Google Glass Banned In UK Cinemas Over Piracy Fears

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Google Glass has been banned by the local cinemas in the UK to avoid any piracy risk. Google glass wearers cannot wear the gadget while watching the movie in the theater as they might end up recording the latest movies illegally.

“Customers will be requested not to wear these into cinema auditoriums, whether the film is playing or not,” Phil Clapp, chief executive of the Cinema Exhibitors’ Association told the Independent.

No Google Glass inside theatres

Leicester Square cinema asked the first man wearing Glass to put down his device and other will be asked to do the same as well. Those wearing the Google Glass with prescription lenses would be required to take traditional glasses along with them.

Movie industry group FACT sees Google Glass and other new recording devices as substantial threats to the local cinemas, where film can be recorded through these devices.

The FACT group says that due to the evolving technology smaller and more compact devices are used including the mobile phones. FACT works in close association with the cinema operators and distributors to bring out the best practices and prevent illegal recordings.

Rising threat from Piracy

Illegal video recording have been one of the biggest contributors to the piracy and it all started over a decade ago, when handheld camcorders were taken into theaters. These camcorders were big enough to be spotted, but eventually the video recording devices grew smaller and were easy to hide.

Recently, the UK movie industry has taken a series of efforts to stop recording of the illegal movies and results were impressive. In 2012, no illegally recorded movie was from the UK cinema as many such attempts were failed. Last year, five people were arrested by the UK police and other nine were sent home after issuing warnings. To appreciate the anti-piracy efforts, the Film Distributors’ Association awarded 13 cinema employees with cash rewards of up to £500.

Google Glass emerges as the latest risk to the movies. This year only, the FBI pulled out a man wearing the Google Glass from the movie theater after the staff complained that they think the man was using the Glass to record the movie illegally.  Later, it was found out that he was not doing any sort of recording.

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