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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.
It will make them more elite and thus more sought after by release groups.
I was on vacation recently, running around with the camcorder. Almost stopped to see a movie as a break. Glad I didn't....
Welcome to the free world ... free for whom?
Since when did the MPAA buy every senator? 3 YEARS for RECORDING light reflecting off a viynl backdrop? Total bull.
I personally pledge to download and share one movie for every commercial that I see in a movie theater.
Considering most hot-ticket summer blockbusters are developing their DVD content before the film is even in theaters, I don't see why camcorders are even necessary. Post houses like Deluxe or Ascent are just overflowing with digital content that won't hit the streets for months. Any lower quality is a waste of time. If you're going to steal, might as well get it from the source...
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..
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??
So you're saying that somebody distributing film has the same adverse affect on a retirement fund as misreporting of figures and stealing from the shareholders?
Can you come over and do my taxes? You appear to be better with magical numbers than my accountant.
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!
Parent got modded as Funny, but its the truth.
.. France.
As of recently, it seems that Cams are on the decline for pirating groups to possess. The thing is there is no lack of movies available to download its just that the MPAA has made it easier to find quality releases without the abundance of cams to muddy the pirated waters, to insert a pun.
So going after cammers is fine by me. Just give me less shit to sift through on my various sources.
BTW all the high quality shit showing up is coming from Asia, Russia, and strangely enough
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
Sometimes the point of elections are not always who is going to win. If you like Nader or some other 3rd party. Then vote for them. Even if they don't have a chance of winning. So say if 5% votes for Nader and Kerry Looses by close or under 5% then the democratic and the republican party will need to do some thinking about their stances and issues. Now 5% of the population is a good amount of people with some views.
If you don't like the companies policies (like the movie industry) BoyCott them (That means not going to any movie even the good ones). If you don't like the 2 party system then vote for a third party.
I am just sick of people going "We can't do anything with the problems in the US because of big government and large corporations who screw us over" Yes you can! Buy things from smaller companies (A lot of them have some good deals) vote for an other party. It is not a Win Loose situation you are making your way threw the numbers you are 0.0000001% Of your countries population (This could be bigger or smaller depending on your country) Now there are a lot of people with the same point of views out there. Now if they actually acted as Citizens and did their job as citizens and spoke up for the things they were against then it would be a lot different.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Someone want to confirm or deny this? Was the PIRATE Act passed "unanimously"?
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.
Police regularly create sting operations targeting drug users, johns, and pedophiles. There are no actual victims in these cases, unless you count undercover officers posing as decoys. Hence we are already punishing people for imaginary crimes. The only reason police don't use such tactics against other classes criminals (say, murderers) is that it's just not feasible. (Not that I see how any of this relates to video piracy.)
This isn't entirely correct. A nobility title came with land (a feud), not with wealth. You could be piss poor and still be an aristocrate, and then again, in the Middle Ages, you could be the richest merchant in the world and still not hold any title. This was, at least in part, because of religion: trading was considered to be usury (for obvioud reasons -- noone would sell goods for the price they bought them), and usury was considered to be a mortal sin.
Man is a slave because freedom is difficult, whereas slavery is easy.
Easy...
Ben Glisan played a key role in designing Enron's web of infamous off-balance-sheet partnerships. On Septeber 12, 2003 he was sentenced to five years in federal prison. He was not assisting prosecuters in their investigation.
Frank Bergonzi, formerly Rite Aid's cfo, was sentenced to 28 months in prison on May 27 of this year. He pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit accounting fraud by manipulating the company's earnings and financial statements. Providing "substantial assistance" to prosecutors helped Bergonzi reduce the sentence. He also agreed to permanently be barred from serving as an officer or director of any publicly traded company.
Michael Kopper, a former deputy to Enron CFO Andrew Fastow, on the other hand is helping the feds in their case against the former chief financial officer. If he can help them prove their case, then they will likely go easier on him. Which makes sense... what we want is the big dogs to go down, the one's responsible for the robbery and the ones not willing to admit and correct their actions. Kopper agreed to turn over $12 million in ill-gotten gains and cooperate with government prosecutors. He hasn't been sentenced yet.
Lets keep in mind that these guys like Kopper didn't kill anyone or even threaten too (which is why armed liquor store robbers often get long prison sentences). These guys are more like petty pick pocket thieves, but just on a much larger scale. There is no assault with a deadly weapon, violence, or even the threat of violence involved. So if they can return what they stole, help prosecutors nab the big dogs responsible, and be banned from ever having responsibility over such large amounts of other peoples money... then that seems fair to me.
~jay9333
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.
...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?
This law isn't about punishing American malefactors. I would bet the problem of pirating films with vidcams isn't even serious in the USA. This law was passed so that we can show our international trading partners (East Asia, among others) that we're serious about intellectual property and hence so should they be. The USA has to create and impose some way of protecting intellectual property, because nowadays, it's among our major exports.
The fact that it's easy enough for anyone with a CD-R to "produce" the same end-user product (whether it be a copy of Win XP or a copy of Dogma) means we have to resort to draconian measures to enforce ownership of the product. This means doing things like changing the word from "pirating" to "stealing". And, unfortunately, it also means people (who own IP rights) think we need to pass laws like this, that force courts to mete out punishments that are out of all proportion to the crime. If we don't have these laws, how can we expect Indonesia, Hong Kong, China, or any other country to enforce similar laws.
Watch for more of this. IP as a major export is a bit of a paradigm shift, and we're likely to see a lot of crazy and wrong-headed laws before figuring out how to actually make it work. And note that the owners of IP are also among "the wealthy". This type of law is passed to protect them.
Everything I've ever learned the hard way was based on a statistically invalid sample.
Can't mod up as I've already posted.
Seriously, what is the reason there is not a minimum time for review till bills can be passed? Shouldn't the final text of bills be public long enough for the public to be able to provide some feedback before voting? Whouldn't that at least allow somewhat for greater public approval?
Hah! A cooling off period for legislation.
Doubt that it would change much for bills that don't get media attention, but it might have influenced the Patriot Act.
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.
They also don't let you photograph restaraunts, architecture, etc. Also, newer art and photo art cannot be photographed. Some items at trade shows cannot be photographed. Even if you paid to enter, they can prevent you from photographing things.
The exact list of crimes on there varies from state to state.
Interestingly enough, in Washington state we're in the middle of a big brouhaha because one of the crimes that had been on the list was "assault," and the State Supreme Court recently ruled that silly. The reasoning was that it was impossible to commit murder without also committing assault, and so having assault automatically escalate the murder to 1st degree murder effectively eliminated the existence of 2nd degree murder.
It makes since, but the effect has been to overturn a whole bunch of murder convictions, which is causing quite a mess.
He decided to just watch the government, and kind of scale it down to size, and run his life that way. --Laurie Anderson
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.