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MPAA Trumpets Spiderman 3 Camcording Crackdown

Jon Healey of the LA Times points to a joint release today [pdf] from the MPAA and the National Association of Theatre Owners trumpeting their success in stopping the camcording of Spiderman 3.  The release notes that the industry stopped 31 camcording attempts worldwide, which it credits with helping lead to the movie's record opening.  Healey focuses on the economic side of the story – he rightly says camcording is wrong, but also wonders about the actual box office impact of camcording.

Canadians will find the release interesting since it lists the various countries where Spiderman 3 camcording was stopped.  Given the recent hysteria about Canadian camcording, one would expect a sizable percentage of the 31 incidents would be traced back to Canada.  In actual fact, the industry says there were nine incidents in the U.S. (including theatres in California, Florida, Indiana, NY, and Texas) along with 22 other incidents in Argentina, Germany, Malaysia, Russia, South Africa, Taiwan, and the United Kingdom.  Not one Canadian incident is mentioned in the release (Healey traces a current Spiderman 3 camcord to Russia).  Moreover, to the best of my knowledge, none of these countries (with the exception of the U.S.) have anti-camcording legislation.

11 Comments

  1. Dorkmaster Flek says:

    I fully expect this to be mentioned the next time the MPAA tries to say Canada is responsible for half of all camcorded movies. I also highly doubt it had any impact on the people who went to see it in the theatre.

  2. Chris Brand says:

    Unfortunately, I suspect that they’ll say that they couldn’t do anything about the camcording that happened in Canada because our laws are so lax.

  3. Anonymous says:

    Chris,

    There’s nothing stopping them from stopping people from camcording in Canada. They just can’t have the police charge them with a crime without proof. They can still stop them from recording and kick them out.

  4. I remember theatres having ushers and attendants. No wonder so much camcording is going on. If they took one camera with infra-red vision in every theatre, and had this survey the crowd, all camcording would cease. With up to 15 different pictures being shown at mega-plexes, would the cost be too high?
    I think the movie industry should be partly to blame that they took profits before stopping losses. It would be in their best interest($$$) to stop it.
    This should also apply to “second run” theatres because how many DVD sales are lost fi they are camcorded then??
    I will bet the MPAA will say that they did NOT monitor Canadian theatres.

    Even though no Canadian laws are broken if a movie is camcorded, would the person doing it be held civilly liable for lost damages?? A couple of high profile civil suits would stop it forever.

  5. Dwight Williams says:

    Interesting Suggestion
    All it would take would be a single upload from such a camcording to nail the expected offender in such a lawsuit scenario, yes?

  6. Camcording quality is terrible says:

    sigh
    This is a huge scam to make Canada seem bad, and push us toward the USA’s own interests.

    Everyone knows that cam-quality vids on the internet are terrible. The video’s that are the most widely shared are the DVD quality screeners!! Come on, it does not take long to realize this if anyone actually tries to find a copy of Spiderman 3. (www.torrentspy.com is a decent start)

    Shame on anyone that buys into the MPAA’s phony “studies”

  7. Alexandre Racine says:

    alexandreracine.com
    That’s interesting considering that on the 3rd of May 2007, a lot of camcording version of Spiderman 3 hit websites like thepiratebay.org . [ link ]

  8. Alexandre Racine says:

    alexandreracine.com
    Wow, they are good. The problem is that the first camcording version of Spiderman 3 got out the 3rd of May 2007 on thepirate .org bitorrent website.

    Waner Bros Pictures : 0
    MPAA : 0
    Pirates : 1

  9. Dwight Williams says:

    I say again…
    …a plague on the pirates and the relevant lobby groups alike! Both are making troubles we don’t need at all.

  10. “With up to 15 different pictures being shown at mega-plexes, would the cost be too high?”

    Not only would the cost not be that high, if the dollar value of the supposed piracy problem is so astronomically large, it would be totally worth it… wouldn’t it? A few hundred or thousand dollars worth of equipment per ‘plex, to protect how many millions, billions, or gazillions of dollars worth of precious IP? Their own hysterical math makes the argument!

  11. derekhill says:

    The facts don’t count in Orwellian societies. Last night on Larry King someone phoned in about the need for a Canadian fence because of past events;”terrorists came in from Canada” and none of the 5 congressmen and journalists on his panel corrected her.