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DVDs, Blu-Rays To Show 20-Second Unskippable Govt. Warnings
bonch writes "DVDs and Blu-Rays will begin displaying two unskippable anti-piracy screens, each 10 seconds long, shown back-to-back. Six studios have agreed to begin using the new notices. Of course, pirated versions won't contain these 20-second notices; however, an ICE spokesman says the intent isn't to deter piracy but to educate the public."
To do what? Download the pirated copies so they don't have to watch the unskippable content?
As with DRMed music, the pirates will win because they OFFER A BETTER PRODUCT.
People who will see that screen _already_ have bought an original DVD...
drmad
When I see this the message I get is
"If you avoided paying for this then you would not have to see this stupid message"
I don't feel morally righteous or justified in downloading pirated shows, but it's just so damn convenient.
Yeah... because getting upset over principles when it is just easier to settle for less and wait 20 seconds is so much easier.
The more you are willing to settle for shit the more you will find you are eating it more often.
Twenty seconds...that's too much for you to suffer through?
That's 20 seconds, AFTER the 45 or so for the damn thing to boot up, 10 to figure out that there's a disc shoved in it, AFTER 10 minutes of previews for "coming soon" titles that came and went 3 years ago, BEFORE the half-dozen splash screens from all the various production and distribution companies involved with the movie, etc, etc. Conveying the EXACT SAME DAMN information that I saw when I played the last movie, and the one before that, and the one before that.
I'm not in the USA, yet I have to sit through FBI warnings on every DVD or Blu-ray I purchase. Yes, they're impressive official seals and look very threatening, but the FBI has absolutely no jurisdiction in this country. Why on earth don't they edit the bloody things out?!
Yes. It's my money, and as the customer I demand they not put bullshit in just to make me suffer through it.
If they can't manage that, I'll gladly not give them my money. Capitalism is grand.
-- "So they told me that using the download page to download something was not something they anticipated." - Bill Gates
They are actively punishing people for purchasing.
In my case, I would estimate that they have cut their business from me by more than 50% with their warnings and other abuses. Every time I watch a DVD I am reminded of how much this industry detests me, a paying customer.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
For a human being, you are astonishingly clueless about human psychology. If the cashiers at your favourite store were given new instructions that, upon completion of the transaction with the person before you, they were to stand motionless holding up some inane sign about shoplifting for a full twenty seconds before beginning to assist you, I daresay you would soon find another store to frequent.
Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.
Up until the mid-1990s, it was pretty rare for a movie to hit the magical $100-million mark. Then, Disney animated features started doing that pretty regularly, and after that, most big-budget films started hitting that mark pretty consistently as well.
In 2002, Spider-Man became the first movie to hit $100 million in its opening weekend. Ten years later (almost to the day) The Avengers became the first movie to hit TWO hundred million dollars on its opening weekend, and one short week later, Wikipedia tells me that its box office grosses are THREE QUARTERS OF A BILLION FUCKING DOLLARS.
Tell me, again, how piracy is hurting the industry?
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
I skimmed through the comments and I'd like to answer those who have the opinion that it's "just" 20 seconds, that you should get over it, that it's harder to pirate it so it's illogical.
First of all, it's not the length of time that is disturbing to me. I'm not a machine, I don't perceive every second as exactly the same amount of time. Sometimes I play a game and 3 hours go by as if it had only been 15 minutes. Sometimes I wait 15 minutes and it seems like it's been an hour. That 20 seconds of unskippable messages is disturbing because it affects the experience of watching the movie. I don't get irritated because I'm wasting 20 seconds of my incredibly precious time; I get irritated because the mega-corporation which produced this movie added an unnecessary step to watching the movie.
This isn't about how long or how short the unskippable message is. It's about the fact that it's there at all. If you accept the 20 seconds, you're saying it's okay if someone stops you for 20 seconds and makes you say "you're the boss, I'm following your orders, I won't disobey you". How would you feel if every time you went to pump gas, someone stopped you for 20 seconds and told you "it's our gas, don't steal it, alright? Swear it. Swear you won't try to steal it". And then every time you go to the grocery store, before entering, you have to stop for 20 seconds and say "I understand the food inside isn't my property. I won't try to steal it. I'll pay for it." This is what you're agreeing to if you're okay with those unskippable notices. What makes you think it won't become 30 seconds, and then eventually 40? A minute? A minute is nothing compared to 2 hours, after all. You should be able to live through that, right?
Long story short: it's not the length of the delay that's disturbing, it's the gratuitous addition of an obstacle that serves no purpose (pirates won't see it, ordinary people will just do something else until the menu appears), and it's the oppression of people's freedom to reaffirm their submission to the authorities.
You think that because you don't understand what principles are .
Irrespective of piracy, the exchange of consideration (paying for the shit) and the receipt of physical product (the fucking dvd) should allow one peaceful enjoyment reasonably expected under the spirit of copyright (those fancy legal entitlements).
I did my part paying for the DVD, and my family owns quite a large number. When Big Media sits there and thinks they can dictate how I enjoy my newly acquired legal rights to enjoy the DVD (the legal agreement between me and Big Media constructed by copyright laws), they have gone too far and become unreasonable.
They have no rational, ethical, or legal position to force me to enjoy the content in any way. That means I can media shift it, apply all the weird filters I want, and even watch the chapters out of order. It especially means I am not forced to watch any extraneous content they may have added.
When they figure out they can't actually control me and I might not act the way they want to (sit through all the bullshit before they want to play the fucking movie), they become abhorrent assholes by creating something called Prohibited User Operations. Really? Prohibit what mother fuckers? You mean I can pay $10 for the DVD and still have prohibitions which is completely contrary to the idea of peaceful enjoyment of one's property?
Now when they realize that I can bypass it and start creating laws like the DMCA and suing people in their delusional states they become enemies of the People.
So.... yeah.... I can bitch and moan about shit like this and base my discontent entirely on principles and not the fact I am inconvenienced by 20 additional seconds. It's the principles involved.
If you can't understand that, then move to someplace like Afghanistan or Pakistan for awhile, because Americans have bitched, moaned, and bled for principles in this country since it was founded.
Afghanistan will be an easy fit for you. "Sheesh.. what's with all these rude, impatient, self important jerks complaining about the Taliban forcing us to have beards? I mean all it takes is sitting back and doing nothing! How easy was that?"
Yes, but in this case, there's a cartell of grocery suppliers, and any store that wishes to sell groceries must hold up the the sign for 20 seconds. And if they don't, the U.S. government will kick in the doors with guns.
They are actively punishing people for purchasing. The length of time of the punishment is not relevant. Pirating it is the only sane option. Paying for punishment is something only a few fetishists participate in.
Yeah, let me get this straight...there are people not buying movies, but by putting an annoying screen on the movies people like me buy, they plan to somehow cause the other guys to start buying them.
The business plan of the studios that signed up to participate is literally:
1. Annoy your paying customers.
2. ???
3. Profit!!!
What actually happened is that they finally managed to make me stop buying movies. There were many close calls before, but this is finally the last straw.
It isn't actually long enough to do much else. However, when you accidentally bump the eject button instead of the pause button and you end up having to wait for the disc to load, followed by that twenty seconds of crap, followed by the time to find where you were, that twenty seconds will make a big difference in how pissed off you get.
It is that sort of experience that has driven me to not buy DVDs from certain companies because of the ads that they make me watch. Now admittedly, that's three or four minutes worth of ads, but it's a slippery slope. The FBI warnings started at about five seconds, and now they're upping it to twenty. If we don't react negatively to this increased annoyance, a few years from now, they'll probably start making us watch one of those obnoxious three minute "You wouldn't steal a box of condoms" ads or whatever the heck they're trying to convince kids to want to steal these days.
Wait, you mean that wasn't meant to make us want to steal a car or a handbag?
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
This is one of the reasons we rip every DVD to our media server as soon as we buy it. No unskippable bits, no insults from FBI warnings or other time wasting, just the movie or set of episodes or videos that we paid for. There are a couple of drawers full of disks that are no longer needed for viewing (kept as backup and as proof of purchase). Another reason for ripping stuff to the server is simple convenience: not having to dig around for the right disk and stuff it in a mechanical device to play, hoping it has not gotten scratched through handling.
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire