US cinema reward to stop piracy

[The Edge]

Linky (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/3828551.stm)
Cinema staff in the US are being offered up to $500 (£275) to catch people recording movies on camcorders.


Other anti-piracy moves include staff wearing night-vision goggles to see if customers are recording films.
This has already been happening in my local cinema.

[eb]

QVO VADIS America ???

eb

[Doobie]

I hardly imagine that these very low quality cam movies are costing Hollywood any money.

[Manao]

I hardly imagine that these very low quality cam movies are costing Hollywood any money.Well, since night goggles are quite expensive, now it will :p

[Neo Neko]

To right Manao. I never saw a cam jockies recording that I liked. Screeners on the other hand apart from the intermittent logo text and time code are often every bit as good as the DVD. But I thought they had the screeners all locked up now.

This stuff cracking down on people recording in theaters is the height of silliness. But they have a plan. They are going to use the losses they are incurring to crack down on the fictitious epidemic to show that the epidemic exists.

[windtrader]

They are going to use the losses they are incurring to crack down on the fictitious epidemic to show that the epidemic existsThen take another 50 billion loss charge on their tax returns just to make sure they pay ZERO taxes. A,,H..s

[Joe Fenton]

They made a big stink about making sure every cinema showing Harry Potter had ushers with NVG watching for pirates, but a handcam encode still made it onto the net hours later. I'd say it really works great! (sarcasm) That was money well spent! (more sarcasm)

[Neo Neko]

How good are these NVG? Can they adjust quickly enough and controll the brightness so that the wearer does not see spots if you shine a flashlight or infrared emitter in their eyes? IIRC NVG operate with a light frequency in the high infrared just below the limit of human sight. What then is to stop someone from building a small device in the infrared that would be about like and arc lite is in regular use. No one could see it. But put on the goggles and you would be blinded or at least unable to see anything through the goggles. I think something could be pieced together for about 50~60 bucks. That would be hillarious. Everyone sitting watching the movie while the ushers et all are writhing on the floor shouting "BRIGHT! TO BRIGHT! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!".

[SeeMoreDigital]

Night vision goggles!

If these cinema chains/movie companies want to send me an email I know exactly how to stop people from digi-caming films.

Should be cheaper than a whole bunch of night vision goggles too!


Cheers

[niamh]

As a side effect, you're going to have to be careful when you take a date to the cinema :D . Who knows who might be watching you instead of the digi-cams ;)

[The Edge]

LOL!:D
I'd be too 'busy' to notice!;)

[Cyberman]

Well, though I usually don´t really mind making copies, I think that recording movies off cinema is morally totally wrong.
Give the movie at least the chance to actually be released.
Once it´s been on TV, it´s free-for-all, IMO.

As for sales, I would think it hurts - as the movie itself will be out before it´s released - and I´m sure there are enough who´d rather buy a bad quality copy that costs them virtually nothing, than a high-quality copy that´d cost 30 $/EUR/wathever or so.

[Joe Fenton]

That's not the topic here. What we're discussing is that what the movie distributors are doing is stupid, expensive, and clearly ineffective. As I pointed out, Warner Bros. put MILLIONS into equipping every theater showing Harry Potter with NVG with clear instructions to prevent copies at all costs. It failed. The media distributors do all kinds of stupid and expensive things that don't work. They even try to sue their customers. It's as if they have lost any inherent intelligence. Greed is clouding their judgement and costing them money, and they can't see it.