Ohio Also Passes Law Against Recording In Cinema 379
madmancarman writes "Following California's lead, Ohio has also passed a law making recording in a movie theatre a crime. A first offense would be punishable by six months in jail and up to $1,000 fine, which is lighter than the legislation introduced in Michigan that would bring up to 5 years in jail and a $250,000 fine. The most interesting quote concerns a study by AT&T Labs: 'Their conclusion: 77 percent of the films came from insider sources, either motion picture companies or theater employees taping from the projection booth.' I searched Ohio Gov. Bob Taft's press releases, but couldn't find any mention of it."
Waste of taxpayer resources (Score:5, Insightful)
Jail??? (Score:5, Insightful)
Good job (Score:1, Insightful)
Anyway, if the movie is worth watching people will pay to watch it in theatres rather than watch a crappy video off kazaa. So, if they make a good movie, they need not worry about losing millions due to such copies.
The real question is... (Score:2, Insightful)
This will stop the 53 people... (Score:5, Insightful)
Why guilt? (Score:1, Insightful)
Why should any feelings of "guilt" be associated with free exchange of information? There is nothing to feel guilty about.
Re:Waste of taxpayer resources (Score:4, Insightful)
Over here, over here (Score:5, Insightful)
The hordes of surreptitious filmers immediately ran out of the cinema, where they were aprehended by the local branch of the MPAA.
Not. I have never seen anyone filming in a theater, and the few pirate films I've seen that were made this way were incredibly unwatchable ("cough cough", shadows walking in front of the film, noises of coke being slurped and people making out in row 2.)
I mean... does this actually present a threat to the movie industry?
Surely a balanced law would also mandate prison for people who make movies like Matrix 2 and 3? This kind of crap product is a far greater threat to cinema revenues than pirates can ever be.
Dont they use DVD Screeners? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Good job (Score:2, Insightful)
*Prevention* is having security staff there, monitoring you. Who wants to be strip-searched at the movies. Come on people....
Re:This is news? (Score:5, Insightful)
Interesting how early pirates get in the game (Score:5, Insightful)
And of course, who wouldn't want to see Episode III: The Non-Crappy Version, complete with a Star Wars Kid cameo added by the pirate who actually edited together the flick...
Re:Waste of taxpayer resources (Score:5, Insightful)
Why don't the politicians pass a law to really throw the book at bank-robbers who double-park during the robbery?
Re:Jail??? (Score:5, Insightful)
The biggest deterrent is probably to just confiscate a $500 camera. This would keep most amateurs from engaging in the activity.
The jail time should be reserved for those who sell bootleg tapes. That's a commercial endeavor. Simple fines won't discourage them. Thats just a cost of doing business for them.
Re:Good job (Score:3, Insightful)
For a slightly more extreme example, what if I passed a new law that made it legal in Ohio to outlaw women's purses in all grocery stores? After all, I could probably make a pretty good case that much shoplifting happens when women have the ability to hide products in their purses.
The problem in both cases is this: You're not addressing the problem the best way. As others pointed out already, it's not that uncommon to carry a camcorder into a movie theater, simply because the family is on vacation, and decides to catch a movie right after some other activity. Why should they risk being pegged as criminals, simply because they didn't have a safe, convenient place to drop off their camcorder before they came in?
There's no need for legislation of this type. Where the legal system comes into play is with stopping the illegal resale of copied movies. Let the theaters deal with people filming movies on their own.
Re:This will stop the 53 people... (Score:3, Insightful)
If anything, this law indicates more that the MPAA considers DVD piracy a lost cause and is shifting their efforst to hold onto the box office coffers.
Re:Good job (Score:3, Insightful)
The free market solved this years ago. (Score:5, Insightful)
If a theater wants to show new movies, they should already have rules about this. Because a theater is private property, they should be able to ban anything they want (free speech, weapons, anything). If they want to ban recording cameras, they're free to.
Maybe a theater may want to ALLOW cameras. In this case, the major movie production companies will probably decide not to show movies there. Smaller companies may want the cult-like home recorded movies and may possibly allow it. The free market has provided this solution already, and government now will mandate one more way for private movie theater owners to run their business.
We are no longer free, we are no longer capitalist. We live in a mercantilist system of oppressive regulation, taxes, and tariffs. None of this system helps the average citizen.
Jail for this? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Over here, over here (Score:5, Insightful)
No, but I think its because the MPAA (and RIAA to the same extent) are looking to shift blame away from certain facts.
People filming in the theater is so absurd that you'd have to be pretty hard pressed for entertainment to watch it.
The real trouble is coming from people ripping films distributed on DVD (I seem to remember an article on the Washington Post about this a few months ago). The trouble is, they won't do anything about the actual source of the leaks, so they blame their own customers.
Same with the RIAA...the big source of problem is organized crime making illegal copies by the thousands and millions. But those guys have guns and will kill you if you screw with them. Catching 12 year-old brittany is safer and makes better headlines and makes it look like they're doing something for their shareholders.
Its all a game, and the only ones fooled seem to be our congressmen and women.
Re:Waste of taxpayer resources (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Jail??? (Score:5, Insightful)
When I was reviewing films for a small magazine, I would often bring a small hand-held microcassette recorder to capture the thoughts and opinions that I had on a scene or sequence as it was playing on the screen. I would review the taped comments afterwards and type up a detailed and helpful movie review.
Now this is a felony?
Plus if theatres are going to put twenty minutes of commercials and psuedo-news about the entertainment industry before showing the movie that we have paid for, then we should certainly be allowed to bring our own entertainment devices like portable DVD players and laptops to make productive use of this time. And since all digital devices today record as easily as playback data, then doing this is now a felony?
Threatening people with serious jail time for engaging in an activity is not really the best way to encourage people to want to do that activity. So why are people that depend on having other people putting their butts into seats watching a movie threatening jail time to people who come to theatres to watch movies? Whether or not they want to record a movie that they're watching is really the concern of the viewer and the theatre owner.
If the theatre owner were more concerned about providing the optimum movie-going experience to his paying customers, he wouldn't have to worry about anyone wanting to duplicate the experience outside of his venue.
The core problem of Hollywood is not how people chose to consume its product, it is that amount of time and money that people are willing to spend to consume its product is beginning to fall while the price of producing this product continues to rise uncontrollably.
Passing horseshit laws about camcorders in theatres doesn't address this core issue, and therefore will do nothing to solve it.
Re:Waste of taxpayer resources (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Waste of taxpayer resources (Score:5, Insightful)
To comment on the article, I don't understand why idiots even bother downloading cam-rips, the quality is so shit, you're not getting the real film: the angle is wrong, the color is usually gone, the audio can be good when ripped from source when it's an inside job (ha nowadays an MPAA cop sits in the projection booth, the article claims), but if they used the camcorder mic to record it, that's not exactly CD quality is it?
The only thing it's doing is helping the FUD for those who claim "Star Wars 2 was available on the internet in digital quality 30 minutes after its grand opening.". Digital quality? F'ing idiots.
Re:Well this affects you how? (Score:3, Insightful)
Ok so it's now punishable by law to record in a theater, does this affect you?
If you go on vacation with a camcorder and decide, on a rainy day, to see a movie, then yes, it does affect you. What are you going to do? Leave a $1000 piece of electronics in your rental car?
Who really cares? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:This is news? (Score:4, Insightful)
WHAT?!?! Kiss my ass. 6 months is jail is NOT lax! I don't want to spend 6 hours in the custody of the state.
I> A first offense would be punishable by six months in jail and up to $1,000 fine
First offense drunk drivers don't get 6 months in jail in Ohio.
Just because the pentalties aren't as draconian as California's doesn't mean that they're lax.
LK
Re:Waste of taxpayer resources (Score:5, Insightful)
We should follow the military on this, you want a security clearence you know what they look for? They look at your financials like nothing else because that is how you're blackmailed or instable. Most of the spies that have damaged our country did it for the money, very few did it for ideology. You can probably have DUIs and drug arrests and become a secret service agent easier than having a some late bill payments on your credit.
What do you think goes throught the mind of a projector jockey making $6-$15 an hour showing the same shitty movies over and over and over. Shit, the managers of the places don't make crap. And it's not like the industry doesn't brag about its money, that's all you hear about movies in the news, "record breaking weekend," "record opening," "biggest budget ever." I mean in a recession, a movie and dinner date is what? $50 to $100 depending on if you have drinks with dinner, you think the people working at the theater can afford that with their disposable income?
If I was working at a theater, I could possibly start boot legging, you can buy a decent recorder cheap and then if you had the connections to sell the movies you could easily make a lot more than you'd ever get at a theater. That's just simple economics. You want loyalty you have to fork out some more money. I'm not saying it's right to do it or anything but you get what you pay for and the movie biz is extremely top heavy paying people 10s of millions of dollars regularly where the people taking your tickets and cleaning up the theaters and actually showing the movies make squat.
P.S. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:This will stop the 53 people... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:The real question is... (Score:4, Insightful)
Morally? The fact that art used to define culture, art was an expression. Now it is OWNED. Thats a moral dilemma. Is the Cat in the Hat a movie or an AD to get my kids into Burger King? Thats just sad.
I personally dont download movies just because I am not going to sit around that long. Its just boring.
What guilt? (Score:2, Insightful)
If i download media, its beacuse i wasnt going to go see/purchase it in the first place.
Therefore there is no loss of revenue on their part.
Therefore there is no need for guilt.
If i was actually going to pay for the media, i wouldnt have downloaded it in the first place.
Unless it was to 'demo' it before i waste money on the purchase. If its worthy of my funds, then i go out and purhcase it.
For the record i do all 3... And if they would allow returns of poor product, then that would elminate 1 of my reasons to download, as I have no problem supporting things i like...
Re:damn (Score:2, Insightful)
But corps have more rights than citizens.
Re:Good job (Score:3, Insightful)
What is wrong with everyone here.. Just because the law MIGHT not be used to make everyone a criminal doesn't mean it should be on the books. MPAA made a statement in regards to the outcry to pressure Taft into signing bill and said 'if this law is too broad, just pass it anyways and fix it some point later'
Re:The real question is... (Score:1, Insightful)
The problem with this legislation is manifold:
1) Its reactionary to a problem that doesn't actually exist; that is, there is not significant economic loss from people taking a video camera enticing viewers not to go to the theater. The quality is simply not good enough.
2) It puts Ohio in a position where they appear to be the lapdogs of the movie industry. And for no gain to Ohio, its citizens, or any businesses in Ohio.
3) It directs attention away from the real movie piracy.
4) Real serious economic is not caused by people downloading movies from the Internet. It is caused by movie insiders selling the movies to organized crime and then being re-sold worldwide.
5) Thus, it makes Ohio reactive primarily to MPAA member's shareholders who want to know they are "doing something" about movie piracy.
6) And then sincere but misguided individuals like yourself try to change the subject and say "Oh, slashdot people are saying stealing is okay".
7) Slashdot people seem to be saying "why don't you attack the root of the problem rather than ask some poor Ohio state cop to grab handicams in Cleveland.
I mean, think for yourself, man.
Re:This is news? (Score:3, Insightful)
I live in California, so this is a familiar issue for us. It seems to me that this regulation will do little or nothing to stop piracy. The camcorder rips are only of value when they're released on the 'net BEFORE the movie hits theatres. This means either it was released in another country first (in which case this law is useless) or it was a sneak-preview for a focus group (in which case the industry should just monitor these viewers more closely, dont let anyone bring in a tripod...)
Camcorder-in-theatre ("Telesync") rips are generally a last resort in the piracy world, favored much by rips from a leaked preview DVD/Tape ("Screener"), or a rip from a retail DVD after it's release. I'm not too deeply in touch with the scene, but it seems to me most movies have a screener rip in circulation by the time they're in theatres.
Long story short: this, and similar laws will be ineffective because by the time a movie is released to the masses, the incentive for piracy via a smuggled camera is LONG gone.
--mike
um (Score:2, Insightful)
A) Independant/small scale Musicians who want their sound out. (i downloaded apoptygma berzerk's mp3 off their website, for example)
B) really f'king good, to the point that i will go out and buy the artists album when i get the chanse(i have every one of jewel's albums that i can get my hands on...)
C) rare and or bootlegs that you just can't buy.(rocked, by rape, for example)
i will never feel guilty downloading music off the net.
now, imagine a world where the industry that deals with distrobution does not have the ability to send swat teams into teenagers bedrooms. this is the world that i see and if people out there have to do some currently illegal actions to bring it to actuality, then all the power to them. i personally try to avoid downloading copyrighted material(even though downloading said copyrighted works is legal here, in canada, allegedly), because I DONT WANT TO HEAR THAT SHIT. i will feel better as an induvidual if i have developed a style of my own(as a musician) independant of the big labels and their filth. and the further i distance from them as i increase my skill, the more credible as an alternative to them i become. after all, sure it'd be great if i were as good as led zepplin, pink floyd or trent reznor... but what if i took a turn and became something so new that nothing compared?
and i can tell you right now, that i feel a HELL of a lot more guilty when i go into a HMV and feed the MPAA/RIAA money through CD sales, than when i download off the net. and you should too. dont' shop at hmv, and don't buy cds from the riaa at all. but hey, everyone has a breaking point, but make sure to feel guilty when you finally break down and buy that album, after all, you are funding terror tactics by doing so.
laws & america (Score:3, Insightful)
Not that it mattered else but usually the stupid laws enforced there end up here, luckily with a big lag. As pointed out before, filming in private place like the cinema is the problem ought to be taken care by the Cinema, not by the goverment. And the penalties for a huge people destroying crime like that are just absurd.
It's clear that no one is going to feel satisfied by the quality of those CAM and TS releases, even PROPERs are plain shitty (while being as good as they can given the circumstances) which makes it really hard to enjoy or understand the film. But as the CAM or TS works as a preview, less people will see it. As this also works the other way around, Hollywood people should be more engouraged into hiring more talented scriptwrites and new directors than lawyers and lobbiers.
Just my 0,10e
Re:Jail??? (Score:5, Insightful)
When I was reviewing films for a small magazine, I would often bring a small hand-held microcassette recorder to capture the thoughts and opinions that I had on a scene or sequence as it was playing on the screen. I would review the taped comments afterwards and type up a detailed and helpful movie review.
Now this is a felony?
No. Not unless you were -VIDEO- taping the movie. Using an audio recorder and recording your comments does not fit this description.
Plus if theatres are going to put twenty minutes of commercials and psuedo-news about the entertainment industry before showing the movie that we have paid for, then we should certainly be allowed to bring our own entertainment devices like portable DVD players and laptops to make productive use of this time. And since all digital devices today record as easily as playback data, then doing this is now a felony?
Not unless you use the devices to record the movie.
If the theatre owner were more concerned about providing the optimum movie-going experience to his paying customers, he wouldn't have to worry about anyone wanting to duplicate the experience outside of his venue.
Why's that? People often sell these bootleg copies. Furthermore there are always people out there willing to get something for nothing or next to nothing. How can a theatre owner compete with someone selling bootleg copies for $1.00 a piece? These people are already willing to watch a crappy camera rip. I don't see how the theatre experience is really relevant at this point.
The core problem of Hollywood is not how people chose to consume its product, it is that amount of time and money that people are willing to spend to consume its product is beginning to fall while the price of producing this product continues to rise uncontrollably.
Not true. The problem is, is that technology has made better and better quality rips (they still suck though) easy to do. Cameras have gotten much smaller, cheaper, and now they are digital making distribution a lot easier. It will always cost less for someone to video a movie than to produce it. Hence the cost for the bootlegs will always be less. As technology gets better the bootlegs will get better. As you know there will always be people willing to pay for an inferior product if it's considerably less.
Passing horseshit laws about camcorders in theatres doesn't address this core issue, and therefore will do nothing to solve it.
Ah, finally a somewhat true statement. Since according to the MPAA 77% of the bootleg copies are insider jobs, this will do nothing. However one thing it does do is take a portion of the piracy out of the theatre's control. Before the theatre had no incentive to kick people out for video taping movies. Now the police do it. I believe the punishment is crazy. I think confiscating the tape and maybe the camera would be much more reasonable. Reserve jail time for the people found selling the bootlegs. What's really nuts is that the punishment for doing this is worse than the one for a first offense DUI.
Rape/Murder/Taping In A Theater (Score:3, Insightful)
Homicide: 71 months
Rape: 65 months
Sexual Assault: 35 months
---------------
Recording a movie
in a cinema in Michigan: 60 months
" in California: 12 months
Is it just me? Yes, I know that these are the maximum sentences, but many violent crimes carry maximum sentences around only 10 years, and they are often less than that anyway.
<sarcasm>Basically, the message here is that if someone tries to arrest you in a theater for videotaping the screen, you should shoot them, cause hey, it would only be another few months in jail if you get caught.
</sarcasm>
Re:Waste of taxpayer resources (Score:3, Insightful)
Would it be OK if gov't made recording at all concerts illegal? And passed a law to jail anybody with a camera or a microphone recording a performance? Some venues and artists allow such recording, and it's none of government's business if I will allow such a thing on my property or not. Again, copyright infringement is a different matter altogether - copyright laws deal with those issues.
With regards to stealing and theft comparison - get a clue! Recording a performance is in no way comparable to stealing property. We are not even talking about copyright infringement here, just recording. Yes, you will say, those recordings may be used for copyright infringements, so will most cars sold be used to break speed laws. Should we sentence everybody who buys a car to 1 year jail term to compensate?
It is not theft (Score:1, Insightful)
"Identity theft" is somewhat different: a theft often does occur when someone takes away your online/bank/etc identity from you.
Screeners == digital (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, while I can't comment on Star Wars 2 specifically, many, if not most movies are in fact available online when the movie premieres, in full digital quality.
No one bothers with cams anymore, because screeners get leaked like there's no tomorrow. These are DVD copies of the final movie sent out for reviews, etc. Someone copies it, uploads to usenet/kazaa, and bam! I've seen many movies as of late that are in fact available days and weeks before they hit the theatre.
Cams are so 1999. And laws like this are absolutely pointless (and assinine), as most movie trading is done using screeners anyway.
Re:Waste of taxpayer resources (Score:3, Insightful)
Their profit is more likely to come out of selling expensive soft drinks and popcorn.
Unbelievable (Score:2, Insightful)
What's the problem here? Seriously, why are so many people so rabidly against this law? I've seen a lot of people in this thread saying something like, "We have laws against copyright infringement, whereas this law makes it illegal to operate a camera in a movie theatre."
WTF?!? I have NEVER had the desire to use a camera in a theatre, nor have any of my friends, nor have I ever seen anyone using a camera in a theatre.
Listen closely: THERE IS NO REASON ANYONE WOULD HAVE A CAMERA IN A THEATRE EXCEPT TO RECORD A MOVIE AND THAT'S ILLEGAL!!
If for some reason someone were using a camera in a theatre for reasons other than recording the movie (recording their friends, seeing who's in the theatre, getting that delicious down-blouse/up-skirt shot), they should rightfully have their ass kicked and get removed from the theatre for interrupting everyone else trying to actually watch the movie!
Sheesh, folks, pick your battles. Is this law a bit draconian? Maybe. Are there other offenses that most would agree are worse that receive lesser sentences? Probably.
But the point is that no one's rights are being infringed here.
Look, I'm no fan of the RIAA or MPAA (I think they're oligarchical monopolies that exist to conrol popular media to keep themselves in power and profitable) but don't let your hatred for them cause you to fight for something that just isn't worth fighting for.