Bag and body searches at screenings

Here's a first hand account from movie critic Mary F. Polls of measures taken at a private screening to avoid what has become the Motion Picture Association of America's number one foe - movies that bomb at the box-office notwithstanding - piracy. "The MPAA calculates the movie industry loses $3 billion annually to piracy, and that's not even counting Internet downloads of bootleg films, by far the fastest-growing segment".

"I only realized how serious the situation had become when security guards started showing up for screenings at the Variety Preview Room in San Francisco, where the media goes for private advanced screenings. No one gets in without an invitation, and with the exception of a few friends and the publicist, the audience is typically made up of professional journalists. It's one thing to be frisked for secret camera equipment on the way into "The Hulk," but for a press screening of the latest Merchant-Ivory flick, "Le Divorce"? I even got the wand treatment -- a scan for electronic equipment, including cell phones, which in some cases have been turned into recording devices -- at "Under the Tuscan Sun" last week".

One can't imagine camera phones and video phones doing much harm at this point - you can only view short clips. But still, the potential for ill use exists and can only get worse as technology improves.

emily | 5:05 PM | Copyright Issues |
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