Apple to 'ban iPhone gig filming' | Hacker News Reader

Apple to 'ban iPhone gig filming'

thesun.co.uk

9 pointsrickdale13 comments

The Sun? This is worse than linking to a story from El Reg (but not quite as bad as linking to the Daily Mail).

This is probably where the 'story' was concocted from http://www.patentlyapple.com/patently-apple/2011/06/apple-wo...

What ifs in the case of it actually being implemented....

This would give room for anyone to knock up a quick photo-b-gone in the style of tv-b-gone just to ruin peoples day for lulz.

I also wonder of this wouldn't be of interest to 'the authorities' to cut down on people getting decent coverage of civil unrest.

I'm ok with apple controlling the app and UI side of the iphone experience. But that's as far as their control should go. This technology is just silly. I don't care where I am, I'll always expect to be able to snap a picture or a quick vid of me and my peeps - if I ever find my camera disabled just because I'm at a live concert venue, that device is going in the bin.

And from a commercial viewpoint...

The companies are often left frustrated when videos of shows appear online via websites such as YouTube which let users watch them for free.

... this is complete hogwash. The "piracy is damaging my bottom line" only makes sense when they're selling the stuff themselves, which come on, they rarely do. When was the last time any of us went to a live concert which was later made into a dvd?

Anyway, I seriously doubt this technology ever sees the light of day. Apple already has plenty of leverage over record labels as it is, methinks.

There's no link to the patent, so it's hard to be sure, but they're talking about using an infra-red emitter. I would imagine that you just set the emitter up on the stage, and any attempt to photograph the stage gets blocked, but you are still free to take photos of your friends or anything else that interests you, so it wouldn't be infringing on your rights (not that anyone has a 'right' to take photos, at least as far as I am aware, but IANAL), except to take photos of the event.

Personally I would prefer that the technology just tags the photo as having unauthorised content, which would could be easily checked by photosharing sites. That way you can keep your photos and use them privately, you just can't stick them up on flickr or youtube... Of course, I can think of about a thousand ways of getting around that - including re-encoding the images in someway so that the tags are scrubbed, and to stop that you would have to introduce DRM, which is just bad bad bad from a usability point of view.

Summary: this is just an absolutely silly idea if it really does block you from taking photos of an event, but at least it should allow you to take photos at the event

This is beyond. Where does it end? Governments and corporations will no doubt misuse this technology. Imagine a corporate HQ with this at the gate. Maybe a tank with this on the turret or riot police with this on their helmets.

I, for one, would not buy a phone with this "feature".

I go to a lot of gigs, I average about 80 a year. I also film quite a few, with bands permission, with a semi pro camera. I do it for free and the bands use them as promo material for their niche.

In my experience most bands have got used to being filmed pretty much all the time. They film nearly everything backstage and nearly every band films themselves on stage. The only bands that would care are brand-bands that want to control their image.... because all they really have is image and lack substance.

Having said that: It really annoys when I'm at a gig and I can't see the band because of a wall of camera phones between me and the stage.

Conclusion doesn't follow from the evidence.

I'm having a hard time believing this. Will iPhone users really allow this?

I don't even go to concerts, but just them telling me I couldn't use my phone as I like would see me switching to something else.

Apple patents everything it possibly can so they won't get sued. Very few patents are actually used and this one sounds ridiculous. It's much ado about nothing.

Precisely. And patent trolls were in the news just last week, so you'd think someone might be able to put two and two together and realize that Apple is going to patent every crazy idea that they can afford the fees for, just to bolster the portfolio.

But, as the other commenters are saying, intelligence is too much to expect from a tabloid.

Or to sue others. From what I've seen so far about half of the time they used them to defend themselves, and the other half to sue others - maybe a bit more than half to sue others.

The Sun to "print sensationalist stories"

The Sun, turning a profit thanks to old men who can't find topless models any other way since 1969.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infrared_cut-off_filter

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