It was a quiet Saturday evening in Columbus, Ohio, and a man and his wife were settling down in their local cinema to watch Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit. An hour into the film, the man was approached by a stranger with a badge and ordered to go outside, following which he was detained for over an hour, accused of stealing the film. The reason? He was wearing Google Glass.
For those unfamiliar with Google Glass, it's the headset with built-in computer that has been going through its testing stages over the last year and is just beginning to enter the mass market. This may make it sound like something that could be used for piracy, but in fact its video function is very low quality and can run for an hour max. What's more, in this case it was turned off, as those involved in the detention subsequently accepted. The man they seized (who wishes to remain anonymous) was wearing it because it has prescription lenses - he needed it to see.
To add to the sense of overkill in this situation, it later emerged that the officers involved were from Homeland Security, backed by several ordinary police officers. Although homeland Security has previously been involved in issuing web takedowns related to government copyright, it's not clear when Paramount's financial concerns became a matter of US national security.
After his eventual release by the officers, the unhappy customer was given four free passes for the cinema by a man claiming to represent the Movie Association, a gesture he says just made him more angry. "Considering it was 11:27pm when this happened, and the movie started at 7.45, I guess 3 and a half hours of my time and the scare my wife went through (who didn’t know what was going on as nobody bothered to tell her) is worth about 30 bucks in the eyes of the Movie Association and the federal militia," he wrote on his blog. He says that was unable to get an answer as to why, if Google Glass was a problem, he hadn't seen a poster instructing him not to use it, especially as he had done so on two previous occasions without problems.
The case has particular significance because Google Glass and similar devices are expected to flood the market over the next few years, putting them in a similar situation to mobile phones, which could also be used to record films but which are, outside of press screenings, rarely confiscated. Furthermore, wearable technologies are increasingly blurring the distinction between cameras and eyes. Some blind people now have artificial, computer-based eyes; they don't yet deliver very good quality, but they're improving all the time. Any ban imposed on Google Glass now would quickly become unworkable.
Homeland Security have confirmed the incident took place but offered no further explanation.
