I hate the MPAA as much as anyone, and I’m currently not much of a fan of Regal Entertainment, but threatening to boycott them because they busted a 19 year old girl blatantly recording part of a movie in the theaters is ridiculous. Sure, I’ll agree that a year’s worth of jailtime would be excessive, but to suggest that she get off scott free due to “fair use” is equally insane. Regal may be dicks for pushing for the full penalty, but I’d be shocked if a judge actually sent the girl to the can. Likely she’ll have to pay a (hopefully hefty) fine and be done with it. A more than reasonable penalty, not only for blatantly breaking a very well publicized law, but for undoubtedly annoying the hell out of other moviegoers by holding up her freaking camera in the middle of the movie’s climax in the first place.

It’s nice to see the commenters on Free Culture NYC, the blog that’s promoting the idea of a boycott, seem to agree that the girl basically asked to land in her current raft o’ shit.

While the question of whether or not Jhannet’s Transformers clip counts as fair use (it is our opinion that it does, as it is private, non-commercial use of an unsubstantial portion of the original), there is another question we should be asking, and that is whether or not we should be patronizing a corporation that insists on pressing charges against someone who is clearly not the intended target of anti-piracy laws. Regal Cinemas should be ashamed of itself and its silly zero-tolerance policy.

Spread the word!