By DAVID B. CARUSO, Associated Press Writer
> Every evening rush hour, hustlers lugging bags full of bootlegged
> movies walk the subway train aisles, calling "two for five dollars!"
> as brazenly as if they were selling hot dogs at Yankee Stadium. At
> those prices, the DVDs, often of current Hollywood blockbusters, sell
> well, despite laughable sound and picture quality. Few customers seem
> to care the copies were made illegally.
> Bootleggers apparently have little to fear. Under state law, people
> caught videotaping inside a movie theater face a maximum fine of $250.
Of course, under Federal copyright infringement statutes, which such taping _does_ also violate, the penalties are *much* higher.
All the copyright owners have to do is file the _appropriate_ lawsuits.
But that's a civil tort. and _they_ have to do the investigation and suit prosecution themselves.
A criminal violation, -that- is the responsibility of 'somebody else' to investigate/prosecute. and they get the benefits _without_ having to 'do anything' themselves.
As part of its worldwide campaign against piracy, the film industry is
> pushing for tougher penalties for smuggling a camcorder into a cinema
> in New York, which has the country's worst bootlegging problem and
> some of the weakest penalties.
> A bill pushed by the Motion Picture Association of America would make
> operating recording equipment inside a theater a criminal misdemeanor,
> raising the maximum punishment to a $1,000 fine and a year in jail.
> Making the crime a misdemeanor also would empower police to arrest
> violators on the spot, rather than simply issuing a summons.
> People caught a second time would be charged with a felony.
> "We have to do something, because right now there's no risk," said
> William J. Shannon, a Yonkers-based deputy director of the
> association's U.S. anti-piracy operation. "Right now, you're looking
> at something about the same as a parking ticket."
*IF* they filed a civil lawsuit against every person to whom a 'summons' was issued, I bet the problem would go away _really_ quickly.
Amazing, isn't it, how they want 'somebody else' to solve their problem for them, but aren't willing to use the _existing_ remedies available to them, whereby they could clean up the problem themselves?