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British Movie Theater Staff To Wear Night-Vision Goggles To Combat Movie Piracy

Ewan Palmer writes: Movie theater across the UK will be required to don military-style night vision goggles in order to help crack down on movie piracy ahead of the release of potential box office smashes such as Spectre and Hunger Games. The initiative is part new measures to combat piracy as in recent years, pirates have found new and inventive ways to illegally record movies while using a smartphone to film through a popcorn box. Kieron Sharp, director general of the Federation Against Copyright Theft (FACT), said: "The bigger the film and the more anticipated it is, the higher-risk it is. We have staff on extra alert for that. James Bond is a big risk and we will be working with cinema operators and the distributors making sure we will keep that as tight as possible. We really don't want to see that recorded. They [cinema staff] are on alert to really drill down on who is in the auditorium and who might possibly be recording. They still do the sweeps around the auditoriums with the night vision glasses regardless of the film. But sometimes extra security is put in place for things like Bond."

6 of 279 comments (clear)

  1. How do they know it's a camera in the popcorn box? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    What I don't get is how the cinema staff could be sure that it's a camera that is in the popcorn box. Suppose there's a man sitting there in the cinema. He has a box of popcorn on his lap, but he isn't eating any of the popcorn, and he's holding the box with one hand on each side. The cinema staff use their night vision goggles to pick him out of the crowd as a suspect. They confront the man, and ask him to open the popcorn box. He complies, and all they see is popcorn. Still convinced that he's up to no good, one of the cinema staff puts a hand into the box, and starts moving the popcorn around, searching for the camera the staff are sure is in the popcorn box. But after shifting around the popcorn, this staff member doesn't find a camera at all. Instead, all he finds is the poor cinemagoer's cock and balls, which for some inexplicable reason have been stuck through a hole in the bottom of the popcorn box. Not immediately realising what was going on, the cinema staff member's hand thoroughly fondles the poor cinemagoer's cock and balls. As you can imagine, this is a pretty awkward situation for both the cinemagoer and the cinema staff to be in!

  2. Re:What is the incentive to the uploaded? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    I suppose most of this pirate porn is made around September 19th?

  3. "...James Bond is a big risk..." by turkeydance · · Score: 5, Funny

    spoiler alert.

  4. irony by roesti · · Score: 3, Funny

    It's ironic that you can't take high-tech spy gadgets into a James Bond film.

    What if I'm turning up in costume? Then I *have* to have them.

  5. I predict a new rash of crime... by macraig · · Score: 5, Funny

    ... of disappearing night vision goggles and some very happy teenage boys.

  6. Re:how much lost really? by jez9999 · · Score: 3, Funny

    What did you expect? FACT were the retards who produced this (it's not a spoof; it's on some of my DVDs). Not exactly the brightest lightbulbs.