‘Transformers’ Movie-Cammer Facing Prison
Written by enigmax on July 05, 2007Following the announcement of a fresh anti-piracy drive and new, aggressive legislation, a man has been caught using a camcorder to record the latest ‘Transformers’ movie and is now facing 6 months in jail and a $5,000 fine.
The MPAA claims that New York is a pirate movie haven and with a claimed 43% of all camcorded movies originating from the city, it was just a question of time before Major Bloomberg’s and the MPAA’s anti-piracy campaign – coupled with new legislation – claimed its first scalp.
According to reports, police descended on the American Theater on East Avenue in Parkchester, after warning theater workers in advance that they were about to conduct a sting to arrest a known movie ‘cammer‘ at a sneak preview of the new movie ‘Transformers’.
After waiting until the end of the screening on Monday night, Kalidou Diallo, 48, was surrounded by seven plain clothes officers, arrested and subsequently charged with the new anti-piracy misdemeanor. He had been allegedly filming or ‘camming’ the movie, utilizing a hidden camera and digital recorder.
The manager of the American Theater, Justin Hill, said that the authorities knew that his theater was the source of the ‘cams’. “The movie companies … knew it was coming from our theater,” he said. “We were taking heat for it because we weren’t catching anyone.”
Under the previous law, getting caught meant up to 15 days in jail and $250 fine. The new measures signed in May 1, makes ‘camming’ a misdemeanor offense, which means that Diallo is facing a possible 6 months in jail, accompanied by a $5,000 fine.
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54 Responses
They’ll probably come to some sort of agreement if he tells them about his group :O
Seriously, why do people release/view CAMs for? they’re of extremely bad quality always and usually you’re actually better off waiting for a proper movie rip instead.
And with the international movie watchdogs snooping around in the theaters, it simply to me wouldn’t be worth the risk.
It’s always that way, the longer you wait. The better the quality, all depends on how long you want to wait and what kind of quality you can endure. I NEVER watch a movie if it’s not a DVDR NTSC
it is a bit predictable though. i really think that people who film movies just asked for it…to be caught.
shame though, i mean i never download CAM rips, but you see how really popular they are. shame.
hope no groups die cos of this…but i doubt a group only has ONE source.
xxx
What a joke, possible jail time and a $5k fine for recording something with your camcorder.
This kind of shit makes me not want to ever give another dime to any movie ever made by MPAA companies.
What a great use of our tax money to catch this guy with 7 policemen.
If they keep this up I bet it will cost them money in ticket sales.
To the people commenting about why anyone downloads a cam – Cams are usually the first thing available and often on or before the day of theatrical release. They are good for checking to see if the movie is any good before spending money on tickets at the theatre. You can see if the movie is something worth paying for, or not.
Yes let’s get a boycott going for all MPAA movies! This nonsense must stop!
Um, yeah . . . I don’t like the RIAA and the MPAA that much either, but what he did was real stupid. The signs of having no recording devices on the doors serve a purpose, read the damn signs!
Personally, I think he deserved it, as some people had said, he deserved it and I agree. (prepares to get flamed)
Anyway, it is much more worth it to watch a fill for $8.75 than being caught with a camera and having to pay a hefty fine and staying in jail for a very long period of time.
I wonder if anyone is gonna sneak into prison to cam his rape scene
boycott MPAA for charging a man stealing copyright content? we need to boycott morons like you…what he did is no different that stealing your movie collection, DVD player, surround sound systen, 60″ plasma screen, and LAZ-Y BOY chair and then giving it away for free to anyone that will come pick it up….moron.
“The manager of the American Theater, Justin Hill, said that the authorities knew that his theater was the source of the ‘cams’.”
I having a feeling the owner doesn’t even give a rat’s ass about piracy either…
Wow, he could get more time than Scooter Libby!
I haven’t went to a movie theater in years. and any more if i was to go it’d be at a drive in where usally i can see 2 movies for the price of one.
Jpeezy, what!?
Check whether the movie is worth paying for!? What’s the point in even going to the cinema then!? For the experience? What about going to the cinema for the experience of finding out, you stingy bastard, if you’re that bothered about “wasting” your money then just don’t bother going.
Going to the cinema sounds like a bloody procedure to you, what with having to download and watch the film by bittorrent first.
As for jail time, it’s like that to deter people from doing it believe it or not. The guy did it, he now pays the consequences. Sounds stupid, but really he’s the stupid one.
“The guy did it, he now pays the consequences. Sounds stupid, but really he’s the stupid one.”
He pays?
Interesting distortion of facts. last time i checked how prisons operate it was that taxpayers were responsible with their money for running them?
People that allow some money hungry fat comglomerates to reap to high profits from society and allow them to buy politicians to pass laws that imprisson guys for using a camera in a cinema!!
Oh boy, what a stupid society is that?
43%, funny but didn’t a movie studio in the states decide to ban perviews in Canada because we were so bad?
So, if (according to the MPAA) 43% of all piracy happens in New York City, and 75% of all piracy happens in Canada, then that must mean that at least 18% of NYC is in Canada, right?
Don’t you love the MPAA’s math?
When you record in a theater you aren’t “getting back” at the studio or the MPAA. You’re actually hurting the theater more than anything because obviously MPAA has a way to tell in which theater the film was recorded. This causes the MPAA to take action against the theater like forcing them to involve the police which gives the theater a bad image.
Also I want to agree that movie tickets are over priced but I don’t think that’s really the theater’s fault. They have to give around 70% of their ticket sales back to the studio according to Wikipedia.
It seems to me that the theaters are trying to perform a service and they’re stuck between angry consumers and greedy studios.
So let’s try this: keep downloading movies, keep going to the theater, but quit buying DVDs.
What a joke! Libby gets a pardon, and this guy goes to jail for taping a frigging movie. What about all the VCRs in living rooms around the country?
What a waste of tax-payers’ money.
[quote comment="128961"]Wow, he could get more time than Scooter Libby![/quote]
The system is so broken it makes me want to puke..!! They send out seven cops to bust a cammer mean while… O.J. Walks.. M.J. walks…. The president is handing out ‘Get Out Of Jail Free’ cards to his cronies and Starting wars in places he can’t even pronounce… The TAX collection system is not even legal but they enforce it with SWAT Teams.. Yikes.. Have they not heard of: Lead by example…?!! Impeach the President and get it over with…
What ever happened to land of the free anyway..?
Can’t wall in freedom or it goes away
To me personally, Cam’s seem like an excellent way to check if a movie is worth your money before going to the theatres to watch it. What’s so wrong about that?
Freedom and the US have very little to do with each other these days. The US has the biggest prison population rate in the world. No wonder with sick laws like the current copyright crap they are doing. If there ever was a victimless crime its camming a movie – nobody who actually cares about the film will keep from either seeing or purchasing it because of a shitty cam copy.
It’s a tragedy, just based on the principle of the thing. Nobody should go to jail for such a penny ante “offense” when, as Palko says above, the rotten-to-the-core leadership of the country can’t even be held accountable for their criminal acts.
Agree with Palko and Traumatic, well said guys.
America has one chance to restore freedom and liberty in 2008, Ron Paul.
http://ronpaul2008.com
Join the Revolution!
This is particularly tragic when you realize a cam release was already online. D’oh!
Ha, good riddance, less cam rips on the net, they suck!
[quote comment="129365"]Agree with Palko and Traumatic, well said guys.
America has one chance to restore freedom and liberty in 2008, Ron Paul.
http://ronpaul2008.com
Join the Revolution![/quote]
And that’s of course completely wrong. Like you guys actually have a choice.
I’m gonna go to the kitchen and laugh until I throw up.
HAHAHAHAH!
HaHAHhAHAH!
HAAHAHAHAHAH!
AHHAHAHAH!
Don’t always go to the same theater to cam your movies. Go to different ones, then it is harder to catch you. There are lots of them in NYC.
you know what? I find it extremely hypocritical that people are going” well that guy deserved it, HE WAS FILMING A CAM. HE’S DOING OSMETHING ILLEGAL ZOMGHOEFWIH.”
well, seeing as how you’re on torrentfreak.com, it probably means you’re downloading some pirated things (whether it be porn, anime, movies, games, or appz).
so i find it extremely funny that this hypocritical asses are going he deserved when people like him are the ones that are providing these cams/ while others are providing cracked verisons of whatever. so i’d say, shut up because you’re not any better than that guy.
Dude, I live like ten blocks from there. It is one of the worst movie theaters I’ve every been to. As kids we would take girls there to do the things their fathers thought that their little girls didn’t know how to do. The security sucks. I’m not suprised that this place could have been the epicenter of the CAM business.
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I wonder what group he cammed for. Maybe he didn’t belong to a rls group, maybe just a canal street seller.
[quote comment="128957"]boycott MPAA for charging a man stealing copyright content? we need to boycott morons like you…what he did is no different that stealing your movie collection, DVD player, surround sound systen, 60″ plasma screen, and LAZ-Y BOY chair and then giving it away for free to anyone that will come pick it up….moron.[/quote]
It’s not the same though. When you steal a dvd player, someone is out of a dvd player that is no longer in their house. With a recorded video, that video is not missing, so that is not really stealing, no one is missing the video, it is just a copy of it.
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As the primary backer of HD DVD, Toshiba spent a lot of money developing technology that they didn’t get a lot of use out of. Some features from HD DVD players, like upscaling, fit nicely into standard DVD players. Others, like web-enabled content, aren’t quite as applicable. Sure you could put the same capabilities into a DVD player, but with no official standard you’d be hard pressed to get anyone to take advantage of it.
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