Slashdot Mirror
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?
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
Comment removed based on user account deletion
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
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].
Loading...
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.
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.
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" -