Obviously there are some differences, but in the vital respects the two situations are basically similar. When you buy a CD, you’re buying the right to do certain things with the music contained therein but not others – specifically, you are not buying the right to distribute free copies to as many people as you wish. Likewise, when you buy a movie ticket, you’re buying the right to do certain things but not others – specifically, you are not buying the right to bring your own food or drink into the theater. Both sales come with an understood (and tacitly agreed upon) set of conditions.
But why is it that so many apparently believe that the first set of conditions is sacrosanct while the second may be blithely disregarded? Is there a fundamental difference, or is it just that one act has come to be the focus of public scorn while the other (as yet) has not?
Again, it’s not at all my intent denigrate people who sneak food into theaters; I do it myself. It just seems to me that there’s some cognitive dissonance going on among many of those who *do *denigrate people who upload and/or download copyrighted music without paying.
I take nothing in to movies other than a can of drink. Once in a while I buy an ice cream at the cinema that I eat before the feature starts. In Australia it is not necessary to smuggle stuff in. I have probably carried a can of Diet Coke into a movie 500 times or more and have never been asked about it.
I just sneak in bottled water. The cinemas charge 300% more for a small bottle of coke than the 7-11 downstairs. Otherwise I would buy the popcorns and etc, if I need some munchables.
Funny, comparing buying popcorns and soda at cinema to downloading music. What am I stealing from the cinema if I don’t buy anything? I am there to watch a movie. It’s a cinema, not a restaurant. Besides, I break the rules I don’t like, and this is one of them - I think it is obviously designed to rip you off. IP is an entire thing all together. Someone said is like comparing apples to oranges. To me it’s like molehills (soda at cinemas) to mountains (IP laws).
That said, I have problem with people bringing in an entire three piece KFC chicken meals and munched on them throughout the show and making smacking noises. And the smell.
I don’t watch movies in theaters any more. Almost any movie I want to see will come out on DVD in a few months to a year and it will cost less for me to buy it than to go see it in a theater! What’s more, when I watch it at home, I won’t have cell phones going off all the time, I won’t have to listen to all the details of, like, what Joan said to Tommy when she saw him with another girl, and I won’t have to deal with kids who have been dumped at the theater by their parents, and I won’t have to deal with teens and immature adults disrupting the movie at a critical point. I will be able to control the volume of the movie. I’ll be able to pause the movie if I need to. And I will have diabetic friendly snacks and drinks, and possibly even dinner.
I’ve tried going to the movies a few times, when I thought that a particular movie would be better when viewed on the big screen. Between the people who don’t know how to behave at the movies (kids AND adults), the sound system which is always painfully loud, and the lack of stuff that I could snack on, I just didn’t have a good time. I brought in a drink, and got popcorn. If they’d had Diet Sprite then I would have been happy to buy it. I don’t go to the movies so often that one overpriced soda will break me. I do wish that the movie industry still popped corn in tropical oils, because I think that it tastes a lot better.
When I did go to the movies regularly, and before I was diabetic, I’d buy popcorn and soda. Theater candy usually sells very slowly, and so it’s almost always very stale, so I’d sometimes sneak in some candy.
These days, I usually crochet or knit while I watch a DVD.
Well, I’ve never brought vodka, and my purse often finds room for a couple of bottles or cans of soda or water.
I know the theaters make most of their money from snacks vs. tickets, but when it costs 10 bucks apiece to get in the door, and the snacks could be another 10 dollars apiece, it’s really prohibitively expensive to take the family to a movie and buy snacks. I don’t mind them making some profit but I don’t wnat to pay 6 times the retail price for a smaller package of whatever we’re getting.
I do buy popcorn there, though. There’s nothing quite like freshly-popped, artery-clogging movie popcorn.
Except: the CD is sold with pretty explicit rules about not duplicating. You duplicate it by sharing, you’re violating the terms of sale.
If I pay for a movie ticket, the terms of sale are that one person gets to see one movie for that ticket. There is nothing in the terms of sale saying that I have to also purchase concessions. Unless the theater has an explicit sign about not bringing in outside food (I’ve seen that precisely ONCE), I’m not violating any terms of sale by doing so. The theater may not like it, but unless they prohibit it, it’s kosher to do so.
Frankly, if the theaters weren’t SO predatory in their snack pricing practices, I’d happily buy from them, because I recognize it costs them money to provide the environment (comfy chairs, big screens) that I can’t duplicate at home. They’re providing a service for their money. But when it costs me 20 dollars a person to see a movie with snacks. they’ve pushed it from reasonable profit to unaffordable.
Oh - and a reason to smuggle, that nobody has mentioned yet: slow-moving lines. You can get in line behind 3 other people and wait 10 minutes for your turn. I don’t know why the service is so slow - this is even with popcorn bags etc. pre-filled.
But just because you happen not to see a sign posting the rule (and you’ll notice a lot more of them if you actively keep an eye out) doesn’t mean the rule doesn’t exist. It’s so common that a “no outside food or drink” policy should be your default assumption absent any evidence to contrary. Certainly it’s common enough that a good faith effort to abide by the rules would require one to ask what the theater’s policy is. Claiming that something is permissible simply because you weren’t explicitly told otherwise seems like a dodge.
I don’t know all that much about theater finances, so maybe they really are gouging. OTOH, concessions are their main source of income, and their overhead is *nothing *like that of the corner deli you might go to for candy; charging 50% over cost just isn’t going to cut it for them. If it turned out their profit margins were healthy but not uncommonly large – i.e., that their profitability depended on the high prices at the snack counter – would you still feel justified in bringing your own food?
I usually bring a bottle of water and make sure my purse is large enough to hold it. Otherwise, I don’t really understand why it’s necessary at all to eat while watching a movie. Can you not go two hours without eating? To be honest, all that chewing and crunching and popcorn-bucket dipping drives me nuts while I’m in a movie. In my perfect world, no one would eat in a movie, and no one would crunch ice and pump the straw up and down in their drink to smash up the ice. Drives me **nuts. **
Stoopid Rhymer! You left out _________________.
I used to, many moons ago, when I couldn’t afford the prices of snacks at the theater, or when they didn’t sell what I wanted to snack upon.
But that was when I was young and didn’t necessarily have dinner or snacks and drinks before a movie,which is almost always par for the course now.
These days I just buy a little of the crap they sell at the concession, usually just a beer in a cup.
It’s funny - when I was a high school kid, I HAD to have snacks and drinks and such at the theater, and we always made the guys fill their huge pockets with our stuff. Now I just don’t have any desire for it anymore - if I get a drink I’ll just have to pee anyway, you know? Frankly we almost never go out to the movies anyway anymore.
But next time I go I am totally taking a flask to spike my Coke with. I don’t know why I never even thought of that!
I’m looking at a ticket stub from AMC I left on my desk. All it mentions concerning the license is:
“The license granted is for a single viewing at the designated time only.”
Next time I’m at the movies, I’ll keep my eye out for any posted signs concerning bringing your own stuff. IME, it’s more of a don’t ask, don’t tell sort of thing. In fact, I remember a number of times where I walked into a movie still sipping from a full fast food cup. No one said peep.
If I hand out copies of a CD to all my friends, not only am I violating a Federal law, of which I could be fined up the ass, but in this particular case, I am cheating the record company out of sales, by denying them the purchase by my friends.
There might be a private policy about being removed from the theater if caught with your own goods, but it’s not federal law. I’m willing to take the risk if that’s what the stakes are. And that’s if. Also, if I forget to bring my own pop or candy, rarely do I ever pay for theirs. So, if I forget to bring a can of pepsi, and decide not to buy their own $4 16oz cup, am I cheating and stealing from them? Because that’s a more typical, realistic scenario.
Stephen Wright: “Last time I went to the movies I was thrown out for bringing my own food. My argument was that the concession stand prices are outrageous. Besides, I haven’t had a Bar-B-Que in a long time.”
Lots of theaters around here sell beer and wine at the shows. We have one amazing theater (soon to be two!) that has full waiter service AND 21 and over theaters. The extra $1.50 per ticket is WAY worth it to have only adults. No more 2 year olds at scary movies or costume dramas.
I only sneak in food to theaters that are big chains. Local ones get all my cash. I also only sneak in candy, and usually buy soda and popcorn, so they’re not missing out on much, really.
cmyk, you’re hardly ever going to find any explicit notice on your ticket or elsewhere that you may not bring a camcorder into the theater and record the movie, but I’m we would all correctly assume that any theater we walk into has a policy against such a thing.
If it’s a question of possible consequences, of risk & reward, that’s really not what I’m talking about.
Of course not, but if you know there’s a chance you’d buy refreshments but instead sneak in your own, you’ve done the same thing (ethically) as the person who illicitly downloads an album he knows he might buy if he had to. That one is against the law while the other is merely against company policy really doesn’t enter into it (unless you believe that obeying the law is inherently more ethical than breaking it).
The three largest theater chains in North America are (in order) Regal, AMC, and Cinemark. As best I’ve been able to gather, Regal generally bans outside food, but at least some theaters in urban areas do allow it (as patrons usually cannot just leave any food they happen to have with them in their car). AMC allows outside food and drink, excepting that which might be bothersome (e.g. smelly) or dangerous (e.g. glass bottles). Cinemark has a chain-wide policy forbidding outside food and drink.
I have seen signs in theatres saying that use of a recording device is against the law. Since you’re arguing that taking food in is similar, I would first like to know if AMC Theatres really do have a “no outside food” policy. Everything I’ve been reading online says they don’t, but I can’t find any info from the company themselves. Is this posted anywhere in their theatres? One can hardly go against their policy if they don’t have one forbidding the behavior in the first place.
I pay $4.50 for the possibly stale popcorn and $3.50 for the least objectionable alternative among the sodas and sneak in a small bag/bar/box of candy. They never have what I want in candy, they charge way too much for it, and sell it in too big a quantity.
I’ve been to a few downtown cinemas that have dozens of kinds of candy in bins. You use a little scoop to get as much as you want of whatever kind you want and pour it into a bag. You pay for it by the ounce. I wish all theaters did this.
**1) It’s not against the law like it is with copyrighted media duplication. In fact, it’s not against the law at all.
I’m not obligated to ever buy their concessions upon purchase of a movie ticket. I see no private policy prohibiting me from bringing in outside stuffs anyway. So, I feel perfectly ethical.**
The profits of the movie theater are not my problem or responsibility. If they decide to make most of their revenue on concession sales, that’s not my concern. I’m there first and foremost to see a movie. I’m sure it’s a competitive business to be in, but if they made their concessions more reasonably priced, perhaps they’d have a customer in me (and many others) for that part of their market. If they do have an explicit policy, I’ve never seen it, nor have I ever been busted for disregarding any “rules”, but I would feel a tad more guilty about breaking them and that alone might change my behavior.
I worked one summer at a movie theater. You know those combo deals they pimp at the concession stand - “Would you like to add an extra bucket of soda for only a dollar extra” and such? We got bonuses. Depending on the combo, we got an average of about a buck fifty per combo we sold - the markup on that stuff is huge. I’m sure it’s less at a lot of theaters, because this was a Big Corporate 24-screen monstrosity, but the total cost of the cup + soda is less than a dollar for them, and the popcorn is probably close to that. After that lesson as to how much money they pull in with the concession stand, I just started bringing my own munchies.
Now this one is explicitly theft of services. Arguably, unless you’re sneaking into a sold-out show and taking a chair from a paid patron (who, after failing to find a seat, is going to complain to management and get his money back), you’re not actually affecting their bottom line… but you’ve purchased a ticked for a specific showing.
Well, I’ll make a point of looking around for such a sign, next time I go. However, if the sign isn’t explicitly there, then I have to assume there’s no such policy. The one we go to the most often, which happens to be a Regal, doesn’t make it obvious. I did once go in carrying a drink (we’d just eaten at a fast food shop next door) and nobody said a thing.
Well, unfortunately, it’s both. They’re gouging, but they’re doing it because their profits depend on their doing so. I fully expect to pay more for such munchies because of the environment. Heck, if I’m drinking a soft drink at a nice restaurant and they charge me 2.50 for it (where a can of it bought at the grocery would be 40 cents), I could claim gouging but I recognize that the table, chair, building, staff, etc. require that markup.
The thing is: with the snacks being SO overpriced, it becomes unaffordable to buy them on top of paying 8-10 bucks for a ticket. For a family of 4, you could be looking at 80 dollars for a 2-hour movie. The alternatives are: 1) don’t go at all, 2) go, but don’t have any munchies, 3) go, but bring your own, 4) go, and spend your entertainment money in one shot and don’t see the next movie… Obviously the theater is voting for #4 vs. the other 3. The financial model really isn’t sustainable, in my opinion. At some point it becomes so pricey that people realized the theater experience simply isn’t worth the outlay in cash, then the theater makes no money at all.
I guess what I’m getting at is this: I don’t feel an overwhelming ethical concern that I’m stealing from anyone, when the financial model makes it unaffordable to do the expected. As the alternative is to either not go at all, or to go but not have any snacks at all, I’m affecting their bottom line not at all. It’s not like I’m saying “Twizzlers are 4 dollars for 12 pieces of candy. That’s robbery. I’m going to steal that candy from them instead”.
Does anyone know whether it’s true that the theaters make a larger cut of the ticket price in later weeks of the run, vs. earlier weeks? e.g. first week they pay 80%, second week they pay 70%, third 60 etc.?
