Apple to 'ban iPhone gig filming'

[paularoid]

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/3641676/Apple-to-ban-iPhone-gig-filming.html

Apple to 'ban iPhone gig filming'

IPHONE users may soon be stopped from filming at concerts — as a result of new Apple technology.

The leading computer company plans to build a system that will sense when people are trying to video live events — and turn off their cameras.

A patent application filed by Apple revealed how the technology would work.

If an iPhone were held up and used to film during a concert infra-red sensors would detect it.

These sensors would then contact the iPhone and automatically disable its camera function.

People would still be able to send text messages and make calls.

The new technology is seen as an attempt to protect the interests of event organisers and broadcasters who have exclusive rights to concerts.

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

Apple filed for the patent 18 months ago — and it is thought if successful it will help them negotiate deals with record labels to sell content through iTunes.

[DaveM]

On first glance, this seems like a reasonable idea--certainly any performing artist has the right to decide if and when he or she is being recorded.

But....

In effect, this development is putting a remote control, controlled by someone else, on YOUR cell phone. For the moment it is apparently only for one model and to disable one specific function. But cell phones and camera phones have become in many respects "the peoples' press", capturing and making public any number of events in recent years that any number of individuals and institutions would prefer remain unseen. What happens when a government doesn't want its gigs filmed, or if authorities can remotely shut off any camera surrounding the spot where they're beating or shooting people? A fair number of the recent revolutions in the Middle East have been publicized--and very possibly furthered--by people with cell phone cameras who could not be censored.

My guess is that Apple is only promoting this development for the purpose it mentions and that the technology itself has been around for some time. But I dread the uses some may find for it.

[paularoid]

But I dread the uses some may find for it.

To attempt to minimize or even erase the effects of political gaffes for instance.