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Ars Technica: A movie theater industry group and the Motion Picture Association of America updated their anti-piracy policies and said that "wearable devices" must be powered off at show time.
You know, I hadn't actually thought of that as a use for Google Glass, though I guess it makes sense. There is enough people videotaping movies in theatres as it is. I don't know why people would want to wear Google Glass during performances anyway. What if you accidentally open an app or something and then it disrupts your viewing? Then you just have to sit there and suffer the consequences of being taken out of the moment. I get pissed off at people texting during shows, but what would happen if people started to have their faces lit up with glowing glasses!!??! That'd be terrible and potentially distracting for performers. I can understand why you would want to wear them to video tape the movie/show, but then you don't get to really experience it for yourself. All you've got is the movie file on your glasses.
This is kind of a losing battle. I think that they are well within their right to fight people trying to record and I would prefer as a movie goer that peoples faces were not glowing. However I do not think this is a battle they are going to win. If a 3 year prison sentence hasn't stopped people from recording movies (as evidenced by all the movies I have watched online) I don't think this will either. It seems a lot like the battle against people downloading music. If I am not going to pay for a movie, I'm just not. I pay for some music, and I pay for some movies but for the rest if the only way I could watch/listen was by paying, I just would not. Or I'd just wait until it came out on Netflix. So good luck, but I think you are going about this all wrong.
Supply and demand. People around the world have a mind set that watching a free movie does not hurt the movie industry. So in turn people take movie camera’s into a theatre to film a movie. I to have been guilty of downloading or watching a movie online through illegal sources, but the point is the same. If enough people keep ignoring the film’s right to make money (maybe not 15 dollars a ticket) and just downloading then it will only keep getting worse.
I wonder if there is some type of infrared technology that you could shoot out over the audience that would mess with camera’s lenses and not with the human eye. Just install a small little infrared blaster and have it make the recording useless. Think something like this is the only way to stop the downloading and video watching.
I admit that I haven't given Google Glasses much thought, but I never thought they'd be such a big issue with movie piracy. Though I see how they would be a problem. I agree with Isaac. If I'm going to pay to watch a movie I will, if I won't; I'll watch it online or wait for it to come out on Netflix. There will always be people who like to take the risk of taping a video to just get that rush of doing something illegal without getting caught. And taping is something that I think is not necessarily that hard to do, though I've never tried it. There are simply too many theaters around the world and too many people going to stop everyone from recording. It's like shoplifting; it happens all the time every day, but it's impossible to stop it all because you can't watch every patron all the time.
I don't know if I've ever actually read an article exalting the effectiveness of the MPAA. Although I understand that the MPAA is totally justified in creating these guidelines for wearables, I can't help but snicker at the losing battle they are fighting. There is no way every theater is going to keep every recording device out of every screening. The illegal taping of a particular movie is pretty much inevitable. Granted, I think the usage of Google Glass in recording a movie is actually pretty smart, but who wears Google Glass anyways?? But yes, fight on MPAA, in urging theater employees to "look out for the unusual".
It was pretty surprising to me that movie theaters consider "wearables" such an issue. For one thing, it seems like there are so many other ways to obtain copies of movies illegally, that are easier and generally yield better quality; are there that many people who film movies? For another, as others have said, it's a rule that is pretty difficult to enforce. Just putting a ban on an item is not going to solve the problem -- people bring food into theaters all the time and that's technically not allowed either. Granted, Glass is a new thing that's causing new problems, and theaters are bound to try to do something about it, but until they have a good way of catching people they probably aren't going to be able to stop them.
It becomes harder and harder to prevent theatre movie-goers from secretly recording movies and putting them online illegally. It’s frustrating to see that this is a larger issue than in previous years. Everybody has a phone, which essentially means that everyone has a recording device. I’ve never been familiar with Google glass and how it works, as in what the capability functions are for the glasses. It is nice to see that they are trying to enforce the laws that were put forth to prevent piracy from happening. As much as it sounds like it’s happening more often, I’ve never seen it happen, but then again there are plenty of honest people in this world, and I guess it’s a matter of someone trying to cheat the system. Technology has been a hindrance as to why this is as big an issue as it is. If everyone could just play by the rules from time to time we wouldn’t have to worry about making this as big an issue as it is.
7 comments:
You know, I hadn't actually thought of that as a use for Google Glass, though I guess it makes sense. There is enough people videotaping movies in theatres as it is. I don't know why people would want to wear Google Glass during performances anyway. What if you accidentally open an app or something and then it disrupts your viewing? Then you just have to sit there and suffer the consequences of being taken out of the moment. I get pissed off at people texting during shows, but what would happen if people started to have their faces lit up with glowing glasses!!??! That'd be terrible and potentially distracting for performers. I can understand why you would want to wear them to video tape the movie/show, but then you don't get to really experience it for yourself. All you've got is the movie file on your glasses.
This is kind of a losing battle. I think that they are well within their right to fight people trying to record and I would prefer as a movie goer that peoples faces were not glowing. However I do not think this is a battle they are going to win. If a 3 year prison sentence hasn't stopped people from recording movies (as evidenced by all the movies I have watched online) I don't think this will either. It seems a lot like the battle against people downloading music. If I am not going to pay for a movie, I'm just not. I pay for some music, and I pay for some movies but for the rest if the only way I could watch/listen was by paying, I just would not. Or I'd just wait until it came out on Netflix. So good luck, but I think you are going about this all wrong.
Supply and demand. People around the world have a mind set that watching a free movie does not hurt the movie industry. So in turn people take movie camera’s into a theatre to film a movie. I to have been guilty of downloading or watching a movie online through illegal sources, but the point is the same. If enough people keep ignoring the film’s right to make money (maybe not 15 dollars a ticket) and just downloading then it will only keep getting worse.
I wonder if there is some type of infrared technology that you could shoot out over the audience that would mess with camera’s lenses and not with the human eye. Just install a small little infrared blaster and have it make the recording useless. Think something like this is the only way to stop the downloading and video watching.
I admit that I haven't given Google Glasses much thought, but I never thought they'd be such a big issue with movie piracy. Though I see how they would be a problem.
I agree with Isaac. If I'm going to pay to watch a movie I will, if I won't; I'll watch it online or wait for it to come out on Netflix. There will always be people who like to take the risk of taping a video to just get that rush of doing something illegal without getting caught. And taping is something that I think is not necessarily that hard to do, though I've never tried it. There are simply too many theaters around the world and too many people going to stop everyone from recording. It's like shoplifting; it happens all the time every day, but it's impossible to stop it all because you can't watch every patron all the time.
I don't know if I've ever actually read an article exalting the effectiveness of the MPAA. Although I understand that the MPAA is totally justified in creating these guidelines for wearables, I can't help but snicker at the losing battle they are fighting. There is no way every theater is going to keep every recording device out of every screening. The illegal taping of a particular movie is pretty much inevitable. Granted, I think the usage of Google Glass in recording a movie is actually pretty smart, but who wears Google Glass anyways?? But yes, fight on MPAA, in urging theater employees to "look out for the unusual".
It was pretty surprising to me that movie theaters consider "wearables" such an issue. For one thing, it seems like there are so many other ways to obtain copies of movies illegally, that are easier and generally yield better quality; are there that many people who film movies? For another, as others have said, it's a rule that is pretty difficult to enforce. Just putting a ban on an item is not going to solve the problem -- people bring food into theaters all the time and that's technically not allowed either. Granted, Glass is a new thing that's causing new problems, and theaters are bound to try to do something about it, but until they have a good way of catching people they probably aren't going to be able to stop them.
It becomes harder and harder to prevent theatre movie-goers from secretly recording movies and putting them online illegally. It’s frustrating to see that this is a larger issue than in previous years. Everybody has a phone, which essentially means that everyone has a recording device. I’ve never been familiar with Google glass and how it works, as in what the capability functions are for the glasses. It is nice to see that they are trying to enforce the laws that were put forth to prevent piracy from happening. As much as it sounds like it’s happening more often, I’ve never seen it happen, but then again there are plenty of honest people in this world, and I guess it’s a matter of someone trying to cheat the system. Technology has been a hindrance as to why this is as big an issue as it is. If everyone could just play by the rules from time to time we wouldn’t have to worry about making this as big an issue as it is.
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