Regal Cinemas Make Example out of Teen for 20 Second Transformers Recording
Written by Ernesto on August 24, 2007Jhannet Sejas, the girl who was arrested last month for recording a 20 second clip of “Transformers” in a local cinema pleaded guilty and agreed to pay a $71 fine. Regal Cinemas pressured the Arlington County prosecutor to charge Sejas, they wanted to make an example of her.
Sejas, an Arlington Virgina teenager, recorded a few seconds of the movie on her cell-phone to show her brother. Under a new Zero-Tolerance Policy, police responded to the call from Regal Cinemas who promptly arrested Sejas.
The recording didn’t cause any losses to Regal Cinemas nor the producers of Transformers, but still Regal Cinemas decided to prosecute to make an example of her..
The Arlington County prosecutor, Richard Trodden, told a Wired blogger that Regal Cinema continued to press the case. “They were saying, ‘Could you get her to admit that it wasn’t right.’ They wanted to make sure the message gets out.”
Indeed, Sejas did later state, “I totally forgot that I was not allowed to do that. I did it without thinking clearly.
In a plea agreement, Sejas pleaded guilty and paid a $71 fine for making an Unlawful Audiovisual Recording of a Motion Picture, a misdemeanor that could have resulted in a fine of up to $2500 and a year in jail. The law was placed on the books in Virgina and 37 other states under pressure by the Motion Picture industry.
Neither Regal Cinemas nor the producers of Transformers stood to take a loss from Sejas’ sharing of a 20-second cell-phone quality clip. The reason it did not occur to Sejas that she was doing something wrong is because she had no criminal intent! Note that Sejas was not charged with any copyright violation, as showing her brother a 20-second low-quality clip certainly would have fallen under Fair Use.
The MPAA decided years ago that copyright laws were not enough in their favor. Instead, the industry had to create new laws that avoided copyright altogether, wait for innocent victims like Sejas to stumble into them, and then make an example of them.
Previously: TorrentPod Episode 44
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44 Responses
“The recording didn’t cause any losses to Regal Cinemas…”
But you can bet your ass that their prosecuting this kid certainly has caused Regal some losses. Boycott cries went up around the nation when news broke that they were going to prosecute, and now that they’re openly saying that they’re trying to make an example of her is reason enough for me to never set foot in a Regal Cinema again.
I went to Regal two nights ago. Get over yourself.
That is awesome, Sean. How’d you like the movie?
The Regal Cinemas in my area is shitty anyways. The theatres are always filty, food is more expensive there than the other place in town…all in all, I avoid there whenever possible. Now I just have another thing to tick on the list I guess.
Luckily one theater in my area stayed a Hoyts while the rest were apparently bought out by Regal. I tried going to the Regal once and only once because of a conflicting showtime.
The front entrance looked like a crowd control blockade, with only a small escape tunnel to provide access to the fortress within. The concessions were more expensive than the expected overpricedness, and the theaters were trashed and unkempt.
We could tell they were bad before they revealed their true evil.
Ugh, I hate zero tolerance policies. Many times it’s just a way of saying “I’m too lazy to take things on a case by case basis, so I’m just going to nail your ass”
Dang it, how do they get people to pay fees over the cost of the movie on dvd? Tell you what. Charge her the price of a ten second dvd at that quality.
Oh, and by “under pressure”, it means paying off the right people.
I hate politics.
SHE PLED GUILTY, why on earth would she do that. I know she got off with a measly fine but common can’t she sue back for harrasment charges.
I was actually at regal yesterday to see rush hour 3 and true there was some lady walking around with a flash light in the middle of the movie.
She plead guilty because she was guilty, and there was no possible way she would win that case. She’s lucky she’s not in jail.
Is the law fair? No, but it’s still the law. You break it, that’s your own damn fault.
The law isn’t always right. Nor are you. Or me. Or anyone. It’s all relative except for a few things, like murder. But copyright right laws? Purely self-interest established by lobbyist. Don’t be a tool of the machine.
drum & Bass sets http://dnbshare.blogspot.com/
pay to see movies at the theater and download the dvdrips when they come out on the internet, saves tons of money :)
I don’t understand why she plead guilty either. She should have demanded a jury trial, any jury would have thrown this piece of shit case out.
They must have scared her pretty good to get a guilty plea out of her.
One thing is certain, I will never spent another cent on any product made by an MPAA company. The greedy corporate pigs are the criminals, not some girl trying to promote their movie.
Fuck the MPAA, Fuck the RIAA.
Look, I’m no saying this was the best use of prosecutorial muscle – but it was the bitch’s own fault. I mean, who, in this day in age – thinks its acceptable to start recording shit in a movie theater (and who is dumb enough to think that a recording on a cell phone is going to be good enough quality)? They have to have no-tolerance for a reason. CAM rips have a history that goes back well before broadband Internet/BitTorrent — that’s what used to be primary bootleg sources (and still are in some areas). Once it gets easier and easier for people to do that, a theater company has to have a no-exceptions policy to prevent people from doing that.
Like, I’m not a saint – I pirate music and software – but there is something about just doing it openly in a theater, the brazenness of it that makes me less sympathetic to idiots like this girl.
And she got off with a misdemeanor that will disappear off her record in a few years (and most job applications won’t even ask about a misdemeanor) and a $71 fine.
Maybe if she had been more apologetic and admitted that what she was doing was “wrong” – even if her intention wasn’t piracy, she would have done better. But saying, “I totally forgot I couldn’t do that anymore?” When was doing that ever acceptable?
Let’s not forget that America is supposed to be the land of the FREE. The government is supposed to be serving the interest of the people, not multi-national corporations.
All the idiots who keep saying “it’s the law, if you don’t like it change the law” need to realize something. These laws were made by huge corporations behind the MPAA with enough money and power to buy out politicians.
Our taxes paid for cops to arrest this poor girl because the MPAA used it’s influence and millions of dollars to buy politicians who in turn got their insane laws passed. That is fascism, not freedom.
The best way to put a stop to all this is to vote with your wallets. Stop going to movie theatres, period. Stop buying DVD’s. Do not support these corporate criminals by giving them your money. When you pay for a movie, they are taking your money and using it to turn you into a criminal.
We need to let these greedy corporate bastards know we are mad as hell and not going to take it anymore.
LAWS ARE MADE TO PROTECT THOSE WHO MAKE THEM. I loathe every single bastard who advocates the so-called Authority, WAKE UP!
I think it serves her right. What the fuck was going thru her head when she did that? “Hey, how bout i just steal a clip from the movie, i’m just a girl thinkin i’m somethin when i ain’t shit”. Serves her right, criminals should be punished. I woulda wanted her to really pay thousands and thousands, this is too light. fuckin criminals make me sick.
This is intellectual property law gone berserk.
Recommended reading:
http://libertariannation.org/a/f31l1.html
To post 17:
Posts like yours make me sick. We should throw you in jail and make you pay thousands and thousands. I deserve compensation after reading that garbage. I think I’ll sue you for making me want to puke.
This pisses me off. All of this crap going on today pisses me off. The girl wasn’t doing a single thing wrong. Nobody was harmed in any way by her behavior. Not physically, not emotionally, and definitely not financially. In fact, the regal cinemas made profit from her in the first place because she was actually in the movie theater! She wouldn’t have been able to make the “illegal” recording, if she hadn’t paid her ticket. (Plus she probably bought some overpriced snacks.)
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to realize the difference between a girl with a camera phone taking a 20 second clip, and a bootlegger with an cam corder making a full length boot-leg copy of the movie.
I am pissed, and I shall remain pissed while I still read about crap like this happening. The only example I see is another reason for me to be pissed off. What can I do about this? What can I do to channel my anger towards changing the world???
I am going to see Mr. Bean’s Vacation today at a Regal Cinemas IMAX. This post just made me want to go more :(
This goes to show you, Optimus Prime and his crew are wack. Selling stories about heros while pushing around little girls out of greed.
I will never go to another Regal cinema. Complete bullshit, treating innocent people like criminals.
if anything she was advertising the movie to her brother!
Boycott Regal Cinemas for being assholes.
Sweet Macaroni!
An example? Isn’t the law supposed to be equal to everybody?
If a country has laws that allow for example-making like this, there is something deeply wrong with the judicial system.
It should not be that some-one with more money (read: power) has more rights than an average person.
That’s the Enlightenment down the drain, I tell you.
Actually, the one who should really feel guilty and ashamed in all this, I might add, in the end, is the employee who ‘caught’ this girl in the act of ‘pirating’ a WHOLE 20 seconds worth of camera phone footage. Regal pays their employee’s substantial ‘rewards’, often as much as $500 bucks to target these ‘criminals’.
If I were him, I’d be watching my back, one eye over my shoulder, feeling the weight and stigma of my actions NOW, after just a young girl is convicted of using her cell phone to record a short clip for her brother to see which, in my mind, is only a brief means of movie-promotion anyway, and certainly far less effective than any trailer online would have be.
In a time where studio’s are in fact releasing their own entire early ‘preview’ first episodes and ‘extended’ trailers onto torrent trackers in order to see how audiences will respond, and are actually gaining more than losing (in my opinion) from torrent and sharing communities, I find this whole thing ridiculous, and absurd. Just another fine example of the human species.
To those who say “Boycott Regal,” I ask you – Aren’t you already ‘boycotting’ theatres via P2P? And for those who truly boycott but go to other theatres, I say, get over it, why boycott the whole chain for what one location did?
@ nuymber 17 : its good to know that since you cant sense the feelings a normal people and claim that a 17 years old gurl deserves a punishment of 71 dollars for a fucking promotianal thingie she made fo her brother also its good to know that thanks to ppl like you she prolly will never visit a cinema again and will enjoy the joy of a bittorrent cinema. and whn you are the only one left in the theatre with a few of your buddies be sure to blame the scene and p2p for giving customers what they want!
@ 28 : yes i download movies, no i do not boycott a shitty cinema. in fact, p2p and the scene (lamergroups like axxo canalstreet etc. not included.) have made me more interested in watching certain movies which i otherwise would’nt have spent any money on at all.
so well actually the one who is boycotting their customers is the fucktards of the cinema’s themselves with their oh-help-me-get-a-gurl-with-no-intention-of-stealing-another-crappy-movie-even-tough-its-just-a-bloody-20-seconds-while-at-the-same-time-we-close-our-eyes-to-the-person-who-is-taping-a-movie-from-the-projection-booth-and-selling-it-to-asian-customers-so-we-can-have-some-extra-cash-too mentality
Kind Greetings
Claudy C. Bunni
PiE-RAT 4 EVER!
hmm the word got truncated so : here it is with some extra spaces
oh-help-me-get-a-gurl-with-no-intention-of-stealing-another-crappy-movie
even-tough-its-just-a-bloody-20-seconds-while-at-the-same-time
we-close-our-eyes-to-the-person-who-is-taping-a-movie-from-the
projection-booth-and-selling-it-to-asian-customers-so-we-can-have-some
extra-cash-too mentality
Kind Regards
Claudy C. Bunni
CCCPiE-RAT and Snugglebun
[quote comment="152241"]I was actually at regal yesterday to see rush hour 3 and true there was some lady walking around with a flash light in the middle of the movie.[/quote]
Expect that to continue. Regal apparently pays their people $500 for catching people.
Yet another place customers are considered thieves before the fact.
It doesn’t matter if the law is right or not, it’s the law. And if you break it, you get punished. It’s extremely simple, and if you can’t figure it out you’re a dumbass. Right and wrong have nothing to do with it.
whats the fucking point of watching a movie at the movie theirater all i fucking do is eather make out or go to the bathrooms to fuck
whats the fucking point of watching a movie at the movie theirater all i fucking do is eather make out or go to the bathrooms to fuck
lol
Ok trying to slam a little girl for a mistake is really gross.
Regal get your act together I’m sure she’s will be a Regal patron for life.
Nicola
It is so much easier for RIAA and MPAA to go after someone in a movie theater copying a 20 second clip to show her brother, which promotes the movie. They want to make examples of the people who watch movies legally rather than go after the billions they claim they lose to piracy because of pirates in Asia and specifically China as that might offend someone over there and upset the administration. We can see how effective policing is in China, and oversight here just by looking at the pet food and toothpaste crap that has been going on. We give the Chinese authorities praise for trying to regulate things like piracy and hacking DoD computer systems by rogue military units, when the whole time they are laughing their asses off at our stupidity!
I work at a regal cinemas movie theater, and to be quite honest, I could care less what happens to the customer, you people don’t even have enough respect for the environment to pick up your shit. All you do is break things and cry about being caught trying to pirate a film, so what if she was a girl, it’s called equality, equal punishment for the same crime. So what if she is a teen, it’s not her fault she lacks common sense, “hmmm… I wonder why it says turn off your cellphone in a movie theater, and why everyone else isn’t making a 20 second film for their brother.?”
and the reason why they are walking around with the flash light is it’s required, don’t you love when there is a crying baby or spitwads hitting the back of your head??? well if the girl with the flashlight is there she can take care of that for you now huh??? Or if your old and have a walker and the carpet is ripped up because some stupid fucken teens ripped it up, that girl could probably get someone to fix it for you so you don’t trip and die and sue like it’s happened so many times before. I like how people don’t even notice the benefits they get out of movie theater checkers. And [quote comment="154387"]
Expect that to continue. Regal apparently pays their people $500 for catching people.
Yet another place customers are considered thieves before the fact.[/quote] yes you should be considered thieves because you CAN be one. just like you should expect people of having a gun, and consider them dangerous, theres just this thing called common sense and its not a bad thing to look out for yourself like regal or any person would.
Deport this stupid spick cunt
back to mexico!
Of course she was trying to steal
a movie – she’s mexican!
I hapen to work at a regal theater and I hate my job. The pay sucks and the hours are lousy. But in Regals defence they doo have posters clearly stating thes laws. Now was their action uncalled for? Yes I addmit that. but it truly depends on the location. My GM would have simply confronted the girl and dleted the movie and left it at that.
Hahaha, that’s fucked up. Goodbye Regal, you can bet your ass off that I’ll be seeding EVERY movie you guys make for a very looooong time. :D
I recently quit my job at the Regal Cinemas in my town because, like James, the pay, hours, and the job overall were shitty. The only reason I stayed so long was because of the awesome co-workers I had.
And to Pat:
Even if I caught a person video taping, the $500 Regal “apparently pays their people” would have gone to my ass-hole G.M. He actually keeps a stash of coupons companies give him to pass out to employees all for his fat ass.
Regal is probably the worst and most corrupt company I have ever worked for. They are only out for profit and really don’t give a shit about the customer. But, like James said, why would we give a shit about the customer when the customer just makes our lives miserable? Throwing popcorn and drinks everywhere, tearing up the bathroom (People have seriously rubbed their shit on the walls), and then complaining about it. No thanks.
While Regal might have taken the case a little too far, that’s just the company they are. They don’t give a shit.
If the calculations are right, she should only have to pay $0.36 and that’s not factoring in the fact that the resolution of her cellphone is 120x smaller than the screen of the displays in theaters.
ok so i went to go see pineapple express tonight and i was told by some dork behind the window that i couldnt buy multiple movie tickets because im not 21,will be in 2 months though.anyways, i asked him if this was a state law,a theater policy, and he said while rolling his eyes,theater policy.so basically i can sign up for the military,vote,get a tattoo, buy cigarettes,buy porn,go to a strip club,but i cant buy multiple movie tickets. what are they selling alcohol with the tickets.what an absurd policy.i thought once you turn 18 in this country you are a legal adult,i guess i was wrong,according to regal theaters im not a legal adult.
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