Senate Unanimously Passes Anti-Camcorder Bill

jamonterrell writes "The US Senate just unanimously passed a bill allowing the criminal prosecution of recording movies with a camcorder in theatres. Victims of the new bill would face 3 years in prison on first offense (5 if it was done for profit), repeat offenders would get 10 years. As a side note, it will cost taxpayers an additional 5 million dollars per year through 2009 for enforcement." Several states have made recording in theaters a crime, although none of them have penalties nearly as harsh as this Senate bill.

Re:Telesync

[Anonymous Coward]

For the record telesync is when audio is captured directly off the reel and a high quality camcorder is setup in an empty theather to capture the film on theater as best as possible. telecine captures everything directly of the reel and is usually as good as vhs/dvd.

telesync and telecine

[Depris]

For the record telesync is when audio is captured directly off the reel and a high quality camcorder is setup in an empty theather to capture the film on as best as possible. telecine captures everything directly off the reel and is usually as good as vhs/dvd. both methods usually accomplished with help of theater employee's.

Re:Phht

[karstux]

Of course it sucks when you have to watch ads just after having had to pay a good deal of cash for the right to watch a movie. But I don't think the cinemas would survive without the ads - since most of the ticket price goes directly to the distributor.

Here at least (germany), the cinemas live on the ads, popcorn and cola - not on the movies. It's a neccessary evil, and completely unrelated to the copyright issue.

Irrelevant legislation

[Jarnis]

Nobody bothers with cam copies anymore anyway. You can find good telecines/telesyncs within a few days of release already.

Telesync = empty theater, cam on a tripod, sound from the theater sound panels. So theater employees are helping or doing it. Studio's own fault for not securely handling the prints/theaters. Ah but the theaters want to get by with just one guy running multiple showings being paid just bit over minimum wage while working long hours. And you wonder why these guys 'leak' stuff?

Telecine = print of the movie, telecine machine, basically an unauthorized film-to-digital transfer. Requires complete access to the print at a location with a telecine machine. DEFINITELY means that studios don't handle the security of the prints as they should. Nobody should be able to walk out of a theater with the print to telecine it. Meaning some prints end up in wrong hands - either out of the theaters or from the studios themselves.

And since law is apparently only vs. cammers, getting the print telecined is still apparently just a copyright infringement.

Of course buying a law against teleciners would make the studios admit that their prints are not handled securely and that the movie theater employees are leaking like hell. If pirates commonly can get the whole print in their hands and run it thru a telecine machine at their leisure, that would possibly wake up the lawmakers that this law is beyond stupid and does nothing to curb piracy.

Re:Augh what the HELL?!

[Mycroft_VIII]

Actually the senate HAS NOT made this a law, they only passed it, it still has to pass the house. Then the President has to sign it. considering it was Unanimous, these seem fairly likely though.
In fact since the house hasn't passed it(unless I missed that in the article), they could quite easily drop it, or change it 1 year / 2 years or 10/50 years or whatever they feel like. Of course if they change it the senate has to re-pass the changed version and so on till they both agree and then Bush still has to sign it.

Mycroft

Bill text

[0x0d0a]

You *could* disable your camcorder (cover the lens or whatnot) and proceed to pretend to "film" the movie while watching it. It's quite legal, even if it might drive theater managers nuts. It also makes enforcement of this infeasible, if done widely enough.

Here is the bill text [nw.dc.us], which should really have been included in the story. (Actually, IMHO, Slashdot policy should be to require a link to bill text when submitting a story on new legislation.)

Re:Why should taypayers pay for enforcement?

[Bios_Hakr]

Bank robbers endanger the general public. Also, banks hire private security. The cops are only needed if the situation escalates.

Murder needs to be prosicuted so that the general public can feel safe and do their jobs.

$5M may be a small ammount, but it's still five fucking million dolars! Let's use it to train 2 more cops and have them patrol streets.

The movie industry probably pays less tax than you think. I read an analasys of how these things work. Basicly, a company is formed to produce the film. The company leases all the equipment and sets from MGM or Mirimax or Disney. Then the film is made. After the profits start rolling in, the company has to pay MGM for the rentals. The rental prices are set to absorb any real profits. Then the company declares bankruptcy. MGM ends up with all the money by basicly renting the equipment to itself.

I'm sure these companies pay tax. But if you and I are taxed at 20% to 30% of our income, big production companies probably pay closer to 5%. Think about that. You lose 1 of every 3 dolars you make so that police can enforce the rights of a company that pays 2 out of every 50 dollars it makes.

Re:Name one person.

[general_re]

Name two people who are actually doing REAL prison time for defrauding investors.

Why? Typically people who ask for things like that will simply dismiss any names given as not being REAL enough.

Here's a list of names - you can decide for yourself if the penalties they faced or face are REAL enough to suit you: Andrew Fastow, Michael Milken, Ivan Boesky, Dennis Levine, Martin Seigel, Ben Glisan, Michael Kopper. And many, many more.

Re:What about the PIRATE Act?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, the PIRATE Act has passed Senate "by Unanimous Consent". From here is has to go to the house, so it is not law yet.

SHORT TITLE(S) AS REPORTED TO SENATE:
Protecting Intellectual Rights Against Theft and Expropriation Act of 2004

6/25/2004:
Passed Senate without amendment by Unanimous Consent.

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d108:SN022 37:@@@L&summ2=m& [loc.gov]

The accompanying bill called...

SHORT TITLE(S) AS REPORTED TO SENATE:
Artists' Rights and Theft Prevention Act of 2004 ... the camcorder bill which is what this /. story is referring to also passed Senate:

6/25/2004:
Passed Senate with an amendment by Unanimous Consent.

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d108:SN019 32:@@@L&summ2=m& [loc.gov]

Blame the voters.

[I am Jack's username]

"It comes from a very ancient democracy, you see..."

"You mean, it comes from a world of lizards?"
"No", said Ford, who by this time was a little more rational and coherent than he had been, having finally had the coffee forced down him, "nothing so simple. Nothing anything like so straightforward. On its world, the people are people. The leaders are lizards. The people hate the lizards and the lizards rule the people."
"Odd", said Arthur, "I thought you said it was a democracy."
"I did", said Ford. "It is."
"So", said Arthur, hoping he wasn't sounding ridiculously obtuse, "why don't the people get rid of the lizards?"
"It honestly doesn't occur to them", said Ford. "They've all got the vote, so they all pretty much assume that the government they've voted in more or less approximates to the government they want."
"You mean they actually vote for the lizards?"
"Oh yes", said Ford with a shrug, "of course".
"But", said Arthur, going for the big one again, "why?"
"Because if they didn't vote for a lizard," said Ford, "the wrong lizard might get in. Got any gin?"
"What?"
"I said", said Ford, with an increasing air of urgency creeping into his voice, "have you got any gin?"
"I'll look. Tell me about the lizards."
Ford shrugged again.
"Some people say that the lizards are the best thing that ever happened to them." he said. "They're completely wrong of course, completely and utterly wrong, but someone's got to say it."

Douglas Adams, So long, and thanks for all the fish, chapter 36.

Re:Wishes and dreams...

[EmagGeek]

Rape and murder can also be tried in federal court, depending on jurisdictional issues. Then again, I got my law degree from watching "Law & Order," but I see it happen on that show all the time. Insider trading can also be a State crime, and I supposed this is especially so in New York and Illinois where the exchanges are. Again, just supposition, but I don't imagine it's that far off the mark.

Re:That's interesting.

[smaug195]

Answer: There are several types of first degree murder, all of which are defined by A.R.S. 13-1105. The first definition of first degree murder is causing the death of another person with either the intent or knowledge that the conduct will cause death and with premeditation. Premeditation is often described as 'malice aforethought,' which basically means that you probably considered the consequence of your conduct for at least a second before you committed the act.

The second definition of first degree murder is causing the death of another person while committing or attempting to commit another crime like sexual conduct with a minor, sexual assault, molestation of a child, various drug-related crimes, kidnapping, burglary, arson, robbery, escape from jail, child abuse, or unlawful flight from a pursuing law enforcement vehicle, or while fleeing from the scene where you committed any of these offenses.

The third definition of first degree murder is causing the death of a law enforcement officer in the line of duty while intending or knowing that the conduct will cause the officer's death.

Specific information about this bill

[papercut2a]

For those who want to write to their Representatives to ask them to vote against the bill, the bill passed by the Senate is S.1932, the Artists' Rights and Theft Prevention Act of 2004 (or ART Act for short) [loc.gov]. It has been assigned to the House Judiciary Committee [house.gov].

Re:Corporate Coruption

[peter hoffman]

The URL in the parent post doesn't work (apparently due to slashdot software eating the underscore character because my preview failed the same way). Cut and paste the one below instead, you'll be glad you did.

http://fahrenheit_fact.blogspot.com/

What a waste of energy and money

[Shafe]

Does the Senate realize that the bulk of bootlegged films that make it on the Net are recorded in other countries? How many new movies have I downloaded that had some form of Chinese or perhaps French sub-titles at the bottom?

Re:That's interesting.

[LabRat007]

In the town were I grew up local man took advantage of one of my best freind's sister. He also got several of her freinds. He served only 3 years in prison. Equating that kind of horror to recording a movie illegally is insulting to her, the family, and everyone harmed in a similar crime. Clearly, the Senate is being presured into passing brutal laws which seek to scare the public into obedience. Know of any good web based movments against ill concieved laws? I've just started looking and could use the help.

One that I like for watching money trails is here [opensecrets.org]

Orwell got the year wrong...