Digital Shoplifting From Bookstores?

ipandithurts writes "According to a report from Tokyo via IOL, Japanese publishers have launched a campaign to stop 'digital shoplifters.' These 'digital shoplifters' are using cellphones to photograph magazine pages in bookstores, rather than buying them. 'Digital shoplifting is becoming a big problem as camera-equipped mobile handsets are spreading fast and their quality is improving greatly,' said Kenji Takahashi, an official at the Japan Magazine Publishers Association. Will entry into a bookstore soon include a 'cell-phone patdown?'"

it gets worse

[Anonymous Coward]

People do obnoxious things like this [mobileasses.com] (man I have been waiting to slashdot them for a while).

sounds like a big hassle

[God! Awful 2]

Don't these people know there are bookstores where you can just go in, buy a coffee, sit around and read the magazine, then put it back on the shelf and leave?

-a

Re:sounds like a big hassle

[Adam9]

Be careful. Some of these places even let you TAKE THEM HOME WITH YOU. They even let you do it with books too! And movies! And CDs! My god, they should be shut down immediately!

Obviously, libraries are evil.

Bookstore security

[KingArthur10]

You walk into the bookstore. Two army officers approach you with AK-47s. "Excuse me sit, could you step into the office here? Thank you. Now, you have been chosen at random to be strip-searched. This is not racial profiling. Please remove all of your clothes and bend over."

I have a disability.

[incom]

I suffer from lack of photographic memory, thus such devices are my aids. On a similar note, my ability to perfectly memorize movies and music is also impaired, thus I am justified in downloading MP3's and movies.

DRM for print?

[hussar]

There is clearly a requirement here for some sort of DRM for printed materials. What about something like those 3D glasses they used to hand out in theaters. Make it so you can only read the magazine with those glasses on.

Might have some interesting side effects for Playboy magazine.

(This is a joke - unless you want to patent this idea. Then it is prior art.)

Re:sounds like a big hassle

[interiot]

And there are sinister sister organizations that TRANSMIT CONTENT OVER THE AIRWAVES FOR FREE. If this continues, the 200 artists that are actually making money will start to starve too.

Re:it gets worse

[Anonymous Coward]

What's wrong with taking pictures of people's asses? This site is quite amusing.

Wait a minute, that's my ass! And it only got a 2!

This site is goin down!!!

Re:That's One Thing

[Anonymous Coward]

That's a brilliant idea, hell if people didn't know what's in it, they might buy MacWorld...

Re:I don't see a point.

[1u3hr]

If you're going to stand in a bookstore, taking 500 pictures of the latest fav-novel of your choice, and *not* get caught, then you probably deserve to get away with the pictures.

Reminds me of when I was a teenager and stopped at the mewsagent/bookshop on the way home to "browse" a few chapters of a porn novel that I was too chicken to buy. Only took a few days to get through them.

Re:No one addressed this point yet:

[Walt Dismal]

Store clerk to manager: "You know, I've been seeing photoflashes every 5 seconds for an hour." Manager: "Yes, it's that 13 year old with the cellphone and that copy of Playboy."

Re:information ...

[Anthony Boyd]

... wants to be free

While that tramp "Intellectual Property" just wants to be 0wn3d.

You think this is bad?

[Jeremi]

Wait a couple years, until you can buy a high resolution camcorder that is the size of your thumb, sneak it into the movie theater, tape it to your forehead, and record the entire movie without anyone being able to tell what you're doing.

They'll need a whole new Orwellian pseudo-crime-name for that... I suggest "digital molestation of kittens".

Nah

[Cappy Red]

They just want to feel like James Bond... or Peter Graves.

Tonight on Biography, should you choose to accept it, you must retrieve a copy of the enemy's secret plans. Though their headquarters looks like a normal bookstore, do not be fooled. Every moment you spend within those walls, their operatives will be watching you, andpaying special attention to your consealed cameras. They've already been alerted to the briefcase camera, so you'll have to make do with the cell phone model. As usual, if you or any of your team is captured in the course of this operation, the secretary will disavow any knowledge of your existance, as well as every having paid for "those magazines".

*honk*

I have a photographic memory

[pj737]

Sue me.

Re:Where are the "condemn the act" posts?

[Anonymous Coward]

Feel free to make a contructive post in the manner you suggested.

Oh, sorry, did you mean *somebody else* should think?

Ooops....

Re:Hmm

[badnova]

I'm going to bust his Trace Buster with my Trace Buster Buster!

imagine

[kylant]

one of these days people will start recording music they hear on the radio on so called "tape recorders" which enables them to listen to the music again and again without paying for it. The industry is doomed...

Re:sounds like a big hassle

[cshark]

hmm, yes, my evil plan is taking shape. To allude authorities who will be looking for me in the bookstore, I will go to the library and take a picture of every book in there... with my phone! All the pictures will then be transmitted to my inbox, which has a one megabyte limit, so I will have to rotate pictures every 20 pages! I feel so sinister! Woo hahahahaha!

Re:Silly Japs...

[LilMikey]

If anyone ever got an entire 400-700 page book by taking a picture of it, I applaud them. They must have had an awful lot of time on their hands.

Isn't there some kind of award for that?

If they died in the process they'd probably be up for a Darwin.