Slashdot Mirror
Arrest Under New NY Anti-Piracy Law
AxminsterLeuven writes "The BBC is carrying a story on new tightened New York anti-piracy legislation: A man has been arrested, after smuggling video recording equipment into a theater showing the new Transformers movie. 'Kalidou Diallo, 48, has been charged with unauthorized use of a video camera in a cinema. Under upgraded legislation, he could face six months in jail and fines of up to $5,000 (£2,487) if found guilty,' the BBC reports."
Because some of those cams (Telesyncs) or the Telecines look REALLY good. Also, people in other countries don't get the movie until way later. Columbia doesn't get it until the 20th of July, for example.
Not a Twitter sockpuppet... but I wish I was.
The better recordings are made from the projection booth with the cooperation of the projector tech. The camera is on a stable tripod, sound is patched directly from the board.
Having a reasonable quality electronic copy available while the movie is still in theaters could reasonably be expected to have an impact on both DVD sales and box office revenue...especially if the movie isn't all that great.
I saw the transformers last night. There is NO WAY an audience cam is going to capture the effects. If you want to watch this particular movie, I think you have to go to the theater. People should stick to downloading movies that suck, so they won't have to waste money.
A cam is just what it sounds like, camcorder video and camcorder sound. A Telesync is camcorder video with an alternate audio source - usually plugged in to a audio output for the hearing impaired. Which is great since you won't hear the people talking in the next row. A Telecine is recorded directly from a projection source.
Your mind looks a little cramped. Why don't you stretch it a little?
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
Everything I have heard about these type of bootlegs is that they are grainy with bad sound. I can't see that as a great entertainment experience.
On the other hand, in Wired magazine a few months ago they had an article relating to high quality unauthorized/pirated movies (from academy screening DVDs and so forth) being distributed on the internet. The article concluded that most seemed to be inside jobs.
Despite what all the little previews before your overpriced movie tell you, videotaping a movie (or downloading a bootleg, etc) IS NOT THEFT. IT IS COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT. This distinction often gets left out, because it benefits the **AA to be...forgotten.
Imagine you walked into a Kinkos with the latest NYT's Best Seller under your arm. Should they tackle you there? What if you put the first few pages into a copy machine? Should Kinko's call up a task force specially put in place to protect the 'creative' works of corporations?
Copyright Infringement laws traditionally kick in when the infringer has "profited materially" from the sale or distribution of copyrighted works. The act of making a copy doesn't constitute a material gain, so prior to NY's "special" laws, this would have been "Attempted Copyright Violation" - a crime so minuscule that it wouldn't be tried except by a massive organization with lawyers to spare.
By sponsoring legislation (more specifically, legislators) that would push through harsher punishments for something that can cost a company potential profits (note: this is not the same as a loss) the MPAA has successfully made it really easy to punish the wrong people. I promise you that this guy in NY was not going to be the one copy that makes it onto the internet. No, that'll happen when some organized crime group has one of their lackies either swipe the reel after the theater has closed for the night, or just snags a DVD from one of the many pre-releases that are distributed.
These new laws will be about as effective at stopping piracy as busting homeless crackheads is at stopping drug abuse. Sure, they can pat themselves on the back and remark what a great job they've done, but they're really just taking out the lowest hanging fruit. Good work, MPAA!
If you want a vision of the future, imagine a youtube comments section scrolling - forever.