Two US Senators have proposed a bill that could land one a five year jail term should they attempt or appear to operate a camcorder in a US cinema. This is regardless of whether the user intends to film the screen, something else or even appear to do so regardless of whether they record anything or the recording is used for personal use or to publish it. A second offence raises the maximum jail term to ten years.
The bill also proposes a new series of copyright infringement fines to help the Motion Picture Association of America deal better with piracy. Finally, the bill will also assume that any material posted on the web has been downloaded at least ten times. Currently, a handful of individual US States have similar legislation, but the senators would like it to become a federal offence throughout the US . GristyMcFisty submitted the following article from The Register via our news submit :
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Senators Dianne Feinstein and John Cornyn who announced the bill today, want to punish the use or an attempt to use a video recorder in a movie theatre with a custodial sentence. That's even if you have no made no attempt, nor even have any intent to publish your footage. Anyone caught doing so faces the same five year jail sentence, even if no infringement has taken place. A second offence raises the maximum term to ten years. The bill also proposes a scale of new fines, allowing the Motion Picture Association of America the same armory as the RIAA. Similar legislation is in effect in a handful of individual States but Feinstein and Cornyn want to make it a Federal offense. The bill assumes that material posted on the Internet has already been downloaded ten times. With the Senate wrapping up for the year, it's unlikely to be passed. The former Mayor of San Francisco, Feinstein received $ 242,066 from the entertainment industry in her most recent Senate race, making her the pigopolists third favorite Senator, after Hillary Clinton and John McCain. |
This new law
would also affect holiday makers that carry a camcorder to the cinema as well as anyone else who loves to carry a camcorder or video clip capable digital camera where ever they go. With new picture mobile phone technology that can capture video clips, it will be interesting to see if anyone gets jail term for using a mobile phone in the cinema! Anyway, there is little pleasure in watching a camcorder recording of a movie that has a shaky picture with background noise. While this may show what the movie is about, it is nothing like going out to the cinema and enjoying a good film on big screen.
Anyway, it is really sad that someone would propose a bill to get one likely more severely punished for carrying a harmless camcorder in to a cinema compared with someone else carrying an illegal firearm into the same cinema.
Source: The Register
