After months of claiming that Canada is the source of up to 50 percent of camcording of films, a report out of New York now claims that the Big Apple is responsible for more than 40 percent of camcorded films. Given that the head of the U.S. National Association of Theatre Owners has indicated that last year 15 different states were sources of camcorded films, it is pretty obvious that these numbers simply don't add up.
MPAA Says NYC Source of 40 Percent of Camcording
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Oh this is rich. So together, Canada and NYC make up 90% of the world’s camcorded films? Riiiiiiiight. I think I just busted my gut laughing at this headline. The MPAA’s numbers don’t add up. Are we surprised? No.
Given that much of the material released on p2p networks seems to come from DVDs released to reviewers and so on, who really cares about the camcording of films. The video and audio quality sucks.
Recording devices…
While I agree that the camcording issue is being raised by the US only for partisan political reasons (To encourage our government to increase our trade deficit with the US w.r.t. 1996 WIPO treaty ratification), I think there is some merit to this discussion.
In my “accepting the good while rejecting the bad.” BLOG posting [ link ] I suggest:
“While I don’t agree with the focus on camcordering in theaters, I believe that we do need laws to more generally help business and private owners to disallow recording devices. The City of Ottawa owned pools have signs as you enter the change rooms prohibiting the use of recording devices, and strong legislation to punish anyone who breaks this privacy-protecting rule should exist. The same law that protects the privacy of people in change rooms can also be used to protect the interests of copyright holders.”
Sure they add up… to about 372% 🙂
372% ?
Probably an underestimate of the ratio of their claimed losses due to piracy to their actual losses due to piracy…
The RIAA makes more money per song by releasing the songs as “pirated” versions on the internet, and suing people randomly to pay up. Without piracy, the RIAA and MPAA would have less income.