Don’t Steal Movies – Wrong Message?
I’ve never quite understood the messages they put before films about piracy being like stealing. I mean I get the meaning, piracy is illegal, but I don’t think they make much of a dent in the movie piracy. After all, these warnings tend to be on films you’re watching legally, so plainly you’re not engaging in piracy at that moment. Hence they’re probably there to stop you being tempted to get that illegal DVD or download of film that you have not yet seen. I don’t think telling the viewer that it is illegal is the right approach to take though, because they almost certainly know that already.
When I saw Pirates 3 at the cinema a couple of weeks ago, there was a new anti-piracy ad that I think perhaps could be more effective. It told the viewer that watching a pirated movie, perhaps with people walking through shot, didn’t match the experience of watching it in a proper cinema, which is exactly right – the reason I don’t download films I want to see is because watching a version someone videoed on the screen of my laptop is nowhere near the cinema experience, on the big screen with a really good sound system.
Following on from that, I think one of the reasons there is so much piracy with DVDs and downloading them, especially in this country, is that there doesn’t seem to be any legal way of obtaining a movie on your computer. I’d quite happily buy films from iTunes if I could, but for some reason we’ve still not got that capability here (it took 13 months for the iTunes store to debut in the UK after its launch, it’s now 20 months since video debuted in the US). I’m not aware of any other movie download services in this country, so the only option to get them digitally is to either download them (illegal) or rip them from the original DVDs (I think also illegal).
The situation with TV shows seems to be a step backward from the plain old video to me as well. Both the BBC iPlayer and Channel 4’s 4OD service deliver high quality video, but these videos mostly expire after 7 days or 48 hours respectively. If I’d videoed the program I could watch it to my hearts content and would only have to pay for the cost of the media. With these new services, if you want a version you can keep, or play on a Mac or Linux (as these services use Microsoft DRM technology) then you’ll have to either stump up for the whole series on DVD, or download it illegally. Why, when enthusiasts create the technology to quickly and easily distribute large media files don’t the content producers embrace it, and at least make a bit of money out of it? No, instead they go down the same route other people have walked paying no heed to what others have already learnt…