Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: LA police use night vision binoculars to catch camcorder pirates!

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Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 04-15-2004, 06:59 AM:

quote:
Two arrests under camcorder law

Los Angeles police have made the first arrests under a new law targeting pirates who use camcorders in cinemas. Ruben Centero Moreno, 34, was arrested after the projectionist used night vision goggles to spot video cameras.

And Min Jae Joun, 28, was arrested on suspicion of recording a screening of The Passion of the Christ on 10 April. Jack Valenti, president of the Motion Picture Association of America, said he hoped it would "send a clear signal such crimes will not be tolerated". "In both cases, the LAPD's fine work would not have occurred without the swift actions of the employees of Pacific Theatres," he told the Hollywood Reporter magazine.

Federal authorities estimate the illegal copying of films costs the entertainment industry as much as $3bn (£1.7bn) a year. The MPAA has established a nationwide telephone hotline for cinema employees to report violations. Studios and cinemas are also investing in metal detectors and night-vision goggles.

Mr Moreno was arrested on 12 April after a screening of The Alamo at the Pacific Winnetka Theatre in the Chatsworth area. No hearing date has yet been set. Mr Joun was arrested after another audience member complained about a red light on a camcorder at the Pacific Theatre at the Grove. He was released on bail and ordered to appear at a hearing on 5 May. If convicted, both men face up to 12 months in jail.

The California anti-camcorder law, which came into force on 1 January, makes it an offence to take a camcorder into a cinema with the intent of taping a movie. Similar laws are on the statute books in nine other US states and the District of Columbia.

The new laws enable local authorities to act on offences that would normally be considered violations of federal copyright law. The MPAA claims that between May 2002 and May 2003, over 50 major movie titles were "stolen" by camcording before their US cinema release. MPAA spokesman Matthew Grossman said many illegal recordings were obtained by people who sneaked into advance screenings held for film critics.

The latest arrests follow that of Chicago resident Russell Sprague, who pleaded guilty to copyright infringement earlier this week after being charged of illegally copying movie preview tapes, known as screeners. The 51-year-old faces up to three years in prison for creating pirate copies of films including Mystic River, Kill Bill Volume I and Seabiscuit. But his sentencing has been postponed for six months to allow the movie studios to calculate the losses incurred.

Link to story.

Posted by John Pytlak (Member # 331) on 04-15-2004, 09:09 AM:

At the ShoWest Anti-Piracy seminar, it was announced that NATO and the MPAA have been very successful in getting states to enact laws making use of cameras to copy movies in a theatre a criminal offence. Although copyright laws do exist, local police are not always able to make an arrest for copyright violation, so specific state and local laws prohibiting use of cameras in a theatre are needed.

States that already have laws include CA, NY, PA, WI, and OH. Laws are pending in TN, WA, VA, and other states.

Reward programs for employees and audience members who report piracy attempts leading to convictions also are being successfully used to catch pirates.

Posted by Floyd Justin Newton (Member # 1316) on 04-19-2004, 07:26 AM:

GOOD!!!!!

fjn
Local 294 Ret.

Posted by Peter Hall (Member # 695) on 04-19-2004, 07:48 AM:

It is good that California has got it's burglary, mugging, gun related and other nasty crimes sorted to such an extent that the police can concentrate on such matters. Really, I would rather see a cop in the carpark looking after my car than in the cinemas dealing with copyright issues. We

Posted by John Pytlak (Member # 331) on 04-19-2004, 10:52 AM:

AFAIK, theatre anti-piracy security is usually done by private security firms, and not public/government police forces. Of course, the police actually make the arrest when someone is caught by the private security.

Posted by Michael Barry (Member # 237) on 04-19-2004, 12:11 PM:

I have trouble understanding the motivation of anyone who would want to buy a pirated copy of a movie in the first place, let alone a copy that has been videotaped from a theatre screen.

Help me out here...is it the price? A studio-released DVD costs around $20. Is this really so unreasonable that there is a still a market for piracy?

Or is it the timing? Surely everyone knows that an official DVD of just about every movie becomes available soon enough - or isn't soon enough soon enough?

I'm guessing 'bragging rights' have something to do with it. If someone has a movie on DVD before the actual DVD has been released, then this gives them something to tell their friends or something. But when the official DVD comes out, then those camcorder-sourced DVD discs are going to seem pretty irrelevant, aren't they?

So...what's the appeal? Anyone?

Posted by John Pytlak (Member # 331) on 04-19-2004, 01:04 PM:

I think it's "bragging rights". There are also some areas of the world where "legitimate" copies take months to reach theatres or home video, and others where they never are officially available (or are heavily censored).

Posted by Paul Mayer (Member # 355) on 04-19-2004, 01:31 PM:

That, and the idea that one is "sticking it" to rich people who have more than one does. Just yesterday I overheard a comment from a couple looking at DVDs in the local Best Buy, "Why would you pay for any of these? I can rip any of these to a VCD at home for free!"

Indeed, why pay for it when you can get it for free? That seems to be the prevailing attitude these days, especially within the prime movie-going and music-consuming demographic.

Posted by Rob Butler (Member # 2274) on 04-19-2004, 04:14 PM:

indeed, why pay to see a movie on a giant screen with superb audio when you can download it for free and watch it in an un-godly low quality 4"x5" window on your computer screen?

Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 04-20-2004, 02:18 AM:

quote:
There are also some areas of the world where "legitimate" copies take months to reach theatres or home video, and others where they never are officially available (or are heavily censored).

Yes, but you would have thought that the Internet would have reduced that problem significantly.

I remember browsing a video shop in Paris during a visit in the late '90s (just after the Channel Tunnel fire, so it would have been '96 or '97), and asking an assistant if they had copies of one or two French films which were totally unavailable in the UK. She didn't; but upon hearing my English accent pointed out that she did have A Clockwork Orange. I declined the offer, saying that I wasn't much of a Kubrick fan. She explained that the reason she'd mentioned it was that for some reason, she sold around 50 copies of that video per week, almost all of them to English tourists. The French distributor had even released it on PAL VHS and without French subtitles to meet the demand.

I explained to her that this was probably because of Kubrick's self-imposed ban on the film, which he could only impose in the UK because he only controlled the UK rights. Add to that a large number of teenagers and students for whom the ultimate 'bragging right' was to have seen - or even better, own a copy of - this film, and she had a nice little business going there.

The point of this anecdote is that in the western world at least, censorship need not be an incitement to piracy. Probably around half my DVD collection is imported from abroad, most of them ordered through Amazon or Facets. In some cases, this was simply because the US versions were cheaper than the British ones, had better extras, or were better transfers (e.g. not panned and scanned).

Granted, you would probably have a bit more trouble sitting at your PC in downtown Tehran trying to order a copy of The Sum of All Fears, but the anti-piracy drive we're talking about is taking place in California, not some backward Islamic dictatorship.

Posted by Daryl C. W. O'Shea (Member # 1303) on 04-20-2004, 02:20 AM:

quote: Leo
she did have A Clockwork Orange. I declined the offer, saying that I wasn't much of a Kubrick fan.

See Phil! I'm not the only one that's not insane.

Posted by Phil Hill (Member # 371) on 04-20-2004, 03:07 AM:

Daryl, my official comment is: I have NO comment other than perhaps I should start a "Daryl is a Jerk" thread.

BTW: That's a double negative... YOU ARE INSANE! But I LUV you anyway! Hugs!

>>> Phil

Posted by Daryl C. W. O'Shea (Member # 1303) on 04-20-2004, 06:34 PM:

No it's not. Dork.