Woman Faces Jail Sentence for Acidentally Taping "New Moon" in b.g. of sister's birthday

[villager]

Charged With Felony After Taping 4 Minutes Of "New Moon"
By Meg Marco

The Sun-Times is reporting that a 22-year-old Chicago woman has been arrested and charged with a felony after taping 4 minutes of "New Moon" during her sister's surprise 29th birthday party.

Managers saw the woman taping and called the police, who examined the camera (a digital still camera that also takes short video segments) and say they found “two very short segments” that totaled no more than 4 minutes.

The alleged felony movie-taper says she was taking pictures of her family before the film and that nobody warned her.

From the Sun-Times:
“
“We sang ‘Happy Birthday’ to her in the theater,” Tumpach said.
She also took pictures of family members in the theater before the film began, but an usher who saw the photo session never issued them a warning, Tumpach said.

As ads and previews ran on the big screen, she fiddled with the camera — which she got in July and is still learning how to work — and was surprised to see it took clear videos of the screen.

The footage she shot also includes the pre-film commercials, as well as her talking about the camera and the movie.

“You can hear me talking the whole time,” Tumpach said.

She plans to fight in court the felony filed against her because she said she did nothing wrong — and certainly didn’t try to secretly tape the movie.

<snip>

http://consumerist.com/2009/12/charged-with-felony-after-taping-4-minutes-of-new-moon.html

[tom_paine]

1. Most routine, normal behaviors are criminalized in an Inverted Totalitarianism like America

One doesn't realize the extent of the Virtual Skavery of Corproate NeoFeudalism unless one tries to test the bars, even accidentally.

We are so thoroughly overmedicated by drugs and TV, that we couldn't even comprehend it even if we tried - which is one of the purposes of dismantling public education and returning education as the sole province of the Ruling Class.

(except the bare minimum we peasants need to keep the Global Aristocracy's toilets running)

[spiritual_gunfighter]

8. Exactly

We must prosecute the commoners for taping 4 minutes of a movie, tearing the tag off of matresses and getting caught with an eighth of weed. We must allow corporations to commit all kinds of serious crimes in the name of free enterprise.

[pscot]

20. Individual rights has become an oxymoron

in the Corporate Natonal Security State.

[frazzled]

28. Well, no, it's not an individual right to steal copyrighted material.

That said, the question here is whether she did it intentionally or was just stupid. I vote for stupid. But you can't videotape a movie from the screen: it's not yours; you paid for the viewing, not to own a piece of it. Billions of dollars are lost (mostly abroad) by people doing this. This isn't about just big crappy Hollywood companies and productions. It affects the individual rights of many artists, who deserve to be able to control the ways in which their images are used.
Unless expressly given permission, don't assume an artist wants you to fuck with their labor and/or vision.

[panzerfaust]

2. Hopefully her sister was not wearing any visibly branded clothes

... else the clothing designers will be after her as well for trademark violations.

She might consider going after the theater owner for falsely reporting a crime.

There are bounds to intelligence, but not to stupidity.

[vadawg]

3. easy one, take it to jury trial, no deals

then watch as it gets dropped by the DA, or laughed out of court by a Jury..

[Darth_Kitten]

4. What's "New Moon"?

:shrug:

[abelenkpe]

24. A piece of shit sequel to a piece of shit film. nt

[elocs]

5. Posted here Thursday with 17 Recs:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x7146689

[HughMoran]

6. Idiots - boycott them

...unless it turns out that she's made a career out of theater filing.

[MineralMan]

7. There was obviously no intent to violate copyright laws.

However, had I been a customer in the theater, and some moron was talking and taping during the movie, I'd have spoken up...not because there was a copyright violation but because it was a damned rude thing to do.

[madrchsod]

9. it`s called...DRM

and you dam well get used to it because every image is going to be DRM`d.

[Pavulon]

14. I love DRM. It has been a lesson for major players about messing

with stuff they should not. I believe it was sony or one of the others that had millions dollars in crypto wiped out when they exposed the private key. They tried to sue but at the end of the day they looked like morons. Others have been defeated with a marker.

The more these assholes attack the smarter the counter technology gets. If they had left napster alone they could have made billions. Instead people are working on a distributed system for torrents that work under dynamic l2tp. Bottom line is in the event a 5MT nuclear device is detonated in the north east this system would still be online.

OS X and 7 have built in capability to establish highly secure connections. Whole disk encryption and RSA tools once used by banks for PCI transfers are now available cheap.

[verges]

23. Was that English? I am such a luddite! nt

[FormerDittoHead]

10. It's the least they could do to SHUT HER THE FUCK UP IN THE THEATER!

“You can hear me talking the whole time,” Tumpach said.

Oh my god! They sang 'happy birthday' in the theater and she was talking through the whole movie???

THAT should be the crime!

The reason I DON'T GO OUT TO THE MOVIES ANY MORE is that people think they're in their living rooms talking...

ONLY *I* DON'T TALK SO MUCH WHEN I'M WATCHING A MOVIE IN MY LIVING ROOM!

That aside, don'tcha think it's a little silly to make this woman go through the motions when 'moon' is going to be on DVD in 6 months for $20?

[tom_paine]

15. Of course it's silly, but it serves a purpose

The peasantry must be frightened and controlled, as well as medicated and stupefied with TV, drugs, and the Right-Wing Lie-Machine (not to mention the laughably mislabeled "Liberal" Media who's SO LIBERAL it routinely helps the Right-Wing Lie Machine in it's neverending & extraordinarily successful quest to launder lies into Conventional Wisdom).

You know alot about having your mind anesthetized and your conscience surgically removed by the Right-Wing Lie Machine, obviously. You are one of the few who can actuially claim, like in the movie American History X, to have broken the programming. Not many do, so be proud of that.

Anyway, I digress. The fact is that we peasants must be continually reminded that under Inverted Totalitarianism and Corporate Neofeudalism, we have no real rights and our every daily act can be turned into a crime, if our masters want it so.

Believe you me, we peasants are getting the message. There is less fight left in this nation (except to go all Nazi-style on the liberals, as you well know - there's PLENTY of your former brethren just waiting for "permission from authority" to do just that) that a kindergarten.

You should have stayed with the Dittheads. At least you wouldn't have to think for yourself, and thinking for yourself in this nation at this time in history is an awful curse. Also, if you're young enough, you could have gotten to really beat, injure or kill liberals with the blessings of Authority and with no fear of investigation let alone prosecution.

[Pavulon]

21. I happily remind that under us law you can not be forced to give up a password

and that AES256 whole disk encryption is an excellent way to secure your hard drive. Crypto is your friend. The only people who can break it dont really give a shit abut screeners and cams.

Forcing file sharers to use sophisticated elliptical encryption once reserved for bank and military comm will cost billions to the tax payer. The NSA will be forced to sift through more bullshit to find real content.

[Pavulon]

16. I am a generally quiet guy. Not really loud.

However I have zero hesitation to sound off in a theatre. 90% of people will just shut up. A guy did look at me funny when I told him to get the fuck off the phone. Sadly we are becoming a nation of idiots.

[YOY]

17. +1

n/t

[petronius]

27. I lost a chunk of sympathy for her at that point. I still think it is an inane charge,

but anyone who talks to/about a camera for four minutes of a movie deserves a bit of inconvenience... :)

[guruoo]

11. "woman spent two nights in jail and faces up to three years in prison." n/t

[tandot]

12. I guess she missed the Seinfeld episode where George gets arrested for bootlegging

or pretending to bootleg:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0697725/plotsummary

However, it should be clear after they saw the footage that she didn't intend to bootleg the movie. To even call the police is plain old stupid. For the cops to press charges is unbelievable. She'll successfully fight those charges. What a waste of resources.

[The Backlash Cometh]

13. I loved the way she said she was talking the whole time.

It ain't a Twilight movie unless half the audience is talking.

[Mugweed]

25. The reason I haven't been to a theater in 15 years

People think they are in their own living rooms and have no consideration anymore. Also, 99.9% of the movies produced are shit.

[Beaverhausen]

18. She gets this recorder in July and decides to learn how it works during a movie in November?

are all 22 year olds this stupid?

[Mugweed]

26. I've owned an Olympus SLR for almost a year now.

I still haven't learned how to use it beyond the Auto setting. I guess I'm stupid...or maybe just too busy to read and memorize the novel-length manual. I keep meaning to get to it, but I'm really tired after work and have tons of chores on the weekends.

Of course, I can be arrested for my picture taking if some over-eager cop wants to accuse me of "photographing important infrastructure" like RR tracks or tall buildings or suspension bridges. You know, scenic stuff people would normally photograph without question before the terrorists won?

[YOY]

19. Maybe we can just jail people making shitty movies blockbusters.

or for talking in the theater. We won't have that anti-corporate backlash feeling then.

[Odin2005]

22. Goddamn intellectual property Nazis.

This is fucking insane! INSANE!