Update: Don't sue MGM
An anonymous commenter on my original post on the MGM class action suit directed me to this site, which presents some very cogent arguments why this suit is a at least a semi-farce. As most of my DVD collection is in California right now , I'm unable to confirm whether the affected movies I own are in fact 1.85:1 aspect ratio, but the guys over at The Digital Bits are pretty sharp so I'd be surprised if they're wrong. For those of you disinclined to learn the gory technical details of widescreen movie production, the short version is that a MGM isn't doing anything underhanded - the filming technology used to create the lion's share of the 'affected' films produces a full-frame image, which is then cropped for widescreen display in theaters. In these cases, full-frame does not necessarily mean Pan and Scan. Thanks to the commenter for the link. Can't get 'em all right, I suppose.
Actually, you can't say that the image is "cropped" in the theaters. You see when a cinematographer and the director are looking at a frame, they are looking only for the wide screen area. That's how it's supposed to be seen. Even the shoot preview monitors show a underlighted top and bottom area, which means that those areas are not really part of the movie frame.
So when you a sound boom device hanging from the top in some full-screen movies... it's not a mistake of the boom operator. That part of the screen was not meant to be a part of the shot anyway.
Simple.