Apple's Anti-Camera Patent

The American in me says there are a lot of things that people shouldn't do, but should still have the ability to do. Usually because that ability is tied to a bunch of other things as well.

I'm more worried about the blockage of phone footage of demonstrations and civil disturbances. If you can't record the way the police behave, they can get away with everything. As they have done in the past.

I'm going to assume the people who defend their right to pirate artistic content would bitch vehemently if their own home was burglarized.

Or they assume the "fair use" disclaimer they put on their YouTube posts is going to help if they're served with a take down notice.

Yeah, I agree with other posters about being worried that people would not be able to record crimes and abuse, etc.

I strongly feel that this is something that could potentially be abused...

I'm not convinced that this is as overreaching in capability as is being presented.

However, I'm not well-read on IR control. All I remember is that media remote controllers in the past used infrared. You had to have a direct line of sight from emitter to receiver in order for the remote to work.

Does IR work in broadcast?

I don't think so, but I'm admittedly FAR from certain on that.

robjvargas said:

I'm not convinced that this is as overreaching in capability as is being presented.

However, I'm not well-read on IR control. All I remember is that media remote controllers in the past used infrared. You had to have a direct line of sight from emitter to receiver in order for the remote to work.

Does IR work in broadcast?

I don't think so, but I'm admittedly FAR from certain on that.

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It's a good question. I messed around with IR years back when I was using my Palm Pilot to control RC devices. IR beams do reflect off white surfaces, and wide angle IR transmitters do exist. I would assume the camera would be used as the pickup device for the transmission since a separate IR receiver could be disabled or taped over by the user. Either that or they'll put the IR receiver right next to the lens making it difficult to mess with.

For best effect, they'll need to blanket an area with the signal. This works okay when you can mount a projector to blanket a specific area, but not so well in portable situations. For example, a police officer would have to have a projector on his front and his back and his sides to get a 360 shutdown. The beam has to be fired at the camera, not at the area being blocked, so putting one on a police car would only prevent people aiming at the car from being recorded. If the officer gets out to respond, they could be recorded unless they've got some kind of 360 degree IR projection system built into their helmet or something. There are also range considerations on the signal. IR doesn't go far, particularly in sunlight which can scramble the signal. It works best at night or in darkened rooms. Perfect for a concert or movie theater where you can mount multiple IR projectors around the room.

Of course, all of this does no good whatsoever at blocking any device that isn't designed to recognize the signal and shut down the camera, which makes Apple's motives in applying for the patent confusing. Are they really interested in putting this in their phones, or are they applying for the patent simply so they can sue anyone who decides to use it later? If, for instance, the government suddenly decided to require all manufacturers of cameras to include this feature, and Apple had the patent, they'd probably make bank collecting a little bit of royalty on every camera sold. Which kind of gives them incentive to promote such legislation. But I'm just guessing here. I mean, who else would want such a requirement other than the media industry and music industry?

cmhbob said:

... and bad (setting up emitters in the vicinity of a public protest, keeping people from recording the protests.)...

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Yikes!

It's one thing to enable a ban on recording a performance, but how about the police using it to stop people recording their actions?

New at the ap store next month: a device that can override such censorship.

There will be ample legal issues to sort out, and that will vary considerably by country.

In the U.S. there is no expectation of privacy in public space. A vendor offering a performance in a private, limited access space may be permitted to restrict event recording under certain circumstances (public notice, explicit warnings, etc.). As for recording interference (jamming, etc.) in public space, there are a host of existing laws & regulations that address specific concerns (most of which are illegal). A number of existing agencies would line up to scrutinize any such potential from any commercial source.

This is a patent issue, and nothing but a patent issue. It simply means those who do not own the patent will have to find a different way of doing the same thing, or pay to do it this way. This is normal.

But far too many people want something they have no right to, that they did not create, and that they do not own. A thief is a thief, whether they steal with a handgun or a camera.

I think it's a valid complaint to say a company has no right to cripple your device. Apple is not the police, and they have no right to try to police us, or to help police us.

I also know there are already technologies in use to prevent people using a product to commit a crime. For example, you generally can't photocopy money; the photocopier will halt and spit out an incomplete page.

I don't favour corporations attempting to control people; they were not elected and have no right to such authority over us. Also, there are other technologies that could be used to prevent people taking video of concerts. For example, there's now fabric that is highly reflective to camera flash or to infrared light (which a lot of cell phones still pick up), which causes any photos taken to be ruined by the resulting high contrast in light levels. Simply use that fabric in your stage costumes, and amateur photos will be guaranteed to remain amateurish-looking and ugly.

Very interesting discussion. Since I'm a touring musician for a living, I have a slightly different angle on it.

I don't know much about IR emitters, but it's insanely interesting to me. I'll going to do some research on it right after I write this comment.

Anyways, back to the musician thing. Musicians spend a lot money and effort creating quality videos for youtube. When the public searches for us, we would like our professional videos to fill the first page of youtube. However, our pro videos are now competing with oodles of cellphone videos. My band actually has some arbitrary cell phone video that got a stupid amount of views, and the person who recorded it had their finger partly over the mic. When you listen to it, you only hear distorted bass and overpowering, auto-compressed drums, (plus cell phone cameras are NOT made for recording live audio - there's a whole industry for sound engineers who do live mixing) The audio quality on this video is ridiculously horrible. There's a lot of youtube hate saying how horrendous we sound. It's true, the video sounds awful. However, our guitarist just won an award for being the 3rd most watched female guitarist on instagram this February. Our piano players is a jazz professor at university. Our singer was invited to tour with a ridiculously famous classic rock band that I won't mention here. Our booking agent books worldwide and wouldn't take us on if we were hacks. We're pretty talented and accomplished, but that youtube video has deterred people from buying tickets to our shows.

Do I think that means no one should film our show? Absolutely not. I want the audience to partake in the show. I encourage people to film the concert, take the recording home and watch it with fond memories. However, is there a way I wish I could limit amateur videos appearing on youtube? Hell yes. The only answer I can see for us is to keep putting up pro-quality content, not limit the audience's recording ability. (Eventually that shitty iphone video will get buried. Still wish it was never there at all.)

Okay, so there's another elephant in the room. The vast majority of the industry uses tracks. If there was ever a catastrophic event, they wouldn't want it on camera. Aaaaaand I'll leave that one where it is.

Anyways, my last two cents is this:
I think large companies censoring us on their own agenda is a violation of privacy. Recording events in a public space is fair game. I'm more concerned about the fairness of documenting police, protests, and other social acts. Music is second to that concern.

cmhbob said:

Great perspective. Thanks for that.

I'd say though that an event one has to have tickets for isn't a public event; it's private, because not everyone gets in.

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Good distinction. Tickets are sold to the public, so I assumed a concert was a public event. I always thought the definition of a private event was funding by the person/entity hosting the event, like a wedding or a corporate party. Concerts are supported through ticket sales (but sometimes they're not, like when we play private house parties - fwiw we have to ask permission to film/photograph our show at a private venue like that). I'm not a lawyer so I might be wrong. That's an interesting distinction, cmhbob.