Have you registered your lounge & RFID tagged your friends and family?

In the continuing saga of the MPAA riding roughshod over the general public comes this wonderful article via my friend Trev which covers the latest lobbying of congress by the MPAA.

Dan Glickman want to regulate things before they get too far out of hand and the MPAA loses control like they have with online sharing of copyrighted information. “We have a right to know what’s showing in a theatre.” says Glickman. If passed by congress (the same group of people see the internet as a bunch of “tubes” [MP3]), this would see home theatre equipment manufactured in the future requiring technology to directly inform the MPAA of what was being shown and specific details fo the audience. You’ll need some motion sensors and biometric technology to help them out with this too.

Now, for those of you who are thinking that your setup isn’t flash enough to be defined as a home theater, get this – the MPAA defines a home theatre as:

“… any home with a television larger than 29″ with stereo sound and at least two comfortable chairs, couch, or futon. Anyone with a home theatre would need to pay a $50 registration fee with the MPAA or face fines up to $500,000 per movie shown.”

Glickman (and by extension, the MPAA) doesn’t believe that you should be able to buy a DVD and invite people (including your own family) to watch it as it denies them the revenue they would have otherwise generated. He concedes that since it’s not feasible to expect everyone to have their own copy of a DVD, that the ‘registration fee’ is a “fair compromise”.

Oh – if this has you shaking your head in disgust and vowing never to upgrade your gear to this new ‘enhanced capability’ equipment, the bill also seeks to ensure that existing home theatres be retrofitted with the same technology, unless the owner is willing to take responsibility for directly informing the MPAA and receiving approval before each viewing.

 

Thank goodness I live in New Zealand and not America and our government won’t be swayed by such ridiculous notions… oh, hang on… bugger.


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One response to “Have you registered your lounge & RFID tagged your friends and family?”

  1. John H Avatar
    John H

    Remember the telescreens from George Orwell’s 1984? – I’m sure they are the perfect consumer device as far as the MPAA is concerned…

    Was Googling telescreens (sorry, doing an internet search using Google TM)and I found this link. It would be funny it is wasn’t so true…
    http://www.newspeakdictionary.com/go-now.html