Less than 24-hours after we posted a story on the lawsuit filed against Muvico by a 22-year-old for being arrested for filming inside a movie theatre an email arrived from Patrick Corcoran, the National Association of Theatre Owners’ Director of Media & Research.
Corcoran not only provided a statement about Samantha Tumpach’s suit, but along with Brigette Buehlman also filled in a few details about the organization’s Take Action reward program.
Tumpach was arrested in November for filming portions of “Twilight: New Moon” during her sister’s birthday party inside a Chicago movie theatre. Her suit alleges that she was given no warning to stop filming and that even after the MPAA suggested releasing her, the theatre’s management had her arrested to collect a reward for stopping a camcorder pirate.
In our previous post Corcoran pointed out that Tumpach’s assertions were printed as fact, rather than allegations. Fair enough. That the history being presented was being drawn from Tumpach’s allegations and news reports could have been made clearer.
Corcoran also wrote:
“Any upset or unpleasantness Miss Tumpach believes she has suffered was a consequence of her own actions. Muvico was well within its rights to act as they did. Recording any part of a movie in a theater is illegal.
Theater employees cannot be expected to divine a person’s intent in illegally camcording a movie on the screen. They should stop the activity, alert the police and let the proper authorities make the determination. That’s what happened in this case and the prosecutor made the right decision.
It is curious that Miss Tumpach seeks to prolong her sense of public humiliation by filing a frivolous suit in a case that most of the world had forgotten about – until now.”
Like Corcoran, I found it a little odd that Tumpach would want to dredge all this up again, reminding the public of her own naiveté which led to her arrest.
The reward Tumpach claims the theatre’s management wanted to collect refers to the Take Action rewards program founded by NATO and the MPAA in 2004. The program awards USD $500 to any theatre employee that stops someone from using a camcorder to capture a film.
Since the programs inception 280 theatre employees have received USD $106,275 for 272 separate incidents. On five occasions two or more theatre employees shared the reward.
No arrest or conviction is necessary for theatre personnel to collect a reward. All that needs to occur is to stop a patron from camcording a film and a police report.
As to the argument regarding fair use, Corcoran said:
“Fair use does not apply in a movie theater, and the length of the recording is pretty irrelevant since, by definition, if you stop someone from camcording, they will not have a complete recording of the movie.”
This would be a perfect moment to highlight what a stellar team NATO has in the likes of Corcoran and Buehlman. And I say that sincerely. This was not the first time they have make contact shortly after a post was published. As well, they are quick to respond to requests for official comments and additional information. They set a great example for trade organizations in any industry.
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Samantha Tumbach
Remember back in November of last year when the industry was abuzz about a 22-year-old woman who was arrested and jailed for using a video recorder inside a Chicago movie theatre during her sister’s birthday party? Well, she’s back in the news again.
This time Samantha Tumpach wants to go to court on her own terms by filing a lawsuit against Muvico over the arrest for malicious prosecution, intentional infliction of emotion distress, defamation and negligence. Tumpach had hinted she might sue the theatre back in December so he lawsuit doesn’t come as a complete.
When Tumpach was originally arrested in November she spent two days in jail before being released. Facing the possibility of a three year jail sentence, Tumpach insisted she was only shooting her sister’s birthday party which was taking place at a showing of “Twilight: New Moon”. Though the theatre and prosecutors didn’t back down, initially they ultimately dropped the charges.
The lawsuit claims Tumpach was never given a warning to put her camera away. She was filming the first scene in the film “hoping to capture the title and beginning as a memory of this exciting event.” Then when she was removed from the auditorium by theatre personnel the police questioned whether making an arrest was really appropriate. Tumpach pleaded with authorities that she had know idea she was doing anything wrong by recording inside the theatre. The suit alleges that when the MPAA was contacted they told police to erase the content from the video camera and simply file a report.
However the theatre went ahead and pressed charges in hopes of collecting the monetary reward offered by the MPAA for the arrest and prosecution of stopping camcorder pirates. The media quickly picked up the story, faulting the monetary prize for making theatre employees overzealous in such instances. The lawsuit states:
Samantha, in the open theater area and in plain view of others, was subsequently placed under arrest, handcuffed and was walked through the theater and out to the officers’ vehicle where she was placed in the rear seat of the squad car, while numerous theater guests witnessed, pointed and gasped as Samantha cried with fright, humiliation and shame.
It goes on to say:
Buckus signed the criminal complaint in hopes of collecting a reward for providing information that leads to the arrest and conviction of a person engaged in video piracy when he very well knew that she was guilty of no such act.
Tumpach is now seeking USD $50,000 in compensatory damages.
Given Illinois state laws, it is highly likely that the lawsuit will be dismissed, however I was a guest on TwiT’s Tech News Today this past Friday and host Tom Merritt asked whether Tumpach’s recordings were short enough to be considered fair use. One clip was 114 seconds long and another was 85 seconds.
My argument was that it is not customary to bring a video recorder into a movie theatre, even to collect material for fair use purposes. There are other ways to get fair use material that doesn’t resemble the activity of pirates. Deeming such behavior legal might cause a raft of moviegoers to whip out cameras in theatres to capture a few seconds of a screening making it impossible to identify actual pirates.
What do you think? Should Tumpach’s short clips of “Twilight: New Moon” be considered fair use?
UPDATE: July 7, 2010 - No arrest or conviction is necessary to collect the Take Action reward offered by the National Association of Theatre Owners and the MPAA. Theater personnel only need to stop a camcorder pirate and file a police report.
]]>Here’s a new twist on the old story of camcorder piracy and movie theft. A recent news blip published in Australia’s Herald reported an incident in which movie theatre personnel at a cinema in Glendale spotted a man video taping a showing of “Avatar”. The catch is, the man was 88-years-old.
The cinema manager got the gentleman to stop recording and called the police. When authorities arrived the man, who was wearing large glasses and got around with the aid of a walking stick, informed them that he was recording the film for his wife who was unable to make it to the cinema.
While awfully kind of the man to be thinking of his wife, he was informed that such activity is illegal. The police proceeded to delete the movie from the man’s camcorder and let him sit through the rest of the film. As the Los Angeles Times points out, he may not have been let off the hook so easily in the United States, senior citizen or not. In 2005, the Motion Picture Association of America sued a 67-year-old man for $600,000 after pirated movies were downloaded onto his computer via a peer-to-peer service.
I wonder if the 88-year-old Australian man will get any credit simply for knowing how to work the camcorder or for his willingness to hold it through a movie that’s more than two-and-a-half hours long.
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Danny Boyle at the premiere of "Slumdog Millionaire" in India (EPA/STR)
Less than 24-hours after “Slumdog Millionaire” picked up 10 Oscar nominations on Thursday, filmmaker Danny Boyle’s rags-to-riches movie about a teenage boy from the slums of Mumbai opened on Friday in India stirring up a bit of resentment and controversy. In fact, rather than being greeted by long lines of moviegoers, according to The Times of India the release of the film caused a small riot at the Inox Multiplex in Panaji.
As a story in the Los Angeles Times details, some in India are dismayed over what they see as the stereotypical portrayal of their country as filled with corruption and impoverished throngs. Hindu Janajagruti Samiti (HJS), a pro-Hindu group, petitioned the government to ban or censor “Slumdog Millionaire” stating that the movie would upset the religious values of millions of Indians due to references of Hindu deities and a misrepresentation of the Lord Ram. Then on Friday, a large group of Shiv Sena activists vandalized the only multiplex in Panaji (the capital of the Indian state of Goa) when theatre managers would not cancel showings of the film.Shiv Sena is one of India’s more boisterous political parties and during the melee they lived up to their reputation as a militant right-wing group when members threw rocks at the theatres’ windows, tore down posters and vandalized the multiplex. Managers at the theatre had to call in police to quell the mild uprising who in turn carted off 12 Shiv Sena activists. While all of this was taking place, HJS protested outside the theatre.
Some of the Shiv Sena activists present during the altercation told journalists they believe the very name of the film is degrading. They claim Mumbai’s impoverished citizens do not want their neighborhoods referred to as slums, nor wish to be referred to as dogs.
Much like political and religious protests against controversial films in other countries, Shiv Sena’s actions are only serving to provide “Slumdog Millionaire” with more exposure. The movie has already made more then USD $50 million worldwide and is being hailed by some in the country as the most successful Indian film of all time. Box office prospects in India, where the film was shot, remain positive, however The Economic Times is reporting that ticket sales for the English language version of “Slumdog Millionaire” are off by about 20% due to rampant piracy. Because of the overwhelming interest in the film, and with a two-month window between the film’s U.S. and Indian release dates, pirated copies of the movie made their way into the country and could be found on the Internet as well as the streets of major cities such as Mumbai. One cable station reportedly even went so far as to air the English version of the film before it officially opened in theatres.
Despite all the protests and political rhetoric being thrown at the film in India, it would have been interesting to see how loud the outcry and accusations of racial prejudice would have been by those same activist groups had the Academy overlooked “Slumdog Millionaire” when announcing its nominations on Thursday.
]]>The Motion Picture Association of America has been hinting for some time now that internet service providers should prevent copyrighted material such as movies and televisions shows from being distributed illegally through their high speed broadband networks. Back in July of this year, the MPAA filed comments with the Federal Communications Commission over the “net neutrality” issue, warning the agency that any laws put into place should allow providers to monitor their network traffic to detect the transmission of pirated intellectual property.
On Tuesday MPAA chairman and CEO Dan Glickman pulled no punches in speaking about the issue at a seminar titled Legal Risk Management in the Web 2.0 World . (Try saying that seminar title five times really quickly). CNet.com quoted Glickman as saying:
“Their [ISPs] revenue bases depend on legitimate operations of their networks and more and more they’re finding their networks crowded with infringed material, bandwidth space being crowded out. Many of them are actually getting into the content business directly or indirectly. This is not an us-versus-them issue.”
The reality is, in the United States ISPs are relatively immune from the liability of their networks being used to distribute pirated material. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act established in 1998, an ISP is not held responsible for the illegal activity of their subscribers as long as they “they don’t condone copyright infringement, that they remove infringing material when notified and that they aren’t deriving financial benefit from it.” So, don’t look for your internet provider to boast that they have the fastest bit torrent downloads any time soon.
What it seems Glickman is suggesting is that ISPs either prevent pirated material from being transmitted over their networks or that they throttle the bandwidth speed way back when illegal content distribution is suspected. Such throttling, known as traffic shaping, has been a real hot button topic among hard core techies of late given that Comcast (in the U.S.) and other ISPs around the globe have been caught limiting the bandwidth of heavy internet users.
Ironically Glickman may get his wish in having ISPs join the MPAA in fighting movie piracy, though not due to the efforts of his organization. More so because internet providers find it is in their best interest to optimize their network by curtailing bandwidth speeds to non-commercial users generating the most traffic. In techie language. . . that means those using file sharing programs to distribute pirated copies of the latest blockbusters.
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