those of us who want that black space filled with something when we view in letterbox format.
There is no sanctuary. There is no sanctuary. SHUT UP! There is no shut up. There is no shut up.
For the record telesync is when audio is captured directly off the reel and a high quality camcorder is setup in an empty theather to capture the film on as best as possible. telecine captures everything directly off the reel and is usually as good as vhs/dvd. both methods usually accomplished with help of theater employee's.
I'll make you a deal. You pray to God for help and I'll stop the moment he shows up.
Plutocracy.
AccountKiller
This is the most straightforward case of bought-and-paid-for legislation that you are likely to see in your lifetimes! Pay attention! Now is the time for all good corporations to come to the aid of their companies! Take heed! The system works! Please have your ticket ready.
Copies of hit movies frequently show up on the Internet while they're still in theaters, allowing skinflint fans to see new releases like "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban" without coughing up the price of a ticket.
There are other reasons. In some countries, it hasn't even been released yet! And when it is released it's going to be dubbed. I don't think it's too tightfisted to not want to buy an airline ticket to another country just to see the film in the correct language.
And why is this suddenly a problem? You've been able to get pirate videos since the 1980's. Exactly the same thing - recorded on a camcorder. The only difference is that the distribution method has changed. Changed to one that doesn't actually make the copiers any money!
It's pretty easy to argue that the l33t h4x0r who grabs the video and then puts it out for Kazaa or torrenting does more damage to the producers than the guy selling CDs for $5 a copy.
Legislators don't resepct economy and efficiency like our crowd does.
Optimally, the theaters should throw those people out and ban them from the premises. This won't deter anybody but the stupid and the naive.
I think that this is totally a legitimate thing to get people in trouble for... but I mean, 3 years if you didn't profit from it?
Just wait until they make the logical extension. Filming a movie with a camcorder is no different than copying a CD or video. No different at all.
3 years federal time, buddy.
Distributing it will get you, oh, two more.
Oh, by the way, Federal laws already have redefined "profit" as possession, since you "profited" by not having to buy the item in question, so it's impossible not to profit from it by those laws. They just need to notice that they've already done that elsewhere and move it over.
KFG
From the people who brought you CAN SPAM!
cpghost at Cordula's Web.
Just wait until they make the logical extension. Filming a movie with a camcorder is no different than copying a CD or video. No different at all.
Except that the experience is severely degraded from the source media. Just wait until they make that logical extension. You'll be in jail 25 years for copying a CD.
The only real difference is that in the case of CD (well any phyiscal media), you're paying to actually purchase something tangible. When you go to the theatre, you're paying only for that specific performance.
Can anyone tell me the last bill that was presented by the people of america and not a corporation that was pased and made into law.. All these bills take rights away so corporations can profit. I just saw fahrenheit 9/11. As a canadian i think EVERY US citizen should see this movie.. I swear things are sooo fucked in your country the only thing that can save it is your consitution.. use all those guns you own and use your right to take up arms and take this evil regime out of power.. peace..
Nobody bothers with cam copies anymore anyway. You can find good telecines/telesyncs within a few days of release already.
Telesync = empty theater, cam on a tripod, sound from the theater sound panels. So theater employees are helping or doing it. Studio's own fault for not securely handling the prints/theaters. Ah but the theaters want to get by with just one guy running multiple showings being paid just bit over minimum wage while working long hours. And you wonder why these guys 'leak' stuff?
Telecine = print of the movie, telecine machine, basically an unauthorized film-to-digital transfer. Requires complete access to the print at a location with a telecine machine. DEFINITELY means that studios don't handle the security of the prints as they should. Nobody should be able to walk out of a theater with the print to telecine it. Meaning some prints end up in wrong hands - either out of the theaters or from the studios themselves.
And since law is apparently only vs. cammers, getting the print telecined is still apparently just a copyright infringement.
Of course buying a law against teleciners would make the studios admit that their prints are not handled securely and that the movie theater employees are leaking like hell. If pirates commonly can get the whole print in their hands and run it thru a telecine machine at their leisure, that would possibly wake up the lawmakers that this law is beyond stupid and does nothing to curb piracy.
It's a sad day when you realize youre no longer internally proud of your own country.. that it's abandoned its own values and is becoming a de facto police state.
What happened, guys??
The only real difference is that in the case of CD (well any phyiscal media), you're paying to actually purchase something tangible.
.
Who said anything about buying anything? I got the CD from the library or borrowed it from a friend. Same for the video. Or maybe I rented. Same diff.
Except that the experience is severely degraded from the source media.
Well, but see, there we've got a problem. All these draconian digital copying laws are because, so they tell us, the copies are of such high quality. That's the only reason they've had to be so firm.
So if the camcorder copies really, really suck. .
KFG
Man I wish I were In the USA!
You get three - ten years of guarenteed food and
acommodation
--
George U(nder) Bush
This kind of law is another example of legislation that could only ever be passed in a corporate dictatorship. This law fits the definition of political corruption - an obviously bought law. If there were similar penalties for price fixing or anti-competitive behaviour, perhaps that would go some way to deterring music company executives from their criminal behaviour. A prison sentence of any type is obviously absurd for something as benign as filming a cinema screen. Systems like region coding (which tramps all over free trade laws), and digital rights management (which makes it impossible for consumers to excercise their right to make copies on alternative media, or backups) are the problem for those greedy companies. They are angering consumers, already tired of their dismal formulaic offerings, and not able to purchase movies/music in the way the want to (again because of outdated distribtion systems of greedy record companies), then blaming the consumers for a decline in record sales. Music is overpriced, films are overpriced. Record and movie prices probably belong at about 25% of the present level. Maybe when they reach this point, and the quality improves, i would buy CDs or movies again.
Any locals that can post some comparison punishments? I think 3-5 years in prison is way out of line, but then again - it has to match the rest of the court system. So - how does this compare to other crimes?
Don't expect any real change until you start voting for real change.
If you don't like this, call up your local senators' offices and ask they how they voted on this. If they voted (they most likly didn't vote at all), then ask why they think they can get away with spending another 5 million dollars of your money to protect a 5 billion dollar industry which already does this its self? If they get enough calls, then they might just wake up but at this point they just listen to the people who scream the most.
Has anyone here ever seen a camcorder recorded movie? I'm guessing they have no negitive impact on good movies and not enough people see them to help kill the crud off faster.
The idiots in the house seem to think they have an endless supply to cash to buy friends who will help their contributions at the next election. maybe they would get a clue if more people let them know they weren't happy with the way they voted.
"As a side note, it will cost taxpayers an additional 5 million dollars per year through 2009 for enforcement."
And Popcorn and hotdogs costs how much?
I'm here for the experience, not the Hyperbole.
Wouldn't it just be easier to go up to the projection room and STEAL the movie? The punishment would probably be much less severe. Even if you hit the projector boy over the head with your camcorder.
until they ban camcorders from public places where street performers are likely to be performing.
thats my government, 15 years behind the technology
i mean, even when recording movies by camcorder was in a seinfeld episode, it was old and busted
what next, are they going to outlaw 300bps dial-in pirate bbs?
will the penalty for that approximate the punishment for manslaughter too?
i see ads on tv now for camera phones that can record mini-movies
if i raise my cell phone up in a theatre am i going to federal pound-me-in-the-ass prison with rapists and pedophiles for 5 years?
the priorities and sense of perspective of out-of-touch old kleptocrats...
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
It would have been, but let me say this: Whoever the MPAA uses for a lobby group is probably getting some kind of lobby group oscar right now.
I bet you'd get less than ten years even if you broke in and stole the whole movie reel! You could still attack the manager, and kill an usher -- that might get you 10 years, altogether.
Who here really thinks crappy-ass handicam tapes are going to cause the MPAA more than $5 million per year in (real) lost profits? Especially when you only consider the (probably small) fraction of tapes that would actually be prevented by this law.
They may as well screw the law and skip the enforcment and just have the US government GIVE the $5 million per year to the MPAA.
-
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
This horrible law is targeted at the urban poor. It is poor urban dwellers who are the prime "offenders". This demographic already suffers a hideously high rate of incarceration, even for non-violent "crimes" like this. The urban poor are the only audience who would tolerate the low quality, shaky pictures, and muffled sound. Dolby 5.1? Not hardly. These videos aren't finding their way into the $30K home theaters of Malibu and the Hamptons.
I guess it doesn't matter to Jack Valenti and Barbara Streisand. Hey they've got to pay for their botox and Hummer SUVs. What's it matter if another nigga or two is locked away for a few years?
We get the same movies up here, we don't have elite cops with nightvision in the theatres (at least those I've been to), and there's no prison time if you get caught. And the internet also happens to be worldwide. Whoops, there goes 5M taxpayer dollars!
ive seen camjobs from all over the world. this wont stop anything, but make the lawmakers feel they are doing a better job.
still leaks happen most commonly in the far east (when they are sent off for screenings and translations), ive seen untold numbers of cam and telesyncs from the far east.
this really wont stop piracy at all, its just another thing thats making america even more of a police state.
Unless your cell-phone can store more than 5% of the film, I doubt you're in danger. 5% is what is covered by Fair-Use -- and that includes redistribution.
I agree. Protecting the items that I rely on for doing what I need to do is part of protecting my security. As I wrote, I do think that it's right to spend tax money on protecting the security of people. The logical conclusions of this statement include that if someone breaks into Bill gate's house, or into a safe in the headquarters of Microsoft corporation, it is right to use tax money on pursecuting such a criminal. Similarly, if someone exploits one of the many security problems of Microsoft software to break into the corporate computer network of Microsoft coporation, it is right to use tax money on persecuting such a criminal. (Persecuting privacy violations is part of protecting security of people).
There's no instrinsic right to steal the property of others whether it be tangible like grandma's life savings or the intellectual property of powerful media conglomerates.
This statement assumes that it is proper to consider the so-called "intellectual property" as a form of property. I strongly disagree with that view.
Under construction: swpat politics overview article
Then pay them back: stop watching movies. I myself like good movies, but in view of the loads of rubbish the industry constantly produces these days, after a series of disappointments I stopped going to cinema two years ago. Didn't miss it once since.
...now all the films I download will be high quality!
SURELY NOT!!!!!
Crimes against corporations are to be punished far more severely than crimes against people.
> When they started playing ads in theatres, they lost their right to complain about piracy. So I say screw 'em.
You can say whatever you want - the point is that ads actually lower the price of admission.
You don't have to go to the movies or can be late to skip the ads. And of course you can deliver on your pledges that don't do no damage to movie theaters at all - at least I have never gone to a movie threater because a DVD or AVI wasn't available but because I wanted to see the movies on the big screen.
I was only making a backup.
Did the person who drafted the number of years for this offence(3,10),have even the slightest idea of what it feels like to be inside prison?(Wait,i havent been
I think the sentence handed out is way tooo much!
What about those people who simply copy the story/plot to make their own movies?
Do they also have a similar sentence?
anyway pirated DVD's keep comin out...
jus bcoz itunes came into existence that does not mean mp3 arent available.
If they found a guy recording a mov on cam,may be they could break it right there-thats it to it.
10yrs is not far from the no.of years for death sentence.-&10years for recording a movie!!!!
Why does yahoo do this
Solution: offer movies-on-demand at the same time they play in theaters.
Would this mean that I could use the camcorder at home to record the movie??
just wondering.....wait, I think I hear a knock on the door....does anybody here know who the FDI is???
Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
I wish the guy who raped my daughter had gotten 3-10 years. Instead, he got off on a technicality and ended up raping and murdering another girl in our neighborhood the night he was freed. He'll be eligible for parole in 2008, a measly 10 years after his plea-bargain conviction of 3rd degree sexual assault and second degree manslaughter. The DA wanted a quick conviction so he could spend time prosecuting a high-profile, highly public insider trading case that would keep him in front of the cameras for a couple of months before his re-election.
There is a huge problem when white-collar crimes are more vigorously prosecuted and receive proportionally tougher penalties than violent crimes. It just goes to show how much influence corporations have on our government. This is why we NEED campaign finance reform. This is why we NEED to get rid of soft money alltogether. ALL soft money. This is why we NEED to get rid of PACs - so daughters like mine can have justice instead of (or possibly in addition to) a lifetime of therapy.
Why do we try to criminalize every act? Are we trying to create a nation of criminals?
.We're after power and we mean it. You fellows were pikers, but we know the real trick, and you'd better get wise to it. There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens? What's there in that for anyone? But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced nor objectively interpreted - and you create a nation of law-breakers - and then you cash in on guilt. Now that's the system, Mr. Rearden, and once you understand it, you'll be much easier to deal with."
"Did you really think that we want those laws to be observed? We want them broken. You'd better get it straight that it's not a bunch of boy scouts you're up against . .
Atlas Shrugged
"When the only tool you own is a hammer, every problem begins to resemble a nail." - Abraham Maslow (1908-1970)
That the government cannot and will not allow the citizens of this country to cheat the corporations of their rightful profits.
Who do you people think is in charge, anyway?
Sucks to be in America
Webmaster of Infoweb
Why are the TWO jackholes above me modded as being insightful ?
The crime IS and has always BEEN "COPYWRIGHT INFRINGMENT" which falls upon the civil courts not the criminal.
And here they are using criminal anecdotes to try and justify the wasting of tax dollars to go towards something that a billion dollar a year industry should solve on its own accord.
I'm only a lowly AC so mod me a troll if thine wish. But if the two **AA entities cannot learn that times are a changin and that their business models will not hold up in the electronic age then where's the justice in them passing laws to make taxpayers pay for their own lack of forsight?
Sure, bust the pirating warehouse rings, send them all to prison, but to lock up a cammer for 3 years just to justify spending taxpayer monies, what the hell are you guys smoking?
Co-sponsor of this piece of foolishness: Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California.
Co-sponsor of the INDUCE Act: Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer of California
Yeah, let's take power away from those old white Republican males! Because then everything will change! Except not!
The Law wants us to be acountable for the zillons rules out there but ... we can't even remember that many rules!
we're just humans, after all.
Legislation is becoming crasy and, like a black hole, will one day colapse under its own weight.
I would have thought that night-vision equipment and kicking perpetrators out of cinemas would work.
You'd think, wouldn't you? The MPAA has to drag the court system into it, though. What a crock of shit. STOP THE FUCKERS AT THE DOOR. Let me repeat that simple statement.... stop them at the door.
I would have thought that night-vision equipment and kicking perpetrators out of cinemas would work. You're kidding, right? That isn't a deterrent at all. The goal is to deter people from thinking illegal recording is worth it. What fool would think recording a flick is worth a few years in prison? Not many. I guarantee you, though, lots of (morally defunct) fools think recording a flick is worth getting kicked out of a showing. I support deterring crime with actual punishment. 3 years should be the maximum though, for repeat offenders who do it for profit. 3 months seems like a good starting point to teach the thieves their lesson the first time. ~Jay9333
Tell me about it. Gun nuts always yammer about the second amendment protecting the first, but when was the last time a gun owner defended their civil liberties? The NRA can rot in hell -- they should have executed Bill Clinton for the DMCA, and George Bush for the Patriot Act. You know why libertarians don't care about the second amendment? Because gun nuts don't care about the first amendment, and stomp on the first amendment every chance they get.
"the point is that ads actually lower the price of admission."
Really? So movies that show more ads have cheaper prices?
Sonny boy, its about time you got an economic lesson. The price of something is not related to its cost.
That is, the price is always set by the market. Cost is set by the efficiency of the producer. I know this will befuddle and confuse you, nonetheless it is true.
Movie ads give more money to the theater owner. Period. They have nothing to do with the cost of admission.
If the goal is to deprive the movie industry of revenue, it seem to me downloading a screener and not going both do the same thing.
The primary difference is that you get to watch the movie in one case but not the other.
Reproducing the entirety of a copyrighted work, expecially followed by distribution of multiple copies of that reproduction, is already illegal. It clearly does not fall within the fair use guidelines.
I know the "What's Your's is Mine" disagrees, but they're wrong. They invariably fall back to arguing that technology has made current law irrelevant. Yet, these same folks expect all kinds of new legislation to protect them from the privacy threats they see posed by technology.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
Ironically a report out earlier this week shows that the US imprisons more people than any other developed country. To give you a few figures from the article on
prisons not the answer for social problems, "There were 715 inmates for every 100,000 U.S. residents last June. Mexico's incarceration rate is 169 per 100,000, and Canada's rate is 116."
There are currently more than 2 million people in US jails. NPR is running a series this week on the ineffectiveness of the prison system.
Now I don't think for a minute that this sentence will ever be carried out. For one, didn't we already determine that most pirated movies come from people who get advanced copies on DVD? Can't find articles on that right now.
But if you want to change this ridiculous system of punishment please support initiatives like Downsize DC.
Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Lois, this isn't my Batman glass. - Peter
"Victims of the new bill..."
Biased? Naw.
Someone want to confirm or deny this? Was the PIRATE Act passed "unanimously"?
Surely this was already illegal under existing copyright laws?
A pizza of radius z and thickness a has a volume of pi z z a
Ok now its fucking gone too far. We simply have to protest this, mass protest is the only way - get everyone you know to get everyone they know to bring camcorders to every movie they see - if the cinema staff try to stop you going in: push them out of the way, or even beat them to the ground, assult isnt exactly going to get you into much trouble anymore!
Fuck them, enough is enough.
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
3 years in prison on first offence!? For something as irrelevant as this - it just proves that sick greedy coorporations rule the western world.
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
Name two people who are actually doing REAL prison time for defrauding investors. Go on -- name 'em.
Victims of the new bill...
You *could* disable your camcorder (cover the lens or whatnot) and proceed to pretend to "film" the movie while watching it. It's quite legal, even if it might drive theater managers nuts. It also makes enforcement of this infeasible, if done widely enough.
Here is the bill text, which should really have been included in the story. (Actually, IMHO, Slashdot policy should be to require a link to bill text when submitting a story on new legislation.)
May we never see th
This is great example how things must go as bad as they can before they get any better. It's pretty normal because humans are boneheads and they rather stick with their old habits. Moving into something new is usually horrifying by default, so old behavior stays until it becomes too painful or impossible. Sad but true. In this case criminalizing camcording instead of creating viable solution is a) an old habit b) sign of corruption in lawmaking. All this because of stupid and greedy politicans. They don't have balls to change course as long as firms are shoveling $$ into their pockets.
Luckily i'm not living in US as i watch it sliding into police state..
Good! I hate cam recordings. The less of them the better, especially the ones posing as "proper" recordings.
Last time I looked 'we' stronly believe in copyright enforcement when / as it applies to GPL or other FOSS licensed material. But when the shoe's on the other foot, suddenly people who go to a fair bit of trouble to steal a copyright work are *victims*? I think not.
Many of the comments here run along the lines of 'ohh look at those really harsh penalties, compare them to (white-collar-crime, violent crime ...).
Kindly observe that this is *federal* legislation (and that are some states have enacted laws). That means that what's prosecuted under this is most likely going to be the 'theatre employee runs a showing off-hours explicitly to do a video rip' instances. *Hence* the stiffer penalties.
The pentalties for copyright theft are already out there, this isn't new - it's addressing a specific instance.
Sure we don't like DMCA, RIAA et al and I heartily agree that there are some 1st class morons in "the Industry" lobbying etc.
However in fact technology is making copyright theft easier and with the bar lowered there are going to be laws passed (DMCA etc) to try to address that.
Deal. And if the best way you can think of 'dealing' is to cry wolf about how people without respect for others property are 'victims' ... well you can expect more of the same kind of legislation.
Linux is Linux, if One need clarify their dist: <Dist>/GNU Linux
bsds are of course just BSD
Move to the Free State. about 200,000 libertarian Slashdotters should be able to make a big impact there.
Their goal is to create a Free State out of New Hampshire, that will combine the personal freedom of Holland with the economic freedom of Hong Kong. They are already attempting to change gun laws to allow concealed weapon carrying without a license. Raw milk sales are not regulated. Congresspeople are part-timers and get paid $100 a year. The state government is small and the crime rate is low. If the Free State takes off, the Free State could act as an example to the rest of the US and there would probably be a lot of calling for overturning laws like the one mentioned in this article.
Brandon Glass's personal site.
i couldn't leave this quote alone.
right, so they're 'skinflint', which means in this context that they have no money to spend on films, and the film industry is losing all that money, that doesn't exist, that they aren't spending on films. funnily enough. now either this article is bollocks, or the law is bollocks, or i'm talking bollocks. i think it's just another crap article.
the truth is obviously either: (a)the 'fans' aren't skinflint, they think the movie isn't worth paying for or want to find out if it is
(b)or they couldn't afford the movie tickets anyway.
but neither is as easy to read, or as bad for the movie industry.
This is my Sig, this is my Gun. One is for Slashdot and one is for Fun.
Isn't there a lame joke about marriage along these lines: "you only get 10 years for murder, i'm imprisoned for life". So this is the deal, a repeat offender get ten years of pound-me-in-the-ass prison, yet, well someone who commits manslaughter probably gets a similar period.
Doesn't that seem out of balance...Well, it isn't you see, because most manslaughters and murders don't involve large amounts of corporations money, and therefore you would be a fool and a communist to claim that bringing a cam into a theatre isn't as serious offence as murder or manslaughter.
As a private establishment, movie theaters were already within their rights to ban videotaping in most places.
The fact that money and time was wasted passing a specific law is *absurd*... yet another useless law on the books.
It depends on which state. A lot of states now have on the 2nd or 3rd felony conviction you get life. That's one of the reasons they have built so many prisons the past decade or so, and why we have such a high inmate population as a percentage of the entire population
Laws and crimes and what gets emphasized are entirely random now. for instance, we have multi millions of illegal immigrants. People who jump the border have committed a felony, yet it is almost universally ignored, they are allowed to live freely almost anyplace inside the US. At best if they find a huge group of them near the border they'll just be shipped back over, they rarely serve any jail time. We also have laws that make hiring an illegal immigrant a federal crime, with a 10,000$ fine per incident, but you never hear much of any arrests in those cases, even though the practice is blatant.
There's more, that's just a blatant example. Law enforcement is political, it's not any sort of even or fair, it's whatever the elite class wants that season. They give the orders, their enforcers click heels and jump to it. If they are ordered to ignore certain crimes, they will do so, even if they are aware of them.
I am not pro criminal, I just think the laws are terribly skewed and not enforced fairly across the board, and we have a variety of laws on the books now that are just ridiculous and shouldn't even be there. The US has a growth industry of gradually adding to laws that make more of the lower and middle classes "criminals". I think it's planned that way, to make a two class society eventually, technofeudalism. They are also apparently destroying as much of the middle class job structure as they can. Any job they can find that is exportable they will, any job that they can't exported they will import millions of illegals or too many legals to take those jobs. It's so completely obvious I won't even debate it with any debunkers now, the stats and realities are all over. It's been slow but verifiably steady, and the numbers increase yearly. Part of the plan, command and control, the same old dodge the old aristocrats have always pulled down through the ages.
As to recording in the cinema? I could care less, I've been boycotting movies for awhile now, and paid for music, I just quit. If a movie is free to copy, I might buy it. I have two here I got that the producer lets people make copies of. Music, again, if it's free over the radio by putting up with ads I occassionaly listen, but besides that, don't buy any-new. Used I will buy, it's just recycled, and the producers don't make another penny on it, but some guy at a yard sale will so I don't care, but even then not too much, a few examples of each a year. I even quit buying from the new but marked down bins, stopped that last year.
I think if enough people will stop placing so much importance on "entertainmnerts" of that sort, we'll see more sane pricing and reduce any demand for copying for profit. it's all I can do, tell people to boycott movies and music and professional sports and television fiction. it's gotten so ridiculous expensive it's stupid, and the time wasting aspects of it are lost to the wasters, I think in a lot of cases they don't realise how absuerdly addicted they get to it to the detriment of other more important things our society ignores too much. When you can get several million people in one weekend to go drop tens of millions of dollars all over the country to watch some new movie, with thousands in any random city you pick, and the same city can't get two dozen people to a community meeting to discuss local judicial corruption or the next multi million dollar school budget, etc, well, there's something wrong there in *general terms*. IMO anyway.
Rome when it was collapsing had it's bread and circuses to keep the people amused and occupied so they wouldn't pay attention to the rot that was collapsing their society around them.. We have the same thing now but people don't like to think they are droned out barbarians addicted to bre
That doesn't work too well when it's the projectionist or an employee doing it. Making them risk a few years of their life in prison is a lot more effective.
Oh? Who's responsible for the other 5%?
I know I'm feeding a troll.. but this has to be the worst post I've ever seen on slashdot. The man's DAUGHTER was an actual person who isn't alive anymore. How can you even think something like that?
...because now the bootleg movies are more likely to be the higher-quality screener copies, rather than recorded off the big screen.
This means we will see fewer people moving in front of the camera, shaking, popcorn falling from the sky, glowing exit signs on either side of the screen, and other forms of mild entertainment that come with bootleg movies.
grand theft auto?
--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!
I'm just really glad that the government is doing all it can to protect our precious film industry. If movie pirates were to succeed, the terrorists will surely have won.
MjM
XKCD:Xeric Knowledge Comically Dispen
If you don't think this is practical, go to any place that sells video surveillance systems and check out the 1/3" ccd cameras - decent pictures from something the size of a dime, you can hide them anywhere.
Of course, now that theatres are going to digital releases, someone's just going to hack the server (after all, they ARE running Windows IIRC).
I would say it's ime to start a theater boycott, but Jesus Christ!
At this rate, I won't be able to do anything media related without either supporting some sort of crooked organization (RIAA, MPAA, etc) or risk several years of jail time for some type of non-violent, quasi-criminal offense.
Music and movies have gone to crap. Thank God my two crates of books and my videogames are still safe.
But for how long...
bunch of wankers
Just more proof that congress is the whore of big business. Kill someone with a car and you get off with less time than someone who copies a movie. What a crock. We should all pick one week to boycott all of the movie theaters, let the movie studios eat the loss. With the outragous(?) prices they charge, even the matinees, it's no wonder no one wants to go to the movies. Fuck 'em!
Anyone else notice lately how it seems every crime in America receives an absurdly harsh penalty? Even for crimes that are victimless and non-violent? It's no wonder we have such a massive prison population. I blame it partly on Joe Sixpack's bloodlust, and partly on the faulty belief that such long sentences actually deter people from committing the crimes in the first place. And let's not get into how Mr. and Mrs. Citizen USA will condemn a crime, but then condone and even joke about prison rape. It's all very sad.
Whoah. Now who's to say what's a reasonable manner? And all they have to do is suspect you. This seems to allow any popcorn-buttering jerk to jump and beat you and hold down for as long as they want, just for the hell of it. Then, all they have to say is they saw you cell phone (or anything else for that matter) and thought it was a camcorder. And you can't sue him for *$417*.
"I was raised by a cup of coffee" -Homsar
...because most pirated copies (widely distributed ones, anyway) are Telesync, meaning they are done with the cooperation of (or BY) a projectionist, usually during off hours when there is no pesky audience to get in the frame (or report your camera). And the sentence is ludicrous - how about fining them enough that this covers its own enforcement costs, or even turns a profit? Okay, I didn't RTFL(egislation), so maybe there is a fine as well, but I have an excuse - I'm not fluent in legalese.
Also, can the perpetrators still be tried for damages in civil court? I'm pretty sure they can, so basically the movie industry has gotten the taxpayers to foot the bill for enforcement, and they can STILL sue for every penny they can squeeze from the perpetrators. Yay corporate lobbying!
Oh, was that my outside voice?
"Victims of the new bill would face 3 years in prison on first offense..."
What is wrong with you people? Those that do something illegal are violators of law, not "victims".
And those that are recording these movies are stealing more than just a $10 movie. In the grand scheme of things they're stealing millions of dollars from our nation's economy.
Now I'm not saying that I'm all for the movie industry. I rarely go to movies. But we need to be realistic and define what's right and what's wrong because our culture is taking a sour turn for the worst in a very short amount of time. We're losing control of our civil order and we need to maintain that order and quick.
This back and forth between MPAA and RIAA and their cries over poverty and theft ruining their bottom line - then vehemently debated by many here proclaiming that these movie previews HELP spur more movie sales, not the other way around.
Wouldn't it be interesting if a different boycott could be arranged - one where instead of everyone saying 'don't buy music, don't movies', we just say - for one good movie - Don't record it? Do not let it hit the internet? Not one little copy? If we look back at the Matrix, Spiderman, et al., these were heavily taped and found online, only to have their ticket sales soar into the hundreds of millions. So many here could claim, 'See, it didn't hurt at all - it probably helped as advertising.' It is an argument that I agree with, that the people who take the time to hunt for and download a grainy copy are those who are the movies biggest fans anyway, and they just can't wait to see it. It won't stop them from going to the movie, buying the DVD - they just want to get their hands on all of it.
Soooo - what if? Let's take Spiderman2 about to come out soon. I suppose to prove a theory one way or the other, something needs to give. Otherwise it remains theory. So imagine if not one copy of Spiderman2 were released online? And what if, instead of a blockbuster, the movie only produced a lackluster performance? That could add fuel to the argument that the pre-recording really was helping after all, and the MPAA just shot themselves in foot - again. If sales are about the same, it could prove that the pre-recording didn't make a difference. Does the MPAA really think that they could have earned more than the 300 to 500 million some of these movies make? I know that there are many holes in my idea, and it would be almost impossible to pull together a united, worldwide 'freeze-frame' event. But still, it makes me wonder - what if?
That sounds great. Maybe once I'm done my degree I'll look into CS jobs in New Hampshire. Sounds like my kind of place. I'm not too into guns, but I guess you have to take the second amendment along with the first. Them amendments is just about the most promising thing about that country you have there.
If you're in a 'safe state' like NY or Texas, there's nothing to be lost by voting for Nader.
It's if you're in a swing state that you have to pick the lesser of two evils.
I see ... "The goal is to deter people from thinking illegal recording is worth it. What fool would think recording a flick is worth a few years in prison?"
Perhaps we should just enforce the death penalty for all breeches of law.. Civil or Criminal.
its really troublesome when the government comes out and criminalizes behavior that should be ONLY a civil manner.
In this case, the movie house should just kick you out if their policy prohibits *PERSONAL* copies. It's simple as that as no *real* crime has occurred, by definition..
All this shift of civil to criminal legislation will only serve to crate more criminals and increase governmental bloat/intrusion.
What will be next, speaking out about political figures before an election in a free country? Oh wait, they already criminalized that...
nevermind.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
This just shows that the U.S. Senate and most of the government has become a whore of multi-national corporations. The biggest whores get the most in political contributions. And if they ever get voted out or decide to "leave" they get to sit on the boards of the corporations which they've "served." The people need to wake-up and vote the bastards out. The government is no longer for the people and by the people, it is for the corporations and by the corporations. It is sad and disgusting how currupt the U.S. government has become.
Remember the name John Cornyn, he's the whore that sponsored this bill for the movie industry.
He said his daughter was alive (and imlied she's in therapy). It was another girl in the neighborhood who was also killed.
...
Not that it makes any difference, but
Um...Wasn't this bill passed unanimously? That would lead me to believe that it would be quite hard to vote for someone who didn't support this bill.
I would love to take a hollow shell of a camcorder into a movie theater and get arrested for this crime. I just don't want to be convicted, which I fear might actually happen...
Where in Article 1 Section 8 do we, the people, give Congress the privilege to do this?
Watch an 8 hour class on the Constitution: torrent format
-metric
In related new, Congress also passed a new law making the smuggling of contraband candy and drinks into theaters punishable by up to 3 years in jail and a fine of $500,000.
Almost as elite as old time cam recordings copied X times onto VCR cassettes...sigh...oh how I long for the days when a man could buy a high quality recording on the streets.
"The truth suffers from too much analysis"
Why did the author of this blurb call the people cause with camcorders in theaters "victims" of the new law. You people are rediculous. It's THEFT, now there's just a law to allow criminal prosecutions. If a person shoots someone else, and gets caught, are they a "victim" of the laws against assult? You want movies, pay for them (note to hollywood, $8 is semi-rediculous).
Say it with me: "This post is not a troll."
In all seriousness though, theater recording may be a pain in the butt, but that is more than a little excessive. I can't really imagine anyone looking at a one year jail sentence and saying "Wow... only a year in prison? I don't care if I get caught!"
If you're thinking about penalty at all, even a 6 month jail term would intimidate most people.
. --- If you're looking for free e-mail you won't find it here! http://www.noemailhere.com
I'm playing the worlds smallest violin for the people who actually care about this.
Derek Greene
It's already illegal to distribute copyrighted materials. Why do we need a new law to say this particular way of doing it is illegal?
Do you *really* want to throw away a presidental vote on *Nader* and give Bush & co the White House for another 4 years? I hope not!
Voting green/whatever is great - but START LOCALLY. Vote in a Green mayor. Congressmen. Local representitives. Don't just go for the big ones...
Act locally.
Doesn't that sound a bit like people who break the law? I know that the MPAA is not popular here, but there is no intrinsic right to make copies of movies from the theatre.
Wh47 d1d j00 541, 31337 15n't t3h r0xor5 ne m0r3???
Can someone explain a legitimate reason, unrelated to copyright infringement, to record a movie in a theater with a camcorder?
I realize this could have a deterrent value, but it's still a bit extreme. I bet nobody would ever speed on the highway again if the punishment were permanent loss of driver's license and car confiscation, but not too many people think this would be a good idea.
This is simply not a good use of taxpayer's money. If someone distributes copies of a film they recorded in a theater, the existing penalties are harsh enough, and the FBI will already get involved in prosecution. When precedent has been set that any corporate group can buy a law that prohibits anything that might decrease their profits, the rights of the people will definitely suffer, even if this particular law doesn't really violate an individual's rights. Best Buy doesn't like people coming into their stores and writing down prices of items. They can prohibit this if they like, but I'd hate to think they might be able to buy a law that allows them to have people prosecuted for doing this.
Then don't break the law.
It's not your right to break the law. People have to held responsible for their actions (which seems to NOT be the trend in the US). In other countries you would have your hand chopped off for stealing. Does that fit the crime?
-Nick
"A plan fiendishly clever in its intricacies"- Homer Simpson
Go priorities!
By and large, language is a tool for concealing the truth. -- George Carlin
You're taking a copy of something that doesn't belong to you. If that isn't stealing, what is it?
:)
I think the penalties in this bill are a bit harsh, but I'm really sick of this 'I want it for free' mentality.
Go ahead and mod me down
Have you seen the PIRATE Act? This is GREAT for enforcement of every penny annie little bullshit copyright violation.
Instead of emailing Linksys (now Cisco) legal about copyright infringement of Open Source code, we can just call up the Feds and have them bust their asses. This is great! Also, you remember that snippet of Javascript you stole to make your homepage slightly more annoying? Guess what?! The Feds are on your ass now!
The Senate has no idea how much copyright violation goes on in this country nor how expensive it will be to outsource its prosecution to the AG's office.
-l
p.s., Yes, I just wrote my Rep and I'm seriously pissed off that Cornyn sponsored the ART Act. Asshole.
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http://wearcam.org/
Watch as our rights are slowly eroded. Why can't we be free to integrate recording technologies into our everyday lives just as we have integrated more primitive recording technologies such as writing?
Soon it will be illegal to use your eyes or write down a thought that you hear without paying money.
I am absolutely dumbfounded by this law. My only possible action is to refuse to watch movies until the MPAA goes bankrupt and loses lobbying power. That is if its still legal to not buy the products of these greedy bastards.
That's not really the point. The point is that punishment should more or less be proportional to the crime committed. And I don't say this in b/c I like to record cams. I've watched exactly one cam in my life, and I don't remember if I sat all the way through it. I certainly won't download another. I live in Canada so I have no concerns about being sued for downloading. (Despite the hoopla, the fact remains that downloading copyrighted material is safe in Canada and actually legal in some contexts depending on the material).
Interestingly enough, I'm just not downloading any more. It's too much effort when I can just rent the movie for $3 (that's Canadian dollars) down the street. I stopped for months and just recently tried downloading again. So very not worth my time.
I've only got two complaints at this point. The rising cost of theater tickets fueled at least in part by decreasing competition among theater companies is ridiculous. (The last non-Famous Players cinema anywhere near me just got bull-dozed to make room for a Best Buy parking lot, and coincidentally the closest Famous Players theater raised their prices within a week). My other complaint is missing a TV show from a serialized show.
The first complaint is already taken care of by waiting for the DVD release. The second will be taken care of by Tivo whenever Canada gets an equivelent that doesn't lock me into a single TV provider. Although I admit, as that looks less likely I'm more inclined to think about downloading again. We'll see...
. --- If you're looking for free e-mail you won't find it here! http://www.noemailhere.com
>>How does the person sitting next to you in the cinema feel about this....
Probably not all that great since once you have been arrested, if your neighbor did not turn you in, he could be charged as an accessory.
Just remember, folks, that this is the sort of problems that our appointed leaders are spending their time and energy (and your tax money) on. Not on fixing the economy, not on getting us out of a ficticious war, not on improving healthcare or our general way of life. But making the world safe for movie-goers and **AA members alike.
You get the government that you (do or don't) vote for.
Ryosen
One man's "Troll, +1" is another man's "Insightful, +1".
For those too cheap to rent the movie and those who have no other use for your digital camera.....
I suppose you could record the video while you play it from your home.
A corporation consists of many people, does it not? You have to remember that a corporation isn't just a faceless entity. There are, believe it or not, real people in a corporation.
Therefore, doesn't it make sense that crimes against many people should be punished far more severely than crimes against (few) people. Though in this case I think the punishment is extreme.
I mean I think these bootlegs are taking the concept of "recreating the movie theater atmosphere" a bit too far. With the talking, people walking in front of the screen and shakiness of the image, I find these things completely unwatchable! They make me want to buy the DVD MORE not less! I think these things are good for the industry not bad!
First of all, this is a US law, not a Chinese or Indian law. Second, Bollywood films never have been all that popular in the US and all the good kung-fu flicks have been pirated and copied a thousand times over.
Yeah right but it's an interesting thought.
Theatres are public space. If you're wearing copyrighted material such as a shirt with a logo you yourself have copyrighted, do the corporations get jail time for filming you and thereby infringing your copyright?
No, of course not, because we're entering David Brin's worst case scenario of "no government openness, no citizen privacy."
Intolerance for ambiguity is the mark of the authoritarian personality.
What you're saying is that we have the right to "backup" what we take in with our eyes? That's breaking copyright.
What happens when there are cyborgs walking around recording everything they see?
"His memory is admissible in court"
Do we really need our congress busy passing laws for things that are already illegal?
Other things we need bills for:
- I think it needs to be illegal to take stuff from stores without paying
- Shooting people in the head should be more illegal than shooting them in the foot
- Rape, its just not illegal enough
- Purposely redirecting earth destroying asteroids at the earth should be illegal
Seem like nonsense? So does congress mulling over bills that make it illegal to duplicate movies already protected by existing laws. If congress were my business, I'd fire the lot and give them a poor recommendation at their next job.
But I didn't elect my congressman to support/vote/debate on issues like this. There are people begging for change on the streets and women being beaten... while these fat cats sit on capital hill and vote to protect a billion dollar company from a few people with camcorders.
Really, how many people would rather buy a fake than watch an authentic version in the cinema or DVD?
HockeyPuck ---> .
It's a great idea, as far as public disobedience and protesting is concerned. Only problem is, I suspect it would be treated much like waving around a realistic-looking toy gun. It's not illegal to have the toy gun, but you'd certainly at least get thrown out and waste your money you spent to see the movie. (Not to mention, probably get arrested and have to go through the hassle of proving you weren't actually doing anything wrong.)
The thing that bothers me most about this law is the way the movie industry has twisted govt's arm to protect their business interests at the taxpayer's expense. If I carry a camcorder into a theater and start filming a movie I *paid* to see in the first place, it's just as much a "victimless crime" as if I placed a few "illegal bets" on a sports event, or sat at home and smoked a joint, or you name it.... I guess the Senate still hasn't grasped the idea that prosecuting victimless crimes isn't effective and just wastes money.
Most of the downloaded cams are foreign imports anyways, right?
America, where recording movies warrants you more jailtime than some murderers get.
guess murder is a lighter crime, because hey, human lives are more replaceable than a movie's value, right?
Um. Sentencing guidelines as deterrant...yeah, those work. You have any idea what minimum sentencing laws for drug offenses are like? And I hear people still toke up.
Soon it will be more efficient to list the things that corporations allows you to do without going to see Bubba.
It's maybe even easier to simply put everybody in prison and then invite corporations to decide who can get out!
Yahh, hiii haaaaa! -Major Kong, from Dr. Strangelove
I don't suppose anyone is going to come up with an argument saying that they are in the theaters with their camcorders excersizing their right to time shift...
You lose that bet.
A camcorder can be assistive technology. Keeping them out of the movie theater can be as unethical as turning away people with seeing eye dogs or wheelchairs.
There are quite valid reasons for having and/or using a camcorder or similar device in a theater.
If you think time cannot be as big a barrier as space, I propose you undertake the following consciousness raising experiment. Divide into three groups. One group has to ride around in a wheel chair for a month. One group can only go outside the house or watch live tv or use the phone between the hours of 10PM and 6AM for the same month. The third group has no constraints on temporal or spacial mobility. Keep track of what each group was able to do and not do during the course of the month. And each group should try to excercise a broad range of activities. Go to a movie, rent a movie, rent a car, eat a decent meal out (late night bar food and fast food does NOT count), ride public transportation, enter a tournament, go to a hobby related club meeting, go to a park (most close at dark), go to the doctor, go call a friend on the phone, go to the library, go to a book store, go work out at the gym, go to the local health food store, go visit a juice bar, go buy groceries, go to a bar/nightclub, rent a canoe or tube, visit a saladbar, go for a hike in the woods, take a class, go to a live game, go see live theater, go rent a motel room (hint: you will be charged for two days if you sleep past noon), go talk to your bank manager, and try holding a decent job. Unless you live in the city that never sleeps, you are likely to find that those with the temporal constraints are as restricted as those with spacial constraints and face MUCH greater discrimation from businesses and government agencies. On the list above only two: bar/nightclub and non-healthfood grocery shopping are really workable. The person in the wheelchair won't be able to go on a hike but they can go to the park or canoeing/tubing. I am certainly not trying to downplay the hardships faced by the physical handicaps, but our society has come a long way in accomodating their needs compared to time related needs. And, to add insult to injury, try consulting with medical people about a sleep disability: "Thank you for calling the Sleep Center at the University of Virginia. Our office hours are from 9AM to 5PM, monday through friday."
Should handicapped people be forced to wait until a movie comes out on DVD and not be even further cut off socially from other people because they can't discuss movies while they are still a hot topic? And speaking of which, why the hell don't they project subtitles underneath the movies or transmit them via 802.11 to portable receivers (which you could borrow if you weren't one of the borg.)
"Wanna watch a movie together?" "Yes, but, honey, we live 500 miles apart?" "True, but we have high speed net access". People today form or maintain social and even romantic relation
It is a supreme waste of time. As is the "war" on terror, and the liberation of Iraq. I have nothing against helping the Iraqis acheive their own freedom with assistance (supplies), but sending Americans or anyone else there to die is pointless. Other countries helped the US liberate itself from British rule, but that didn't mean that they came to fight our war. There will always be "nutcase whackos" and having a war on terror will do nothing, as mother nature will always make more.
Back to the topic, however. I think it is completely not American to have the government involved in what is completely a civil matter in both an idealogical and practical sense. This issue should be company vs. individual (the one causing the damages), and for monetary loss not jail time. The US government is treading on the line of civil revolt, and it can and will happen if corporations continue to rule the government more than the people do. People are willing to be governed when they have a say, but not when there are tiers or classess. (People that have X million for Sentor X vs. people who have just a vote paper.) Any sensible person can see that any candidates speech is "voter spin" for the paper, and they vote with the people lining their wallets. Do I want the corporations controlling my life? Do you?... It pains me to see the government even considers this issue as something worth talking about, and it shows you exactly how far gone the system is.
Its just a matter of time before shit hits the fan and the "American way" will be just a cruel joke. Taxation and money will be the new devils, and freedom and barting of goods and services will win. Sounds impossible? Realize that fundamentally everything made and done costs nothing, it all comes out of the ground or air and time is only worth what is paid for it. If goods are exchanged freely and services are then we are no longer the slave labor of the government, we have freedom to choose worth based on the importance of resources to us.
So what do we do without a system like that which we have now? Good neighbor policy sounds like a good start.You help me, I help you. No money exchanged, and nothing to tax. There are those that believe that we must have money, taxes, etc, etc, but those are those people that also believe things cannot change. Some of us know better. Money is only as important as you make it, and when you have to pay a tithe on every purchase, your paycheck, and any other gain monetarily you are offically a vassal of the US Government.
- Mind
What I _really_ wish they'd get harsh on is those morons in the theater with the laser pointers. Now _that's_ who deserves 3 years in the clink!
I'm not against protecting intellectual property of filmmakers, but it's curious to see where our lawmakers' priorities are.
--Rick "If it isn't broken, take it apart and find out why."
I think most cams were not made in the usa in the first place. Or at least thats how it used to be when I was active in the scene. Most of them came from asia or other countries where you could set up your camcorder in full sight of everyone.
There's nothing more annoying than someone sitting next to you in the theatre with a camcorder. Unless it's somebody using a cell phone, or giving an ongoing commentary about the movie.
Exactly! Just another way to police the American citizens and make them feel more and more powerless, indirectly.
It shows how much the music industry owns the US government that the bill cites the 31% loss claims of the music industry in a law, and ignores the fact that all the academic studies, as well as the statistics gathering companies rebut the data rather convincingly.
As usual we have the vocal comments from the "Record it eslewhere" crew and from the "But it's illegal, so why are you whining" collective. Both sides, as usual, seem to be missing the point.
Some people have touched on the real issues, but neither side (especially the "it's illegal!" side) seem to even notice the points.
1 - It's overkill
I think that in-cinema recording is wrong (though the over-the-top messages before movies make me want to do so out of spite, I admit). You bring in a camcorder to use in a film and there are very few things other than bootlegging that you can be doing. So I'm not disagreeing that it's illegal.
But come on here. This is walnut-with-a-sledgehammer territory. It's not a criminal offence - or shouldn't be. Hefty fine. Confiscation of equipment. Barred from cinemas. These would be acceptable - and actually stop repeat attempts. But prison-time? Yeah, great. Obligatory "bubba" gags aside, prison is usually a good place to pick up real skills and contacts.
2 - It's not the cause of the problem
As people keep saying, it's not camjobs that are doing the rounds and eating into postential ticket-sales. If anything is, it's be the high-quality Telesyncs that people keep on referring to here. It ain't punters-with-a-cam, it's cinema-workers with some "slightly better" kit.
Adding the two together, they're basically giving a vastly OTT punishment to the people who aren't even the main cause of bootlegging. And the cost of which will be passed onto the US taxpayer, and probably reflected in box-office prices too.
Honestly, they're probably losing more money (and customers) to trying to stamp out bootlegs than they do to the actual bootlegs.
TiggsTiggs
"120 chars should be enough for everyone..."
Technically it seems like a group of you could have arrested your bosses who gave you the illegal order. Knowledge of a felony im progress, then being told to ignore it? Isn't that accessory after the fact, and RICO, and suborning an officer? There's probably both some state and federal elected official ethics violations as well. Probably some more too, those I can think of right off the top.
No matter.... it's way more common than not, every cop I have ever met has told me about crimes being committed by fatcats that they get told to ignore.
At a minimum perhaps just some decent leaks to the media might have helped in that case. Perhaps anyway.
Have you been following the FBI 9-11 and terrorist whistleblower cases? Ashcroft just got sued again over it, trying to cover up evidence. It's pretty interesting in how in several cases righteous agents just actually doping their job like they were supposed to be doing discovered high level shenanigans and immediately got taken off various cases, now the administration with it's appointed whitewash commission is claiming "surprise" about the attack, while at the same time ignoring those agents mostly, and saying "no hard evidence" and so on. And they'll drag those whistleblower suits out for years most likely, too...
Same ole same ole stuff, been going on forever, it never changes except it gets more common.
Ten years in prison for videotaping a movie in a theater... I think the penalty for murder should be reduced to a month in jail, and the penalty for rape should be reduced to an hour of community service. But if you violate someone's intellectual property rights, they should throw you in Abu Ghraib for at least 50 years.
This nation was set up as a group of several independant states, the federal government was limited to national defence, easing commerce, and protecting the rights of minorities.
I've no opinion on whether the punishments meted out fit the crime. It is the federal government's job to define the limits of copyrights and up to each of the several states to decide on how violations of the copyright code is enforced.
If we dropped 3 months off summer vacations in the public schools, 14 year olds would be finishing high school and entering college. 17 and 18 year olds would be getting degrees. A lot of homeschoolers are in this situation now, because they studyyear round. The earlier you learn something, the better.
As to staying amused in your spare time? Man, I have yet to find a teenager who couldn't find something to do, there's too much energy there. Getting put in that alpha state with TV just turns kids into consumer robots, it hypnotises them. That's why it's so easy to remember commercials, you are quite literally in an enhanced state for brainwashing just zombieing out in front of the tube.
And maybe if we fed our children honest food that wasn't shipped completely dead, preserved, stripped of most of it's enzymatic and nutrional aspects that it started out with, and wasn't made up of half artifical chemicals, they might not need to be force drugged when they suffer neurological disorders from their enhanced "food monopoly approved" "diets".
The trouble with producing information is that its like the emperor's new clothes. It forces everyone to pretend that movies, software, and music are property.
They're clearly not. But if we don't pretend that, we don't produce anything else of value these days.
We're in for a heap of trouble when the rest of the world wakes up.
It involves copying something against the creator's wishes.
Its *really* that simple.
Its not theft.
Its not piracy.
Its illegal copying. Period.
I realize it isn't sexy to put it that way, but its ILLEGAL COPYING.
Nope, it'll lower the number of cam rips. There are usually a few higher quality non-cam rips flowing in from Asia these usually are out a week or so after the initial rips, but they can't gain penitration, now they should be able to and fill the void left. So the end result higher quality rips... Besides catching a cam rip after the dvd releases have hit the web sucks. Might help in that respect too.
It is no longer uncommon to be uncommon.
For those who want to write to their Representatives to ask them to vote against the bill, the bill passed by the Senate is S.1932, the Artists' Rights and Theft Prevention Act of 2004 (or ART Act for short). It has been assigned to the House Judiciary Committee.
Actually, I think it was just the Senate at this time.
But you have a good point about the lopsided vote. Kind of makes me skeptical of claims that only Republicans are lapdogs for Big Business.
Yes, it should NOT be made CRIMINALLY ILLEGAL to videotape movies in a theater.
Whether a theater can prohibit the practice or not is up to the theater. If they catch you doing it, they can throw your ass out. Why do we need a law? I'll tell you why.
Criminalizing the behavior is fucking STUPID and is merely another attempt by the state to create MORE "crime", more cops, more prisons, more law enforcement bureaucracy, etc. ad nauseum. And you gutless punks fall for it every time.
C'mon, morons, you don't get it yet? The purpose of "law" is to create "crime", and thus to create "criminals" and thus to create "prisoners" out of everybody - not the other way around. This is how the state operates and has operated for thousands of years. Who needs "law" to recognize that coercion is nonproductive and should not be done? Apparently everybody, since most human morons haven't figured this out.
You've got a "drug war" and thousands of people in prison and billions being wasted on a "problem" that doesn't exist. Now the state is taking the oxymoronic notion of "intellectual property" and creating a NEW "war" - which will jail even more people than drugs and cost even more money and wasted resources.
Get your head out of your ass.
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
Here the goal of the movie companies is to prevent copies of the film from showing up on P2P filesharing before they start selling DVDs of the film (at that stage it's impossible to prevent). Hence a single camcorder rule violation might cause millions of people to watch an illegal copy of the film in the convenience of their own homes instead of going out to the movie theater.
I do think that it's justified to impose stiff penalties for transgressions that cause huge economic damages. However I think that all the costs related to sending transgressors to jail (at least those who don't have enough money to fully recompensate the movie studios for their lost profits) should be borne by those companies which have chosen a business model that requires the use of such extreme enforcement measures.
Under construction: swpat politics overview article
I started thinking indoor movies were a rip when they stopped double features and cartoons in front of the movies. That's held on in the few remaining outdoor theaters though, double features anyway.
The only thing that saved them for me was air conditioning inside the theaters. I like the better sound systems in movies though, that's about the only improvement I've seen.
..not a surprise at all.
If it was up to me, I'd ban any for profit or non profit corporate campaign contributions, and limit named human individuals to 100$ maximum total political donations per calendar year, and make accepting a bribe by a public official be life in prison.
I'd also like to see a ten year maximum public service law. No single human could serve more than ten years total, any mixture of elected, appointed or hired on position in the government. No pensions, no career bureaucrats, no career politicians. The only exceptions would be bonafide veteran war casualities, full medical care, and a pension for their survivors, but zip nada to anyone else.
... how much jail time do you get if you rob a convenience store at gun point?
I want to see Kill Bill 2 but I think I will wait till the DVD comes out... Wouldn't the whole movie experience be shattered by viewing such a recording or are camcorders that good now?? Maybe you could come up with a REALITY series of somebody "going to the movies" and market it that way but who is going to be satisfied with a crappy video recording let alone PAY for it? Are we so pathetic as a people that video recording a movie is a good idea now????
How likely it is to be applied is IRRELEVANT. Its like the FCC to "just trust us" when it comes to enforcing decency regulations. The fact is that they are rediculous penalties for the offense involved, which *is already covered under existing laws*.
Forcing teachers to teach of a maximum of 10 years would severely reduce the quality of education (at least at better schools like the one I went to, where most of my teachers had 20+ years of experience).
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
When stories like this get posted, I wonder how far I'll have to read before some self-important idiot accuses Slashdot and its readership of hipocracy. Well I hate to wipe the smug, shit-eating expression off your face, but I would like to point out that there is no hipocracy in complaining about companies who violate the GPL and throwing people in jail for taping movies.
Do you have any idea what the hell you are talking about? How the fuck is violating a software license and throwing people in prison for (very poor quality) copyright infringment remotely comparible? If we were all calling for 10 year prison terms for Linksys employees, then you might have a point. But we aren't so you don't.
Moron.
As a side note, it will cost taxpayers an additional 5 million dollars per year through 2009 for enforcement.
As opposed to the millions of dollars it costs movie studios when people pirate movies? You know, taxpayers are employed by movie studios, too...
I forgot, it should be legal to pirate absolutely everything under the sun so nobody gets paid for the fruits of their efforts. People who pirate music, movies, and software are freeloaders who get bitter when the free ride is taken away.
Don't use a real camera. Use a cardboard fake camera that you can take out of your pocket and fold up flat and hand to the manager while you're all standing there waiting for the cops to show up. Then watch him think about how he's going to explain it.
Your story is simple: You think that the law is a travesty, and that it allows idiot theater managers to physically detain people at risk to everyone concerned, just because they might *suspect* that filming is occurring, and that your perfectly peaceful, legal, and harmless act of holding up a piece of cardboard demonstrates that fact.
The Wired article on the issue.[wired.com]
" It is irrelevant that the property right is an abstract one created by law."
If the law said black was white and blue was yellow, they may prosecute you for the truth, but its still the truth.
Other countries didn't come to help us liberate ourselves from British rule? The ignorance of that statement greatly weakens the rest of your post. The French took an active role, without which we might well have lost. Granted, they were doing it far more to screw the British than to help us - being an imperial national themselves - but they still helped.
There were more than a few German mercenaries in Washington's army, and a German general himself came over to help train Washinton's force and turn it from an irregular militia into a capable regular army. Without that assistance, again, we might have lost.
As for the war on terror being a waste of time, would you much rather that instead of sending our army out to kill the terrorists in their countries, we instead wait for them to come here and kill more innocent people? I wouldn't. One of the basic principles of war is to fight it on the other side's ground instead of yours if possible. That's how we fought WW II, and that's why, after the fighting was over, we were in a position to rebuild not only countries that were the victims of Axis aggression, but the vanquished Axis nations themselves. We absolutely should be engaging in a war on terror - this is a matter of national survival. We should absolutely be fighting that war in their turf, not ours, to the greatest extent possible. Will there always be some more? Some, sure. But we have far more bullets and bombs than they have ability to produce more terrorists, so at the end of the day we'll be the ones left standing. The only good terrorist as a dead one, so I for one am glad that we are using our military to help terrorists become good. I would enlist myself if they would take me, but I'm well past the age cutoff. The only sufficiently mitigating factor would be if I were an MD, but I'm not.
As for your point regarding the camcorder law, while I think the penalties are excessive (you can commit a real crime, that really hurts someone, and get less jail time than that!), I don't have a problem with it being specifically illegal. I think a better solution WRT penalties would be that if they catch you with a camcorder in the theater, they should have the legal right to confiscate your camcorder, no trial, no appeal. You don't get it back, and if the bouncers ungently throw you through the air out the back door and you get scraped up and bruised when you hit the deck, tough. You should have thought of that before you tried to tape the movie. People who aren't willing to suffer the consequences shouldn't undertake wrong actions in the first place (keep that in mind anytime someone whines about our taking out the Taliban, Saddam Hussein, and whoever the next evildoer to get in our sites might be. Maybe Assad?).
However, the law itself is not unjust. The penalty is just a bit over the top.
There has to be some penalty beyond actual losses or there isn't much risk for the perpetrator. This type of action isn't accidental, there is obvious malice of forethought.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
to making possession of the movies recorded by a cam in a theatre illegal...
It can also be used by law enforcement to "up the ante" when they are looking to get someone.. example: tag on that item as a charge when going after someone...
--
Time is on my side
Are we trying to create a nation of criminals?
Yes. Convicted felons may not vote in many U.S. states. Therefore, those in power may attempt to turn their political opponents into felons in order to get them out of the voting booth.
As for the war on terror being a waste of time, would you much rather that instead of sending our army out to kill the terrorists in their countries, we instead wait for them to come here and kill more innocent people? I wouldn't.
Wow, I must have missed the announcement that we invaded Saudi Arabia or Pakistan.
If we actually were killing terrorists in their countries you would have a point.
As that is not the case, you don't.
The reasonable presumption is that you or someone else is going to see what you recorded, and that person would otherwise be paying to see the movie (perhaps not for the first time.) That is where the damage comes in, and the activity is no longer victimless. There's an issue of practicality from the standpoint of law enforcement here. Although the actual loss is primarily brought about by viewing the illegally obtained video, the viewing usually occurs in private and cannot be proven without violating the property rights of the owner of the property where the viewing takes place. But because there is no reasonable legal use for the recording, that is where the law can focus.
The use of logic and reasonable expectations is not foreign to the legal system.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
As a side note, it will cost taxpayers an additional 5 million dollars per year through 2009 for enforcement.
What the hell are they doing with 5 million per year? Issuing titanium plated night vision goggles to every movie theatre employee in the world? Aside from this, why are taxpayers expected to foot the bill? Where's the MPAA?
well, this is just wishful thinking anyway, I know we aren't in any danger of it happening.
.."helping to clean the environment" or "defending the glorius fatherland from barbarians" or something or "providing quality leadership and charisma and shellacked hair" yadayada and so on.
With that said, nope, once you start making exceptions to a rule, it ceases to be a rule. Then you are right back where you started from. Public employee A says B gets to stay longer, but his job is as important, because they are..pick something
It wouldn't work to have exceptions.
The entire premise of the start of the US as an organized government was it was supposed to be completely different than any other attempt ever made. Not a clone or a rehash or another example of some failed system alreadytried and discarded, something *new* and really different.. All other nations have had career employees, and all of them have failed, and I think that's the major reason why, you get an "us versus them" societal schism develop.
When you are supposed to have a government "of and for the people", then "the people" need to run it, not a separate socio economic class of careerists, who have a quite clear and overwhelming negative conflict of interest in maintaining a small efficient government as a goal, because it's not in their interest if they can benefit from *not doing that*, which they do now, in spades. There is NO government employee who would support drastically reducing government because then their job would/could possibly be in jeopardy, and they also, in the system we have now, retain the privelege of voting for themselves while "in service", of voting for more government, and more expensive government, and to continue larger and more expensive government, so it's a double conflict of interest. To me, I think that's *exactly* why we have bloated, corrupt and inefficient government now-zero incentive for the ones in charge to change it. None. Whereas, were we to eliminate even the possibility of it becoming a career, they would be encouraged greatly to make sure they kept up a pattern of eficiency and honesty, because pretty soon they'd be back as full time *civvie* tax payers, competing for jobs and benefits in the *civvie* world. No carved in stone, required by law government safety net then,nope, they'd get the same exact deal everyone else has, so they'd be watching out for themselves in the future, which means they would be striving for cheaper better government NOW all the time they are working, because it then becomes *in their best long term interest*, as opposed to how it is now, which is backwards from that.
I guess the Senate still hasn't grasped the idea that prosecuting victimless crimes isn't effective and just wastes money.
They have it completely figured out.
It does waste money, but it is completely effective at giving your money to their friends.
The point of making an analogy is to compare to things that have similarities. Camming movies and robbing banks aren't remotely similar, not even on the same fucking planet. Taping movies is a non-violent, non criminal (until this stupid law, anyway) offense that realistically knocks a few hundreths of a percent off of a movie studios theoretical profits, tops. Whereas a robbing a bank uses violence or the threat of violence, steals real world money, and costs all taxpayers money since bank account are federally insured.
To quote Billy Madison: "...what you've just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul."
OT, go ahead and mod me down.
:-)
So those insurgents we're killing in Iraq aren't terrorists? So Zarqawi suddenly stopped being an important member of Al Qaeda? So the terrorists rushing into Iraq to fight us and to try to prevent an Iraqi return to sovereignty and bring down that new sovereign goverment, aren't being kept busy there, in their own backyard, instead of coming to ours?
Or are you saying they just aren't being killed. Either way, you don't know what you're talking about. And of course, terrorists are being killed in Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, too. As far as the actual supply and support of terrorists goes, Syria is in it up to their eyeballs. Should we invade them next? Yeah, probably. Qadafi was in it up to his eyeballs, too, but he decided it would be better to preserve his own skin, so he went straight.
Let me guess, you also think "Fahrenheit 9/11" is not a work of fiction, and John Kerry would make a good president.
You're pretty funny. You say I don't have a point, when you don't even have a (functioning) brain.
OK, mods, that part was a troll, so you can mod me troll instead of offtopic. Or even flamebait, what the heck?
However, the law itself is not unjust. The penalty is just a bit over the top.
This is an understatement. Jail time for what? Dubbing an extremely shitty copy of the movie that you probably wouldn't watch if you couldn't download it? Where is the "loss" involved? You likely wouldn't have downloaded if you really liked it, and probably only "cammed" it for a friend who wasn't sure they'd like it at all.
Next we'll be cutting your hand off if you stole a piece of candy at the grocery store (even accidentally) and handing out the cane lashes.
These aren't hallmarks of a good society, they are indicators of an oppressive form of government where the well-being of its citizens matters less than the well-being of the corporations and the system used to keep them down.
I wouldn't take a bullet for Halliburton, and that's what you're doing if you join the army now. And before you get all patriotic, remember how many americans got fired this year due to american corporation offshoring. I'm very patriotic and loyal to my fellow americans, but I will not look the other way when we are being raped by our system.
-Mind
It involves taking something that someone else has a property right in.
Taking is removing. By copying something, you aren't removing a damn thing. No, I'm not arguing semantics or splitting hairs to make it sound less serious. I'm calling it exactly what it is, copyright infringment. The content industries have called copying something its not (stealing) to make it sound *worse* than it really is, and unfortunatly a lot of poeple (like you) have bought their propoganda. Well, they are wrong and you are wrong, which is why we need to correct you.
Oh, I'm all for harsh punishments for real crimes.
There's nothing wrong with caning. Have you ever been to Singapore? It's a great place. Indeed, my favorite place in the world. Caning is a pretty effective deterrent for a lot of things. So are the hefty fines + rigorous enforcement they impose.
Chopping of hands, well, the trouble with that is the same trouble as with the death penalty. If new evidence comes to light that the party was innocent, you can't undo the penalty. It's true that you can't undo jail time either, but you're still alive and have your hands and feet. Fines can be returned if later found to be erroneous. That doesn't mean I oppose the death penalty (there are clearly people who should not be allowed to live), but there should be a hire standard of proof than "beyond a reasonable doubt." For example, take the Scott Peterson case. I think he probably did it, but there is no direct evidence (at least, none has been presented so far in the trial) that he did it, just a lot of circumstantial evidence, including motive and opportunity. If convicted, I don't think he should be executed. I'm convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that he is guilty, but not convinced enough to execute him.
Now, in the case of people like Zarqawi, well, if they asked me to be the executioner, I'd volunteer to shoot him through the head with a pistol. None of this wimpy lethal injection stuff.
Joining the army today is not taking a bullet for Haliburton. Joining the military has *never* been that in this country. Sometimes we have had wrong policies (Viet Nam), but contrary to what some people marching with drums, banners, and odd costumes while chanting "Hey, hey! Ho, ho! " might believe, neither this war nor any other war we have fought has been about stealing anyone's oil.
You'll notice, perhaps, that after the first Persian Gulf war, we didn't take any oil or land. We fought a war to liberate Kuwait, set up no-fly zones to enforce Security Council resolutions, and maintained them. Kuwaiti sovereignty was restored, and after a short while Hussein got back enough sovereignty over southern Iraq to kill thousands of people who opposed his rule and rose up in revolt during the war.
For the record, I was against the first Persian Gulf war and was even one of those kooky marchers; I was wrong. I will not make that mistake again; taking out Saddam Hussein was the right thing to do this time. We should have done it last time and been done with it, even if the Security Council resolutions did not call for it. That was George Bush's great failing. Under George W. Bush, we've gone back to finish the job that should have been finished then.
You'll notice, perhaps, that we still haven't stolen anyone's oil or land, and that in just a few days an interim government will regain sovereignty over Iraq. That will be followed by elections, and the people will have real sovereignty. They will own their oil and profit from it, unlike in the days of Hussein, when *he* was stealing their oil and profiting from it.
The war against terrorism *is* a patriotic war. It *is* about our national, indeed our very cultural, survival. If my children were old enough to join the military today and they wanted to do it, of course I'd be scared for the safety, as every parent is for the safety of his or her children. I would not, however, try to dissuade them from doing it.
The endless question, whenever people are bitching and whining, especially when they are correct.
Why put up with this ?
Majority rule, with respect of rights of minorities.
Otherwise known as democracy.
America at the moment is quite bluntly, widely seen as *insane*.
Its judicial system.
Its willingness to kill, but not to build.
Its constant attempts to "enclose" public domain.
Its claims to freedom of speech, but sameness of
media, and their blatant bias.
Its lack of understanding, compassion, generosity, and will or ambition to improve the too-often lousey lot of the majority of humanity.
Europe is, to be brutaly honestly, smugly as bad.
BUT, we are not changing it.
Until one day, it will be our asses against the wall, and guess what, no-one will be helping *US*,
because we found many reasons not to help others.
Last thought?
Yes the we includes me, as it includes you.
"Its not how many people you kill that counts,
its how many you set free."
(R)ule in Hell or (S)erve in Heaven [R]?
most of the Video Internet Pirates live outside the United States and this won't affect them. A majority of them are from China, and you will see bootleg copies of various popular movies with Chinese subtitles on them.
Also US Video Pirates will find movie houses that do not use inferred goggles. Many Video Pirates have their own movie houses and record the movies from the camera house, or are movie projectionists who set up a video camera in the camera house. Yes in some cases it is indeed an inside job!
Remember, Slashdot does not have a -1 disagree moderation, and no, troll, flamebait, and overrated are not substitutes.
the trouble with that is the same trouble as with the death penalty. If new evidence comes to light that the party was innocent, you can't undo the penalty.
Solution: Punish whoever is responsible for the incorrect verdict to the same degree as the innocent person was punished.
Innocent peron framed by a cop, put to death for murder? Kill the cop who framed him.
Innocent person got his hand chopped off for stealing based on the eye-witness testimony of a security guard? Chop off the security guard's hand.
Innocent person sent to jail for 10 years based on faulty DNA testing? Put the labratory tech who screwed up in jail for 10 years.
etc.
The injustice is not in the no-camcorders rule, but in using tax money for enforcing it. See my other comments for detailed arguments.
Under construction: swpat politics overview article
If you don't allow companies to at least establish cursory protection of their property...they won't produce it for you to steal. I'm not suggesting we allow them into our homes, but likewise, you shouldn't be able to go into their house and steal their product.
The way I read it was they werent paying for the cursory protection.
All this bill does is manufactures criminals.
If the MPAA is so damned concerned about this, they need to pay to have metal detectors put up and gaurds posted at all entrances and exits. Then no crime can be commited or criminal created in the first place. Yes of course people will still get through the "defenses" but then maybe they need to spend more money protecting their investment with better security.
Ya, its gunna suck to have to get frisked/metal-detected/interrogated to watch a movie.
Less people will go to the movies and they will have to balance their security spending against the publics opinion of the security.
This will also force them to get a clue about the actual statistics of how many people actually do this, how many do it for profit, and how much money they actually lose, which in my opinion is $0.00.
And most importantly, the taxpayers wont have to shell out their hard earned money to protect the business model of a few greedy entertainment CEO's to the detriment of free speech and everything this country stands for!
The problem here is not that so many people are doing this, but that it only takes one occurence to widely distribute the work. This new found technology the Internet has amplified the contradiction between speech and copyright. We can forget our beliefs of this country and keep the current copyright system or we can do a major overhaul to it or maybe even eliminate it all together.
To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt. --E.C. Stanton
I'll tell you what. Rather than my shoot holes in these ideas, why don't you go think about it for a day or two and then come back here and post a list of potential problems.
If I tell you what is wrong with them, you may just dismiss me out of hand. If you figure it out for yourself, you'll learn something and everybody wins.
I will throw out one hint, though: just because a person is wrongly convicted, that doesn't mean anyone lied. Indeed, most false convictions are based on the best evidence at hand, and that person fits it. Granted, sometimes sloppy work contributes to the conviction, but not always; maybe not even usually. In cases of actual false testimony by the police, that does carry a criminal penalty if they are caught.
Does the Senate realize that the bulk of bootlegged films that make it on the Net are recorded in other countries? How many new movies have I downloaded that had some form of Chinese or perhaps French sub-titles at the bottom?
There's nothing wrong with caning. Have you ever been to Singapore? It's a great place. Indeed, my favorite place in the world. Caning is a pretty effective deterrent for a lot of things. So are the hefty fines + rigorous enforcement they impose.
Haha! Singapore. I have to laugh at you. This is a place where you cannot dance in a club without a license, you are fined for spitting, gum ($1000-$2000 fine) is illegal, you cannot forget to flush a toilet without a $500 fine. Singapore may be a beautiful place, but we all are human and what are you supposed to do when you screw up with minor infractions? In Singapore, you go poor quickly. If you don't get poor, you are caned with a rattan stick dipped in brine (yeowy) and if you really screw up you are hanged (but that doesn't mean you killed someone since that punishment is given for much lesser crimes than USA.) These people eat dogs and bird puke, that pretty much says it all. I have a cousin-in-law from Singapore and probably know more about it than you... She didn't want to live there, why the hell would you?
-Mind
I think pedophiles with camcorders get less time in most countries including the US? MPAA's copyright is far more important of course. I wonder how long before having your hand chopped off will be a punishment for breaking DRM?
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
Friends, agree or disagree with this law, but it's just a small additional step to make creating dvd rips punishable by 3 to 5 under the same public policy (which became public policy thanks to the political contributions of MPAA members)
DAILY ROTATION
Andrew Fastow, Michael Milken, Ivan Boesky
Well, I guess I'm one of those who dismisses the names because they're not real. At least, they don't meet the grandparent comment's objectives of "people who are actually doing REAL prison time". Andrew Fastow's prison time was delayed as part of his plea bargain. He didn't want to be in jail at the same time as his wife, because then his children would've had to go into foster care or live with a relative or something. So he's not doing time NOW. Yes, he will be in for about 10 years when his turn comes around.
Milken did only two years and Boesky did three, so they are not actually doing time now. Did the punishment fit the crime? Knocking over a bank will get you a lot more than three years in the big house, and won't net you a few hundred million.
As for the rest of them, I've never heard of them.
A final thought: my current primary role in life is to put food on my family's table. If I could guarantee putting food on my family's table forever in exchange for two years in prison, I'd probably do it.
Hmm, let's see. Dancing is very popular in Singapore and people do it all over the place. Big clubs. Small clubs. All kinds of clubs. I've done it myself. You sound like a person who has never been there and just believes what some other (ignorant) person said about it. Singapore is a paradise. If there's a better country on earth, I have not yet been there.
Fines for spitting? Sure, no problem. People shouldn't spit on the sidewalk. Fine for not flushing the toilet? No problem. You shouldn't have to tell anybody to flush the toilet, but if they're so stupid they need to be told, I bet a S$500 fine will help them remember. Yes, gum is illegal in Singapore. Why? Because of irresponsible gum chewers (in large numbers) spitting it on the ground, sticking to things, etc. The same kind of things they do here. I have no problem with gum being illegal. Consider the case of carrying a gun in the United States. I can't carry on the hip without attracting cops like a dog attracts fleas. Neither can I get a concealed carry permit easily (California). Why? Well, you could say "Because of liberal politicians" and you'd be at least partly right. The (larger) part of "Why?" is because of irresponsible gun owners who use them for committing crimes, including some who will get hot-headed and murder someone else. That lead to misguided gun laws which instead of very heavily penalizing those who use guns to commit crimes, prevent carry altogether, while those who don't much care about the law keep right on carrying and do commit crimes. It's a lot like gum in Singapore, except in Singapore they really have gotten gum off the street. If our gun control laws could really get *all* handguns out of circulation, I'd be happy enough to give up my right to one. Sadly, it hasn't worked out that way.
Unlike Singapore's law against gum (which really helps keep things clean), those laws against guns don't seem to do much for safety. Guns are used in crimes all the time, and if every law-abiding gun owner could either carry on the hip or could get a CCW just for asking, plus a small fee and a background check, that would probably do far more to reduce gun crime than the laws which prevent us from doing either of those things.
Also, you don't get caned for things like littering (I notice you neglected to mention that one, perhaps it didn't fit your agenda of trying to make Singapore look bad), or other minor infractions such as smoking in a no-smoking area (they could just ban that altogether along with gum as far as I'm concerned), not flushing, etc. Caning is used as a punishment for more serious infractions, such as vandalism. Vandalism, you may recall, is what American snotty-ass punk teenager Michael Fay was caned for. The sentence also included a fine and jail time. Hardly "spitting on the sidewalk."
You may also remember that when they were trying to get him off the hook, many Americans expressed that not only should he get the full sentenced (his caning was, unfortunately, reduced to four strokes), that they'd be happy to cane him themselves. I was one of them.
The brine, by the way, doesn't make the cane hurt more, but less. Without it, the wood might split. Now *that* would hurt.
You don't want to get caned? Don't commit crimes in Singapore. If you do, and they can your ass, you have nothing to complain about.
Hanging? Lots of countries hang people. It's quite common throughout Asia. Japan hangs people too. So does Thailand. So do many other places. What can you be hanged for in Singapore? Murder. Drug dealing. Drug smuggling. I don't know what else, but you can be sure of this: only things that you *should* be hanged for.
People eat dogs in lots of places, why single out Singapore? Especially considering that it's relatively uncommon there. I've never heard of anyone eating bird puke at all. I wonder what you have to do to even make a bird puke?
You only have a cousin-in-law there? Hmmm, I rather doubt you know more about
It's a stupid idea.
You're right though, it's disturbing that an industry that employs millions of people would have any pull with the government that they expect to protect their jobs.
And you're an idiot if, after reading that last sentence, you still think that stealing is a victimless crime.
*** *** You're just jealous 'cause the voices talk to me... ***
Okay, look.
Illegally copying a movie isn't great. But, in the grand scheme of things, it's a piece of entertainment.
Illegally copying, say, Linux, is IMHO much more damaging. It's a crucial piece of software that is used all over the world in important systems. There are a lot many more dollars involved in the software industry than in movies.
As a later poster pointed out, what if violating the GPL license was criminalized, with three years in federal prison for a violation without intent to profit, and five years with intent to make profit? Linksys, for instance, used modified copies of Linux in some of their hardware products and deliberately kept back the source. What if their execs and engineers went to *jail* for doing so?
I'm curious as to why you would think that this is acceptable, but criminalizing GPL violations isn't. (Unless, of course, you don't -- I think that the idea of criminalizing either is quite disturbing.)
May we never see th
10 years for the crime of changing the magnetization patterns on a tape, or for changing the quantum states in some electronic memory. 10 years for making some phosphor glow, and some speaker cones wiggle. These are crimes?
federal pound-me-in-the-ass prison? i find the fact that people use this term so lightly very disconcerting. the federal pound-me-in-the-ass prisons are unconstitutional as they are, without a question, a form of cruel and unusual punishment.
those who know anything about the american prison system, and that includes the government, know about the atrocities that go on in our prisons. it has to stop.
Then they will be truly a banana republic, complete a militarist regime and loss of freedom.
Way to go boys! You elected these jerks.
Maybe you should use your holy second amandment and organise a militia and revolt against the gouvernment(sp?)
Luckily it's only if you record the movie that's illegal, so I can continue to film up the chick in the seat behind's skirt with impunity.
Videotaping a movie in the theater isn't an important crime. The real crime is in thinking that any random movie is worth copying at all in the first place, and the victims get self judged and self sentenced, even though most of them don't think of themselves as victims.
So what would you have us do to enjoy ourselves otherwise? Count how many ways there are to twiddle our thumbs?
I agree that Hollywood's (possibly unintentional, possibly not) purpose in modern society is to provide the unwashed masses with bread and circuses. I definitely agree that videotaping a movie isn't an important crime, and I even agree that most movies put out these days aren't even worth seeing, much less copying.
The crime of people copying movies, however, is not enjoying themselves. (Remember those little phrases "pursuit of happiness" and "to each their own"?) Their real crime is ignoring the ubiquitous abuses of power committed by those in charge. I submit that pursuing happiness and keeping watch on societal leaders are not mutually exclusive activities.
Some produce and anti-copyright. Wonder what things would look like if we did it for the art and not the money.
BendyMind
look around, start asking some random people if they can name the players on their favorite pro sports teams. Then ask them to name some supreme court judges, their two senators, their house rep, etc. Ask some young people to name some songs from some popular groupos, then the other questions. Ask joe tv addict or movie addict that. Generally speaking, although the ability to get the information is there, it is widely underutilised in favor of "bread and circuses" data. This is observable or not, from what I have seen, it's true. From what I have read of others observations and various professional polls taken, it's generally true.
I am speaking in general terms, and as always on slashdot someone will chime in with their exception to a generality. OK, I need a clarification then. I need to put a declarative state for a sig "unless explicitly noted in a detailed statement, personal opinions of mine on most topics are meant as generalties".
begin another general statement
People can pursue happiness all they want to, if they let that pursuit become their major interest to the abandonment or near abandonment of paying attention to what is going on around them that WILL affect them, then that pursuit will interfere with important business they should be doing,and they will find themselves eventually in a position where that ability to "freely pursue" has been taken away, and they won't know what happened or how it came about.
end general observation
The injustice is not in the no-camcorders rule, but in using tax money for enforcing it.
A lot of that tax money derives from the movie industry. After all, an immense number of people have jobs that depend on the movie industry, from those who create the films to those who distribute them, to those who work in theaters and video rental shops. And all of these people make money which they spend in businesses, which benefit indirectly. And they pay taxes on the money they make. So if it it makes you feel better, you can think of it as a little bit of their money being invested to protect their livelihoods. What could be more just than that?
I have authored and co-authored GPL'ed software myself (probably like quite a number of Slashdotters) and I wouldn't be happy if someone abuses the license e.g. by making closed-source software from the code. But then, the thought of throwing people that do so in jail, or making them pay hundreds of thousands of dollars is gross to say the least. Getting them to comply with the license, or otherwise cease & desist, that would be enough satisfaction for me.
When I heard that my favorite cinema is introducing electrical seats, I thought they were talking about heating.
I love C++
How do you justify movie industry tax money being spent on enforcing a "no camcorders" rule, but tax money from free software businesses not being spent on GPL enforcement?
How do you justify the unfair advantage that this kind of law gives movie studios that want to prevent leaks over competing movie studies which want to take a more relaxed attitude?
Under construction: swpat politics overview article
How do you justify movie industry tax money being spent on enforcing a "no camcorders" rule, but tax money from free software businesses not being spent on GPL enforcement?
As a contract, the GPL is enforced by the civil courts. The civil court system is subsidized by tax dollars. But even if it were not, that would be a foolish objection. Two wrongs don't make a right, so even if the GPL were not getting its fair share of tax dollars, fairness would not be increased by also denying those whose jobs depend on the movie industry the right to have their tax dollars protect their livelihoods.
How do you justify the unfair advantage that this kind of law gives movie studios that want to prevent leaks over competing movie studies which want to take a more relaxed attitude?
And which specific movie studios like to have bad theater-taped copies floating around giving their films a bad name?
The GPL is a license, not a contract. Hence a GPL violation is a copyright violation, not a contract violation. Unauthorized copying and distribution of films is also a copyright violation. Apart from this new law (which makes one of them but not the other a criminal matter) GPL violations and camcorder rule violations are fundamentally the same things.
The civil court system is subsidized by tax dollars.
The civil court system is certainly important enough that such subsidies can be justified.
But even if it were not, that would be a foolish objection. Two wrongs don't make a right, so even if the GPL were not getting its fair share of tax dollars, fairness would not be increased by also denying those whose jobs depend on the movie industry the right to have their tax dollars protect their livelihoods.
Since when is there a "right to have their tax dollars protect their livelihoods"? Such a right would imply that every industry has a right to industry-specific legislation to protect that particular industry.
And which specific movie studios like to have bad theater-taped copies floating around giving their films a bad name?
This is an issue that can be solved easily and inexpensively: movie studios which are concerned about this could simply distribute high-quality versions on their films via P2P filesharing.
Under construction: swpat politics overview article
The GPL is a license, not a contract.
Licenses are a type of contract.
The civil court system is certainly important enough that such subsidies can be justified.
Of course. One of the reasons why it is important is that it enforces licenses and other contracts.
Unauthorized copying and distribution of films is also a copyright violation. Apart from this new law (which makes one of them but not the other a criminal matter) GPL violations and camcorder rule violations are fundamentally the same things.
No, the new law makes no change in the legal status of copyrights; it prohibits a particular activity. That happens to make it more difficult to commit a particular kind of copyright violation. It's a rare case in which the activity in question has no significant legal justification, so the law makes it harder to violate copyright without any significant impairment of legal activities. So if you could come up with some activity that people engage in pretty much solely for the purpose of violating the GPL, and not for any other reason, then you might have a case for criminalizing that activity as well.
Since when is there a "right to have their tax dollars protect their livelihoods"? Such a right would imply that every industry has a right to industry-specific legislation to protect that particular industry.
Industries don't have livelihoods. I'm talking about the people who depend upon the industry for their living. These people pay taxes. And in general, people are entitled to a say as to how their money is used. Understandably, protecting their jobs is high on the list of what people would like done with their tax money, and they express this preference in the polling booth. As a result, there are many laws on the books whose primary function is to protect people's livelihoods.
This is an issue that can be solved easily and inexpensively: movie studios which are concerned about this could simply distribute high-quality versions on their films via P2P filesharing.
I'm sure that they could, although I don't know of any that do. But even if some choose to do so, they aren't likely to want low-quality theater-filmed copies floating around.
Really, it's a one dude at a time transformation. reform yourself with revolutionary fervor. Be a good boy sprout. Take no shit, nor offer any unrighteous shit. Along those lines. Truth, justice, and what *should be* the 'murkin way and stuff.
I have a buncha this stuff written out better and in mostly non slang elsewheres. I write slang when I am going fast for casual posts but I don't have to of course. It's spread out and a little clunky and it don't need a slashdotting or troll action right now so...I'm planning on getting a domain sometime and sticking it there, when that happens I'll do a journal piece on it. Detailed plans for better government, plans for a MUCH better currency system, an alternative to the economic systems we have now, the "isms" I mean, socialism, capitalism, etc, and yada yada yada. Economic and geopolitical trends. Stuff like that, along with a lot of day to day practical survivalism for both individuals and small businesses, which is my forte. I'm an armchair futurist and analyst, funny as that sounds from a blue collar grunt worker. I'm hitting well over 80%, closer to 90 maybe on trends I detailed long ago. Noticing the trends and patterns (and successes and disasters) makes you think of a lot of "what ifs" such and such was such and such different. You look at what IS right now, see the flaws,then carefully back-track extrapolate it to see where and why and who and when and how the flaws had their genesis, then re-extrapolate forward to the "now", change what needs to be changed-in theory- then you can offer a somewhat detailed "here is what might be" if the "now" is implemented.
It always seemed easy to me to do it that way, it's not even all that far out it's just learning from history and getting GOOD DATA not propoganda BS. I got the idea from working on mechanical junk when I was a kid. I saw what was broken but I wanted to know WHY it was broken,WHEN it started to break, HOW it broke, and so on, so the next deal wouldn't just be replacing the same thing that had the same obvious weaknesses, but with something better. It's how I fix my stuff to this day, a lot of times I will just adapt a part or improve a replacement part or at least look for a better quality after market part. I tend to reinforce strengths, and abandon weaknesses. Here's an example I am semi proud of. Way back in the 70's I did a lot of off road 10-speeding. The bikes then sucked bad for that purpose, so I built my own "mountain bike". This was before any of them were on the market, or before the name even existed. Never did anything with it other than park it in front of my bike shop I had then, which was a great way to get people to come in the store, they all asked about the bike. Funny though, some time later not too very long one city over this bike company had a fat tired heavy duty "off road" bicycle with a lotta gears..... hmmmmm
I know a lot of other guys were working on the same thing around the same time, so I can't claim ownership of the idea, except to myself and the area I was in, no one had ever seen the likes really. Never sold any or anything , didn't have the money for any sort of mass production, but I thought about it of course. All I did was back engineer a normal bike, rebuilt it with the features it needed. Worked great! By todays standards it was hideously heavy and clunky and sprung just wrong, but back then it was schweeet. I remember the first time I run it by some motorcyclists out dirt biking, their jaws dropped as I pulled up next to them, at this huge mud pit, picked it up, slung it over my shoulder, walked thru the pit, then got back on an pedaled away down the trail, it was hilarious!
Anyway, I do the same thing with ideas in general, any topic I get a bug about. I tend to hit on politics a lot because of a lotta bad stuff I have seen and been through in the past vis a vis government corruption. I know they not only are sucky liars most of the time, but countenance murder as well. Tends to annoy me, along with their knee-jerk apologists. So I nail them as I see them now, they deserve it.
First off, get a clue about the rules. 'We' don't get a say in sentencing. That is the sole purview of *judges*, subject to minimum sentences and established guidelines, so what 'we' might or might not seek in terms of settlements / enforcements is pretty much out of context.
Second, the effective arm of 'we' wrt the GPL is Eben Moglen who is quite clear in his discussion of strategy which is to have FSF work with offenders *outside of court*. That's a resource decision, as soon as you step inside a courtroom the costs go up exponentially. Moglen is also very clear on his success rate, and says he's acheived 100% compliance in the cases they've chosen to bite off without ever entering a courtroom.
Third, the point between the lines is that the /. herd by and large isn't doing crap toward anything except commenting from the sidelines, and also by and large doesn't know crap about either the details of IP law or the workings of the legal / court systems.
Lastly, you're welcome to think my points are those of a 'moron' (tho of course you've failed as far as I can see to make a substantive counter-argument.
When I say 'expect more of the same' consider that anyone in the US who does not have a locksmithing license may be arrested in most jurisdictions on either felony or misdemeanor charges for mere posession of lockpicks. -- This in spite of the objective reality that virtually no crimes/burglaries are committed using lockpicks -- burglars uniformly prefer to simply break the lock/door.
Those who have a hobby of picking locks are today in pretty much the same position of people who use software to: rip copyright material, perform network analysis/forensics/password cracking [...] (Yes, more than one sysadmin has faced criminal/felony charges for pro-actively applying password cracking tools to find weak passwords or sniffing network traffic without proper authorization.
As far as software tools are concerned today there aren't many rules in place, many that are are not all that well written and that leaves very much indeed of the law in the hands / discretion of prosecutors and judges.
I'm not real hopeful that good laws will be written, but I'm also damned well sure that the many people who indeed like to draw a (usually poorly defined) line between free software politics / law / ethics in trying to justify theft of copyright entertainment material are sure as hell not helping inform the views of legislators (or prosecutors, judges, juries). Which in turn has the tendency to make a public opinion hole the size of a mack truck for *owners* of entertainment copyright material to push their agendas.
Linux is Linux, if One need clarify their dist: <Dist>/GNU Linux
bsds are of course just BSD
The reasonable presumption is that you or someone else is going to see what you recorded, and that person would otherwise be paying to see the movie (perhaps not for the first time.) That is where the damage comes in, and the activity is no longer victimless.
Great. The movie company loses their cut of $6, and if you're caught you face up to 10 years inside. That sounds like an appropriate and proportionate punishment to me.