Why Large Powerful Central Government Sucks Part II – Feds Save Us From Pirates
In Part I, we learned of the heroic work our brothers in ICE are doing to protect the homeland from terrorist mod chips. In this installment, we’ll explore the consequences when a large, powerful central government criminalizes law-abiding moviegoers at the behest of an entertainment industry stuck in the past.
The WaPo reports on the arrest and pending criminal charges against a college student who took a short (less than a minute) video clip of the Transformers movie, ostensibly to entice her younger brother to watch it. In so doing, she ran afoul of the Federal Family Entertainment and Copyright Act of 2005 as well as Virginia state law (it appears she’s being charged under the later; lucky for her the JBTs didn’t catch her first).
Here are the money quotes:
Kendrick Macdowell, general counsel for the Washington-based National Association of Theatre Owners, said that illegal pirating of films costs the industry billions of dollars and that the industry was stepping up efforts to stamp it out.
Because of that, he said, there has to be a “zero-tolerance policy at the theater level.”
“We cannot educate theater managers to be judges and juries in what is acceptable,” he said. “Theater managers cannot distinguish between good and bad stealing.”
Uh, yeah. Using a brief low-rez clip of a film to encourage others to see that film is apparently ‘good stealing’, but that’s for the courts to figure out. Coz circuit court judges are _so_ up on technology and stuff. Seems reasonable to me.
Arlington police spokesman John Lisle said it was the decision of Regal Cinemas Ballston Common 12 to prosecute the case, a first for Arlington police.
“They were the victim in this case, and they felt strongly enough about it,” he said.
It’s not at all clear to me how there could be any victim in this case other than the poor girl who’s getting the shaft for being too stupid to realize the movie theater experience is a stupendous waste of time and money and that she’s better of downloading pirated copies of DVDs and watching them at home. In particular, the manager of the theater is not a victim at all, but rather a petty tyrant who has been empowered by an unjust law and chosen to bludgeon innocent young women with that law without regard to actual harm or intent. Wherever you are, asshole, fuck you!
Movie pirating cost the industry $18.2 billion worldwide in 2005, the last year for which figures were available, according to the Motion Picture Association of America. Moviegoers are increasingly carrying cellphones, digital cameras and other devices capable of recording.
“Ninety percent of recently released films that are pirated are done by camcording in movie theaters,” said Kori Bernards, a spokeswoman for the Motion Picture Association of America. “It’s happening all over. And there’s been a rash of camcording in the Washington area of late.”
OK, here’s the deal. I hate going to theaters. The crowds, the inconvenient showtimes, the chatty teenyboppers, the screaming kids, the high prices, and the shit movies all conspire to push me away. I would hate going to theaters even if the movie industry didn’t work tirelessly to find the perfect balance of Mafia extortion and fascist compulsion to run itself into the ground with maximal efficiency. However, given it does, it just makes me grin all the wider when I find hear about people finding that new screener copy or DVDrip.
Now, we’re told that because pirates are cam’ing movies, the industry lost nearly $20 billion (a suspect figure which you can bet is inflated by at least an order of magnitude), and that makes it ok to find and jail teenage college students who innocently take short clips of movies to entice others to come and watch the whole thing. You have got to be kidding me.
I as a rule don’t download CAMs, not only because that’s about the only way to invite criminal sanctions for piracy, but also because they suck. However, after this bullshit, I may have to download a few as an act of civil disobedience.
Besides facing a misdemeanor charge, Sejas was also banned for life from the movie theater she has frequented
rotflmao. It’s the petty tyrant thing again. Let’s assume that she is stupid enough to want to patronize this theater again. Are they scanning passports at the door? Have they hired some off-duty JBTs with automatic weapons and face masks to check the papers of moviegoers? Is there a wall of ‘do not admit’ posters pasted on the inside walls of the box office, which the minimum-wage angst-riddled teenage workers are to check carefully before admitting anyone? Bullshit.
Let’s pause for a moment and reflect on what we’ve just heard. What is the Constitutional basis for the Family Entertainment and Copyright Act of 2005? Which of Congress’ limited, enumerated powers gives it the Constitutional ability to make federal felons out of moviegoers? Is it goold ole Commerce Clause? Perhaps the catch-all General Welfare Clause. Whatever it was, I’m sure Orin Hatch was acting to uphold his sworn oath to support and defend the Constitution when he introduced this legislation. Any anyway, the Constitution doesn’t say anything about taking thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from the MPAA…
Those of you who applaud the erosion of Constitutional limitations on Congressional power starting in the New Deal through the Great Society and to today had better get used to this kind of thing; you brought it on yourselves. Did you really think that a Federal government operating without any Constitutional restrictions would only do things you liked?
The Founders clearly saw this coming. That’s why Congress’ powers are limited and few, and the States’ and peoples’ rights many and unbounded. Despite what the courts may tell you, the Commerce Clause was not intended to allow Congress to regulate anything that might possibly maybe someday be used in interstate commerce, or the use of which might affect interstate commerce (ala Raich), and the General Welfare clause was not intended to grant Congress power to forcibly take money from you and I and give it to FCC bureaucrats to make sure there are no bad words on the air. But, here we are.
My advice: ridicule the government while you still can. That’s damn sure what I’m doing.