Have you got a laptop? Or perhaps a netbook?
Does it have a webcam?
Seemingly it’s Cineworld policy not to allow customers to bring laptops into their cinemas. This is to curtail piracy. This follows a story from a couple of months ago about someone turned away from a Cineworld.
You see that 1.3 megapixel camera on it? Well you might turn around your laptop and point it at the screen and capture the film. Of course you might just as easily (and somewhat more covertly) use your mobile phone. Or if you’re actually a pirate, you might be using a video camera – they’re pretty small these days.
I’m not condoning piracy for one second. I love watching films on the big screen. For the majority of films it’s by far the best way for them to be seen. But what kind of lunacy is this?
At my local cinema, they search bags on entry. I somehow imagine that any pirate worth his salt keeps his video camera in his pocket rather than his bag, but hey – they’re employing someone (they might improve their bottom line if they employed a few more people at the concession stand, but that’s another matter).
During the film itself, a security guard generally peers in. He doesn’t stop any chattering from annoying teens, or the person in front of me who’s busily using their mobile phone to check emails or text their friends. No – he’s really checking to see if anyone’s using a video camera in there.
Sometimes the guard might have nightvision goggles or other technology to spot the pirates. As long as his radio doesn’t go off in the auditorium I can just about put up with this.
But here’s the thing. I carry a netbook with me pretty much every day after work, and quite a lot at weekends. They’re small, portable and very useful. Perfect – in fact – for carrying around.
Cineworld saying that they won’t allow people in with laptops means that effectively they don’t want my post-work business. I work in the West End and am lucky enough to have a huge choice of cinemas. Any chain that decides that laptops are banned is pretty much ensuring that I can no longer be a customer.
Cinemas – on the whole – don’t have secure lockers. I certainly wouldn’t trust my local cinema with anything.
It has been reasonably common practice at preview screenings of films for private security companies to collect mobiles and digital cameras. It’s a pallaver, and as far as I’m aware pirate copies of films don’t tend to come from these screenings (they do however come from DVD “screeners” sent to voters in The Oscars etc). On the plus-side – they do ensure that others in the cinema don’t text/email in there.
But nobody tries to employ this in local cinemas.
When all’s said and done, customers will vote with their feet, and that’s what I will be doing to any chain that employs such a stupid role.