Slashdot Mirror
An Imaginative Use For CCTVs
An anonymous reader writes "Everyone knows we're being watched by CCTVs everywhere — particularly in the UK — and virtually everyone (at least on Slashdot) complains about that fact. But have you ever stopped to consider the ways you can use all those CCTVs to your advantage? The Get Out Clause, an unsigned band from Manchester in the UK, did just that; they played in front of 80 different CCTVs around Manchester, and then asked for the video via Freedom of Information Act letters. (About 25% of the CCTV owners complied with the law and turned them over.) The result isn't too bad."
Where I live (Scotland), they can charge you with "breach of the peace", which is a remarkably elastic law that allows the Police to charge you for doing just about anything. Basically they approach you and tell you to stop doing whatever you are doing, and if you disagree, then you are breaching the peace, and they arrest you.
Exactly, I was about to suggest that it was fake.
I work as a part-time CCTV operator (while I'm at University), and the footage just doesn't look remotely real to me. Specifically the frame-rate is FAR too high, most CCTV systems have the frame-rate turned down quite low (say 3-5 FPS) to save space.
Second, not every CCTV camera is necessarily recording at the same time. While every camera probably CAN record, usually only key cameras will be set to record, maybe half or less, to save space on the system. The idea is that if anything happens the CCTV operator will record that camera, not that everything records all the time.
If a band asked me to look up their footage because of something like this, the footage they'd get back wouldn't look that good. This is a publicity stunt.
(and, as has already been pointed out, the Data Protection Act, not the Freedom of Information Act)
Joseph Farthing
http://josephfarthing.com
The ones outside the stores are their own. The one's inside places like stadiums, Malls are owned by the people who run these places.