MPAA nails camcorder ‘pirates’
p2pnet.net News:- It looks like the MPAA has started its own version of the RIAA’s sue em all campaign, using night vision goggles and metal detectors instead of subpoenas.
“Three moviegoers were caught recording the recently released disaster flick ‘The Day After Tomorrow’ with handheld video cameras in U.S. and Canadian theaters, the Motion Picture Association of America said on Thursday,” states a Reuters report here, continuing:
“Two of the purported camcorder pirates were arrested in theaters in Los Angeles and Canada over the weekend trying to record the 20th Century Fox movie on digital video recorders for resale, and a third fled a Los Angeles theater when he was approached by theater personnel, the MPAA said.”
Did either of the ‘pirates’ actually say they were going to re-sell their efforts, or is Reuters parroting an MPAA comment?
Camcording is a misdemeanor in California and, “copies then show up as pirated optical discs sold at street markets around the world long before the films are released on DVD,” says Reuters in another unsupported blanket statement
“More than 52 million illegal discs were seized around the world in 2003, according to the MPAA, the leading U.S. film studio trade group.”
The implication is that these 52 million illegal discs were all camcorder copies. But is it possible that a significant proportion of them, if not the bulk, were mass-produced by hard-core counterfeiters – professional criminals who duplicate movies and music for resale on street-corners and blackmarkets?
But we’ll bet most of the ‘criminals’ nailed by the MPAA and their spectral staff will be teens and younger.
Camcording movies is definitely not on. But Sony (one of the people complaining about p2p file sharing in both the audio and video arenas) makes and sells extremely sophisticated camcorders (not to mention CD and DVD burners) specifically designed to be irresistible.
And as we speak, Sony, et al, are developing high-res, handheld digital AVID (audio/video) players clearly and plainly targetting teens and younger as the principal buyers.
There are plenty of models for using the Net as an effective, economical and cool (an extremely important marketing factor) sales and delivery system for movies and music both. And not at all incidentally, using it as a solution instead of making it the problem would dramatically reduce ‘piracy’.
Where there’s a will there’s a way – unless, of course, you happen to be the corporate entertainment industry.
Anyway, MPAA director John Malcolm is quoted as saying the industry has vowed to vigorously prosecute video pirates, “and has encouraged theater owners to use metal detectors and night-vision goggles to secure screenings”.
In the meanwhile, in UK, night-vision sights have been sent to every outlet in the country showing the new Harry Potter film, and staff have been told to spend every minute of the movie scanning for pirates.
June 4th, 2004 at 3:59 pm
I agree with a lot of what you write, but this ‘article’ is complete crap. Are you actually trying to claim that these peolpe were using camcorders to film the movies for personal use? Give me a break.
June 4th, 2004 at 4:33 pm
The Day after tomorrow has been available online for over a week already but it will still generate well over $100 million.
June 4th, 2004 at 7:47 pm
BS, not everyone who brings a camcorder to a film or some recording device wants to make money off it, by becoming the next bin laden making terrorist money with stolen ‘booty’ (nothing was actually stolen actually, oh the thought of it was stolen, but lets talk about patents an intellectual property shall we?) I mean if a kid wants to record 5 minutes of a good shot to show to his mom or make some music video out of it cuz its a cool scene, why the bloody hell not let the kid do that. I can easily see me wanting to bring a camcorder to shoot that 30 second or 10 minute action scene czu its so soo cool i wanna make a home music video out of it or something or show it my friends how cool the movie was that they should go see it.
But we all know that this kinda stuff steals the poor bread out of the poor starving actors mouths. But I dont remember the last news camera covering some movie actor who was living in a box out in the hood, cursing the P2P’s name… Just like napster didnt contribute to an increased sales in music due to more product awareness…
June 4th, 2004 at 10:44 pm
“Are you actually trying to claim that these peolpe were using camcorders to film the movies for personal use?”
Are you saying that is impossible? IMHO I don’t think the story was trying make a blanket claim.
June 7th, 2004 at 5:10 pm
first off im not a coward my name is Mikay D know all over the net but any way u can do what ever u want to us downloaders but lets be real u cant beat technology it just anit gone happen u figure out one way to stop us and well figure out three ways around the u guys do u see whats going on u cant stop it peace movies are 8.50 where im from and thats just to dame much for a stupid movie that was hyped up i see it on bootleg before i see it in the theaters