ICE Takes To Twitter In Ridiculous Attempt To Defend Interrogating A Man In A Movie Theater For Wearing Google Glass
from the theft? dept
Earlier this week there was a report about a guy being yanked out of his seat in a movie theater for wearing Google Glass during the movie. Glass was turned off, and the guy kept them on because he had prescription lenses installed and wears them as his regular glasses. Both the MPAA and federal agents were called to interrogate the guy for a few hours, asking him a bunch of ridiculous questions until late in the night, before someone finally realized he hadn't done anything. Both the MPAA and ICE confirmed the incident happened, and yesterday folks at ICE -- who have recently been transitioned into the new Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) organization -- decided to take to their bizarrely named twitter account, @wwwicegov, to further "defend" these actions, by talking up how they're in charge of dealing with "movie theft." Because, apparently, Homeland Security Investigations doesn't understand the law, and doesn't realize that (1) infringement is not, and has never been, "theft" and (2) a dude wearing a powered-off Google Glass is not doing anything wrong. Here are the tweets:
And now that's reached the absolutely insane point of yanking people out of their movie seats for doing nothing wrong, entirely on the say so of the MPAA -- a private group which has a long history of overreacting badly to new technologies.
What comes out of this is that ICE/HSI now appears to be incredibly gullible, falling for basically every bullshit claim from the MPAA. Just imagine if ICE/HSI had been around and had this sort of broad stupid made-up power over "intellectual property theft" during the introduction of the VCR -- back when the MPAA was declaring it illegal? ICE would be out there raiding and shutting down electronics stores for selling the devices. All because the MPAA said so.
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Filed Under: copyright, google glass, homeland security, hsi, ice, infringement, movie theft
Companies: amc, mpaa
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Good rant, but YES, copyright infringement IS theft!
Copyright infringement IS illegal. Had this guy even accidentally recorded the movie, he'd be in a fix right now. -- And that's as should be, because no matter the other points you put up for smoke and fog: taking someone else's move is THEFT.
You're not on the leading edge of new production models, Mike, just advocating plain old-fashioned theft with new gadgets.
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Re: Re: Good rant, but YES, copyright infringement IS theft!
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Re: Re: Re: Good rant, but YES, copyright infringement IS theft!
Theft deprives somebody of something they once had.
Infringement is copying a work but that original work still exists in possession of the owner.
English, learn it.
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To steal, you have to deprive someone of something else.
A recording is not stealing.
Stop using steal for copyright infringement.
Piracy is NOT a moral issue, blue, stop making it one.
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Taking something you're not supposed to take without permission is stealing. Duh.
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Try again.
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But copying something you're not supposed to copy is not stealing. At least not according to the law.
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In English, infringement does NOT mean theft, stealing, etc.
Got it?
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If new TB article = true, then run rant subroutine, else masturbate.
Btw, did you hear Samuel Jackson in your one the first line? :)
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now if he actually went into the projection room and took the actual film, i'd agree to call it theft/stealing
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Absolutely agree with what you're saying, but you are conflating the statement as well.
The theater either owns the copy of the movie, or they are renting it from the studio (more than likely.) In which case, stealing the physical medium used to display the movie would mean that the theater or the studio was a victim of theft. The "owner of the movie" doesn't really exist. The owner of the copyright on the movie exists, the producer exists, the studio exists, the theater exists, but the owner of the movie only exists if "movie" refers to the physical media the movie resides on.
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I copy a movie, the original is still there = infringement =/= theft.
Do I need to explain that to you with sticks, colored beans and confetti?
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Hooray for misapplication of semantics and logic!
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Or to put it another way, pirating a movie because you think the price is too high is just as wrong as sneaking into a movie theater because you think the ticket price is too high.
Now, most people understandably place these low on the list of people's sins; easily lower than stuff like running stop signs. That does not however make it right.
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Morals are subjective. Your morals are not the same as my morals, or the guy who lives two houses down from you. My own set of morals say it's all right to download the movie. You do not want to bring morality into law. That way lies oppression, where one person's morals trump everybody else's.
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Let's talk about reforming copyright, then maybe we can talk about piracy.
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Though I don't think we can say "Let's talk about reforming copyright, then maybe we can talk about piracy." The two issues are heavily intertwined, with defects in handling of copyright being a prime cause of piracy and copyright trolls. To fix copyright to address those things, you'd need to look at them at the same time to see where the problems are.
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Another moral argument is that the copyright holdings of these multi-national corporations have grown so vast - nearly 100 years of content - that they're utterly incapable of managing everything that they own. We get the few things that can unquestionably turn a profit while the rest languishes unseen and unavailable to the public. If we ever do start seeing things enter the public domain again, it will be a real treasure trove of material, if it still exists.
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Does morality is relevant when talking about laws regarding same sex marriage?
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Slavery as a set of laws wasn't arguably moral by our modern perspective, but I'm damn sure based on the personal accounts and statements of pro-slavery politicians from the 19th century that I've read that they actually believed that it was moral and just for the white man to enslave the black man.
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Slaves and serfs
Poor owners. Squeezing serfs for centuries to carve out a livelihood.
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If a law is written by a flawed human being (as all laws are), there will be loopholes, incongruencies with other laws, lack of clarity, inapplicability, etc.
Even the writers of particular laws have spoken out about how the laws they wrote have been misinterpreted.
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Why would you think that? You don't actually believe this is a pro-piracy site, do you?
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Most other regular users are pro-copyright, in that they say they believe that it does serve some useful function but that the way it is today is that it's simply too destructive civil liberties wise.
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That is, I can see that Copyright can be useful, but as it stands NOW, no way.
If there can't be a balance reached to put Copyright back into synch with how it should be, that is, not eternal like it is now, then I think it should be eliminated.
I hope that doesn't need to happen, but it might.
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Prohibition should still be in effect and the rest of the stupid laws that have been repealed over the years should be re-instated.
THE LAW IS THE LAW.
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If you're going to bring up piracy and copyright, that's fine.
But don't lose sight of the fact that THIS MAN DID NOTHING AND LOST HOURS OF HIS LIFE to these assholes.
And perhaps YOU don't care that ICE is now the private Gestapo of the MPAA, catching all those "piracy-terrorists," but some of us would like our tax dollars spent on something more worthwhile.
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I barely understand the outrage. It is illegal to record in a movie theater. This is pretty well known by much of the adult population of the United States. A shame he is from the Balkans and might not have realized it but.....a movie theater is private property. They were well within their rights to call the authorities if they suspect someone breaking the law in their establishment.
"Just like photos, you can use a voice action to start video recording by saying "ok glass, record a video."
from google glass help
I am more concerned with the potential to abuse privacy rights by these devices then a potential stunt to get people to talk about $3,000 glasses and where people should and shouldn't wear them.
"And perhaps YOU don't care that ICE is now the private Gestapo of the MPAA, catching all those "piracy-terrorists," but some of us would like our tax dollars spent on something more worthwhile."
If you are potentially breaking federal statutes, federal authorities will often be involved. Ice was rolled into homeland security some years ago.
I suggest a trip to ICE's website to see what they have been doing since 2008. It is quite a bit more than being MPAA goons.
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Which. He. Wasn't. Doing.
How many times does this need to be repeated, he was not recording anything, and if they really had a problem with him wearing the device(which are built into his regular glasses) into the theater they should have told him so before ever selling him a ticket, not sold him the tickets, let him enter and sit down to watch the movie and then call the copyright cops to drag him from the theater mid-film.
At most they thought he might have been making a recording(a crappy one, that no-one would ever want to watch. Seriously, it would be essentially an entire movie composed of shaky cam shots, you'd have to be a complete masochist to want to watch something like that), and if so they should have politely explained their concerns, and asked him to leave.
'They were well within their rights to call the authorities if they suspect someone breaking the law in their establishment.'
Which would be one thing, except that's not what happened. The ones the movie theater contacted were the MPAA, and they then contacted their buddies/employees at ICE to go 'pirate hunting'.
To try and put this in perspective, and take the copyright angle and any related bagged from it out of the picture, imagine the following scenario:
You're one of those people that likes to wind down with a drink or two once the weekend hits. Come friday, you go to the supermarket to pick up some drinks, they sell you your items, and you leave. Unknown to you however, due to a 'bounty' that's been placed by a private organization, offered to those that spot and point out drunk drivers, someone at the store calls in said organization and tells them about your purchase, on the assumption that because you just purchased alcohol, and you're driving a vehicle, of course that means you're going to be downing a few drinks while driving.
The private organization then calls their buddies at the local precinct and you soon find yourself 'unofficially' pulled over, taken somewhere, and interrogated for several hours, where they constantly press you to 'fess up' about how much you'd been drinking. While you're told that you're not officially under arrest, and are free to leave at any time, it is strongly implied that things will go very poorly for you if you decide to leave.
To you of course this is completely insane, you hadn't cracked open a single one of those drinks at this point, and so you object strongly, asking, almost pleading with them to allow you to show them the case of drinks, to show that it hadn't even been opened yet, and to give you a breathalyzer test to show that you hadn't touched a drop of the stuff, and yet for whatever reason they refuse, and continue interrogating you for several hours.
Finally, at some point, one of them gets the bright idea to check the packages themselves, and lo and behold the containers/boxes are still closed up, not a single drink out of place. Then they give you the breathalyzer test you'd been asking for during the whole mess and it comes up completely clean as well.
Finally, as though to add insult to injury, a representative from that 'Private organization', the one who put out the bounty offer, shows up and explains that it's all been a terrible misunderstanding, but since the problem they're trying to deal with is so serious*, obviously you must agree that a 'little mistake' like this is a small price to pay, right?
Then, to 'make it up to you', rather than actually apologizing for anything that happened, the rep offers you a $5 gift card for the store you made the purchase at, upping it to a $10 gift card when you refuse such a cheap 'repayment' for all that they've put you through.
That even begin to sound like a rational or even sane response to what was nothing more than a suspicion that someone might be breaking the law?
'I am more concerned with the potential to abuse privacy rights by these devices then a potential stunt to get people to talk about $3,000 glasses and where people should and shouldn't wear them.'
Please tell me you're not buying into Blue's insane idea that this entire thing was a publicity stunt orchestrated by google to promote an upcoming product? I'd expect such idiotic PR from MS, sure(see: the entire XBone PR campaign), but 'Wear our Glasses, and you too can get dragged from a theater and threatened by the hollywood copyright cops!' is anything but good PR.
Now, that said, while I highly doubt this was a PR stunt on Google's behalf, I can totally see it as being an attempted one, and one that backfired badly, on behalf of the *AA's, to 'make an example' out of a movie pirate, and show just what happens to those recording movies. The fact that the one they snagged wasn't actually recording a thing though, kinda makes that 'example' dead opposite of what they wanted, making them look all kinds of bad and prone to extreme over-reactions.
*Here I should point out that while drunk driving is a serious problem, and deserves extremely harsh punishments to dissuade people from doing so, copyright infringement doesn't even come close to as damaging as the *AA's would like to have people believe, and the fact that they have to constantly lie to 'convince' people shows that even they know this.
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Thanks
"but the attempts and lengths he goes to defend the existing, over-the-top practices are a sign of his irreparably blind dedication."
Hardly, I just fail to see things and stories strictly in black and white, good vs. evil constructs. I feel you do yourself a disservice if you can't view it from the other side. Why would the MPAA be concerned with someone potentially using new technology to record in a movie theater? Why would federal authorities be involved? Why would they question him about higher ups and what organization he worked for?
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How do you tell? How are they supposed to know? If you think someone is shoplifting from your store don't you check the bag they brought in?
I appreciate your analogy and am slightly more sympathetic. I think the analogy would be better served in a shoplifting situation. Incredibly inconvenient for the patron. My point more is that when dealing with private entities you get crazy reactions. Regardless how you feel about the laws I would not wear a potential recording device on my face in a theater and be surprised if anything happened.
"Now, that said, while I highly doubt this was a PR stunt on Google's behalf, I can totally see it as being an attempted one, and one that backfired badly, on behalf of the *AA's, to 'make an example' out of a movie pirate."
This is what I think.
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(Minor tangent)
For all that some people constantly claim that 'infringement = theft', the law certainly treats them completely and utterly different in severity and punishment, though the fact that the one that literally(due to removing a physical copy that could have been purchased) involves taking away the opportunity for a business to profit from its sale is treated less severely than creating a copy of the original, just shows how insanely out of whack the laws have gotten.
(/Minor tangent)
Regardless how you feel about the laws I would not wear a potential recording device on my face in a theater and be surprised if anything happened.
Except for the fact that the theater's own actions would have strongly suggested to the guy that he didn't have anything to worry about. If wearing the gadget was a problem, he should have been denied entry in the first place, and told that as long as he was wearing it he would be barred from watching a movie at that establishment.
That did not happen.
If they were such a huge threat that it warranted calling a private organization, who then called a federal agency to come in and drag the guy out of the theater, it should have been pointed out to him when he was picking up his drinks and snacks(assuming he's one of those crazy people willing to pay $20 for munchies), or when he was at the ticket check.
That did not happen either.
The entire time up to the point where he was dragged out of the theater, apparently not one of the theater employees gave him any indication that his wearing that gadget on his head was considered such a huge problem, or told him to leave, so how exactly was he to know it would be treated in such an insanely over the top manner?
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Absolutely. The theft of a cd/dvd is the theft of a physical thing that retails under $20. Infringement is the taking of the underlying content that could have cost millions to produce. In addition, this appropriation of content then could allow someone else to reproduce it and sell it (bootlegs) (someone else making money instead of the producer) or interfering with the producers ability to commercial exploit their product (offering it for free on the internet).
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Yet the punishment is opposite.
Logical?
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By the light that turns on when you're recording.
The other point about this particular incident is that he was wearing the glasses when he bought his ticket and when he gave his ticket to the ticket-tearer.
The theater had plenty of opportunity to tell him to either take them off or leave the theater before he even sat down. They didn't do that. They just called the cops.
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Are you implying there is no way a red light can be disabled to record secretly?
"The other point about this particular incident is that he was wearing the glasses when he bought his ticket and when he gave his ticket to the ticket-tearer."
Perhaps this was meant to catch him in the act. The more I think about it, I don't think it was a pr stunt. They were operating under the assumption he was recording.
Yes, this whole situation was unfortunate.
It's a story because he wasn't doing what they thought he was. Yes they made a mistake. If he was recording the same thing would have happened except he would have been arrested.
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No. You have the person check the bag at the door and they can pick it up again when they leave.
What they did was sell a ticket to some striped shirt guy and then told him he wasn't allowed in because he was wearing a striped shirt.
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It's all about the benjamins, and when theaters are looking for any revenue source they can find, these bounties on copyright infringers (aka movie thieves...lol) create a perverse situation.
to quote a famous poster sight, "Government: You think our problems are bad, wait until you see our solutions..."
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How many times does it need to be stated to you copyright hard heads that THIS GUY WASN'T RECORDING ANYTHING! You keep spouting off that "recording in a theater is illegal" - perhaps you can tell me about the RECORDING that ICE DIDN'T find.
"If you are potentially breaking federal statutes, federal authorities will often be involved. Ice was rolled into homeland security some years ago."
He wasn't breaking ANY statute.
Try again, though. I love how you assholes justify breaking everyone's balls because of "copyright" - I can only hope that someday it happens to you, so that maybe MAYBE you can understand how fucked up this is.
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I believe that is why he was questioned as opposed to being arrested.
"If you are potentially breaking federal statutes, federal authorities will often be involved. Ice was rolled into homeland security some years ago."
He wasn't breaking ANY statute.
Family Entertainment and Copyright Act 2005
18 U.S.C.A. § 2319B
(a) Offense.--Any person who, without the authorization of the copyright owner, knowingly uses or attempts to use an audiovisual recording device to transmit or make a copy of a motion picture or other audiovisual work protected under title 17, or any part thereof, from a performance of such work in a motion picture exhibition facility, shall--
(1) be imprisoned for not more than 3 years, fined under this title, or both; or
(2) if the offense is a second or subsequent offense, be imprisoned for no more than 6 years, fined under this title, or both.
The possession by a person of an audiovisual recording device in a motion picture exhibition facility may be considered as evidence in any proceeding to determine whether that person committed an offense under this subsection, but shall not, by itself, be sufficient to support a conviction of that person for such offense
"I love how you assholes justify breaking everyone's balls because of "copyright"
I am sorry you feel there is something wrong in enforcing this law.
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What they did here would be similar to them interrogating every other moviegoer about their intent to record the movie because their cellphone was in their pocket.
It was insane.
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The thing is, when saying that piracy is theft, it becomes a moral issue, as everyone knows that stealing is wrong and people who steal should be punished. However, when you change "theft" to "Copyright Infringement" it takes the morality away from the issue at hand.
Yes, you should pay to see stuff, people do work hard to make stuff happen. I will never say "consume everything for free" (except in the case of Public Domain works or stuff that's available for free of course) because that's not right.
What I want, though, is for the narrative of piracy to go from "theft" to "copyright infringement". Once that happens, there's less knee-jerk reaction from people and they can focus on the why something happens rather than the what of something that happened.
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Regardless of that, I do agree that the narrative of piracy should go from "theft" to "copyright infringement". The whole reason the **AA pushes for theft in the first place is that it's seen as more severe and allows them to get a more severe response than is warranted.
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And as I said before, morality is a red herring when talking about copyright, its used to bring down the conversation to a purely emotional level, its irrelevant at best. and again it begs the question about what's moral or not and according to who.
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Again...
I steal your car, you no longer have it, I have deprived you of your car, that's theft.
I copy a movie, the original is still there, I haven't deprived anybody of a non-material good, that's infringement, not theft.
Only what is legally and MATERIALLY owned can be stolen, because the legal owner is actually deprived of that material object. How hard is that to understand?
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I'm deeply sorry, I misread your comment.
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This is absolutely not true with cultural works. Generally speaking, when the public can't afford works, the moral thing to do is to create free access to those works.
It is why public libraries are an ethical good. It is why copyright exceptions for public schools are an ethical good. It is why it is an ethical good to create public performance exceptions for churches and non-profits.
It is such an ethical good, in fact, that early copyright laws explicitly stated that publishers had to produce editions that would be affordable by the general public. If they didn't do this, they lost their copyrights.
The question you should ask yourself is not whether it is unethical for the pubic to "take" cultural works. The question you should ask is why it is in any way ethical to stop them.
And it is not ethical. It may be a necessary evil, but it is an evil nonetheless.
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Do you think that Jesus would be on the side of sharing or on the side that worships gold and false idols?
Did not Jesus share amongst the people the fishes and the loaves of bread?
Did you hear the bread vendor wanted to sue Jesus for "Theft". No? Me either.
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Would you copy a fish
Jesus did massive copying and sharing, no wonder the establishment hanged him.
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Re: Good rant, but YES, copyright infringement IS theft!
What he was accused of doing wasn't taking the movie, but copying it. This leaves the original in tact. The theater still has the movie, so they lose nothing (except potentially sales).
"Copyright infringement IS illegal"
No one is arguing against this. But you're making the mistake of saying that because it's illegal, it's theft. It's not. It's making illegal copies or copyright infringement.
Also, no infringement happened. However the patron did get harrassed. It was for simply having a everyday (perscription glasses) device capable of recording. People aren't harrassed just for having a cell phone when they go to the theaters, so why glasses?
Remind me again what happens when you start harassing customers? Oh yea, you start to lose sales. So who is the real theft here....?
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Re: Good rant, but YES, copyright infringement IS theft!
When your mind is more active, your OCP becomes worse.
When your OCP becomes worse, you wear out the light switches in your house.
When you wear out the light switches in your house, your OCP makes your mind even more irrational.
When your mind becomes more irrational, you start to become obsessed with people named Mike.
When you become obessed with people named Mike, you post under the name Out_of_the_Blue.
Don't post under the name Out_of_the_Blue.
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Well done.
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Re: Good rant, but YES, copyright infringement IS theft!
For once, we agree. Taking someone else's movie is theft. Now, given that this guy did absolutely nothing wrong, who does he contact to get the movie back that was taken from HIM?
Or better yet, who does he contact to get the TIME that he lost (and can NEVER recover) back? They deprived him of the movie, and wasted HIS time for nothing.
If you're going to be so vigilant in declaring copying movies theft, then I would at least expect to you realize when the assholes who pay you fuck up, they ALSO need to be held accountable.
I anxiously await your pathetic, unapologetic response, you paid corporate douchebag shill.
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Re: Good rant, but YES, copyright infringement IS theft!
I thought he was trying to sneak in the notion that all this fuss over an infringement case that didn't actually happen is stupid. By the way, I'm trying to sneak in the notion that you are a clueless fool for constantly stating that Mike is against copyright and for theft and is a google minion and rich people are evil and blah blah blah...
The reason why Mike reports on these things and Tim reports on cop abuses is because they are NEWS. Cop does his job/copyright is used properly = not news. It becomes news when it is out of the ordinary, something exemplary or a massive screwup. Mike posts how copyright is abused because that is out of the ordinary, something you want to hear about. Would you read "A completely boring history of when copyright was used properly" or "All the times copyright was used for something horrible like censorship"? The problem is not Mike, Techdirt, or even Google. The problem is you, and your tendency to give the writers of Techdirt whatever preferences you wish to support your views.
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Re: Re: Good rant, but YES, copyright infringement IS theft!
> and Tim reports on cop abuses is because
> they are NEWS.
Yes, they are news, but I don't understand why the cop stuff is relevant to the stated purpose of this blog. I can see how some of the "cops being video recorded" stories have a tech angle to them and that's fine, but there seems to be an increasing tendency to cover *any* story of police abuse/misconduct here. The Kelly Thomas case? Yes, those cops were out of line and yes it was a big story, but what does it have to do with technology? It was a pretty low-tech incident-- cops beating up a guy with their hands and batons. How is that relevant to the subject-matter of this blog?
In the end, it's Mike's (et al) blog and he can publish whatever he likes, but it seems like more and more that he should rename it to Tech/Cop Misconduct Dirt to provide a better indication of what it's all about.
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Re: Re: Re: Good rant, but YES, copyright infringement IS theft!
But TechDirt has certainly expanded beyond technology to other political issues as a natural growth from covering technology. There are topics I ignore simply because I don't interest me, but I wouldn't complain about them being covered.
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Re: Good rant, but YES, copyright infringement IS theft!
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Re: Good rant, but YES, copyright infringement IS theft!
Both are inaccurate and just ruin a good thing.
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Now you are being deliberately obtuse Blue.
Even the courts themselves are rejecting this type of language as misleading and derogatory:
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20131130/15263725410/surprise-mpaa-told-it-cant-use-term s-piracy-theft-stealing-during-hotfile-trial.shtml
The fact that YOU continue to use them says volumes about your character and motivations though.
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Re: Good rant, but YES, copyright infringement IS theft!
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Re: Re: Good rant, but YES, copyright infringement IS theft!
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Re: Good rant, but YES, copyright infringement IS theft!
Please explain to me the advanced technology that Google Glass uses to suck the movie right off the screen and onto the Intarwebs where nobody else can see it.
You also neglected to how everything is all Google's fault.
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Re: Good rant, but YES, copyright infringement IS theft!
Yeah, because the purpose of copyright is to punish people regardless of intent.
I wouldn't have anything to do with any positive benefit to the public, it's just another tool that government and large corporations wield to destroy normal citizens.
Hooray for big corporations! Hooray for ICE and other government agencies that can punish people! Hooray for cops that beat, for cops that kill! Hooray! Hooray!
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Re: Good rant, but YES, copyright infringement IS theft!
You can scream this as loud as you want, but it doesn't make it true.
Legally, it is not theft. Infringement is not stealing, and infringing copies are not stolen goods. This was decided, unequivocally, in Dowling v. United States.
And in the Hotfile case (where the court found that Hotfile was infringing), the court said that the MPAA could not use terms like "theft" or "stealing," as they were purely "pejorative terms."
It is not "theft" in any other term, either, because creating a copy is not "taking" anything. It is not "theft" in the economic sense, because nobody's bank account goes down with infringement, and no stock is lost; there is absolutely no economic difference between infringement and simply not buying a copy. It is not "theft" in the colloquial sense, either, as it does not deprive the copyright holder of the original works, or of any right to exploit the works economically.
So, go ahead and scream all you want. You'll only make yourself angry. You still won't be right, and you won't convince anyone else that you are.
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Re: Good rant, but YES, copyright infringement IS theft!
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Don't forget their new website
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Excuses, excuses...
Bullshit. Confinscating the glasses, hooking it up to a computer and going through the content would take time and normally require a warrant to search. If the "individual" weren't so cooperative, this could have been a major issue.
"we help ... authorities w/ legitimate requests for assistance"
A one time issue by a single person is a legitimate reason for federal agents to come and interrogate someone? Last time I checked the local police can handle a single unarmed person. Wish my tax dollars went to better use...
"If your phone appears to be recording the film then law enforcement will be contacted"
Nothing was indicating a recording. As the man wearing the device noted, there would be a light on indicating the glasses were powered with the capability of recording.
I'm not sure what to make of this, but it sounds to me like the ICE is trying really really really hard to justify their response to a situation that was never a situation so they can continue to be respond to stupid situations. The ICE is nothing more than MPAA puppets at this point...
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About OOTB
I wonder if the OOTB account is just being passed around to all the government & MAFIAA shills for use?
While I can agree the Copyright infringement is illegal, I do not subscribe to it be qualified as theft. If it was... then everyone stole the very words of their language!
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Re: About OOTB
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Re: Re: About OOTB
If you want to call out someone for being 100% anti-copyright, target me. Rikuo is what I am called. Target me, and not Mike.
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Re: Re: Re: About OOTB
Most people are more honest than Mike Masnick.
So yeah, go bake your own.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: About OOTB
Sue any dead grandmothers lately, fucktard?
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: About OOTB
nah, we actually encouraged it. SOPA was due process down to the letter.
But you pirates/Google stooges couldn't roll with that, now could you?
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: About OOTB
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Re: About OOTB
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Like Momma always said...
"Douchey, douche-copters are as Douchey, douche-copters do"
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MT?
Also, how sad is it that a government agency is literally parroting their corporate masters partners?
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Re: MT?
MT is used for "modified re-tweet." It's become the standard way that you do a RT where you've slightly changed the original (often to make it fit)
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Re: Re: MT? - Mike, have you found the RT/MT
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"Doing nothing wrong"
Getting ICE involved is just beyond the pale.
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Re: "Doing nothing wrong"
You don't take the guy's payment, allow him to sit down, then have him yanked out all because you didn't specify that Google Glass are not permitted. After all, your cinema allows people to walk in carrying their smartphones, so the rule was obviously thought to cover video cameras and video cameras only...not devices that have a myriad of functions, with recording being one of them.
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What does the FBI do?
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Re: What does the FBI do?
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Re: What does the FBI do?
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Re: What does the FBI do?
Dept. of Defense (DOD) collects the taxes instead of the IRS.
Social Security Administration (SSA) regulates the stock exchange instead of the SEC.
NASA handles federal transportation projects instead of the Dept. of Transportation (DOT).
I'm sure we can come up with more clever ideas than these, though maybe if the last example were real we'd have the flying cars we've been promised by now.
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No wonder
To a government official, 4 hours is "brief".
The rest of us would consider 10 minutes to be brief.
I wish someone would post the conversion table between government time units and real time units.
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Re: No wonder
At least government agents are no longer spending all day watching pr0n anymore. Aren't you glad they corrected that problem?
Aren't you glad your tax dollars are going to good use?
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And also he better call Saul!
And he probably should have taken his glasses back and re took his seat when they asked him to come outside as he was not under arrest and lawfully present in the theater. Only once they deemed it necessary to arrest him should he comply.
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story was good but the coments were hilarious
laughed my ass off
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Copying a move isn't theft, it's infringement. Still (rightfully) illegal, but call it what is is.
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Jurisdiction
HOMELAND
SECURITY
IMMIGRATION
CUSTOMS
Somebody please explain to me how domestic pursuit of what should be purely civil (as opposed to criminal) matters falls under the purview of any of these?
Somebody needs to go back over and re-read their own mission statements again.
Also, I imagine that some higher up at AMC is not happy about this knee-jerk overreaction being associated with their theatre chain. Their lives are already being made tougher by other more convenient and legal movie distribution channels like DVDs and streaming. Going to the cinema used to be a big deal. Now they have to sell $7 soda and $10 popcorn just to make up for the shortage of butts in the seats (anybody who thinks that a movie theatre makes its money from ticket sales should do a little reading).
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Re: Jurisdiction
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Re: Re: Jurisdiction
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Re: Re: Re: Jurisdiction
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'Incredibly gullible'?
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These are abusive copyright laws, in the extreme! Theft falls under common law. Copyright law is not common law, theft does not apply to copyright law.
Piracy has to do with hi-jacking ships at sea. There's nothing in copyright law about hi-jacking ships at sea.
Copying, does fall under copyright law, although I believe there should be no such laws against copying anything the public has access too. That includes physical items, software code, knowledge and literature.
Children copy and imitate their parents since birth. It's how we learn and evolve as a species.
Laws that punish the natural behavior of a species, are immoral and unjust. The MPAA would be wise to start offering services that are priced so competitively, and convenient. that nobody would even bother with the hassle of seeking out unauthorized copies of their works.
But no, we have Homeland Security being the MPAA's whipping boy, because we let the MPAA terrorize humanity under draconian copyright laws.
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you can only cry wolf so many times
could theaters even ban them due to ada?
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Re:
Emphasis added with *
The correct would be "The story is about a private organization that can harras citizens without cause or warrent." The current laws seem to allow it.
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Had this person stayed at home and torrented the movie, he wouldn't have been detained and harassed by federal agents of the entertainment industry.
Not saying that's what people should do, just pointing out the obvious.
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The federal criminal property theft statute at issue is 18 USC 2319B: www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/2319B
Note how that's located in Chapter 113, called "Stolen Property": www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/part-I/chapter-113
I know that you're willfully blind and/or ignorant about these things, but the fact is that intangibles have been considered property for well over a century. This is so even though they are not scarce. And intangibles have been capable of being stolen, i.e., the subject of theft, for just as long. And I don't just mean the stolen as when the legal title is taken via fraud or whatnot. I mean stolen in that someone does something inconsistent with the owner's intangible rights in his intangible property.
Why do you insist that the way the law used to be centuries ago is the way the law must be now? Like it or not, and clearly you're in the not column, copyright is property and intentional infringement is theft. This is why the Copyright Act preempts state theft laws when it comes to intentional infringements.
As to your claim of him "not doing anything wrong," this guy pointed a video recording device at a movie screen. This is enough to detain and question him. Note how 2319B even gives the theater complete immunity for such detentions. I know you hate copyright and the very thought of its enforcement drives you bananas--even though you're too dishonest to ever explicitly say you feel this way--but there was reason to detain and question this guy.
Keep on whining, Mike. It's unfortunately all you seem good for.
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Re:
You can't have it both ways. Either it's theft, and as such, the punishment is the same in actual bona fide theft cases, or it's not theft and you're spewing bullshit.
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Oh, they want to have their cake and eat it too.
If it is property, then when I BUY it, it is mine. it is not a licence, it is a sale and I can do what ever I like with it.
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Re:
Now find, and post, the section(s) where they talk about copyright infringement in there, specifically stating that it is to be legally considered, and treated as, theft, and then you might have a decent argument.
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I'll quote the very first bit to you.
You'll notice that it SPECIFICALLY refers to violating copyright, and defines details.
It does not reference 18USC at all, for a very good reason, 18USC is inapplicable.
Of course, I'm all for striking 17USC501 and replacing it with 18usc.
BTW, that 2319 came from a lovely little lobby law produced under Bush, the ProIP act. So you can hardly say it's 'been deemed that for a century'.
Also, the SCOTUS doesn't consider it theft (see Dowling, Golan)
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The relevant quote, in case you don't want to put the effort into looking:
'Since the statutorily defined property rights of a copyright holder have a character distinct from the possessory interest of the owner of simple "goods, wares, [or] merchandise," interference with copyright does not easily equate with theft, conversion, or fraud. The infringer of a copyright does not assume physical control over the copyright nor wholly deprive its owner of its use. Infringement implicates a more complex set of property interests than does run-of-the-mill theft, conversion, or fraud.'
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Otherwise you are lying.
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Actually, the federal criminal theft statutes are in 18 USC 31, "Embezzlement and Theft."
So, obviously, copyright infringement can't be theft, because it's not defined in that section of the statutes.
...This makes exactly as much sense as what you're saying.
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This "theft" word is starting to become something else...
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Namely, while a land border is continuous and exterior, an air-border (ie, airport) is closed and interior. They already have and and all exits out of said area under control (because it's so small) and because to arrive in it, you'd need to do so in an easily recognizable aircraft.
A land border, however, is large, and has free and open access, and so anyone can arrive there at any time and at any point (in theory) without observation and direct control. Hence the Zone.
Now, I certainly don't agree with it, but it at least makes a 'kinda' sense - or at least as much as those Committee for State Security ever make.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Pilots Want To Know Why The DHS/CBP Are Searching Their Planes Without Warrants
If this is them bowing to reality, I'd sure hate to see what their fantasy turns out to be.
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I am told Pearson education actually bought a license to put it in one of their copyright textbooks.
http://torrentfreak.com/copyright-infringement-and-theft-%e2%80%93-the-difference-110827/
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So Congress put it in the section on "stolen property," but your argument is that this does not indicate that Congress thinks it concerns stolen property? That's a terrible argument.
How do you spin Section 3931 of the Penn. criminal code: "Theft of unpublished dramas and musical compositions. A person is guilty of theft if he publicly presents for profit, without the consent of the author thereof, any unpublished dramatic play or musical composition."
Source: www.legis.state.pa.us/WU01/LI/LI/CT/HTM/18/00.039.031.000..HTM
The Penn. legislature explicitly refers to an act of infringement as theft. I can find others, but I suspect you'd just deny them all.
Furthermore, SCOTUS EXPLICITLY determined in Dowling that infringement was NOT theft. If what you want to contend that the fact that this statute means Infringement is theft then fine that would then have to mean that Dowling struck down this statute altogether.
The Court in Dowling merely said that the National Stolen Property Act only applies to stolen tangibles. That doesn't mean that infringement is not theft. It only means that the NSPA doesn't reach infringement. It wouldn't reach identity theft either, but identity theft is still theft.
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Re:
2) Copyright is dealt with at the federal level
Penn can pass all the laws they want saying copyright infringement = theft, it wouldn't affect what happened to Google Glasses man because he's in a different state.
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You forgot to mention Golan also established it's not property
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Hey dipshit, can't you read? It says "..UNPUBLISHED..."!!! Don't you know what that means? Are you saying all the infringed material is unpublished? The movie he saw was unpublished?
Damn you are intensely stupid. That law was written to prevent people from presenting works of others' for monitary gain without the creator's permission as if it was their own. That would be theft of copywrite, not simplying copying.
Idiot
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I'm just asking because you clearly know how to do legal research, and AF Holdings is now looking for a lawyer in the Patel case, since Nazaire has been forced to withdraw under 10USC.
Might wanna give them a call.
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That section of the criminal code was explicitly dealing with unpublished works.
Laws regarding unpublished works are entirely different than laws dealing with restricting use on works which have already been published.
For example, even Wheaton vs. Peters, the first copyright court case, unequivocally decided that post-publication monopoly rights were not based in common law rights,, but that the right of "first publication" is a common-law right. Nobody here has argued against them, and we all argue that infringement upon those rights is "stealing," because it's infringement upon personal property rights. There is no controversy.
The Pennsylvania statute was restricted to "first publication" rights, which are "first publication" rights. They do not have anything to do with post-publication rights, which is what anyone here discusses when debating copyright rights. Infringing upon "first publication" rights might or might not be theft; but even if it was, it doesn't mean infringing upon a post-publication right is theft. In fact, the two questions are completely distinct.
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I want to see Hollywood claim the government isn't doing enough to fight piracy, and then sue the United States for all those trillions they claim to lose each year.
Would they give in, or fight back? Could we see the US army fighting ICE troops? Maybe they could siege Disney World!
It'd be hilarious! (For fans of dark comedy, at least.)
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could have been far, far worse
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Why would anyone even want a shitty cammed movie?
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Did anyone else notice a major problem Mike never touched on?
WTF?
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Coupla Things
Secondly: Even if the guy was recording the movie WHICH HE WASNT, how is it a matter of Homeland Security and why the fuck are my tax dollars paying for this shit? ICE, you are fired!!!!!!!!
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