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1. Sorry, but I don’t really agree. No, she shouldn’t go to jail. No, she shouldn’t even pay a fine. But all sorts of providers of content are getting ripped off day after day. What is not clear is whether this theater also has gone after people who they’ve caught filming entire moves; I assume they would. The losses this industry is facing over this requires a zero-tolerance policy. You can be lenient in any sentencing or settlement, but you can’t just let it go by.

   Comment by JayKay — August 4, 2007 #

2. “A little common sense, please.”

   The theatre management was just doing its job. How many other “about twenty seconds” does it take to pirate a movie.

   It is up to the court to decide on the seriousness of the charge.

   Comment by davod — August 4, 2007 #

3. You are comparing actual sentences with a possible maximum sentence. What are the maximum sentences for those other crimes?

   What is the value of the move? What is the value per second? What is the value of the climax?

   Comment by knjgw39w7yshg — August 4, 2007 #

4. Where does “fair use” fit into a 20 second clip from a 2 hour movie? Or does it?

   Comment by Hogarth — August 4, 2007 #

5. Well, I’m stumped on this one. Isn’t copyright violation a civil, not a criminal matter? She she hadn’t distributed the copyrighted material (after all, she hadn’t even left the theatre at the time of her arrest), so how was copyright (the right to reproduce the work or derivative works, and distribute them) violated? Further, the theatre does not hold the copyright on the film; the motion picture studio does. So how can the theatre claim *it* was the “victim”?

   Comment by ramona — August 4, 2007 #

6. “What is the value per second?”
   That is a false argument. The woman didn’t “steal” the movie in the sense of making it permanently unavailable to others. To even begin to answer that question, she’d have to distribute the clip to others and, through a fairly tortuous cost analysis, an economist would have to calculate the net loss to the studio. Which, I’m guessing, is nil.

   Think about the word “copyright” and it becomes apparent why it is a field of law unto itself.

   Unfortunately, our laws probably date from the time when the acquisition of high-quality copies could only be done by people far more dedicated to thievery than ordinary folks with a camcorder or kids with Napster. Something needs to be done to distinguish the two, and make the punishment fit the crime.

   Comment by kip — August 4, 2007 #

7. I am shocked by the harsh judgments from the first three commenters. The losses the industry is suffering are due to lack of innovation, not teenagers stealing content. It would like to blame it on stealing, because it can control that better than its own sclerotic creative culture.

   In fact, even if the 20 seconds ended up on YouTube, it would only serve as user-generated marketing (if people liked it). I don’t even think you could sell a crappy quality 20-second clip if you wanted to. The industry uses these strong-arm tactics to make themselves feel better about the big picture, i.e. “we’re not selling movies because those awful customers are STEALING it”. Uh, sure.

   Comment by Nick — August 4, 2007 #

8. Perhaps we should mourn the death of common sense.
   A young girl filming 20 seconds of a movie….a copywrite thief? A young boy patting the backside of a girl at school…a sexual preditor?
   Apparently the proscecutors have lost any sense of discretion.

   Comment by William Kelly — August 4, 2007 #

9. Do those who defend the theatre owners in this case defend them when they chain the fire escape doors to prevent people from sneaking in for free?

   In the business that I work in, if someone doesn’t pay, we can set in motion a process that may take 3 years before someone is forced to sell assets to pay us. Yes, these are my wages I’m talking about.

   The theatre owners can kick the person out, make them not welcome in the theatre, or whatever they want, but to have the full power of the state as a club in this instance is ridiculous.

   Maybe the locals should suggest to everyone that the theatre obviously doesn’t welcome it’s customers, and stay away. If the theatre is empty, there isn’t any risk of anyone stealing, is there.

   Derek

   Comment by dk — August 4, 2007 #

10. That theater just shot itself in the foot. Or maybe in its backside, let’s say.

    If the DA wants to join it in this heavy-handed pursuit, he’ll make a fool of himself as well.

    Comment by Crispin — August 4, 2007 #

11. Dittos for comment by Nick. The entertainment industry would be more profitable if devoted more effort to making good movies and stopped blaming its customers for it woes.

    Comment by Flash Gordon — August 4, 2007 #

12. If the price of producing high quality audio/video content is the creation of a police state monitoring us 24/7, ruining people financially and throwing them in jail for “fair use”, then the price is too high.

    I can do without Star Wars, Britney Spears, Transformers, etc. The freedom of Jhannet Sejas is infinitely more important to me. If movie studios and recording conglomerates stop making because they can’t control distribution, and put dog leashes around all of our necks, so be it.

    Smoking was OK once long ago, but it is gradually becoming outlawed as we realized the consequences of smoking. Let’s put movie studios and record companies on the same path because what they do is so harmful to our society.

    Comment by pdq332 — August 4, 2007 #

13. Speaking as someone who works in the entertainment industry I can say she has broke the law without distributing the clip
    What she has done is a mechanical reproduction, which would require licensing.
    People might say ‘fair use’ but in pretty much all of those, the clip is chosen ahead of time; you cannot just picka clip and use it
    Now, is the theatre overreacting? A bit, yes
    Is this another sign of the death of common sense?
    HELL YES!
    Horrific crimes are excused, minor crimes are blown up, DA’s become personally sympathetic of the accuser (Soccer team ‘rape’)
    This is what happens when you let ‘feelings’ take rule over ‘thought’

    Comment by GW Crawford — August 4, 2007 #

14. There was once a time when really bad businessmen and really stupid lawyers were coated with tar and feathers, tied to fence rails and run out of town in front of everyone.
    It had a salutory effect. There would not be a Nifong, or a Lisle if we still had tar, feathers, fence rails and the people to assemble them.

    Comment by Peter — August 4, 2007 #

15. Nice going, Regal Cinemas. You just “barred me for life”, too.

    I suspect the same goes for a lot of other people.

    Comment by RegalBeagle — August 4, 2007 #

16. There are still people out there that feed the entertainment mafias? Wow.

    Gave up movies, music and theaters, why support thugs who constantly turn out crap and then there are those things that live in a make believe world who pass for news. Sad state of affairs.

    The inmates have taken over far more than the asylum.

    Comment by fox3 — August 4, 2007 #

17. GW Crawford,

    You don’t say exactly what you do in the entertainment industry, but I’ll bet you a large virtual sum that it’s not “IP attorney” or anything remotely near that. I say this because your statement “you cannot just pick a clip and use it” is completely wrong. The whole point of “fair use” is that it doesn’t require either permission from, or notification to, the copyright holder.

    Comment by Kirk Parker — August 4, 2007 #

18. On of the innumerated aspects of Copyright law is “fair use”; it includes verbatim quotes, for example, in reviews, your right to make archivial copies of media you purchase, etc. I would think that a 20 second clip used to encourage a potential patron to actually go see a movie would be “fair use.” If it were me, that would be my story and I’d stick to it!!

    Comment by Dave Riggs — August 5, 2007 #

19. Three or so really quick comments in total support of the movie industry and of the prosecution of this woman. Could it be that that same industry monitors blogs and other news sources and posts pro-industry comments? Not so far fetched an idea seeing as how the RIAA pays people to troll supposed music sharing sites.

    Comment by Chris — August 6, 2007 #

20. >

    Why is this mutually exclusive? This argument seems to be that because the product stinks, it’s OK to steal it. I’m sure you don’t really believe that, but it’s not a big leap to that conclusion. Would it be permissible to charge this woman if she were taping a new release that is instantly recognized as a classic?

    Comment by JayKay — August 6, 2007 #

21. Translation: “I’ve got no logical argument against these commenters, so I’ve got to resort to claiming they’re industry shills and throw a little conspiracy-mongering for good measure. Nobody here is bright enough to notice my Super Genius sleight of hand.”

    Comment by ramona — August 8, 2007 #

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