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UK Copyright Group Tells Cinemas to Ban Laptops
Sockatume writes "Cinema chain Cineworld now has a policy banning anyone from carrying a laptop into a theatre, even if it is not used. The management claims that this is an anti-piracy move on the advice of the Federation Against Copyright Theft, the much-mocked source of all kinds of dubious anti-piracy statements. When it was pointed out that the laptop had no camera, the management made a temporary exception. For customers, the message is clear: leave your laptop in the car. For pirates, the message is clear: there is more money to be made slinking around cinema car parks looking for laptop bags."
It's funny they had no problems with mobile phones that certainly have good cameras now a days, but with a laptop. Oh well, maybe that changes soon too.
I'm just waiting them to take off our eyes while in movie theatre.
Important caveat, neatly snipped from the start of the post.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
Because when you start watching the movie and realize it was a waste of your money, you can fire up the laptop and watch a different one.
Banning laptops in a theatre to stop people from recording movies in a theatre makes about as much sense as banning people from drinking if they possess a valid drivers license because they could decide to drive home (the irony that one actually usually uses a driver's license to prove one's legal drinking age notwithstanding).
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Or maybe conveniently located rentable lockers will start showing up at the theater, which you can pay to store all your potentially infringing devices. Dump your laptop, phone, and any pens or pencils which may be used to write down dialogue. Also, when you leave the theater, please make sure to stop by our convenient memory erasing station, so that you don't carry unauthorized memories out of the theater.
"Anyone who [rips a CD] is probably engaging in copyright infringement." - David O. Carson
While it seems like a rather silly policy, why on earth would people be taking their laptops into the movie theater? Are there that many occasions when people don't go home prior to going to a movie?
You don't have a job, do you?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
The rest of us will forego the spanish inquisition, the extortionate prices and the hassle in general of getting parked and bothering to go to the cinema, we will instead sit at home watching our bootlegged copy, pausing it to go to the loo and still have the poeple walking infront of the screen, laughing and coughing.
Actually I feel like doing piracy vs cinema:
Cinema:
Pros
Cons:
Piracy:
Pros:
Cons:
You mean... I'll not get paid for all the seeding I've done ? CRAPS!
For customers, the message is clear: leave your laptop in the car.
I have a better answer: When they ask you to put your laptop in your car, ask for your money back and leave. Is it really worth being treated like a criminal to see that movie right now? Customer service matters. If the proprietor of some establishment is a dick, don't give him your money.
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
I wonder if this has more to do with the Twitter effect (see Brüno) than stopping piracy.
It seems rather implausible (to be generous) that someone would try to illegally film a movie using a crappy webcam on your average laptop (particularly if they manage to do it with the laptop in the bag). If you think about how a laptop is likely to hurt them financially, the reason should be pretty clear.
Well they don't really need to send a blinding light at the camera.. they can just project (near-)IR light from the projection booth, make it vary randomly in intensity, and all but the most well-equipped cameras (with a *very* decent IR blocker that can at least block the frequency used by the theatre; no, the standard IR blocker does not cover this, as pointing a TV remote at your camera will show) record utter junk.
It's even a relatively cheap solution; certainly cheaper than having personnel run around with nightvision goggles trying to catch people, or checking people's bags and banning cameras, etc.
But in the end, it still only takes 1 person - a projectionist not adhering to policy, a print shop that has a mysterious 'leak', a review board member wanting some extra crash - to get a transfer to a format that distribution groups can use, and the whole world will have access in no time.
Where I live we have trains, bus, and a great transportation system. I don't need a car either, I walk. I have never seen anyone bring a laptop to a movie theater, ever. So much for sarcasms [sic].
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Who are these people who watch theater video camera recordings of movies? That's really sad. At leaste be a self-respecting pirate and get a decent copy.
Pirates do make money, not only through piracy, but drug dealing, selling babies, and holding the Earth itself to ransom with their deadly Asteroid Ray. I'm apalled that you would even question this.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
I don't have a car. I commute by bus and ferry. There's a Cineworld on my way home that I frequent, but now cannot as I carry my laptop to work every day (I use it to get in a bit of work/browsing on the 2 x 30 minute ferry crossing daily commute).
Cineworld Southampton have therefore just lost my business. This is particularly stupid of them, as quite often (even with newly released films) I can count the audience members on my fingers.
Myself and friends used to emit a fairly loud "Yarrrrrrrrrrr" every time a "Piracy is a crime" warning came up at the cinema. Sometimes even heard an answering one from across the cinema.
Don't know how it is in other chains but at Vue cinemas in the UK they now use night vision cameras to monitor the people watching the film. ]I once saw a spoof anti-piracy ad involving night vision and silenced sniper rifles - life imitating satire, so I guess I know the next step.
Secondly, this monitoring strikes me as being like the millimetre wave scanners at airports. Sure it's nominally for justifiable purposes but every time I see a message saying they're monitoring us with night vision for copyright purposes I have a mental image of a couple making out in the dark at the back of a cinema and a security guard in an office somewhere watching them using light-enhancing CCTV going "Oooh, go on! You dirty minx! Oooh, you like that, do you?". Seriously, copyright or not, it's not OK to watch cinema goers watching the film - that's plain just creepy.
One week a month, I get paid extra for being at most 15 min away from ssh 24/7. So I have to carry a laptop and a 3G usb key at all times.
Of course I don't go to the movies anymore, the experience sucks so much with all the stupid jerks talking and/or forgetting to turn off their phone.
That'd be a horrible pirate copy. The video would go black every few seconds.
Ezekiel 23:20
Maybe that's because they leave them in their bags instead of holding them up in the air and waving them around while shouting "Hey, everybody, look at my laptop!"
Just a thought.
Unless you were trying to say that you have never, ever seen anyone bring a bag more than 30 cm wide into a movie theatre, in which case I would have to ask you just what kind of movies legally bind people enjoy.
the standard IR blocker does not cover this, as pointing a TV remote at your camera will show)
Oh wow, I didn't know this, that's nifty. Purple lights! Woo!
Ezekiel 23:20
Where can I get this free popcorn and soda? And on a related note, where is all this free beer the OSS people keep talking about?
Support Right To Repair Legislation.
Not true, your eye doesn't look at the whole picture the whole time. And what someone else looks at at in a particular scene (the hero's face) might be very different from what i am looking at (the heroines breasts). So you'd be bound to reconstruct the image incorrectly
"The weirdest thing about a mind, is that every answer that you find, is the basis of a brand new cliche" -
Aside from the obvious absurdity of someone trying to record a movie with their laptop -- how much of a problem are off-screen recordings for the movie industry? I may be naive -- but I really have a hard time imagining someone saying -- "I was gonna go see this movie in the theater, but I have a copy that someone recorded with a video camera in the theater! This is just as good! Now I don't need to go see it!" Am I missing something here, or are these anti-piracy groups really that dense?
Actually what they are afraid of is: " I was gonna go see this movie in the theater, but I have a copy that someone recorded with a video camera in the theater and now I know it sucks! I'm not going to waste my time and money going to the theater to see it." (see also someone else's comment about twits tweeting how bad the movie is).
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
No piracy, problem solved.
That'd be a horrible pirate copy. The video would go black every few seconds.
It would also be more prone to "male gaze" than even normal movie standards.