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This topic comprises 4 pages: 1 2 3 4
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Author
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Topic: AMC calls FBI to arrest a Google Glass user
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Marcel Birgelen
Film God
Posts: 3357
From: Maastricht, Limburg, Netherlands
Registered: Feb 2012
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posted 01-24-2014 12:23 AM
quote: Edward Havens
Let's remember, we've only heard one side of this story, from a disgruntled patron, and those of us who have worked in this industry any amount of time know a disgruntled patron will always tell a story that make themselves look completely innocent, removing any information that might make them look bad.
Well, the thing is, the other side ain't talking, they're also not denying what he is saying. Besides acknowledging that "something happened", they keep their mouths shut.
Also, The Google Glass is as of now, not capable of recording a whole feature length movie. It also gets very hot when you do record stuff for a prolonged time.
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Terry Lynn-Stevens
Phenomenal Film Handler
Posts: 1081
From: Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Registered: Dec 2012
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posted 01-24-2014 01:24 AM
quote: Edward Havens
Let's remember, we've only heard one side of this story, from a disgruntled patron, and those of us who have worked in this industry any amount of time know a disgruntled patron will always tell a story that make themselves look completely innocent, removing any information that might make them look bad.
I am glad someone on here understands that there are two sides to every story.
quote: Marcel Birgelen
Well, the thing is, the other side ain't talking, they're also not denying what he is saying. Besides acknowledging that "something happened", they keep their mouths shut
The other side (authorities) did release a statement that this individual voluntarily answered questions with authorities.
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Marcel Birgelen
Film God
Posts: 3357
From: Maastricht, Limburg, Netherlands
Registered: Feb 2012
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posted 01-24-2014 02:35 AM
quote: Terry Lynn-Stevens
The other side (authorities) did release a statement that this individual voluntarily answered questions with authorities.
Which doesn't contradict anything of what the "victim" said and I summarized to: "something happened".
Whereas the "victim" gives an in depth account of what happened, the other side does only acknowledge that there was an "incident", they do also not deny his story.
I'm actually pretty sure that what the "victim" said happened more or less the way he described it, it has been picked up by quite a lot of news outlets too. Maybe he added a little drama to it, but I don't see why he would make this story up, the consequences of doing so could also be "interesting" and this guy doesn't strike me as being generally stupid.
To me, this sounds like the classical case of a few "authority" figures getting all excited at the prospect of catching some kind of criminal or maybe even uncover some kind of big-time piracy ring. And as usually, the people involved are complete amateurs in any regard, a Google Glass is totally useless to capture a movie in a theater. Not only is it not capable of recording a whole feature, nobody is going to hold his/her head still for the entire length of a movie.
Also, in the mean time, the MPAA also forgets that the only reason they still get paid is because people actually still pay to see a movie...
Ah... and this whole "cam hunt" is all nice and dandy, but do they really still consider those people that watch some shitty recording made in a theater a lost sale?
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Edward Havens
Jedi Master Film Handler
Posts: 614
From: Los Angeles, CA
Registered: Mar 2008
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posted 01-24-2014 07:49 AM
I never said or suggested the gentleman was making the whole thing up. We all know there was an incident. I'm simply saying my gut, based on working in exhibition for twenty years, feels his story isn't quite 100% accurate. And I will now also say I suspect he is making suppositions based on assumptions and/or incorrect information.
I've dealt with a couple of pirating incidents in my career. Once in the heart of the second largest metropolitan area in the United States, the other at a theatre in a area not unlike the area where the incident occured, about an hour outside the sixth largest metropolitan area in the United States. Neither time did multiple members of the FBI, DHS or any other federal goverment office descend on my theatre like I just reported the spotting of a known suspected terrorist. Both times, my singular security officer escorted me in to the theatre, where I politely asked the guest in question to step in to the lobby for a moment, where the issue was dealt with calmly, rationallly and respectfully. Both times, the guest claimed they were unaware of the state and federal laws concerning what they were doing, and both times, the guests willingly deleted the materials in question without any force or coercion. Never once did I or the security guard make personal contact with the guest or their personal property. Why? Because that is how we were trained to handle situations like this. I spoken with friends and others who work for all the major exhibitors, and through all the companies they work for, not one of them has been trained to handle potential issues of piracy the way this one was handled. Which leads me to believe there are other issues at play that have not come out yet.
(Of course, I need to say that I speak solely for myself and not as a representative of any company I work for. I have no knowledge of the situation outside of what I've read here and elsewhere. I just think there's a rush to judgment in part because of the lack of a complete story, as well as some personal feelings towards the company who operates the theatre where this incident happened.)
Personally, I find the whole idea of Google Glass to be silly, and some of its selling points prove against one of major arguments about this case. One of the things you can do with Google Glass is have an app on it to keep track of your golf score along with course data and accurate pin distance. Forgetting for a moment that golf is a dumb "game" that is a waste of space, golf is a "sport" that takes three to four hours to complete a proper 18 hole course. So if the unit overheats when recording or streaming too much video to the point the Glass XE12 update last month had to add an overheat warning to the OS, how is a golfer expected to play using that app on their unit if it's going to overheat their unit multiple times during play? But then, I wouldn't spend $1,500 on a teeny tiny screen near my eye that could look up recipes for me on text that can only have a sentence or two on screen at any given time.
And Terry, or Tom or whomever you really are... please don't jump on my bandwagon. Make your own points, defend your own position. I can flail just fine on my own, thank you very much.
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Marcel Birgelen
Film God
Posts: 3357
From: Maastricht, Limburg, Netherlands
Registered: Feb 2012
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posted 01-24-2014 05:02 PM
Although this whole Google Glass thing is still in it's infancy, my opinion roughly matches yours. I would also like to add that I consider those things yet another step backwards regarding privacy. But that's probably another discussion.
What you're describing sounds like a more reasonable way of dealing with those kinds of incidents and most of them will probably also be handled that way. There was most likely something special going on here.
It's just a guess, but it will probably just boil down to something rather simple:
One or more recent "high profile" leaks were traced back to this particular location via the invisible watermark in the content, or maybe they did some real forensic work. This would also match with at least one of the articles that stated that there have been previous incidents regarding piracy at this very theater.
So, this theater was probably already under close watch by both the MPAA and the FBI. Since this Jack Ryan movie was among last weeks most important releases, they probably kept an extra eye on this particular movie. They must have hoped their pirate would be stupid enough to hit again.
Once they spotted somebody with a suspect device on his head, they were quite sure they had found "their man". This would also perfectly explain that they didn't ask him to remove this device before he walked into the auditorium, which somebody must have noticed and why they only pulled them out after he had already seen half the movie, because they needed the evidence...
Just as a reminder, this is just a figment of my imagination, the truth is out there, somewhere...
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Leo Enticknap
Film God
Posts: 7474
From: Loma Linda, CA
Registered: Jul 2000
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posted 01-27-2014 12:46 PM
quote: Marcel Birgelen
Although this whole Google Glass thing is still in it's infancy, my opinion roughly matches yours. I would also like to add that I consider those things yet another step backwards regarding privacy. But that's probably another discussion.
At the risk of going OT slightly, agreed. The broader but related point is that the last few years have seen a big growth in the use of personal recording devices (initially smartphones, but more recently worn devices such as spectacles and watches), and that the quality and length of the recordings these things can make has increased.
Along with this, I've noticed a parallel increase in attempts to prevent their use in both public and private places. Notices in museums, airports, restaurants, railway stations etc. stating that photography is not allowed are increasingly common - five years ago, they were virtually unheard of. There is even a "no photography" notice on the entrance door to my local Stater Bros. supermarket! News stories reporting police attempts to seize recording devices from people on the public street in cases where they have absolutely no legal right to do so, are also becoming more and more regular. And the issue has emerged in reverse, too: a couple of years ago there was a case in which the CCTV operator for a city council made a mashup video showing various acts of moronic driving and put it on YouTube, and shortly thereafter became the subject of a criminal complaint by one of the drivers under that country's privacy laws.
It seems to me that the fundamental problem is that both privacy/public order law regulating the use of recording devices in public places, and copyright law regulating what can and cannot be done with the resulting recordings, simply has not caught up with the reality of what this technology can now do. Recording movies in theatres is still a relatively clear-cut case (except, as in the incident which sparked this thread, when no recording was taking place at all), but the broader issue is a legal and ethical mess.
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Daniel Schulz
Master Film Handler
Posts: 387
From: Los Angeles, CA USA
Registered: Sep 2003
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posted 01-31-2014 05:31 AM
I have a theory about this case - pure speculation on my part, I have no specific knowledge of this incident. But, I do know that one aspect of the MPAA's anti-piracy measures is the building of a case over time - the watermarking of DCPs means that pirated audio or video can be traced to a specific auditorium. Obviously you don't know which patron did the capture, but you can identify that a sound recording or video capture was made in Auditorium 12 of Cinema XYZ. Often piracy rings use the same individual for multiple movies - so law enforcement, seeing the patterns, will "stake out" a location once they're confident they have a repeat offender - then the prosecution can show it's a case of a serial pirate deliberately making recordings for profit.
My theory is that in this case, the authorities and MPAA were on hand looking for a pirate that they knew had been there, and, thrown off by the Google Glass, nabbed the wrong guy. That would explain why the MPAA was around, and why there were so many law enforcement types on hand.
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Edward Havens
Jedi Master Film Handler
Posts: 614
From: Los Angeles, CA
Registered: Mar 2008
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posted 01-31-2014 02:09 PM
quote:
se over time - the watermarking of DCPs means that pirated audio or video can be traced to a specific auditorium. Obviously you don't know which patron did the capture, but you can identify that a sound recording or video capture was made in Auditorium 12 of Cinema XYZ.
The problems I have with this theory:
1) Watermarks wouldn't identify which screen a film is playing on. We get one DCP for the theatre, and then we put the DCP where we need it. Sometimes, we'll have the same "print" playing on every non-IMAX screen, in the case of premiere shows of movies like The Hunger Games or a Marvel movie.
2) Watermarked prints can end up in places not originally intended. I remember back in 2007, I got a call at home from my DM about our print of The Simpsons Movie already being online, even though we hadn't had our first show yet. As it turned out, the print with the watermark intended for my theatre in Los Angeles ended up back east, and that's where the copy was made.
3) Hard drives can be and are shared, sometimes between competitive theatres. I've had to borrow hard drives from my competition, when my hard drive was faulty, and I've had to loan my hard drives to my competition when theirs were faulty. If we both are using the same "print" of Captain America: The Winter Soldier and it ended up online, where did the taping actually come from?
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