Audio System for neighborhood movie night?

Just as an FYI, the motion picture industry association (MPIA) has a whistle-blower reward for people who turn in public showings of any motion picture. Depending on the number of people there at your event, if they are notified and investigate, they are quick to file suit. They usually start at threatening a $100,000 suit, but settle for around $25k, plus attorney fees, which depends on how hard you try and fight it.

Yes, you own that movie disc, but it comes with a specific license for personal use only. If you show it in the public, you need to purchase a license for that.

Here is where you can purchase that. Funflicks licensing .

I know you will be tempted to just say, "nobody is going to turn us in, so don't care." I would say, if it was you doing it in your backyard to a bunch of your neighbors, sure, but the HOA is likely a registered corporation with the state, and has an expensive liability insurance policy. The MPIA would probably not be willing to settle for a smaller amount because as a corporation, they should know better than to deliberately expose themselves to breaking copyright law.

How do I know this? One of our neighbors is a pediatric dentist who put in a theater in his building for kids to watch Disney movies. MPIA was alerted, and because the dentist had been doing it for years and used lots of Disney movies they added Disney to the lawsuit as plaintiff and won a judgment of over a quarter million dollars after attorney fees and court costs. The guy nearly lost his practice over it.

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I know you will be tempted to just say, "nobody is going to turn us in, so don't care." I would say, if it was you doing it in your backyard to a bunch of your neighbors, sure, but the HOA is likely a registered corporation with the state, and has an expensive liability insurance policy. The MPIA would probably not be willing to settle for a smaller amount because as a corporation, they should know better than to deliberately expose themselves to breaking copyright law.

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On the flip side, since corporations are now viewed as "people" by the SCOTUS, and since all of the people in the HOA are part of that corporation, couldn't one logically argue that any showing of a movie to that group IS personal use?

Not saying I'm right, just presenting a counter argument. As I'm not a lawyer, this is not presented a legal advice...

That is insanity.

I figured this may be the case for streaming a football game, didn't realize it would be an issue for a movie. I did bring it up to the head of the HOA about potential legal issues. He just said if we got any kind of notice, would just stop doing it.

I can't imagine it would be worth the money for them to go after a small HOA, and would just send a cease and desist if they somehow found out. but couldn't hurt to run it by the lawyer we have on retainer to be sure.

Anyhow, any actual sound suggestions though??

Getting back to the technical instead of legal side of this... I looked up that Anker projector. My first question is "what's your video source"? Looks like this little projector is Android based so I assume an app? And it has WiFi & Bluetooth, so you'd stream from an app over Wifi. Then you'd use the BT capability to connect to a BT speaker.

I have something very similar to that Rockville PA speaker and have used it for music with an iPhone at events. It should be plenty capable for a reasonable space. The biggest challenge is probably just getting the BT connection - you have to put the speaker in the right mode and then I assume you'd see it in the menu from the projector.

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I did bring it up to the head of the HOA about potential legal issues. He just said if we got any kind of notice, would just stop doing it.

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That's sort of like, "we'll stop stealing stuff if someone catches us, but we don't expect to get in trouble if we do."

The video source will probably be our blu ray player. I can't trust the wifi from the clubhouse to reach all the way out to the soccer field for a streaming player(about 300ft away).

I was planning on hardwiring it, the reviews say BT connectivity is a joke, so I don't want to rely on that.

Thanks for the feedback on the Rockville, I think I will need to find a diff projector, i realized there is no aux in the ones i looked at

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Just as an FYI, the motion picture industry association (MPIA) has a whistle-blower reward for people who turn in public showings of any motion picture. Depending on the number of people there at your event, if they are notified and investigate, they are quick to file suit. They usually start at threatening a $100,000 suit, but settle for around $25k, plus attorney fees, which depends on how hard you try and fight it.

Yes, you own that movie disc, but it comes with a specific license for personal use only. If you show it in the public, you need to purchase a license for that.

Here is where you can purchase that. Funflicks licensing .

I know you will be tempted to just say, "nobody is going to turn us in, so don't care." I would say, if it was you doing it in your backyard to a bunch of your neighbors, sure, but the HOA is likely a registered corporation with the state, and has an expensive liability insurance policy. The MPIA would probably not be willing to settle for a smaller amount because as a corporation, they should know better than to deliberately expose themselves to breaking copyright law.

How do I know this? One of our neighbors is a pediatric dentist who put in a theater in his building for kids to watch Disney movies. MPIA was alerted, and because the dentist had been doing it for years and used lots of Disney movies they added Disney to the lawsuit as plaintiff and won a judgment of over a quarter million dollars after attorney fees and court costs. The guy nearly lost his practice over it.

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WTF

Stream a pirated version of it to really give them the bird

Dont take my advise on that tho

Its outdoors? Bass will be hard but some of that PA stuff is made for that kind of setup, I am not too familiar with PA just home stuff. I'd hardwire something like you said. Get a receiver and BR player that you can maybe mount in a small portable rack on wheels. If its going to be not smooth surfaces all the time maybe mount some bigger pneumatic tires to the rack. Have it be able to closed up water tight easily for those popup showers. Be able to mount the projector on top of it (Or in it with it projecting out the back of the rack) if you have enough room for projector throw. Put a PDU in the rack so you can power it all with one plug needed from a power source. Pre measured runs of wire to run to the speakers. That FM transmitter for golf carts sounds pretty cool. They have wireless transmitters for speakers that can work well (Not as solid as wired) if you didn't want to mess with wires. I had some for my subs from rocketfish and now SVSubwoofers. Some ideas that come to mind. You want it easy to setup fast and take down and repeatable.

Any of those systems will work for your application. The sound quality and low end will be lacking but it'll be serviceable.

I'd personally try to upgrade to something like this if you can. Little bit more money and set up but the quality will be much better, especially if you are watching action movies or something that you want a little more low end for.