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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.
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.
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.
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)
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.
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!