Last spring, our ever vigilant nanny (aka Congress) passed a law making it a federal crime to use a camcorder in a theater (Don’t worry, Utah. You can still bring your gun to the show.). And this week, the first person was indicted under that regulation.

Argue all you like – there’s no defense for this kind of stupidity. There’s no legal reason why a person should be taping the showing of a movie in a theater.

But, beyond distributing the recordings on the web, what makes this guy a real idiot were the films he was recording: The Perfect Man and Bewitched. At least he could have snagged something people actually wanted to see.

Side note: In the article, the head of the MPAA claims that 90% of all current releases distributed on the net come from recordings made in theaters. Crap!

Most of those files come from high quality transfers provided by people on the inside at movie studios. The big media folks need to work on plugging their own leaks.