Cinema iPhone pirate escapes jail in test case appeal A Harrow man who was thrown in jail for six months for fraudulently filming Hollywood films at a Vue cinema saw his sentence successfully quashed on appeal to a 12-month community order. Emmanuel Nimley, 22, of Lincoln Road in Harrow, North West London, had his case heard at the Criminal Court of Appeal on Wednesday (20 …
Well, since the article says he committed the crime in "March this year", and the iPhone 4 was released in June, I'd have to assume he was using at best a 3GS, which has only VGA resolution at 30fps -- unless he was another Apple staffer careless with his test model...
"High definition" 720p image shot through a crappy microscopic lens + 48kHz "professional" audio recorded through a crappy microscopic microphone then both compressed until all living daylight are squeezed out of them can hardly qualify as "theft" of a cinematic masterpiece.
Perhaps FACT implies that its members' movies are such dross that no matter how bad is the quality of the recording they can't look any worse than they already are on the big screen.
Otherwise, surely, they would have been too embarrassed to even call the off-the-screen recordings "piracy" let alone humiliate themselves by suing the "pirates".
If someone posts "Alice In Wonderland CAM" on TPB, for example, then how is that fraud? Surely anyone going to the site and downloading it knows what it is: A copyright-breaking bad-quality camcorder recording?* If he was caught flogging DVDs labelled as the real thing then fine, it's fraud, even if someone of average intelligence ought to be asking how he could produce copies of a blockbuster early for £5 or whatever.
As things stand, why was it even possible to bring a fraud case?
*another thing that amazes me is that people watch these -- but that's another question.
No, the people who should be taken out and shot are those downloading crap from Lime^H^H^H^HTrojanwire. It's the computing equivalent of dropping your kecks, rubbing half a pound of Kerrygold into your arsehole, grabbing your ankles and shouting: "Come and get it" while stood in the showers of the lifers wing of a maximum security prison.
At the very least they should be banned for life from using anything with more processing power than an abacus.
Leviten, who was present in court on Wednesday, said Nimley’s successful appeal against the jail term had been won based on his age and the argument that there was no risk he would re-offend.
No risk he would re-offend? WTF?!!! Has he suddenly lost his sight? Grown an alergy to technology? what utter BOLLOX!
Sledgehammer cracks nut. The movie company should have had to do the running on this one, sued him for damages by having to prove that his breach of contract resulted in lost ticket or DVD sales. Criminal justice is a very expensive thing for the taxpayer to have to fund and there are much worse crimes which are not investigated properly due to lack of police, public prosecutor and court time. Jail is a very expensive and scarce taxpayer funded resource also. Plenty of reasons why the criminal law is the wrong vehicle here.
Seems the movie studios are royally screwing the taxpayer here.
..but there are also several reasons why this could be considered a criminal act in a way that something like copying a DVD wouldn't. For example the fraud act covers "obtaining services dishonestly" (section 11 IIRC) which boils down to obtaining a service which you haven't paid for. In this case you could argue that he paid to view the movie, he didn't pay to film it on his iPhone.
I seem to recall the Theft act of 1978 covers a very similar offence. That of itself shows how awkward a system of common law can be. Un many cases, the prosecutors need to interpret the law in order to work out what to prosecute for, sometimes the court's interpretation differes and the accused walks even though they might be considered guilty of something else. For that reason many people argue that a system of administrative certainty would be better. Lawyers don't agree, mainly because they probably wouldn't make as much money under such a system.
if reviewer John Bloggs of the Daily Echo writes in his review "with this director, this writer and these actors this film should have been a masterpiece of family entertainment rather than the bowl of steaming puke it really is" and the film company the puts on all it 's adverts "a masterpiece of family entertainment, John Bloggs, Daily Echo" that is not considered fraud. All this guy was really doing was a try before you buy service and the film industry were panicking because people were seeing the dross being put out before they had been conned out of their ticket money. The film industry, like the record industry, is bereft of ideas and constantly fails to provide a watchable product, with some exceptions, so is resorting to this type of action to make itself feel good and find a scapegoat for their own inadequacies. If anyone should be prosecuted it's the film company exec's for constantly defrauding the public.
Thank you;-) oh Great Moderatrix. Seriously though, I would have had no problem with him being sued under Copyright Law but using the Fraud Act is using a sledgehammer to crack a nut. It's quite interesting that these multimillion dollar companies are so poor that they are unable to launch a legal action by themselves and have to rely on you and me paying for it from our taxes whether we agree with the action or not. Cynical moi!!!!!!!
"if reviewer John Bloggs of the Daily Echo writes in his review "with this director, this writer and these actors this film should have been a masterpiece of family entertainment rather than the bowl of steaming puke it really is" and the film company the puts on all it 's adverts "a masterpiece of family entertainment, John Bloggs, Daily Echo" that is not considered fraud. "
Didn't I read a couple of years ago that quoting reviews in that way is now breaking the rules? Not actually illegal but in breach of the advertising rules.
The trial Beak was excessively harsh by any measurement and he was properly brought to heel by more experienced, temperate brethren who can recognise a miscarriage of justice that exceeds even the usual Hug-A-Plod attitude that comes from British benches.
Of course, this crime of using a mobile phone to record a cinema film is far, far more severe that using a phone to record the assault and abuse of a 17yr old:
"... Jack Bolton, Andrew Griffin, and Nathan Marshall (all with previous criminal records) who used a mobile phone to film themselves carrying out depraved assaults on their 17-year-old victim. The terrified teenager – who suffers from Asperger’s syndrome, a form of autism – was also pelted with dog mess, had his limbs scratched with sandpaper and was forced to drink vodka and gin until he passed out.
Mobile phone footage showed the yobs laughing and joking as they made him endure other abuse and, in a final humiliating assault, they applied adhesive tape to his genital area before ripping the tape off. Judge Jonathan Geake imposed three-month curfews on them and ordered them to carry out 80 hours’ unpaid community work as ‘an intensive alternative to custody’. When exactly did it become acceptable for a non-custodial sentence to be handed out to people like these?"
80hrs community service in total for torture and assault. ... thats even less than for flogging copied DVDs at the local car boot (120hrs, £1000 fine, confiscation of car, computer equipment).
WTF is "justice" in this country?
"A person is guilty of an offence if he has in his possession or under his control any article for use in the course of or in connection with any fraud."
I assume I'm not the only person spotting the screw up.
Could be applied to any item at any time anywhere (and obviously has been). Looks like this law needs tearing up, shame it didn't make it to the supreme court.
You present this as if you've spotted something new. It's much the same as the "going equipped" offences that have been on the books for ages. In order to secure a conviction for "going equipped to commit burgalry" or whatever the offence happens to be the prosecution would not only have to prove beyond reasonalble doubt that the accused was carrying a bunch of burglarious implements, but that they intended to use them to commit burglary. It's really the equivalent of a "conspiracy to commit burglary" charge, but applied to an individual.
For example it's not an offence to carry a set of lock picks. However if PC plod caught me examining the lock on your front door and upon searching me he found a set of lock picks in my pocket then I could be charged with going equipped to commit burglary. It's not conspiracy, because I haven't conspired with anybody.
"Copyright Theft"?!
So they're fighting illegal transfer (theft) of intellectual rights, not copyright infringements?
No matter how they wrap it, use it in stupid acronyms and so on, piracy is NOT THEFT! - Theft implies that something is taken from the owner by a thief with the purpose of either resale or personal use. When you make an illegal copy you take/remove nothing so it cannot be theft by definition.
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