Technically Legal

A 22 year-old Chicago woman was arrested and charged with a felony after she recorded bits of a birthday party in a theater playing “New Moon.”

The woman was recording parts of her sister’s surprise party using the video recording function on her digital camera. She also recorded approximately four minutes of the movie before she was spotted by a theater employee and arrested by police.

The woman was charged with “Criminal use of a motion picture exhibition facility,” a Class 4 felony that carries up to three years in prison. The statute reads:

“Any person, where a motion picture is being exhibited, who knowingly operates an audiovisual recording function of a device without the consent of the owner or lessee of that exhibition facility and of the licensor of the motion picture being exhibited is guilty of criminal use of a motion picture exhibition facility.”

What’s shocking about this is that by one reading, there is nothing in the statute even requires you to have filmed any part of the movie. It’s totally feasible to commit a felony by recording only seconds of seats you’re about to sit in. On the other hand, you could (and in my view should) construe “where a motion picture is being exhibited” to mean that the recording has to be contemporaneous with the movie being shown. However, even that doesn’t require that you actually film any of the movie to be guilty.

The statute also allows the movie theater to detain anyone they “in good faith believe[] to have violated this Section while awaiting the arrival of law enforcement authorities.” The detainee can only recover damages if they show “by clear and convincing evidence that such measures were manifestly unreasonable or the period of detention was unreasonably long.”

And, yes this statute also prohibits recording people in a BestBuy, unless you are only operating the recording function to “demonstrate the use of that device for sales or display purposes.” Again, there is no exception for not actually recording the movie.

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