MPAA Lies About Movie Piracy!

What exactly is the legal basis for the security company, the brick and mortar theater, and the studio to not allow consumers into theaters with personal electronics? It seems unconstitutional. Are there any hard laws banning it? Sounds like a class-action lawsuit waiting to happen.

In response to Steve Davies post about the UK and Europe; I couldn't have said it better myself, although you didn't mention that if you did manage to find anyone willing to ship DVDs to the UK, you'd still run the risk of customs sticking a hefty import tax on it. Anyway on to the response your really after;

The notion of digital media to download from official websites at a lower price is a great idea in theory, but at this moment in time I believe it would be more of a novelty than mainstream. Not everyone would be willing to a) shop online, b) willing to burn their own DVD, and c) why pay for what will undeniably be posted on every bit torrent site within hours and thus making your arguement of poor quality recordings on torrent sites completely irrelevant. In an ideal world where people would be happy to pay a small fee, at reasonable value for money, rather than get something for nothing it would work. Personally, like you have said yourself, I have no qualms paying for a download and burning it myself. But then again I have a conscience...

I think some people are missing the point here, apart from the obvious invasion of our freedom on the internet, in the UK we are subjected to DVD region coding (region 2) and just as important, a price hike of the software (films or music and notably various worldwide destributors of computer software). This price difference is often over twice the shelf retail price in the US. Along with region coding, getting your DVD player converted for region 1 is not a problem but buying region 1 disc from the US is often impossible as the distributors will not ship to Europe or the UK. Then there are different release dates for the films according to the region you live in. This used to be because the 35mm films were shown in the US first and then shipped around the world for viewing in the other regions. Irrelevant now as most cinemas use DVD projectors!
So we have a massive difference in price and often (though not always) a big difference in release dates. This of course causes people to find ways of getting it early in Europe and the UK (DVD NTSC region 1 from the US) and of course it is much cheaper if this can be done.
A way to deal with this would be for the film and music distributors and studios to make the product available online DIRECT from the studio as a download at a FAIR price. (also very fast!) If I could buy a DVD film for say £5 and burn it to disc myself in full hi res surround then I would do so. Lower price, available at the same time worldwide and the piracy levels would drop. This will not stop those who want it for nothing anyway but it would go a long way towards dealing with the problem. It would lead to a lower use of peer to peer for sharing films, not all files are good quality giving more incentive to download direct from the studio. There are problems with this as well but it should be looked into.
I will be interested to read replies to this.

It's funny how they think they are ever going to stop people from getting anything electronic forr free.

I operate an independent neighborhood theater. People love us but the tell us they can get everything for free online. And they are right. Projectionist recording is an interesting thought because they could mount the camcorder on a tripod, patch the sound into their sound system and be above heads of people leaving. And I am sure a few do it.

Who cares about the Canadians, New Yorkers or anyone else doing the bootlegs. Most are coming from the studio labs themselves where a worker hands a print ot the back door in the middle of the night to someone who puts it on a film chain and makes the copy before returning the print.

That is how many get out there before theatrical release.

The MPAA = Millitary police association of America

They are the law. If you try as stop them, they'll file a lawsuit against u. They'll bribe the judge, jury, senators, and basically everyone just to get u persecuted. That would cost a crapload of money. Where do u think they get the money from? Thats right from film producers and film directors. Hmm I wonder how much money they extort?

The MPAA have so got it so wrong. (But then you've gotta have a few brain cells to work it out)

It is the projectionists who video films for Bittorent.

They are not screened, frisked or wanded etc so cam torrents will continue and the MPAA can waste even more of their client's money on hassling the general public without anyone getting caught.

you guys forgot the conversion rate
1% canadian is not the same as 1% american
i think around this time of year and factor in the temperature
the rate is around 1% us = 1.2% can

I cant view the article, but your math may be messed up. "40% of world piracy" may include music etc., so you may have blown it on this one.

Still, statements like that are rubbish. Travel to the east and see whats going on there.

Now c'mon. The MPAA is doing good work here. So what if a few lies are told, so what if a few laws are broken and some peoples rights are stepped. Don't you know that the evil pirates if the movie industry must be rooted out by all means necessary. The MPAA will do what it must, march into Canada if necessary and eventually aCROSS THE FACE OF THE EARTH. WE WILL NOT BE DETERRED FROM OUR GOAL OF COMPLETE AND TOTAL DOMINATION OF THE ENTIRE WORLD AS WE CRUSH EVERY SINGLE CITIZENS RIGHTS BENEATH OUR BOOTS!..................SIG HEIL!..........................................................................................................
......................er I mean they are some of the good people.

I've lived in Toronto (Canada's largest city) for 14 years, worked in a movie theatre for 2, and saw countless movies in theatres while in Toronto.

In all of that time neither I nor any of my friends have ever seen a camera in a movie theatre. That's not to say that it doesn't happen, but one would think that if seven out of every 10 pirated films comes from Canada, at SOME point I would have heard about someone doing it.

I've seen dudes eating an entire meal of Chinese takeout, seen dudes smuggle in whole Pizza's, but not once a camera.

Nice try MPAA, better luck next time.

They search you before going into the cinema??? wtf

Why did you put up with it? Just go back to the desk and demand your money back. Stand up for yourselves before it goes too far.

How anyone can bear to watch one of those hand cam copies is beyond me..

Not only did they have warnings, but the screening of Spiderman 3 I went to in Calgary the entire crowd was subjected to a fairly thorough search, and anything more high tech then a nintendo DS (including quite a few cell phones) was enough for the person to be sent to throw it in their car and go to the back of the line.

I work for a security company in Canada that deals with movie screenings on a regular basis. Guess who pays for them...

There are posters displayed saying no camcorders, the patrons are searched with a wand to detect the camcorders, etc, and the guards watch with night vision to catch those who sneak them in.

All those found (and it is VERY rare) recording the movie are immediately removed.

Yeah... they're lyin through their teeth.

You missed the obvious answer, one that makes the numbers work.

The MPAA have sold New York City to the Canadians, which makes NYC 40% a part of the Canadian 70%.

Sound far fetched? I don't think so, any organised crime syndicate like the MPAA wouldnt think twice about selling something they don't own. (just like they will sue for copyrights that don't control - see Shawn Hogan v MPAA for that one)

Well there you go. I knew that some place somewhere the MPAA would be exposed for the sniveling sons of donkeys(haha I said donkey!) that they are.

Don't you Canadians have anything better to do than to sit around thinking up conspiracies about how the US is out to get you? After the completion of the North American Union Canada is ours!!! MWAHAHAHAHAHA