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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."
and only get my movies at the pirate bay. No hassles. No real spying. God loves AMERICA! The POPE is here!
... the pirate's cameras often rely on infrared light. Several bright "invisible to the human eye" infrared lights pointed at the audience from behind the screen or even around it ought to do the trick. Just trying to cast light on the topic.
If someone is so cheap that they will watch something recorded from a cell phone I'm guessing they will never be paying customers no matter what happens.
I can't imagine that many people will eschew going to the movies for a smartphone camera recording. Maybe for screeners and Telecine rips but cam versions? Really?
Pirates will just switch from crappy low-res idiot-talking-on-the-phone theater recordings to high-quality pre-release torrents.
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
I'm sure that the there are theatre staff that record films too, but I doubt that the PR people will address that publicly. I'm sure theatre managers will be told to look at staff. But publicly, it's their customers they should come down on. Wow, way to go making people feel bad about pirating films.
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!
I think in the case of cam-rips, they're usually not uploaded at all. Private trackers won't take them, and no one is going to download them on public trackers unless they're desperate. Most cam-rips, from what I understand anyway, get burned to disc and sold on the street rather than put online.
I suppose most of this pirate porn is made around September 19th?
All it takes is for one lapse in security, not necessarily in your theater or even your country, and all the time and money spent trying to prevent that movie from leaking is wasted.
This would be like buying a car alarm that self destructs if any car in the entire world is stolen.
spoiler alert.
I understand the incentive to watch a movie online but what is the incentive for someone to risk prison time to illegally record a movie and upload it to pirate bay? What is the uploader getting out of it? Back in the BBS there was a barter system where you could get credit by uploading something wanted that didn't exist yet but what incentive is there today?
Altruism?
Why do people volunteer to do anything? Maybe it's because they get some kind of satisfaction by helping people. Maybe they like the prestige of being a notable pirate. Maybe they think the media industry is evil, and they feel like they are making the world a better place by denying profits to them.
I suppose it doesn't make sense if you think the only compelling reason to do something is for personal monetary gain.
But there are lots of other motivations people can have other than money.
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.
Attack its weak point for massive damage!
... of disappearing night vision goggles and some very happy teenage boys.
There seems to be a certain measure of pride amongst some folks in having the latest movies. I know people who boast about having terabytes of new movies on their hard drive, all cams.
Myself, I find them to be unwatchable garbage -- if I wanted to see a new movie that badly, I'd go to the theater and see it. But to them, their collection of grainy cams with bad audio is a treasure.
Kid-proof tablet..
No, government is just the publicly-funded private police for the corporations. Thank Milton Friedman for that!
Mostly random stuff.
1. There's lots of light in a cinema, a big bright image lights up the audiences faces. I would have thought ample light to run a regular inexpensive CCTV camera pointed away from the screen toward the audience. That not just locates offenders but provides evidence too. More light can be added in the form of IR as others have noted.
2. NV goggles are expensive and having the staff roam around in them adds even more cost.
3. Once the NV goggles have the sensitivity turned right down to allow for the brightness of the screen, I would have thought that would render them not much better than human eyesight.
I imagine this is a scare tactic and nothing more, maybe there'll be a couple of sets of rented goggles moved from theater to theater and "paraded around" to scare people off.
Nullius in verba
There is a conflict between the natural and inalienable rights of people and the attempts of governments to curtail the resulting actions. It's neither novel nor resolvable.
Ones and zeros. Any series of ones and zeros can be represented as a number, understandable by human minds. It is the natural and inalienable right of humans to communicate, thereby sharing, numbers. Humanity, throughout history, has attempted to suppress the ability of others to communicate freely. Every attempt to curtail communication is a battle against the natural state of humanity's need to communicate. Attempting to suppress a natural right always, always, always results in greater suppression of rights or failure.
Most of us appreciate the outcome of limiting sharing in order to concentrate value. We like multi-million dollar movies. What we don't like are the inevitable outcomes where people are punished in ways that seem unreasonable. The problem is that the two issues are inextricably linked.
Possession of a number, and sharing of that number should never logically be illegal. Making sharing a number illegal goes against natural human nature. Thus we have a conflict with the historical approach to encouraging innovation and creativity and the natural law that humans must be free to share information. Technology hasn't created this problem, but has made it more obvious. Human nature is also to acquire power so we're pitting two natural human activities against either. Of course the natural right to communicate will eventually prevail over the power acquisition impulse, but not without conflict. Right now the impulse to acquire power is grounded in government enforcement, but the natural right to communicate will always find an expression, thus government censorship (copyright enforcement) is destined to fail.
In the future, regardless of attempts to prevent it, free sharing of information is inevitable. Acquisition of power will adjust. Movies will be paid for by trailers created in order to generate pre-creation funding. You'll see trailers for movies that haven't been created yet, based on subjects you're interested in and directors you trust. If you like the trailer you see, you'll pledge money taken in escrow. If all goes well, you'll get to see the movie, but otherwise you'll get your money back with a trivial amount of interest. Everyone will get to see the movie for free if it gets made, nobody will make movies that flop and nobody will be punished for sharing numbers.
It won't happen soon. It won't happen without conflict. Laws will come and go. People will be unfairly punished, movies will fail. Inalienable rights will eventually prevail because law cannot suppress human nature.
Unchecking "Post Anonymously" because I've had just enough beer to stop caring if people are upset by the truth.
B) Eliminate all the stupid users. This is frowned upon by society.
A friend of mind owns a few theaters, the closest one is in [redacted]. I often go down as they're closing and go watch a few movies by myself or with a few friends. I no longer drink but I used to get really trashed while I was there. We'd use one of the smaller rooms off to the side and often ended up chilling in the projection booth for a while to do other things. I usually pay a handsome sum for the various snacks and they make a fresh thing of popcorn before they leave. The owner, his wife, or the manager will generally participate in the event. I'd say I average a month or two between visits. I am 100% certain I could set up and record. I am also certain I needn't pay but I feel obligated to. We do clean up after ourselves and have even helped staff clean up other parts of the theater so they could leave early. Under no circumstances would I record the movie even if I could get away with it.
In hindsight, I'm sure this is illegal as all hell (though he 'sells' us tickets - it's sure to break the contract which is likely a civil (or even criminal) offense. So, because of that - and that there's but one theater in that town, I've redacted the name of the theater. I've even 'sneaked' in the night before a new release was going to be shown and there were people already in line. I just walked in with the employees and a few of my friends went in with me. I don't feel bad, really, but it was kind of mean. I'm sure the agency that he gets the films for would be really pissed if they knew - so, yeah, that's the main reason for the redaction I guess.
I've thought about doing a remodel and having a screening room put in - you can actually get a license to get the full movies while they're still in the theaters though it's a bit pricey. I'm not that much of a movie buff and it's more an event than anything. I think I'd not use it much if it were in my home.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
This night googles have been used for years in the USA. So they jack you in price for sitting you in a glorified garage, already fuck the movie colours for it "not to be copied" to the point that for instance, the chromatic of several movies are definitely odd even when watching the original both on cinema and TV (Resident Evil, Chronicles of Ridick and Book of Eli comes to mind), and now they handle you as the enemy in the combat field, and teens cannot go there dating and petting without giving an hard on to the employees. I have not been in a cinema for years, and sure wont be in a near future. For me, it would be some place better than home, and not worse. A living room, they serving me lobster with me with I watched a movie, and with some naked female waiters, and I might reconsider it. Otherwise, I wont be paying to enter a glorified prison system. They are forgetting it is not your great-grandfathers time where they were awed by movies, nowadays we all have entertaining systems at home.
We used to. Now we just torrent things before they reach the cinema anyway.
i live in the uk and my local cineworld did this briefly about 5 years ago after a commandment from on high. The staff found it embarrasing and stupid and i remember seeing them wandering in with the goggles on and staring at us for a few seconds then walking off again. They only did it for a couple of weeks.
This isn't new, and it isn't really a sustained procedure of audience monitoring. It's a publicity stunt to make people think they're being watched - make a giant fuss about how they're watching everyone in the dark and hopefully that will scare them into not filming the screen.
They do it long enough to make people aware of it then stop again. Then in another 5 years make a big hoo-haa and break out the night vision goggles again for a couple of weeks.
(1.21 gigawatts) / (88 miles per hour) = 30 757 874 newtons