Piracy vs. Theft

Discuss.

(via Digg)

Question of the Day

What pushes your buttons?  What can really get your going?  What will it take to get your stand up on your soap box?

Wow, there are so many.  One big one is when someone gets a far worse punishment than they deserve for something; when there is an injustice due to a technicality.

For example, last year, someone in Virginia was arrested for filming 20 seconds of Transformers on their little point-and-shoot camera.  It was this girl’s 19th birthday, and she and her friends were just goofing off.  Check this out:

Sejas liked the movie so much that she decided to film a short clip of the movie to share with her little brother. She thought he would also like to come see the movie at the theater. She filmed 20 seconds of the “Transformers” movie so that she could show it to him later and see if he might like to go see the movie.

Ok, no harm done really.  If anything, she was going to bring in business to the theater.

Regal Cinemas of Ballston Commons in Arlington, Virginia pressed charges against Sejas and wanted to make an example of her in an effort to stop movie piracy.

For goodness sake.  O, and about this supposed “criminal”?

Sejas is a Bolivian immigrant who works two part-time jobs in order to pay for her college education in the United States. She had no criminal record and was terrified by the police. She and her boyfriend had no idea what they had done wrong, and had not realized that filming the 20 second clip to share with her younger brother was against the law.

See, this kind of stuff really gets me going.  Sometimes, even though the law is the law, I think exceptions should be made.  Especially in cases like this where clearly no harm was being done, and she just wanted to get her brother to come see the movie.  This is an injustice, and this kind of crap happens all of the time!

So there is my answer.  How about you?

Read the full article about this story here. 

MPAA: Are You Kidding!?


Just when you think the greedy powers-that-be cannot get any greedier, this comes out:

“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.”

They are actually lobbying congress to make this official. Now for me, my apartment is not much larger than 600 square feet, but I would technically qualify, and I find it REDICULOUS that this could become reality.

READ ON