Piracy Continues Killing The Movie Business To New Record Highs

from the yet-again dept

So, earlier this week, the MPAA came out with its annual report that shows that once again, its box office take hit new record highs. This same thing happens basically every year, so we almost didn't cover it at all this year. It's kind of old news. But people keep submitting it, and so we'll oblige, but mainly for the chance to repeat BoingBoing's awesome title on its story over this: Motion picture industry continues to stagger under piracy with mere record-breaking income. You can read the MPAA's full PDF right here, though for reasons that make no sense at all, they will block you from reading the PDF if you have javascript or cookies disabled. For a PDF? Really guys? There is no reason at all that anyone ever needs cookies or javascript to read a PDF file.

The report further notes that ticket prices have continued to rise pretty consistently over the past decade from a $6.21 average price in 2004 to $8.13 last year. For an industry supposedly being destroyed, you'd think they wouldn't be able to get away with raising prices... but, apparently (as we've been pointing out for nearly two decades) going to the movies is a different experience than downloading a film and people are paying for that experience.

And, yes, just to cut off the line of criticism: this only applies to theatrical revenue, and not home viewership. But that's somewhat a red herring, given that, if left to the movie industry, there basically would be no home video market to speak of at all.

Filed Under: box office, movies, records, tickets
Companies: mpaa

Corruptville, Florida May Lose Its Cityship

from the good-riddance dept

We've covered stories in the past about when municipalities begin seeing their governing role as one less about representing their people and more about extorting as much money as possible from non-residents. Previously, one Oklahoma town found themselves disallowed from enforcing their traffic tickets when it was discovered that the process had devolved into what was essentially a money-making scheme. Never one to be outdone when it comes to crazy, the state of Florida has upped the ante.

Hampton, Florida is the kind of town you might miss if you blink as you're driving through it. Miss it, that is, unless you managed to get ensnared by one of the most brutal traffic policing regimes this side of the border patrol.

And so it fell to the police to force hurried travelers to stop and savor the 1,260-foot ribbon of roadway belonging to this city. Hidden by trash bins or concealed in a stretch of woods, the officers — a word loosely applied here — pointed their radar devices. Between 2011 and 2012, Hampton's officers issued 12,698 speeding tickets to motorists, many most likely caught outside Hampton's strip of county road.

Some context about Hampton, if I might. The town has less than 500 total residents, but has a police force of 14. Around 3% of their residents are officers. In comparison, Chicago has roughly 2.7 million residents and 12,244 officers, or less than one half of one percent of the population. Six times the percentage of residents as offered, for a town that consists of a three-football-fields sized strip of road. That must be why the town somehow pulled in nearly a quarter of a million dollars in traffic fines the past three years. What's less clear is how all that money is brought in and still the town operates on a deficit. The mystery seems less confounding when you realize that the town's mayor is currently in jail awaiting trial for possession of Oxycodone with intent to sell and that all of City Hall appears to serve as a sort of blank check for nepotism.

Jane Hall, the former city clerk, is the mother of the former maintenance operator, Adam Hall, who also ran the water system, and the wife of Charles Hall, a longtime city councilman. Her daughter also worked there for a short time. There were mutterings about vanishing city funds; personal use of city credit cards, trucks and gas; and trips to Ms. Hall's clutter-filled house to hand over cash payments for water bills for which she offered no receipts. Some residents were threatened with the loss of water — the one utility controlled by the city — if they made trouble, Mr. Smith said. Auditors found that 46 percent of the city's water went unaccounted for, much of it leaking through decrepit lines.

On top of all this, the local police chief somehow officially added being a church minister to his official job description, an audacious merging of church and state that I would have thought would be enough to make Thomas Jefferson rise from his grave with a musket in hand to go have a chat with this police chief. In any case, all this coupled with the town's reluctance in providing any actual explanation for its misdeeds (at one point, town officials claimed certain records were lost in a swamp... seriously) has resulted in the state of Florida taking a look at de-towning the municipality.

"I have said it before: It's something out of a Southern Gothic novel. You can't make this stuff up," said State Senator Rob Bradley, whose district includes the city. "This situation went on for so long and the mismanagement was so deep, we have to seriously consider abolishing the government."

Hampton, a mishmash of trailers and wood-frame houses, some ramshackle, some not, has about 30 days to come up with a plan and make a genuine attempt to right itself or it will tumble into oblivion. The State Legislature would then take up a vote to dissolve it, handing over management of the city's one square mile to Bradford County.

Good riddance, Hampton. When you can't even be a town in Florida, you've clearly steered your ship into the rocks.

Filed Under: florida, hampton, police, speeding, tickets

Former Cop Proposes Law That Would Allow Officers To Ticket You Without Ever Leaving The 'Safety' Of Their Vehicles

from the safety-first! dept

Well, we know for sure that one person thinks this is a good idea, but if this bill passes intact, it will only further confirm the theory that legislators are unable to think more than one step ahead. (via The Consumerist)

An Oklahoma state senator has filed a bill to allow law enforcement officers to issue electronic citations for traffic, misdemeanor and municipal ordinance violations.

A former police officer, Sen. Al McAffrey, said Senate Bill 1872 would protect law enforcement personnel during traffic stops.

“Allowing officers to issue electronic citations will help better protect them. If they don’t have to approach vehicles during traffic stops to give people tickets but can simply email traffic violation citations directly to the district court clerk then they’re less likely to get into a dangerous altercation,” said McAffrey, D-Oklahoma City.

Officer safety must always be the first (and apparently, only) consideration when drafting legislation, at least when it's a former cop doing the drafting. McAffrey doesn't seem to have considered exactly how awful this plan is -- or just doesn't care.

McAffrey wants to make sure officers are safe, but seemingly has no similar concerns about the public. Ticketing someone electronically -- without ever interacting with the driver -- will make the roads less safe. What if the driver is under the influence? There's no way for the officer to make this determination without an interaction. What appears to be a minor moving violation may actually be the symptom of something more serious. The officer also won't be able to determine whether the driver is licensed to operate a vehicle. Worse, the automated process will send the ticket to the vehicle owner rather than the actual driver, and negatively affect the wrong person's driving record and insurance rates. And as for the "threat" McAffrey seems so worried police officers might confront, does it really make sense to protect the officer but leave the arguably dangerous person free to cause harm elsewhere?

Ultimately, the worst side effect of this bill is that it will lower the bar for ticket writing. Officers will be able to write more tickets for more violations (even minor ones that would previously go unnoticed) simply because they won't be slowed by interactions with the public. Removing this friction will increase the number of tickets issued, whether truly warranted or not. Traffic cams spit out tons of tickets because the "decision" is binary and wholly removed from public interaction. Cops with an e-ticket platform will likely become indistinguishable from the unblinking eyes watching over many American cities. And once this new way of policing kicks in, the cities utilizing the method will find the increased revenue hard to resist, which will prompt even more questionable legislation and tactics further down the line.

Here's more on the justification for this absurd piece of legislation from McAffrey:

“Routine traffic stops are one of the most dangerous times for officers to become injured because they don’t know what kind of situation or individual they’re approaching. They’re walking up blind,” said McAffrey. “We need to provide better protection for them by not putting them in harm’s way unnecessarily. By allowing them to submit electronic citations, they’d no longer have to leave the safety of their car.”

Well, if we want them to be truly safe, just blanket the state with cameras and allow those to issue the citations. We all know what a bang up job the cameras do, and this way no officer needs to be troubled to exit their vehicle, or perhaps even bother driving down to the station to clock in. After all, as we're all aware from countless seat belt PSAs, most accidents happen during short commutes like the daily drive to work. And why limit them to traffic citations? Enough cameras will certainly net a few felonies and calls into dispatch can be handled via an online questionnaire. ("Are you in danger?" [ ] Yes [ ] No [ ] Undecided) We can't have officers "walking blind" into domestic violence incidents or putting themselves in harm's way by interacting with citizens trying to report theft or a missing person. Let's ensure these officers are never forced to navigate the deadly streets of Anytown, OK ever again.

Filed Under: al mcaffrey, oklahoma, police, remote tickets, tickets

Google Glass Milestone: Driver Ticketed For Wearing Google Glass

from the ...yay? dept

Even before its release, Google's augmented reality product engendered speculation and fear. Some groups fear its possible application for surveillance. I've heard some loose talk about how this type of HUD-link is one step closer to man's incorporating computers into our biology, with some barely coherent suggestions that the eventuality will be part-human terminators walking around and stomping on puppies or something. It seems some of my fellow human beings have played Deus Ex and decided that its some sort of future-telling device.

Still, the progress of this kind of technology marches on despite this kind of talk and its always fun to watch a specific kind of technology "grow up", as it were. Google Glass has reached its next milestone as a technology product, now that someone is facing legal consequences for wearing it while operating a motor vehicle.

California-based Glass Explorer Cecilia Adabie is the first person to get a ticket while wearing Google’s head-mounted computer. And she won’t be the last. Abadie was driving in San Diego when an officer pulled her over for speeding. The primary infraction was for going 15 mph over the speed limit, but there was a secondary offense scrawled on the ticket: “driving w/ monitor visible to driver (Google Glass).”

Interestingly, the law being applied by the officer doesn't seem to be in any way intended for this kind of application. Instead, California Vehicle Code Section 27602 is focused on operating video screens within an automobile that are within view of the operator, such as television screens. You know those flip-down TVs in the backseats of cars? Those had started to creep into the front seat as an increasing number of Darwin-award-aspiring drivers thought they could multitask catching up on their favorite reality TV shows while commuting to work and back.

However, the law gives leave of these rules certain kinds of displays that are installed into the vehicle, such as vehicle information banks, GPS screens, and mapping screens. Google Glass has some of these applications while also achieving the hands-free requirement that has been oft placed on mobile devices that do the same. The only real differences between what's allowed and what Google Glass is are additional applications in the headset and the fact that it is worn rather than installed onto the dash or console of the car. All of which is enough to wonder whether Abadie was breaking the law, whether the law is useful with respect to Google Glass, and whether or not this officer was acting of his or her own accord or if this is the result of an edict from on high. Unfortunately, that isn't the only thing in this case to consider.

According to Abadie’s post on Google+, Glass wasn’t functioning when she was driving (you’ve got to issue a voice command or swipe the side to get it running), but that didn’t seem to be the issue — the arresting officer said “it was blocking my view.”

Now we have a problem, because it seems to me that if the officer said that the screen in Google Glass being on wasn't a factor, I don't really understand why he or she would cite a law that is all about screens being on. And if the problem is that Google Glass in some way restricts vision (and it does, slightly, peripherally), then we're in a different ballgame that should result in a great many kinds of non-technological eyewear, sunglasses in particular, resulting in similar citations, which I've never even heard of.

In any case, congratulations Google Glass. You're now in a technological adolescence, celebrated by your first automobile citation. Sniff, they grow up so fast.

Filed Under: california, driving, google glass, tickets

Olympics Shuts Down Non-Commercial Online Service That Helped People Get Tickets

from the olympic-failures dept

Another day, another story of Olympics insanity. Apparently the website for the London Olympics has a really awful interface that highlights tickets that are available. So, some enterprising coders quickly hacked together a better system, called 2012TicketAlert that would help alert people when new tickets were available. It was just a typical internet case study: some people saw a system that wasn't very good, and they built a better interface. Welcome to the internet.

Ah, but this is the Olympics, and the Olympics just doesn't do things like that. So, they shut the site down:

It seems someone at LOCOG has taken exception to our idea (or the publicity it is getting) and instead of reaching out to us or addressing the lack of a notification system, they have simply blocked our access to their server. This means we are unable to check or post any new ticket alerts.

Welcome to the Olympics, where if you don't pay the Olympics, you better not do anything to help make the Olympics a better experience.

And it's important to note that they weren't making money off of this. They were just helping to alert people to ticket availability and then driving them to the official Olympics site. They just hacked together a notification system.

Sometimes I wonder if the Olympics just wants to piss off everyone.

Filed Under: alerts, olympics, shut down, tickets

Police Ticket Guy Who Helped Direct Traffic After Traffic Light Failure; Then Leave Without Handling Traffic

from the no-good-deed dept

Sometimes it seems that law enforcement is a lot more interested in enforcing the letter of the law than the spirit of the law. Via Radley Balko, we learn that police in Pasadena California showed up at the intersection of Fair Oaks and Huntington Avenues to issue a ticket to Alan Ehrlich. Ehrlich's crime? Directing traffic.

Apparently the traffic light went out, leading to backups of more than a mile. It was taking cars more than 30 minutes to get through. Ehrlich decided to help out -- grabbing an orange shirt and some safety flags that he had, and helped direct traffic, apparently clearing up much of the backup in about 10 minutes. It was about that time that the police showed up and issued him a citation. And... at no point did the police decide that maybe they should be directing traffic.

Amazingly, the police chief is defending all of this by saying that the force does "not have the man power" to staff someone there to direct traffic -- but they apparently have the staff to issue a citation to the guy who volunteered to help out.

Filed Under: police, tickets, traffic

Dead Baltimore Cop Signed and 'Certified' Red Light Camera Tickets

from the zombie-tickets dept

Joseph was the first of a few of you to point us to the story of how the police in Baltimore have been sending out thousands of redlight camera tickets that were signed and certified by a police officer who died last fall. The law requires that each of the tickets be reviewed and certified by a human before being sent out. The fact that they were done so by someone who was deceased for many months would seem to suggest that no one was actually reviewing these tickets. The police department insists that it was just a "computer glitch," and that the tickets were reviewed and certified, but they seem to be saying "trust us." I would imagine that anyone who got one of these tickets is likely to be able to get out of it in court by pointing to the deceased officer's "certification."

Filed Under: dead officer, redlight cameras, tickets

Police End Up Paying $4k To Guy They Gave Bogus Traffic Tickets To After He Flipped Them Off

from the still-not-recommended dept

It's probably not a good idea, in general, to give the middle finger to police officers you encounter in your everyday life. However, it's also not illegal. So a guy who did it twice, and each time was then pulled over and given questionable citations then sued them for violating his civil rights. The Clackamas County police department in Oregon has now agreed to pay him $4,000 to settle the lawsuit, claiming that it was just cheaper to settle than to fight. Perhaps they also realized that they were likely going to lose as well.

Filed Under: fines, police, tickets

Ohio Town Refunds 980 Speed Camera Tickets For Only Driving 10mph Over The Limit (Versus 11mph)

from the go-speed-racer dept

A story suggest to us by reader Dan describes how an Ohio town recently issued 980 speeding ticket refunds. The city of Garfield Heights, Ohio, installed two speed cameras, attached to unmanned police cars, and then sent speeding tickets to those that were deemed to be speeding. The policy was to only issue tickets to those driving more than 11 miles per hour over the speed limit, so, when it was found that a number of tickets were issued to those driving 10 miles per hour over the limit, almost $100,000 in ticket revenue was refunded. Apparently, city officials had told the public that the tickets would be issued if people were caught driving 11 miles over the limit. So, if that's the case, then is the speed limit actually the speed limit or not? Once again, this goes to show how completely arbitrary speed limit enforcement can be. Is there really a difference in safety in going 10 mph over the speed limit vs. 11? And, if anything, it seems that widely circulating this policy would simply encourage people to drive 9 miles over the limit.

Clearly, it's a great money maker for the city. Since the month of June, when the cameras were installed, they sent out nearly 11,000 tickets, representing about $1,000,000 in added revenue. Sure, it's possible that the city may need to cover a shortfall in a budget, but is the false guise of public safety the appropriate manner in which to obtain this revenue? At least this method is a little more scientific than other Ohio towns, where a policeman can issue a ticket by simply guessing how fast you were going.

Filed Under: fines, speed cameras, speeding, tickets

Bob Dylan Gets Around Service Fees & Scalpers With A Simple Plan: Pay Cash At The Door

from the that's-one-way... dept

In our recent post about musician Joe Pug and other artists looking to get away from ridiculous service fees on tickets, commenter berick pointed out that Bob Dylan has come up with an interesting strategy to not just get around service fees, but scalpers as well: no pre-bought tickets to the show, just pay cash at the door:

When Bob Dylan says his just-announced, surprise show at the Warfield in San Francisco next Wednesday, August 25 costs $60, he means it costs $60 -- no service charges. No scalpers. No secondary market. In fact, perhaps as an effort to combat all complaints about the ticketing industry at large, there simply won't be any advance tickets to the show. Fans will pay $60 -- cash only -- on their way inside the venue, and that's that.

Of course, the downside to this is that if too many people show up (a decent possibility) you might not get in at all... Still, it's interesting to see how musicians are trying to get around activities that are seen as anti-consumer when it comes to pricing live shows.

Filed Under: bob dylan, cash, scalping, service fees, tickets