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Canadian Movie Camcording Addressed With Legislation
Posted by
Zonk
on Fri Jun 01, 2007 11:01 AM
from the cameras-down dept.
from the cameras-down dept.
dottyslashdottydot writes "During Arnold Schwarzenegger's visit to Ottawa yesterday, it was confirmed that Prime Minister Stephen Harper will be introducing a bill to make camcording in movie theaters illegal in Canada. However, people are skeptical that this will make any difference in the amount of pirated movies available. Doug Frith, president of the Canadian Motion Picture Distributors Association was quoted as saying, 'is really the first step — not only for the movie industry — where the government has shown it will seriously address the whole area of intellectual-property theft.'"
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Entertainment: Putting Canadian Piracy in Perspective 188 comments
An anonymous reader writes "Over the past year Slashdot has pointed to many industry claims and governmental pressure over Canada piracy issues. Canadian law prof Michael Geist has produced Putting Canadian 'Piracy' in Perspective, a video that demonstrates how the claims are hugely exaggerated. For example, it shows how despite the MPAA's claim of movie piracy, Canada was the industry's fastest growing market last year. Similarly, while the recording industry says Canada is the world's top P2P country, the data shows that the Canadian music industry is experiencing record gains and that most of the decline from the major labels is due to retail pricing pressures."
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My comment to the CBC (Score:5, Informative)
Re:My comment to the CBC (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:My comment to the CBC (Score:5, Insightful)
fixed.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
To continue with this. What is next?
Making it illegal to sell illegal drugs to an undercover officer wearing a bikini within 100 yards of a fire hydrant?
My point is that copyright laws, and probably a few other ones, already makes camcording a movie illegal. Or at least the distribtion of it, which is what I would assume the law is designed to prevent.
I'm not a fan of minutely specific laws because 99% of the time a more general law already makes the behavior illegal.
Re:My comment to the CBC (Score:5, Interesting)
If camming is made illegal in the letter of the law, however, now they don't have to do any work though their Intenal Affairs departments. Fighting whatever percentage of priacy that comes from cams can basically become outsourced to government.
Parent
Re:My comment to the CBC (Score:5, Funny)
But why look at problems within your own distribution system or try to address the larger concern of finding ways to secure the high quality DVD screeners that magically find their way to the interwebs when you can just as easily find that the real problem stems from those evil canadian bacon eating molsen drinking bastards.
It amazes me that you've all apparently forgot those 2 magic words that should rule every aspect of both your personal and professional lives.
BLAME CANADA!
Parent
Does this really matter? (Score:5, Interesting)
I've always found captures of camcordered movies to be of crap quality. It has never stopped me from later buying the DVD, or from even going to the theater. From me, they've never lost a dime because of this.
Well, okay. Once when in high school, when living in Europe, the only way we got to see some movies was camcorder rips of U.S. screens. There may be one or two that I never actually paid theater tickets for. This was back in the days of VHS and 300 bps modems.
Still, considering the amount of money being made in theatrical releases, is this really a problem or just another smokescreen?
Re:Does this really matter? (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Canada is a client state (Score:5, Insightful)
A foreign cartel forcing a supposedly sovereign nation to change their law according to their whims, THAT is a big deal.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
After you've seen the movie, in whatever crappy quality, you know that those 30 seconds of previews, ads and teasers actually were ALL the good parts of the movie. Are you gonna go watch it and pay for it?
Re:Does this really matter? (Score:4, Funny)
Gee, Uncle Chill, it must have taken forever to transfer those divx/xvid'ed VHSes via a 300 bps modem!!!
Parent
Bah. (Score:4, Funny)
Sigh.. (Score:3, Interesting)
I would also like to thank my own government for being such slack-jawed pansies and allowing the Governator to actually influence Canadian policy.
I want to wretch.
Interestingly enough .... (Score:3, Informative)
When I went to Spiderman 3 the other week, they had a sign up in the lobby that said something like "for everyone's safety end enjoyment, we remind you that recoding devices are illegal".
I was quite surprised by that, as I knew it wasn't yet in law.
That, and I have no idea how my safety is affected by such things. Once again, the fear card gets played -- "OMG, we could all die if someone has a recording device".
Already illegal in the UK (Score:5, Funny)
What I've always wanted to do though is very obviously erect a camera with tripod in one of the aisles and then continuously tell people off for eating too loud / whispering / getting in the way of the shot.
"Guys, will you keep it down! I'm trying to film this!"
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Great Solution (Score:5, Insightful)
Pirated copies don't come from some idiot wielding a camcorder, they come digital copies usually leaked from within the industry itself. "Review copy" only means "my kid will be torrenting this in three hours, here it comes."
And the minimum wage salary surf shining a flashlight on people fondling each other is now a also a policeman? If a guy holding an illegal recording device looks able enough to abuse a baby seal and isn't bothering anyone, what possible incentive does a theater have to confront them?
This type of legislation is a cry for help on the part of the legislator. It's a sign they're so out of touch it's not even funny.
We were already subjected to random search... (Score:5, Informative)
http://img161.imageshack.us/my.php?image=cineplex
This will do nothing more then make the big theater chains more afraid and implement more ridiculous policies that in the end only make non-pirates stop going !
Wasn't this already illegal? (Score:4, Informative)
Never Happen. (Score:5, Insightful)
Minority government.
Election coming sooner rather than later.
It will die on the order paper if it ever gets there.
I love minority gov'ts. Nothing gets done! (Score:4, Insightful)
All praise Canada's multi-party system!
Parent
Re:Seriously (Score:4, Funny)
It's ok, the clean copy from a screener DVD or a quality film scanner will be along in a second (;-))
--dave
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Thats why I rent and buy a lot of dvds and wait for video release. I don'
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
*Jedi hand wave* These aren't the cams you are looking for...
They started doing that in Toronto.. (Score:4, Interesting)
Parent