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Topic: Cinema staff to patrol screenings with night-vision goggles to combat movie piracy
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Frank Cox
Film God
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Posts: 2234
From: Melville Saskatchewan Canada
Registered: Apr 2011
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posted 09-24-2015 02:22 AM
Cinema staff to patrol screenings with night-vision goggles to combat movie piracy quote: Cinema staff across the country will be required to don military-style night vision goggles in order to help crack down on movie piracy ahead of the release of two of the most anticipated blockbuster smashes of the year.
The release of the latest film in the James Bond franchise, Spectre, as well as the next installment in the hugely successful Hunger Games series, Mockingjay Part 2, has meant the film industry is looking into ways to beef up security at screens in order to stop the movies leaking online.
As part of a new measure to stop piracy ahead of the release of Spectre in October, staff will use equipment that would not look out of place in the 007 blockbuster, wearing night vision googles in order to make it easier see who may be illegally recording the film.
In recent years, pirates have found new and inventive ways to record movies while watching them at the cinema screens, including using a smartphone to film through a popcorn box and covering their phone with a sock with a hole in to hide the glare of the screen.
Kieron Sharp, director general of the Federation Against Copyright Theft (FACT), said: "The bigger the film and the more anticipated it is, the higher-risk it is. We have staff on extra alert for that. James Bond is a big risk and we will be working with cinema operators and the distributors making sure we will keep that as tight as possible. We really don't want to see that recorded.
"They [cinema staff] are on alert to really drill down on who is in the auditorium and who might possibly be recording. They still do the sweeps around the auditoriums with the night vision glasses regardless of the film. But sometimes extra security is put in place for things like Bond."
The initiative arrived after a man in Nottinghamshire was arrested on suspicion of recording recently released films American Ultra and Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials and posting them on the internet.
Following the arrest, Sharp said: "Over 90% of counterfeit versions of movies originate initially from a copy recorded in a cinema. Piracy not only costs the film industry millions of pounds but can also affect thousands of jobs, so it is crucial we act upon intelligence we receive about this activity.
"With two big releases due to hit the screens in the next few months it is incredibly important we work to combat those behind illegal film recordings."
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Randy Stankey
Film God
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Posts: 6539
From: Erie, Pennsylvania
Registered: Jun 99
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posted 11-29-2015 03:48 PM
I don't know for sure but I do know that there is a difference between an ordinary person observing something with the naked eye and that same person using binoculars or a camera with telephoto lens. One is ordinary behavior and the other could be considered a search, depending on the circumstance. The fact that a company specifically sends its employees out to search theaters with vision enhancing equipment might easily sway a judge or jury.
I find this troublesome because companies will tell employees that they are not cops or security guards when it comes to holdups, fights, drunk/disorderly persons or other similar things but, almost in the very next breath, tells them to act like cops by searching customers or their personal property. In one sentence, they say that low-paid, teenaged employees don't have the training, experience or authority to act like cops then, with the next, send them out to do just that.
Some might say that there is a difference between searching bags and dealing with a criminal carrying a gun but you should ask why employees are being asked to search. They are being sent out to search for guns. Right?
What's the difference between a stickup artist with a .38 and a lunatic with a Kalashnikov?
In my opinion, theaters are sending their employees out to walk a tightrope, both in a legal sense and in a safety sense. To me, it doesn't matter whether they are searching for guns, drugs and contraban, searching for smuggled bags of Doritos or searching for cameras. It's all the same thing.
If theater's want to have security guards they should hire security guards and stop impressing their line-employees to do the jobs that professionals should be doing.
If movie companies want theaters to have security, they should pay them to hire professionals.
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