Hollywood attacks Calgary
p2pnet news | MPAA News:- Movie shows in Canada could be about to take on a whole new look, and you can forget ushers with night-vision goggles.
It’ll start before you even get inside the cinema.
Instead of waiting for tickets, you may soon be waiting to be searched, just like at airports and other high risk areas, maybe with dog handlers with MPAA canine sniffers trained to detect hidden camcorders patrolling lineups.
They could use Lucky and Flo as models.
Because while Hollywood is reporting its largest-ever earnings, in the same breath it claims it’s being ruined by camcording pirates, with Canada at the top of the list of purported safe havens.
But “far from being the Number One piracy country, Canada, is way down the list at Number 13, says Havocscope,” I reported in May, going on:
The leading piracy country is America, which is principally behind the charges being levelled at Canada.
In the second position is Japan, and number three is, no big surprise, China.
But, using the likes of US ambassador to Canada David Wilkins and Hollywood friendly senators Dianne Feinstein and John Cornyn as their lobbyists, Time Warner, Viacom, Fox, Sony, NBC Universal and Disney were able to cow the weak-kneed George W. Harper government into passing new ‘anti-piracy’ legislation.
And the laws were introduced a mere two days after California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger had a tet-a-tet with Harper.
Montréal used the city for camcording pirates.
Not any more, it would seem.
Now it’s Calgary.
“Metal detectors and night-vision goggles are turning up in Calgary movie theatres,” says the CBC.
How come? According to Serge Corriveau, an employee of MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) clone the Canadian Motion Picture Distributors Association, “the city has become, “a major source for pirated films recorded in the theatre using camcorders or cellphones,” says the story.
“Moviegoer Sharanpal Ruprai recently went to an advance screening of the film Becoming Jane where security staff took cellphones and laptop computers from ticket-holders,” says the story, quoting her as stating:
They were really checking, and one guy seemed to have a metal detector. Halfway through the movie, I looked up and [saw] another security guard had what seemed to be night-vision goggles. He was sort of scanning the audience for cellphones or cameras, that sort of thing.
Ruprai should perhaps take a leaf out of the book opened by Julie Berthiaume in Montréal.
She had a similar experience and is after a local movie theatre, or as Dave on Darkly Dreaming summed it up:
Guzzo Cinema, those bastages who love to search through your stuff because we the paying crim— customers are all pirates who want to camcord movies in theaters, is getting his ASS SUED.
Way back in 2004, “it won’t be long before the body-cavity search becomes a regular part of the preview experience – who knows what kind of recording equipment someone might have ‘accidentally’ fallen on before the movie?” – said a jaundiced patron.
“We suggest viewers learn some anal Kegel exercises to prepare for this inevitability, with a self-administered, rubber glove dry-run in between sets.”
Meanwhile, we’re waiting for the first Canadian child to be arrested by police acting for Hollywood.
Jon newton – p2pnet
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August 9th, 2007 at 12:40 pm
“the city has become, “a major source for pirated films recorded in the theatre using camcorders or cellphones,” says the story.
Do they seriously expect us to believe that? Nobody pirates a movie using a cell phone.
This is complete BS. Yet more examples of Hollywood’s lies, scare tactics, and 100% untrue propaganda. At this rate, they’re going to lose their entire business within a few years, and they’ll have nobody to blame but themselves for alienating and deserting their consumers.
IDIOTS!!!!!
August 9th, 2007 at 1:53 pm
Hollydud is certainly reducing the attractiveness of going to the movies and at the same time lowering “the theater experience” as fast as they can it seems.
The quality of a camcorded movie leaves more to be desired than it is worth. I would not waste the bandwidth on one so their fears of what cam movies do in damage is far over blown.
The stats released on who is the paramount piracy danger changes from day to day, depending on where they decide is their focus of the moment. It ignores reality and where the real problem is in favor of generating false numbers to influance where ever they have some sort of legal pressure or the attempt of influancing politicians to favor their side when a bill is emminent for consideration that they are concerned with.
They long ago reduced the “Silver Screen” and it’s surrounding magic to merely more BS one has to put up with to pay someone for a couple of hours of entertainment. It is one of the main reasons that rentals have done so well. It is to say that the public is voting with it’s pocketbook where the value is as far as experience and convience is. The more they pile on the hassels and hoops they expect their customers to go through, the less they will have as customers.
As it is, I already resent the assumption that every viewer is a theif. They are digging their own graves financially and I personally welcome the thought images it brings with that mental picture. Maybe whatever phenoix arises from the ashes might be better attuned to their customer base.
August 9th, 2007 at 9:35 pm
I’m sure this has never occured to Hollywood, but is it possible that maybe, just maybe, the solution to poor box office revenue is to offer the consumers something better? They’re so arrogantly misguided by their pathetic claims that it’s all due to piracy, but it clearly isn’t. As the previous comment pointed out, camcorded movies look like shit. Do they honestly believe anyone’s going to put up with searching for the right torrent, waiting for the download to finish, and then end up with a mediocre product just to save ten bucks? They’re losing money because:
1) The majority of new movies are terrible, low-brow, and unoriginal.
2) The cinema experience sucks, and they’re making it worse and worse by the day.
It’s clearly not just about money. They’ve become so obsessed with commercialism and market domination, they’ve forgotten what making movies is all about. Movies are supposed to entertain, and cinemas are supposed to create a friendly, welcoming environment in which to enjoy oneself and be entertained. Thanks to Hollywood’s sleazy business practice, modern films and cinemas don’t satisfy either demand.
August 10th, 2007 at 4:43 am
Well,if those big corporate mafia’s think that they can put us into submission,i would say go to hell **AA’s.
First i would never let a cinema employee search through my stuff for cam or cell phone wathever.If they insist,just scream as loud as you can asking for the manager to refund you because you will not accept being treated like a f*cking criminal.Of course they will wait until you have paid your tickets before searching. Try to influence others in the cinema to understand that they cannot threat you like criminals.
Anyway,there is only about 10 good movies a year and i am very optimistic cause i would say only 5 are good.,all the reste is pure crap.Now i am going less often to the cinema,juste going when there is a blockbuster that i LIKE.
I live in Montreal where is the cinema GUZZO (Quebec) and believe me i will NEVER go back there because they were searching trough people’s stuff before entering the cinema.I will go in other cinema that just dont treath me like a criminal.
It would be ironic if that the cinema GUZZO was owned by Italian mafia’s and claimaing that they have been stolen by there customer.
Makes me remember that a couple of years ago,cinema Guzzo add problems with some good old friends putting bombs at there cinema.
Sarcasm mode ON
Its probably because Guzzo are very very nice people….
Sarcasm mode OFF
August 12th, 2007 at 9:23 am
So, exactly where is the country of “America?”