Techdirt. Stories filed under "camcording"

EU Finally Realizes The Public Is Watching CETA: Softens Criminal Provisions For Copyright Infringement

Leigh Beadon — Wed, 7 Nov 2012 00:01:58 PST

Last month, through all of the secrecy shrouding the Canada-EU Trade Agreement (CETA), it was revealed that the treaty called for the same criminal copyright sanctions that European citizens widely rejected when those same sanctions showed up in ACTA. This was just as people feared, and those who noticed were furious that the EU would try to quietly undo the public's ACTA victory so quickly and brazenly. Of course, the reaction to CETA is so far nowhere near the critical mass that led to the ACTA protests — but it looks like the negotiators are afraid of recent history repeating, and may just have gotten the message that they can't do whatever they want behind the public's back. TechCentral reports (found via The 1709 Blog) that more recent CETA documents reveal a weakening of the ACTA-like criminal provisions. There has even been some stance-softening from pro-ACTA powerhouse Karel De Gucht:

...according to documents from the Cyprus Presidency of the EU seen by IDG News Service, the CETA text has been greatly watered down in order to avoid a similar outcome [to ACTA]. The intellectual property protection chapter is now understood to say that countries "may" provide for criminal procedures and penalties.

Even European Trade Commissioner Karel De Gucht, who pushed hard for the ACTA agreement, admits that changes must be made. "Since the negative vote of the European Parliament on ACTA, we have been changing the language obviously," he said in an interview with Vieuws.eu. "We should have no illusions, there are still a number of difficult issues to tackle."

Interestingly, though, there is still a strong push for CETA to include criminal sanctions for video recording in movie theaters... championed by Canadian negotiators. We've had a specific criminal law against recording a movie without permission of the theater owner in Canada since 2007 — a law that, like many of Canada's anti-piracy efforts, was primarily the result of U.S lobbying. This is typical of U.S. tactics when it comes to intellectual property law: push your closest friends and neighbors to adopt the strictest laws possible, then put pressure on international negotiations to export those laws around the globe and enshrine them as the norm. Thankfully, these latest leaked negotiation documents suggest that the EU is against Canada's proposal.

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Movie Studios Got Canadian Police To Arrest Movie Cammers As A Personal Favor

Mike Masnick — Thu, 5 May 2011 09:16:16 PDT

You may recall a few years ago when the movie industry went ballistic on Canada, because it didn't have a criminal law against recording movies in theaters. With the way the industry and its supporters were talking about it, you would think that this meant people could record a movie and upload it with no legal problems, but that simply wasn't true. There were still civil laws against such recording, and the industry could enforce those. On top of that, there were still plenty of existing laws against distribution. Yet, there was a big campaign claiming that camcording in Canada was where 40 to 70% of all the leaked movies came from. This number was made up out of thin air, and seemed obviously false when another campaign for similar laws in New York City then claimed that 50% of camcorded movies online came from NYC. Either way, the lies about the numbers were effective. The industry got its law criminalizing recording a movie.

We've already discussed the Wikileaks releases on US influence on Canadian copyright law, but TorrentFreak points us to a particularly interesting cable on the subject of camcording in Canada. It kicks off with the embassy admitting that the movie industry was now claiming that perhaps only 18% of camcorded movies came from Montreal, despite an earlier claim that it was 40%. Not surprisingly, the MPAA only made a big stink when it claimed the numbers were in that 40% to 70% range... and was pretty quiet about the revised number.

The cable goes on to note that Canadian law enforcement thought the whole thing was pretty silly, and didn't believe camcording was a big deal. Instead, they (quite reasonably!) felt that their efforts would be better focused on stopping things like counterfeit pharmaceuticals from circulating. Later in the report is the really scary part, where Canadian law enforcement (the Royal Canadian Mounted Police) admitted that a particular individual was arrested twice as a "personal favor" to the movie industry, despite his actions not actually breaking the law:

With regard to the arrest of the individual who had been pursued by the CMPDA, RCMP officers stated that they arrested the individual "as a personal favor" to a [movie industry] official, and that they did not view theater camcording as "a major issue."

The TorrentFreak article goes on to note the tragic details of the individual who was arrested -- again, despite not having broken any law, and apparently as a "personal favor" to someone in the movie industry:

The arrest triggered a chain of events which would lead to Adam, who had a history of depression, enduring a 14 month wait for any charges to be brought. He went on the run, was detained and eventually sentenced to jail. Adam began using drugs in jail to cope with his imprisonment and shortly after his release he tragically died of an overdose.

Nice "personal favor," huh?

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Hollywood Continues To Make Up Facts; AP Continues To Parrot Them

Mike Masnick — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 08:40:00 PDT

So, the MPAA's latest target for crackdowns on camcording appears to be India. You may remember that it went through a series of questionable claims about camcording in Canada and the US, where if you looked at the math, none of it added up. Apparently, the same thing is happening in India and the reporters at the Associated Press don't feel the need to investigate bogus Hollywood numbers. In this AP report about the MPAA's new "crackdown" on camcording in India, the reporter says that camcording is to blame for 90% of "pirated" movies:

A year in the making, the coalition to fight film piracy in India will work with movie theaters to crack down on camcorder piracy -- the source of 90 percent of all pirated DVDs -- with police to tighten enforcement, with Internet service providers to fight Internet piracy and with politicians to create more effective laws.

With these big professional reporters, you might think they would try to fact check a claim like "90% of all "pirated" DVDs come from camcorded movies." They might have trouble doing that, because the actual research suggests something quite different. A study that we wrote about a few years ago found otherwise. Specifically, it found that "77% appear to have been leaked originally by industry insiders."

But, of course, we need to save the AP, because they do real fact checking, right?

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Director Of New Moon Says Jailing Of Girl For Snippets Of Video Of His Movie Is 'Terribly Unfair'

Mike Masnick — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 09:29:00 PST

While he has no official say in the matter, it is still worth noting that Chris Weitz, the director of the movie New Moon has said that he thinks it's "terribly unfair" that a 22-year-old girl was jailed and now faces felony charges because her attempt to film some of her sister's birthday celebration caught less than four minutes of New Moon on her video camera (found via Copycense). Weitz is not the copyright holder and has no real say in what happens, but he does note that he's talking to Summit Entertainment, the studio who made the film, to let them know of his concerns, to see if there's anything that can be done.

Of course, what should be done is that the law should be changed so we don't have these ridiculous situations at all. And hopefully he would stand behind such a proposal. In the meantime, it's just yet another in a long line of examples of the law creating punishment that is way out of proportion with the "crime" when it comes to copyright and copying of content.

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How Do You Ban Someone From Posessing A 'Recording Device'?

Mike Masnick — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 10:12:56 PST

Michael Geist points out that a guy in Canada has been convicted under an anti-camcording law for recording a showing of the movie Dan in Real Life (I'm sure it was big on all the torrent sites). However, what struck me as interesting was the punishment handed out. The guy is on 24 months of probation, has to perform 120 hours of community service, is barred from entering a movie theater or associating with anyone involved in movie piracy. And... he is barred from owning any recording device.

That seems a bit broad. After all, most mobile phones these days are recording devices. Any computer is a recording device. An iPod can be a recording device. I can understand the thought process that went into such a ban, but it seems to overreach in its intended impact.

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So Why Did The MPAA Need New Camcording Laws Again?

Mike Masnick — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 02:20:38 PDT

You may recall that throughout 2007, the MPAA was on something of a worldwide campaign to get governments to pass new laws with stricter punishment for "camcording" movies. Of course, camcording is not really a big deal. The quality is bad, and DVD-quality releases find their way to pirates pretty quickly anyway. The "losses" from camcorded movies are minimal, though it didn't stop the MPAA from totally making up numbers that were clearly bogus. Each place they pressured to get new laws apparently represented some huge percentage of camcorded movies on the market, such that if you added them up, you were talking about well over 100%. Then, of course, there was the case where they claimed that anti-camcording laws in the US had wiped out piracy in the US. Of course, that was when they were pushing for such laws in Canada. Two months later when they were pushing for such laws in the US, suddenly New York represented 40% of all camcorded movies.

However, what was most disturbing was the idea existing laws weren't already enough to deal with whatever "problem" camcording represented. So, it's rather interesting to see that a guy who was caught camcording movies in Maryland was just sentenced to 21 months in prison under a 2005 law. So why did the MPAA scream bloody murder about needing new, more stringent laws in 2007? As for someone getting 21 months in prison for filming a movie that was probably already available online from a studio leak, well, that's a different issue for another day...

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Movie Director Flattered That Someone Camcorded And Uploaded His Movie

Mike Masnick — Fri, 4 Apr 2008 10:18:00 PDT

While the folks back in Hollywood have been acting as though people with camcorders were a huge threat to the movie business, it appears that some folks outside of the Hollywood machine recognize that it's not such a bad thing at all. TorrentFreak has the story of a popular Norwegian director who seems flattered that people camcorded his movie and put it online:

"I think it's perfectly fine that some people choose to post the movie online. It shows that people are interested in it.... In the IT society of today it's naive to think that this wouldn't happen. We consider it a huge compliment."

In fact, it appears his only real problem is that the quality of recording isn't so great, though he notes that hopefully this will drive more people to the theater to see a better quality version. It's nice to see more folks in the movie business recognizing that unauthorized copies aren't the end of the world.

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So Why Did Canada Need A Special Extra Law For Camcording Movies?

Mike Masnick — Fri, 7 Dec 2007 14:24:00 PST

Back during the big debate over the need for new laws against "camcording" a movie in Canada, Michael Geist pointed out that existing laws were already perfectly fine in dealing with the problem. Of course, despite all of that, the power of the movie industry lobbyists was too strong and the bill still became law. So, isn't interesting to find out (via Geist again) that a recent arrest for camcording in a movie theater didn't even happen under the new law, but under the old copyright law. So, once again, can someone explain why the MPAA needed that new law and why Canadian politicians agreed to it?

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MPAA Moves On To Making Up Stats About Camcording In The UK Market

Mike Masnick — Thu, 6 Sep 2007 17:44:00 PDT

After successfully bullying Canada into passing stricter anti-camcording laws, using bogus stats, it appears that the MPAA has moved on to a new country: the UK. TorrentFreak lets us know that MPAA chief Dan Glickman has crossed the pond to warn UK politicians about the horrible "threat" of camcorded movies. Of course, he's still making up stats and still ignoring what's actually happening in the industry. We've already seen that while Glickman gets paid big bucks to hype up the threat, these laws don't seem to stop camcording activities at all. However, more importantly, camcording doesn't appear to be much of a real threat to the industry. Remember, first of all, that the industry is bringing in record revenue, despite the increasing availability of movies online. Second, the problem isn't from camcorded movies. Most of the movies you find online are studio prints leaked by insiders. Third, even with these laws the movies are going to end up online... and all it takes is one movie getting online for it to be infinitely available. Stopping just a few of those recording the movie is absolutely meaningless if a single one gets through, and it always will. If the movie industry spent a fraction of the amount of money they're wasting lobbying for these useless laws on improving the movie-going experience or offering additional incentives to purchase, the industry would be doing even better than it already is -- and no one would even worry about some movies being available online.

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Teen Pleads Guilty For Filming 20 Seconds Of A Movie

Mike Masnick — Wed, 22 Aug 2007 16:29:59 PDT

Remember Jhannet Sejas, the teenager who was arrested for filming 20 seconds of a movie for the sake of showing her brother that she went to that movie? Apparently, she's agreed to plead guilty, which will get her off without any jailtime, a small $71 fine and an agreement to stay out of trouble for a year (afterwards, the misdemeanor will be taken off her record). It's unclear what this has really accomplished for the movie industry, other than highlighting that you better be careful not to take out a camera in a movie theater. A spokesman for the National Association of Theater Owners admits that it's hard for theater owners to police whose filming a movie for distribution and who's just doing it for fun, but then goes on to say that this case "reinforces our efforts to educate the public that unauthorized recording, whether a clip or the whole film, in movie theaters is against the law." Actually, it doesn't do that. It reinforces that theaters have a bunch of ridiculous and costly policies that likely cost more to implement (the article notes that they're rewarding theater employees $500 for each person they catch, which explains why you'll be seeing a lot more theater workers in night vision goggles). However, given that most of the movies you find online are actually leaked by industry insiders rather than camcorded versions (which tend not to be very good anyway), shouldn't there be someone doing a cost-benefit analysis on this? It seems like the educational campaign is quite expensive, makes the theater owners look like a bunch of bullies, and does little to nothing to stop movies from showing up online. Update: Apparently Regal Cinemas pushed hard to prosecute her. How nice of Regal Cinemas.

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A Year In Jail For Filming 20 Seconds Of A Movie?

Mike Masnick — Fri, 3 Aug 2007 00:33:05 PDT

For some odd reason, the movie industry has been really focused on the supposed camcorder threat this year. They've been talking it up with completely unsubstantiated numbers and getting various governments to pass stricter laws, making it a crime to record movies. The thing is, it's already against the law in most places. These laws are just much stricter. However, the bigger issue is that camcording is the least of the industry's worries. After all, a large percentage of the movies that are downloadable online aren't from camcorders, but are leaked from Hollywood insiders. More importantly, every movie is available online. You're simply not going to stop movies from getting online by throwing some kids with camcorders in jail. All it takes is for one copy to get online and then it's available to everyone. Stopping 99% of the people putting movies online won't make the movie any less available because all it takes is that one person to get a copy online and it can spread like wildfire. Finally, downloadable movies do not appear to be a substitute for the social experience of going to the movies. We've seen this over and over and over again -- most recently with the Simpsons Movie.

But what happens when you get into the habit of treating your customers like criminals and even get laws past to make it easier to accuse them of crimes? You get ridiculous situations like the story of a 19-year-old girl on her birthday who was having some fun with a video camera to record her trip to the local mall. She and her boyfriend went to see a movie and she decided to film about 20 seconds of it to later send to her brother to convince him to go see the movie (yes, to promote the movie, so her brother might become a paying customer). Instead, she was arrested and now faces fines and jailtime. You would think that anyone would recognize this wasn't a movie pirating situation and let it go -- but instead, the theater owner, Regal Cinemas, is pressing charges, while the MPAA is citing its discredited bogus stats as a reason that this type of action makes sense. It's difficult to see how this benefits the movie business in any way. It's scaring off people from going to the theaters, treating movie fans as criminals and discouraging them from promoting movies to their friends. Plus, on top of it all, a company like Regal Cinemas is making itself look like a bully. This helps the industry how exactly?

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