MPAA Lobbying for Home Theater Regulations
by Scott Small - as reported here.
Los Angeles , CA - The MPAA is lobbying congress to push through a new bill that would make unauthorized home theaters illegal. The group feels that all theaters should be sanctioned, whether they be commercial settings or at home.
MPAA head Dan Glickman says this needs to be regulated before things start getting too far out of control, “We didn’t act early enough with the online sharing of our copyrighted content. This time we’re not making the same mistake. We have a right to know what’s showing in a theater.”
The bill would require that any hardware manufactured in the future contain technology that tells the MPAA directly of what is being shown and specific details on the audience. The data would be gathered using various motion sensors and biometric technology.
The MPAA defines a home theater as any home with a television larger than 29″ with stereo sound and at least two comfortable chairs, couch, or futon. Anyone with a home theater would need to pay a $50 registration fee with the MPAA or face fines up to $500,000 per movie shown.
“Just because you buy a DVD to watch at home doesn’t give you the right to invite friends over to watch it too. That’s a violation of copyright and denies us the revenue that would be generated from DVD sales to your friends,” said Glickman. “Ideally we expect each viewer to have their own copy of the DVD, but we realize that isn’t always feasible. The registration fee is a fair compromise.
The bill also stipulates that any existing home theaters be retrofitted with the technology or else the owner is responsible for directly informing the MPAA and receiving approval before each viewing.
on Nov 28th, 2006 at 10:39 am
HOLY CRAP! Is this for real?!
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on Nov 28th, 2006 at 8:13 pm
Actually, I was just informed by Idoia that the site it was pulled from is a joke, parody site. Dammit Slashdot, for wooing me with true stories all these years, and then pulling a fast one on me (and apparently many others). It’s been digged almost 2k times today. I should’ve surfed the site a bit more, finding stories like this one: http://www.bbspot.com/News/2005/03/mpaa_piracy.html
LOL
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on Nov 29th, 2006 at 8:50 am
/. sucks now. I used to love that site, now it’s little more than a Fox News for geeks.
This story did make it onto news.google.com though, which added some credibility and confusion.
All I know is that after the first read, the idea of Glickman getting lynched by some high school’s A/V Club brought a smile to my face.
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on Nov 30th, 2006 at 9:23 am
HAHAHA That’s awesome. I started to question it when they mentioned the motion sensors. I was so distracted by the “how” that I didn’t figure in the “Nuh uhhh” factor. Damn brain. YOU FAIL ME!
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