Theaters will be able to detain pirates
 

Theater owners will soon be able to detain camcorder-pirates who use camcorders to illegally record movies. Also, using camcorders in movie theaters will soon be a federal offense, punishable by up to 3 to 5 years in prison. You must be a subscriber to view the complete link on www.videobusiness.com

If you break a law any citizen can place you under citizen's arrest.

This legislation frees theaters from litigation arising from that detention. Theater chains are not individual citizens, but commercial institutions, so the legal rules are probably different for them. I doubt movie theaters are really going to enforce this anyway.

Do you have another link to an article about this, or the name/number of the law so we could read about it without having to signup for yet another annoying website that will send us spam? ;-)

Wow, this is stupid
 

What moron making $5.50 an hour is going to risk their life detaining someone with a video camera? This whole thing is stupid. If pirates are going to get video...they're going to do it. The simple act of videotaping a screen (no matter where it is) - it's so easy and anyone can do it. Therefore, it's totally stupid to have theater employee's become security guards. It's like telling a waitress to detain a smoker in a non-smoking diner! You think some waitress wants to deal with that problem? She'd get killed detaining anyone. The same goes for someone videotaping at a theater...if the person shooting video knows the crime is mandatory jail time...come on! They will know exactly the ramifications because you'd have to be a moron (even more of a moron then the people coming up with this law) not to know going in their armed with a videocamera. I think by now everyone knows how illegal it is..

If I were a theater employee I'd ask what the Hell the owners plan to do when the criminal shoots them...or stabs them or even punches their lights out. The owners are going to say tough sh*t...and point to some small print on their employee manual that says something like, "We are not responsible for anything that happens between you and a customer when their is a physical altercation."

You know what's really moronic? The studios who make these films send the film canisiters to theater via regular shipping services (UPS etc). I worked at a local indie theater that played first run movies too. The canisters were sometimes left at the door...in plain view of anyone walking outside on a busy street. Most of the time the door was unlocked! Anyone could reach in and take away the latest blockbuster that just came out that weekend. It's totally insane...the movie studios should start with themselves first and then work their way down the food chain. They are the ones sending new 35mm films in the damn mail every week! I had to grab the canisters and get them ready for projecting asap everytime I went to work...always thinking how insanely stupid it was that they were left out in the open before I got there.

<<<-- Originally posted by Boyd Ostroff : Do you have another link to an article about this, or the name/number of the law so we could read about it without having to signup for yet another annoying website that will send us spam? ;-) -->>>

videobusiness.com is spam free, I have been a member for a while now. Just make sure you uncheck the box that gives them permission to send you e-mail. It's also a superb source of DVD industry news. Lately I've been thinking, though, maybe piracy isn't all that bad. Maybe piracy is the one thing that keeps Hollywood in check with their outrageous budgets. I would imagine that if it weren’t for piracy, things would just go up and up and up… But piracy does have a bad effect on the little guy...like me :(

I really wonder how many people don't buy the dvd or go see the movie because they downloaded the version that was shot by someone holding a camcorder in a movie theatre?

The only thing that happens is it gives a chance for you to watch the movie again between the time its in the theatres and the time when it gets to dvd.

The quality is so bad I can't even stand to watch one of them anyways.

This new law is a joke, though, because theaters don't even care about stopping people from sneaking into one screening to the next....if you can even call it sneaking at all....it's more like a cinema buffet, if anything.

.....other than "because they can" I never did get this bootleg piracy thing. Viewing a crummy rip-off to "save" a few dollars denigrates the experience; which is the point of the movie in the first place. Those satisfied with such inferior products seem so mentally and emotionally handicapped to find that appealing.
Besides the hardcore few fans for nostalgia purposes of a live performance of say, a concert; is there THAT much of a market for illogical scams??????
(At least a fake Rolex will still tell the correct time and so may be an enduring value, but a crappy (movie) reproduction will ALWAYS be still just a CRAPPY reproduction!!!!)

This crime is soooo low on the food chain. I'm embarrassed that the law has even been passed.

Note to all theater employees. Listen to Chris. If you are the only thing that seperates freedom from 3-5 in Leavenworth I fear for your safety.

Hollywood and the Feds are a little too close IMO.

Howdy from Texas,

<< What moron making $5.50 an hour is going to risk their life detaining someone with a video camera? >>

What I want to know is, what kind of moron would pay to watch the resulting video? With the boomy, echoing soundtrack...

Murph, how many times did you use the word "moron" in your post anyway? ;-)

Thanks for the great link, Glenn! From a former projectionist,

Re: Wow, this is stupid
 

<<<-- Originally posted by Christopher C. Murphy : What moron making $5.50 an hour is going to risk their life detaining someone with a video camera? -->>>


Murph, you'd be surprised...
Lots.

They key word is "moron".

The theater employees will call the police.

The moron video taping the movie will get an unpleasant surprise sometime during the show. And if the moron taping the movie is dumb enough to risk 15 to 20 years for fighting a cop, then....

hehehe

I do tend to repeat myself...what a "moron" I am!

All anyone needs to do is step in front of the person's camcorder a couple of times during the most intense parts of the movie and the video will be useless. No?

For pirating purposes I'd say it's still useful. It's just sad that people do that in the first place. It's still cheap entertainment to see a movie in the theater...considering the amount of cash spent to make it.

I think this is a good idea, provided the cinema has it's own actualy trained na qualified security guards. I don't know what it's like in other cities/countries, but in Perth quiet a few of the cinemas have hired guards...but maybe that's because most of the fights happen at the cinema, sadly.

Elliot, it must be all those beer farts. They really annoy some people. Just stop serving beer at the movies in OZ and your troubles will move else where. hehehe.

What's next?

A short pirate or kid could wear a fake styrofoam or latex head with 2 camcorders inside, one in each eyeball socket. That'll get them 2 bad copies of the movie!!!!

Ushers carrying flashlights with (EMP) Electro Magnetic Pulse guns to disable camcorders, cell phones & wrist watch cams?

Maybe if theatres lowered popcorn prices people might start going back to movie theatres. Either that, or Hollywood has to make better movies ! :)

"Either that, or Hollywood has to make better movies ! :)"

Oh, yeah, like that's gonna happen!

I went to to the movies for the first time in awhile last weekend. 9.25 US to get in, plus a medium popcorn and large drink came to and addtional 10.00.
I could have waited and got the DVD at BestBuy for the same price. I could wait until NetFlix has it and see it for less than 1.00. (14.95 a month, renting 15 movies a month....)

I have a nice HT, not high end, but nice enough to make it a good experience. In fact most movies coming out I'll wait for the DVD and rent or buy. I would love to go and see more on the big screen but it's gotten too expensive.

I will see Star Wars and Hitchhiker though.

Movies are not cheap entertainment anymore, relative to other options. It's pure price gouging.

If I put in the bank all the money I would spend going to all the movies I wanted to see. I could make monthly payments on a large high quality RPTV, big enough that it would mimic the experience of sitting in the back 3rd of a theater.

I'd like to weigh in here as well. I worked for movie theaters for 7 years (note: i'm not particularly proud of that fact) and did every thing from popcorn pusher to projection (note projection was definitely the better job) Murph (our whoever said it) is right no normal person paying nothing is going to risk getting shot for 5.50 an hour but then why would people work at gas stations, or liquer stores. And speaking as a movie theater vetran, I'll say in 7 years there were very few "normal" people working there.

Now perhaps theaters are becoming too costly to be effective but you can blame hollywood for that not the theaters. "I can't tell you how many times I heard 10 dollars (or 7 or 5) that's too expensive!" "but julia roberts totally deserves 10 million a movie." what do you think justifies that expense?

Back on topic there's people out there who will pay to have bootlegs, that's jsut the way things are, and who stops the theater employees when they video tape the screen. Or what about the academy members and their screeners. The whole system is horrible. How much money does "pirating" cost hollywood?

if you want to see cheap movies go watch them at a dollar theater, it's cheaper then a bootleg and the quality id usually better.

The and if the theaters are anything like the ones I worked at first person who gets in an ultrication with a theater employee will probably have more things to worry about then 3-5 years in jail...

off soap box

I also think it has become to expensive, going to the cinema (note: I don't download movies, exept in the few cases if I already seen them in theaters, and am going to buy them on dvd, and just want to see them another time before they release it on dvd). And I don't think it's Hollywood to blame, but theaters themselves.
If you go to little theaters, showing alternative movies, the price is 5 euros, in comparison to 8 euros in the big theatres showing the blockbusters.
Some theatres then already count 6 tp 7 euro for a coke and a popcorn alone, and some theatres (I don't notice this in Belgium, but I read there are a couple in The Netherlands) even ask money for parking your car!

For that money, many times you can just buy 2 or three dvd's (if you find them somewhere cheaply)... I know the big screen and big sound is fantastic, but I read a news article, that said it was proven going to the movies has become 44 % more expensive in the last year! (that was from The Netherlands, but I think it's comparable for the US too, no?)

In that case, I go very few times to little theatres and just wait for the dvd from many other movies instead of going to the cinema...