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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.
... 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...
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
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
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.
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?
Of course a counter argument is that we can play that game as well by paying off senators to help us instead of big business, but I'm sure big business has deeper pockets from which to give. Deep pockets that we as consumers give them. I'm sure there are controls on the size of "donations" but it creates an inherent conflict of interest that, in my opinion, shouldn't be tolerated.
Now label me as a troll and move along.
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.
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.
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?
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.
Crimes against corporations are to be punished far more severely than crimes against people.
I think it can be traced back to a couple of things:
1) Changing the meaning of "patriot" to someone who is behind his government no matter what.
2) Changing the definition of "democracy" to "the lesser of two evils"
3) Changing the meaning of any political group to be derogatory.
4) Labeling anyone who speaks out against the government to be either a traitor or freedom hating commie bastard (this relates to #1)
Of course, I'm just a godless freedom hating commie bastard from Denmark of all places - hell, I'm even a member of the [warning for the faint of heart] Social Democrats AND I'm an atheis, so that absolutely PROVES that I'm a freedom hating godless commie bastard. Oh, and since I don't agree with your governments politics, and can really only stand Colin Powel, I hate America too.
We do not live in the 21st century. We live in the 20 second century.
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.
Three years in a Federal "POUND-ME-IN-THE-ASS" prison. Does that sound pretty messed up to anyone else?
What kind of a country sentences someone to get ass raped anyway? Western civilization should be ashamed of itself.
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)
"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... :)"
So theoretically, would this make it worth your while to kill anyone who noticed you using the camcorder, if there was, say, a 60% chance that killing them allowed you to successfully escape? There must be some probability threshold before a "manslaughter-equivalent" jail sentance for videoing makes it worth your while to do bad things if you get caught...
How does the person sitting next to you in the cinema feel about this, compared to say, the managing director of the company who invested in the film?
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
You don't know many people then. I see films all the time when I go on holiday. I generally have my camera with me. I travel by train, so I have no car to leave my camera in, and I stay in youth hostels, so leaving expensive equipment in the room is as good as leaving them on a table in a fast-food restaurant with a sign that says "STEAL ME".
So I will be taking my camera into cinemas for the forseeable future.
-- Even if a god did exist, why the fsck should I worship it?
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
While no one will likely bash this law claiming a right to videotape in theatres, I will say that this law is way too draconian. Three years in prison if it's not for profit, and five if it is when nothing tangible has been taken? Fines would be more appropriate. If they are going to be draconian, why not just sentance camcorder "pirates" to death? What are those senators smoking?
The Uncoveror: It's the real news.
*cough* BULLSHIT *cough*
The problem with this law is that it adds criminal penalties for what was formerly a civil offense. The civil penalties were in line with severity of a crime. This law has mandatory 10-year penalties for repeat offenders - those that have already spent 10-20 years in prison under this law.
That's more than serial rapists, murderers, or people who embezzle billions. That's more than most drug-related crime laws.
The problem isn't the enforcement but, rather, that the penalty is hideously out of whack with the severity of the crime.
Why?
If Congress doesn't read it before voting on it, why should we?
*grumble*
Dude/dudette...please...
No, you don't have the right to do all that nonsense in someone else's house. The only reason you have the right to do it at home is because a lot of fair use is just a reasonable expectation of privacy. We make fair use because we don't want companies coming into our homes and determining our activities. A movie theatre is a public place and there is no such expectation.
Also, when you pay your $10 at the theatre...that $10 is for the right to sit in the theatre and watch whatever the theatre decides to display and at their convenience, not yours. Your $10 is not to purchase a copy of a film, it is for a one time viewing of said film.
There is no possible way you can justify making videotaping first run movies in the theatre legal. Way too over the top utopian socialist viewpoint. 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.
If the EFF were to "fight" this law, they'd be fighting for it. For the right for an individual or a corporation to prevent others from videotaping on private property. Otherwise, when you become Maddonna/Esther, the paparazzi could legally come onto your property to videotape you eating dinner.
Why do you think they don't want people taking pictures of some of the most famous paintings or things. Because it will devalue the item. The creator has exclusive rights to reproduce something IN ANY FORM.
Except that it is not true. The creator has a time-limited monopoly. Aren't many of the most famous paintings in the public domain?
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.
Or they could implement a quiz period before a vote: any congresscritter who can't answer reasonable questions about the bill (with a paper copy in front of him/her, but no electronics or aides) must either vote nay or abstain.
'Course, something like this could never come to pass--it'd be used for filibuster tactics, how do you define "reasonable", who determines what's an acceptable answer, etc. But it's a scary thought-experiment to realize that something like this would drastically change the face of Congress.
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
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.
/.ers). That means living up to the agreement of the licence that the material was given out with. That means that if you break the agreement, you remedy it (by a number of means, including replacing offending code with new code, GPL'ing the application, cross-licencing the code from the author, or stop distributing the product). None of these involve criminal prosecution in any way, nor is it appropriate.
... well you can expect more of the same kind of legislation.
Yes, "we" strongly believe in copyright enforcement ("we" in the reasonable-headed group of
I seriously doubt that many here really think that jail time is appropriate punishment for the lazy coder at some corporation who inserted a module from GPL'ed sources to save himself some work. Or even for the management at said corporation who encouraged the practice to reduce development costs. Yet that is what we have for the copiers of "IP" belonging to big media.
if the best way you can think of 'dealing' is to cry wolf about how people without respect for others property are 'victims'
The best way to deal with this offence is in line with deed done: financially. Charging the offender for actual damages (likely about $20) plus appropriate punitive damages (a couple thousand at most) is the sane way to deal with this "crime". Taking a violation of civil law and making the punishment a criminal offence, with such rediculously small impact (please show me a credible study that proves any financial losses from shitty camcorder movies), is just stupid.
Look at the tomato! Isn't it sad? He can't dance! Poor tomato!
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