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Canadian Movie Camcording Addressed With Legislation
dottyslashdottydot writes "During Arnold Schwarzenegger's visit to Ottawa yesterday, it was confirmed that Prime Minister Stephen Harper will be introducing a bill to make camcording in movie theaters illegal in Canada. However, people are skeptical that this will make any difference in the amount of pirated movies available. Doug Frith, president of the Canadian Motion Picture Distributors Association was quoted as saying, 'is really the first step — not only for the movie industry — where the government has shown it will seriously address the whole area of intellectual-property theft.'"
Since the last major public study on movie piracy in 2003 [http://lorrie.cranor.org/pubs/drm03-tr.pdf], concluded that 77 percent of pirated movies actually come from industry insiders and movie reviewers, "camcording" is not something the Motion Picture Association of America should really be concerned with. I suspect we'll see an act making any copying of a DVD an indictable (criminal) offence rather than somthing one deals with in a lawsuit.
davecb@spamcop.net
I'd rather buy the movie than view it in camcorder quality (or not watch it at all).
How big of a deal is this, really?
I've always found captures of camcordered movies to be of crap quality. It has never stopped me from later buying the DVD, or from even going to the theater. From me, they've never lost a dime because of this.
Well, okay. Once when in high school, when living in Europe, the only way we got to see some movies was camcorder rips of U.S. screens. There may be one or two that I never actually paid theater tickets for. This was back in the days of VHS and 300 bps modems.
Still, considering the amount of money being made in theatrical releases, is this really a problem or just another smokescreen?
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
Camcorder piracy is for those who don't have the technical expertise to commit proper piracy. ^_^
____
~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
*Jedi hand wave* These aren't the cams you are looking for...
Eternity: will that be smoking, or non-smoking? I Corinthians 6:9-10
I would like to take this opportunuty to thank my American friends for allowing their corporate owned administration to spin so far out of control as to spill their misguided witch hunt into my country. Now not only will YOUR taxpayers money be wasted on chasing, prosecuting, and imprisoning IP "criminals", ours will too!
I would also like to thank my own government for being such slack-jawed pansies and allowing the Governator to actually influence Canadian policy.
I want to wretch.
Interestingly enough, the movie theatres here in Canada are already claiming it is illegal.
When I went to Spiderman 3 the other week, they had a sign up in the lobby that said something like "for everyone's safety end enjoyment, we remind you that recoding devices are illegal".
I was quite surprised by that, as I knew it wasn't yet in law.
That, and I have no idea how my safety is affected by such things. Once again, the fear card gets played -- "OMG, we could all die if someone has a recording device".
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
This Youtube video - titled the Power of Lobbying: How Hollywood Got a Canadian Movie Piracy Bill in Under Six Months - pretty much says it all.
well, you can be prosecuted if you're caught filming a movie in the cinema.
What I've always wanted to do though is very obviously erect a camera with tripod in one of the aisles and then continuously tell people off for eating too loud / whispering / getting in the way of the shot.
"Guys, will you keep it down! I'm trying to film this!"
Summation 2
I refuse to go to a movie theatre that searches people. I used to go 30-40 movies a year, I don't go at all anymore since they started this practice, and I've made sure they know exactly why I'm not attending.
For, say, 1990. Seriously, what decade are these people living in?
Pirated copies don't come from some idiot wielding a camcorder, they come digital copies usually leaked from within the industry itself. "Review copy" only means "my kid will be torrenting this in three hours, here it comes."
And the minimum wage salary surf shining a flashlight on people fondling each other is now a also a policeman? If a guy holding an illegal recording device looks able enough to abuse a baby seal and isn't bothering anyone, what possible incentive does a theater have to confront them?
This type of legislation is a cry for help on the part of the legislator. It's a sign they're so out of touch it's not even funny.
A foreign cartel forcing a supposedly sovereign nation to change their law according to their whims, THAT is a big deal.
You can't take the sky from me...
We were already subjected to random search at every movie these days. Check out this flyer that now hangs ever 2 feet and above every ticket counter at every theater I've been to lately:
s earchconsentwr9.jpg
http://img161.imageshack.us/my.php?image=cineplex
This will do nothing more then make the big theater chains more afraid and implement more ridiculous policies that in the end only make non-pirates stop going !
This should already have been illegal: it's copyright violation, right? Is this one of those redundant laws like it is illegal to sell illegal drugs to a minor, when selling illegal drugs is already illegal? Or it is illegal to commit a "hate" crime against someone of another race or ethnicity, but it is already illegal to commit a crime against anyone at all? More charges don't solve the problem.
Minority government.
Election coming sooner rather than later.
It will die on the order paper if it ever gets there.
Undetectable Steganography? Yep, there's an app fo
Stop calling it "intellectual property theft"? It's copyright violation. "Property theft" implies stealing someone's tangible goods (or ideas) and passing it off as your own, which is clearly not what's going on here. It's an unauthorized reproduction (and possibly public display or sale) of an artistic work.
I love minority governments. Nothing gets done, and thus nothing gets fucked up!
All praise Canada's multi-party system!
"Live as if you'll die tomorrow." Ridiculous. You could die later today.
It's about time. I mean seriously, who wants to download a movie only to find out it's a cam that some jerk posted?!?
I say jail 'em all!
That way we can be sure the movies we download are genuine DVD rips and not have to worry...