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A Year In Prison For a 20-Second Film Clip?
PizzaFace writes "It's Jhannet's 19th birthday, so her boyfriend borrows a camcorder to memorialize the occasion, and they head to the mall. They goof around, recording each other in the food court, then decide to catch the Transformers matinee, which started a few minutes earlier. During a big action scene, Jhannet takes the camcorder and records a 20-second clip to show her little brother. A few minutes later, cops who were called by the manager come in with flashlights, arrest Jhannet, confiscate the camcorder, and, at the behest of Regal Cinemas, charge her with film piracy. 'I was terrified,' said Jhannet. 'I was crying. I've never been in trouble before.' If convicted, she could be sentenced to a year in prison and a $2,500 fine. The police say they lack discretion because Regal Cinemas chose to prosecute: 'They were the victim in this case, and they felt strongly enough about it.' The National Association of Theater Owners supports Regal's 'zero-tolerance' prosecution standard: 'We cannot educate theater managers to be judges and juries in what is acceptable. Theater managers cannot distinguish between good and bad stealing.'"
"there can be no justice so long as laws are absolute"
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Jean-Luc Picard
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Justice_(TNG_episode
is that the punishment is less severe than the crime
otherwise, it's just revenge
that's why sharia law, for example, is wrong: chopping someone's hand off for stealing, or chopping someone's head off for prostitution, is not civilization
in a society where the punishments are worse than the crimes, injustice is perpetrated by the government, not the criminals
and in turn, the society breeds greater and greater atrocities
justice must always exist, and people must always be punished for crime, and the punishment must not be a simple slap on the wrist, the punishment must be severe for severe crimes
but the punishment must ALWAYS be less severe than the crime itself, or instability rather than stability is bred that society. because you are not teaching people to respect a valid concept (justice), you are teaching them (unsuccessfully) to respect an invalid concept (violence)
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
One day at Six Flags, some jerk in front of me has a hunting knife. Six Flags just dealt with it sedately. They didn't call the cops, they just made the guy give it up before entering the park. You don't have to call out swat for jaywalking or stealing a pack of bubblegum.
The time should fit the crime.
The amount of police time wasted should fit the crime.
The amount of court time wasted should fit the crime.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
About three years ago I worked as an assistant manager for Regal in a sort of small town that had lots of street people, punk kids and wackos constantly trying to sneak in or otherwise undermine the system of paying for a ticket to a movie, watching a movie, and then leaving. One time, a harmless street guy snuck into the theatre through the front exit and went into Star Wars Episode 3, carrying a guitar case on his back and a backpack over his shoulder. When I did my theatre checks in the middle of the set, I noticed a red light coming from the back of the theatre, and I recognized the guy from earlier because of the bag. I told the manager, a harmless old guy who has more in common with the street folk than the Company, and we debated for about five minutes about what to do. Eventually we called the police, who came over and escorted the guy into the lobby. The cop asked him some questions about where he was staying (turns out he was at a local homeless shelter), where he got the camcorder, and eventually pulled me and my boss aside and asked the big question:
"What do you want me to do with this guy?"
The poor dude was mortified anyway, homeless, and ultimately probably wasn't going to post a torrent of his recording or make a bunch of copies and sell the dupes on the street. In the end we just confiscated the tape, escorted him out of the theatre and told him not to show up again, and that was the end of that.
However, here's the big secret that no one is talking about: in the employee room at my theatre, there was a sign saying that any employee who witnessed and reported someone recording a movie, and then gave a sworn statement about it to the police, would get $1000 from the MPAA.
I mean, that has to be what's going on HERE, right? Some employee saw someone with a camcorder and wanted to make some fast cash and was willing to condemn a young woman to get theirs. Heck, that's what I was thinking of when I saw the guy recording Star Wars, that's why we called the police in the first place. Luckily, I realized that I was being a dick before anyone was arrested and charged.
Are you serious? If that's the approach they're going to take, pretty soon they'll be showing their movies to empty theaters. Most phones have video recording capabilities these days. And people aren't going to leave their phone at home (perhaps the movies isn't the only place you're going while you're out) and I for one am not going to leave an expensive phone in my car since, if that's the policy, thieves are going to know that cars outside theaters are target-rich environments for cell phones.
I've always seen the warnings that video recording devices aren't allowed and wondered WTF given the cell phones we have these days. It's a lost cause, really.
The day they don't let me in because my cell phone has a camera is the day I stop going to movies.