DVD-MPAA Protests - Summary

[Tim Neu <tim@tneu.visi.com>]

Thanks to everyone that showed up!!!

For those of you who couldn't make it, here's what happened.

I got to Har-Mar a little after 6:00 PM.  Mike arrived, and he and I were
handing out fliers at the front entrance for about 3.5 seconds before the
Mall Manager called security (the big sign really gave us away).  The
manager was really pissed off (either that or he's a jerk all the time!) -
he said something like, "Get the hell out of here - You have no right to
be here, Security is on their way", etc, etc. (he didn't say it in a nice
or professional way, either!)

We moved to the other side of the street (by Ground Round), with one of
their guards following.   The guard was pretty nice - he talked with Mike
& I about our cause for a while, and even took one of our fliers.  He did
inform us, however, that the Ground Round restraunt was also owned by the
mall - and that we would have to move to the turn-off at Snelling Ave. (so
much for puplic property close to the theater!) 

Mike and I handed out fliers to anyone who was curious - quite a few
people stopped just to see what was going on.   Soon, Luke and Scott
showed up.  They had arrived independantly of Mike and I, and had been
distributing fliers inside the theater for the last half hour or so, and
were wondering why we were protesting outside in the cold!

We had people honking at us much of the time - it is hard to say if they
were from Technically-savy people who agreed with our cause, or just
people who like to see conflict (or just weirdos who like to honk their
horns at very cold people holding signs and passing out fliers). Some
people must have thought we were on a labor strike or something - one guy
rolled down his window and said "I'm with the electrician's union", as he
grabbed a flier. 

Many people didn't know what "MPAA" stood for, which made it more
difficult to explain our (already complicated) cause in 15 seconds or
less! 

The second group continued passing out fliers inside the Mall and theater
lobby, while we continued passing out fliers at the Snelling Ave turn-off. 
We found out a while later that a group from 2600 had showed up - and the
other group had met up with them. 

It became increasingly obvious that the Mall had started calling in more
security guards.  I think when we first got there, there were one or two
guards.  By the time we had left, there were many, many more than that. 
The place was swarming with them.  Also, the number of police cars that
went through the turning lane in front of us would suggest that the police
were patroling the mall as well.  One of them nearly scared me to death
when he opened his window to ask for a flier!  It's not like we were doing
anything at all wrong - but for some reason that sort of thing can still
give you that creepy feeling inside... 

Eventually, the guards caught up with the inside group as well - and we
got separated.  But, not before I got to see the Manager with the most
frusterated look I have ever seen on a human being.  Knowing that we had
ruined his day is kindof a bittersweet thought.  OK, I admit - it was just
sweet.  When a manager has protestors outside his door, and he has to pay
security guards overtime because of something his industry is doing - you
can rest assured he's going to make some phone calls. 

Since the "inside group" managed to evade the security guards longer than
we did, I think they probably got to more people than we did - but there
was no question that all together a message was sent to the MPAA, and that
some small portion of the public learned of our plight. 

Others of us learned to dress more warmly for protests in the future, and
that large signs are hard to control in strong winds... :-)

I think the final number of protestors at HarMar was 10 - 5 from 2600, and
5 from the TCLUG.  (although in all of the commotion we never really all
got together in one place - so this number could be off). 

I did not see anyone from the media, that I know of, however one thing is
certain. 

The MPAA will hear about Friday, Feb 4, 2000.

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