Hollywood is afraid that the US is turning into a world where no intellectual property is safe. They fear a world where everything is immediately copied and sold for less. While the US is actually quite far away from such a world, it sounds like a typical description of intellectual property in China (NY Times article). Moviemakers are trying to combat this by forcing patrons to completely empty their pockets and get rid of jewelry (that might have hidden pinpoint cameras, after all). I'm afraid, of course, that Hollywood is going to start getting some ideas from this sort of crackdown. Get ready to be strip searched the next time you want to see a movie. As for the situation in China, perhaps the movie theaters should look into improving the overall experience in order to make people willing to pay for the whole experience - whether or not there's a bootleg DVD already available.