Jon22: The Website of Jonathan Dobres

I am not a lawyer, nor do I ever wish to be one.  That’s why whenever I get it in my head to discuss a matter of legal importance, I usually have the good sense to stay (relatively) quiet.  That’s why I’m happy to admit that sociallytangent makes some really good points in regards to yesterday’s post.

Sejas, who was recording Transformers on her cell phone, certainly did not intend to produce a full copy of the movie for her brother.  So, avast, she be not a pirate.  She was, however, in violation of Virginia law.  The first sentence of the law under which she was charged is, “It shall be unlawful for any person to operate an audiovisual recording function of a device in a commercial theater.”  So, can the theater reasonably charge her with a misdemeanor?  The letter of the law says yes.  Should they have?  I think that depends on how you feel about Sejas’s behavior.

If you’re watching a bootleg movie, you might notice that some copies—particularly ones that are released further into the movie’s theater-lifetime—look and sound pristine.  This is because they have been filmed from an optimum location inside an empty theater, and this is only possible with cooperation from the theater’s employees.  Sejas’s twenty second clip was probably unwatchable and certainly wasn’t going to infringe on anyone’s business, whereas these bootlegs probably will.  Theater operators should be doing their best to target unscrupulous employees who seem to have a little too much autonomy in the projection booth, not nineteen year-olds with cell phones.

At the same time, I can’t help but feel that it’s okay, occasionally, to punish someone for being an inconsiderate, blatant idiot.  How dumb does one have to be to be sitting in a theater with other people, reach into one’s pocket, take out one’s cell phone, and then think it’s totally fine to record one’s own personal highlight reel?  Ordinarily, when a person does something idiotic in public, we have little recourse for correcting them.  Unfortunately (or perhaps not unfortunately, depending on how you look at it) for Sejas, her particular brand of public idiocy was a punishable misdemeanor.

So yes, the theaters’ efforts would be better spent chasing down real pirates (leave your watery semantics at the door, please).  Still, I think that if you’re going to be as stupid and selfish as Sejas was, you do basically deserve a seventy-one dollar slap on the back of the head.