Boxoffice® Pro - October 2013

NATO
NEWS
Another year, another successful movie theft tour
CRIMEBUSTERS UNITE!
by Brigitte Buehlman
Director of Industry Relations, NATO
executives from Creative America, Disney, Lionsgate,
the Motion Picture Association of America, Open
Road, Paramount, Sony, Universal, and Warner Bros.
to discuss best practices and ongoing coordination.
If your company would like to participate in next
year’s tour, please contact me at bgb@natoca.com.
n As you may know, NATO hosts an annual “tour” for our members
in Los Angeles. The purpose of this event is to provide exhibition representatives
with an interactive, hands-on experience by meeting with
their studio counterparts to share ideas on how to better combat movie
theft in the field. The goal is for NATO members to learn what content
protection means to the various studios, trade associations, and service
providers and to discuss how movie theft affects our business.
This year’s exhibition participants included Lisa Morris; Dan Myers;
Steve Zuehlke; Jeremy Welman; Karen Scott; Paul Valerio; Steve Horton;
Belinda Judson; Brigitte Buehlman; John Fithian; Mike Bugielski; and
Sal Vermiglio. Our group met with distribution and content protection
New NATO-MPAA movie theft campaign
NATO and MPAA have produced a new movie
theft poster and on-screen PSA for your theaters. As
you may know, many state and local anti-camcord legislation
requires patron notification before law enforcement
action can take place (i.e., if you catch someone
camcording content in your theater, they cannot be
cited or prosecuted unless there is posted signage in
your theater complex).
NATO and MPAA worked closely with the Department
of Homeland Security’s National Intellectual
Property Rights Coordination Center and the Federal
Bureau of Investigation on the updated legal language
for the campaign: “The use of recording devices is not
permitted in this theater. Please report all suspicious
activity to theater management. Use of audiovisual
recording devices may be punishable by up to three
years in federal prison and a fine of up to $250,000.
Recording any portion of the trailer and/or feature film
is against the law. Violators are subject to arrest and
felony prosecution. For more information, please visit
www.IPRCenter.gov.”
NATO and MPAA also worked hard on creating
a campaign that would resonate with your patrons as
well as encourage proper in-theater etiquette. The goal
of this year’s campaign is to highlight that not only is
texting rude and talking on the phone obnoxious (issues
that are unfortunately prevalent in most cinemas
today), but that camcording/recording content in a
theater is illegal. Last year’s on-screen campaign was
a bit more heavy-handed and geared toward the laws;
this year’s campaign was created to serve as an educational
piece. If you would like to order the new movie
theft poster, please contact NATO at nato@natodc.
com. The 15-second on-screen PSA can be viewed at
natoonline.org; you can download the PSA directly to
your servers via Technicolor’s Trail Mix and Deluxe’s
Trailers by Deluxe weekly hard-drive shipments, and it has already been
uploaded to both Screenvision’s and NCM’s systems.
If you currently have older versions of the movie theft one sheet
posted in your theater, NATO and MPAA recommend that you replace
it with the new one. NATO provides all movie theft materials free of
charge to NATO members.
NATO recommends that each cinema has a copy of the federal and
state anti-camcord statute printed and accessible in the manager’s office.
Unfortunately, we have found that many law-enforcement officers are
not aware that (1) camcording in a theater is illegal and/or (2) what
the anti-camcord law is. If theater management has a copy of both laws
12 BoxOffice ® Pro The Business of Movies OCTOBER 2013