Remembering the Alamo
p2pnet.net News:- You’re in California sitting comfortably in your favourite movie house, popcorn in hand and watching the Alamo (athough from many reports, you’re probably wasting your money : )
All of a sudden, a trio of MPAA Security Troops in full body armour swoop on the guy sitting in front of you and carry him away, kicking and struggling.
He’d been using his Handy Home Video Cam to make his own movie of the movie and other MSTs wearing night-vision goggles had spotted him.
“Los Angeles police have made the first arrests under a new law targeting pirates who use camcorders in cinemas,” says a BBC story here, continuing:
“Ruben Centero Moreno, 34, was arrested after the projectionist used night vision goggles to spot video cameras.”
Jack Valenti, on his way out as president of the MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America), said he hoped it would “send a clear signal such crimes will not be tolerated,” says the Beeb story.
It’s not much of a surprise, really.
Valenti and others are trying to tell the world at large the online piracy is ruining the movie business. However, he, and they, said the same thing about the player piano. And audio tape recorders. And so on.
The reality is: the movie studios are in much the same shape as the recording industry. That’s to say instead of embracing the new digital technologies and sitting down with the commercial p2p companies to find ways to make the Net work for everyone, they’re trying to bend the applications to their will and crush the p2p network operators.
In the meanwhile, the MPAA has a dedicated phone hotline so cinema employees can report ‘crimes’ and studios and cinemas are also “investing in metal detectors and night-vision goggles,” says the BBC, adding:
“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.”
April 15th, 2004 at 8:27 pm
“All of a sudden, a trio of MPAA Security Troops in full body armour swoop on the guy sitting in front of you and carry him away, kicking and struggling.”
Dramatizing much? That’s hardly how it happened. Local police were there with the MPAA cronies, and made the confrontation.
This place is losing it’s credibility, which is a shame since you’re trying to discredit the RIAA/MPAA.
These business crooks do plenty of unscrupulous things on their own, you don’t need to make things up.