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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?
pirated copies dont have annoying 20 second warnings and dont cost any money. go pirates!
I think of this: Video Pirates
No government warning or unskippable trailers to worry about that way.
I have kids and I prefer thing that start right away then the real version I purchase. So I create a legal copy, remove eveything but the main movie and here I go!
Naw, this won't backfire at all!
As with DRMed music, the pirates will win because they OFFER A BETTER PRODUCT.
If the intent is not to deter piracy, what are they educating the public about? How to rip their disks to avoid the warning?
There must be an enormous cost associated with this - 20 seconds multiplied by every time a DVD is played sounds like a lot of wasted time, and according to ICE, it's not even supposed to deter piracy. So what's the point?
This handy flow chart explains why. The **AA guys are desperately trying to put themselves out of business. See also The Oatmeal about why HBO is trying to do the same thing to people wanting to buy Game of Thrones .
Dog is my co-pilot.
People who will see that screen _already_ have bought an original DVD...
drmad
Just one more reason to not buy any preview-infested Blu-Ray discs and just use my $$ to stream videos from the internet.
Jokes on them. I rent betamax.
Wonderful. Yet ANOTHER reason to never buy another movie on DVD or Blu Ray again. Congratulations, movie studios on pissing off even more of your PAYING CUSTOMERS. I mean, really -- at this point are you intentionally trying to put yourselves out of business?
Just long enough to go wee-wee.
What you get with a pirate DVD vs. the official release. Now tell me, which one would you rather have? The Oatmeal had similar things to say about trying to buy HBO's Game of Thrones . They simply can't understand how customers or potential customers think. The **AA are idiots.
Dog is my co-pilot.
Here in the Netherlands, where it is perfectly legal to download a movie (can't upload though) we have these since VHS... First a FBI warning, an institute that as absolutely no rights or business here, then a RIAA warning (again, no business here) and then the Dutch 'Brein' Warning... And then a couple of trailers I have on interest in... All in all you're going to lose between 5 and 10 minutes of your life being told lies that piracy is stealing (which of course it isn't) Man, I the only movie I ever bought was the Godfather collection, v2000, VHS and DVD... Because those are the only 3 movies good enough to tolerate that shit! (Although in practice, I just watch the torrent....)
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 love how the *AA are intentionally putting themselves out of business.
There can be no other reason.
Music sales are up, movies are still grossing record revenues, Netflix is successful, etc. They keep trying to tell us piracy is bad.
No, piracy offers me a better product. No revoked keys, no work involved in playing my content, I can put it where I want, use it how I want, etc.i
Fucking idiots.
Twenty seconds...that's too much for you to suffer through?
Fuck, get a drink or take a piss. You probably won't have time to do either.
If this is the level of inconvenience that would cause anyone to get upset, they need to see a shrink because they have issues.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
If you still want to keep things above board (for the creators, not the leeching middlemen), just rip the disks before you watch them. Yeh, it's a good 5 minutes and a bit of a hassle, and totally illegal due to DMCA, but you never have to sit through any of the crap they shove on the disks these days again, like these warnings, trailers, or flashy menus. Obviously pirates don't have this problem.
--The universe will not be altered by forum threads, even those which are very wry. --Tycho Brahe (Penny Arcade)
Something happened and I didn't think I had posted that, but apparently it did make it in. Sorry 'bout that, folks.
Dog is my co-pilot.
theft and murder on the high seas will be equated with copyright infringement, but only for those not involved in commiting copyright infringement.
Education is a wonderful thing, this isn't.
Consider an open hardware project consisting of an ARM board booting from flash and running Linux which has the sole purpose of playing DVDs and Bluerays. Couple it with a power supply, BD drive, and chassis; and the genie of I-can-do-whatever-I-damn-well-please-with-my-disk is forever out of the bottle. Who here would buy such a thing?
You mean senselessly beat and pound on the people who already got the message. As futile and pointless as a preacher screaming to the congregation that they need to "accept Jesus" when they're already in the church.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
I'm glad to see the government taking such an active part in what we can watch, where we can watch it, and under what conditions. If you don't follow the rules, you have everything taken away from you and you are thrown on the street.
This is the religion of the United States of America and is only comparable to the types of actions taken by religious extremists. Be it a witch hunt is the old US of A or someone cutting off an exposed body part of a woman in an islamic nation.
Whenever I see an unskippable copyright warning on a DVD I legitimately own, the movie industry owes me another movie for free. I can't help it if the MPAA just keeps on breaching my policy.
That's fine. I'll just skip buying your product and download it instead.
-AC
If they really want to educate people then at least make it interesting rather than 20 seconds of dullness. Something like http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7MgZqMx-qWw maybe? (From The IT Crowd)
---- There are 10 types of people in the world. Those that understand binary and those that don't
Both those warnings are "Made in USA". Why should the rest of the world (6 billion - 313 million people) be concerned?
Leave it to the government to advertise piracy. This is a lot like putting up a sign "Wet Paint -- Don't Touch" and we all know what people will do.
Similarly, in Utah (under President Clinton) they created the Escallante National Monument in order to "preserve" it. Of course, nobody lived out there and the only people who went out into the area that became the monument was a few ranchers and red-necks. After they announced the monument, 1,000's of people headed down there and now it is a major tourist attraction. The volunteer fire department in Boulder Utah just about went broke because drunk drivers would drive off Devils Backbone (narrow one lane road, 500 feet down on either side) and they would have to haul the cars out. Property in the area jumped from $1,000/acre to $50,000/acre. (Interestingly enough much of which was purchased by Gibb Smith who was a major figure in the Utah Wilderness Alliance and the Sierra Club not long before the national monument was announced.) All in all, declaring the national monument was perhaps the worst thing that could happen to preserve the "wildernessness" of the land itself.
Putting an ad at the beginning of every movie that says: "Don't pirate me" simply says: "Pirate Me" or: "You could have downloaded this from the Pirate Bay for Free."
put a one time use web entered data key at the end of OPTIONAL previews for a 50% discount on a future movie ticket (only valid on some movies, like the ones the expect to bomb anyways and need extra audience).
This says a) thanks for buying the disk, and b) thanks for watching the OPTIONAL previews.
It would make the buyer feel good and it would get them extra audience for normally losy movies. And it would get them web registrations of users. ((I hate doing the registration stuff, so mine would end up unused or I would pass the number to someone else, but I would still feel good about it rather than the current system))
I don't feel morally righteous or justified in downloading pirated shows, but it's just so damn convenient.
.. all of my favorite blurays to my server as MKV files w/o transcoding (thanks MakeMKV). The experience of watching is *so* much better. Trying to skip through all of the crap to get to the content you paid for is really really irritating.
I think the government would have been better off forcing you to hear a recording against speeding or driving impaired when you start your car. Stick with invasive behaviors when it serves a purpose, not pads someone's bottom line.
So who will hold the Government accountable for stealing my time? It does add up.
You Americans don't know when you're well off...
I'm quite accustomed to seeing (unskippable) "public information" films that run to more like 2 minutes. Then there's the copyright warnings, rendered in ~20 EU languages for 20 different national laws, an apparently-random selection of which is shown for about 10 seconds each every time I try to view the disc. Not only are they unskippable - ironically, they're also un-pausable, so if you really want to read them thoroughly, you can't.
Basically, the routine is:
- put in the disc
- go make tea, while leaving the TV showing some random program
- come back and switch over to the DVD channel, hoping that by now it's ready to watch.
VHS is better than DVD
I'm in my right mind and I have the answer to everything!
I wish someone would craft a carefully worded Proposition for California which would make any unskipable content on media which is sold or rented unconstitional... Something about not being allowed to accuse people of crimes without evidence that they are at least thinking of committing the crime.
It would make for such a fun round of election ads - the more the studios argue that it is a good thing the more the population would be reminded just how irritating these warnings are.
Regards,
-Jeremy
you are part of the problem. Although we are making progress
Enough time to set up a torrent download for the movie and let the regret of purchasing set in.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
As if I needed another reason to never purchase content made by these companies. So now they're effectively making pirated copies not just cheaper, but better, too.
Liberty in your lifetime
Maybe this is the goal. If people stop buying the DVDs, then there will be no one to rip them and upload the files to The Pirate Bay or some other torrent site. Piracy problem solved!
"It's a trick. Get an axe."
http://thepiratebay.se/ FOR LIFE.
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?!
So I'm sorry because I know what's ahead of you. And you know, it's not the waiting that is annoying. It is the fact that I bought a DVD with *my* money thereby (at least I believed) owning it, and yet I am being forced to watch something I would prefer to skip. Again and again and again. If you are one of the people here who thinks it won't be annoying, then speak to me in a year's time when you've seen the same damn message 500 times.
To the idiots who decided to put these messages up in the first place: Nothing makes me want to pirate more than these messages. I am not pro-pirate, but you are making your product *worse* than I can get for free. Why make people who are doing the right thing already sit through a bunch of your preachy bullshit?
Gosh, I feel smarter already.
-- Sig under construction...
My old copy of Demolition Man on DVD has this stuff right. You put it in, the movie starts. There's minimal nonsense. No previews, no menus, just movie. The movie is the only thing I care about anyway, so this is great.
These days they're just annoying. As usual Hollywood is working hard to make the pirate version superior to the purchased one. They must be taking lessons from Ubisoft in how to chase off paying customers.
-- "So they told me that using the download page to download something was not something they anticipated." - Bill Gates
I'm always amused that every DVD I rent or buy in Canada has stern warnings from police forces in other countries. The day when the RCMP has their own warning before the movie is the day when I'll take it seriously.
Especially since a hell of a lot of those DVDs are pressed in Canada.
Three Squirrels
So... the people that should see this, have a ripped DVD and won't.
The people that have no business seeing it... it will inconvenience them.
Yes, 20 seconds is an inconvenience for a movie I have purchased.
No sig, post as AC, got karma to burn but not for this.
Anybody with a laptop knows it is far better to rip it and then play it back from low power silent storage than haul around easy to scratch (illegal to backup) discs that loudly whirl around wasting electricity. Plus there are all these devices without DVD or blueray on them...
If somebody sold software to rip legally purchased discs so you could easily access them... they would be shutdown.... unless it is music, where iTunes proved highly successful at doing just that.
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
But AnyDVD HD says otherwise (slysoft.com)
Yea because all of those speed limit signs educate me but do nothing to deter my speeding.
Think of the internet as a open road for hundreds of miles with no officers on patrol.
That road my friends needs to be enjoyed before it is packed full of stop signs, speed bumps, and traffic lights.
An additional 20 seconds is not that big a deal. I've put disks in and had to wait through over 20 minutes of non-skippable commercials before the main menu would come up. Although you could fast forward, that would kick out every time the commercial ended and a new one began. Now I just put a disk in 30 minutes or so before I want to watch it and leave the TV off until I'm ready.
How ridiculous is this. They're informing people who've obeyed copyright law about the necessity to follow copyright law.
Why don't they do something radical and pay the major torrent providers a fee to force users to watch a video and 'tick a box' that says
'yes I am breaking the law and my ip address is x.x.x.x'. Surely that would be more effective?
I finally got a Bluray player last November and although I have the money to easily afford any movie I want, and would prefer to have the highest bitrate, I gave up after several movies in a row took about 5-10 minutes to start up. I even had one rental that went on for over 20 minutes. Hell, the studio identifications alone take 5 minutes. I may be willing to give the studios my money, but I can't afford to give them my time. I will not pay $40 to be annoyed when I can have the annoyless versions for free.
This puts the final nail in the Bluray coffin for me. I was on the fence and now, I will simply never buy another. Congratulations movie studios! You really know how to sell a product there.
Way to go guys. Make the versions available on bittorrent sites that much better than what you can buy. This will really encourage people to shell out their money to sit through warnings, ads and previews. Maybe if they looked at what makes people want the pirated version you'd actually be able to sell it. A) No ads, warnings, previews for movies I don't care about. B) Less clicks and handing out of personal information and jumping through hoops to get a copy. C) They play on anything, or can be transcoded easily to play on a specific device if they don't already. I'm not locked into viewing this just on a limited set of devices that I'm allowed to play it on. D) Movies are just overpriced as it is. Things are supposed to become cheaper over time (if you account for inflation) not become more expensive. E) Most movies are not very good, and nobody remembers them a year later, anyways.
Its like police with radar guns on the side of the highway stopping everybody going under the speed limit to remind them about the penalty for speeding.
Atlas stands on the earth and carries the celestial sphere on his shoulders.
it's about making sure they public understand that "Intellectual Property" means what they think it means. They're trying (and outside of /. succeeding I think) to control the discourse and vocabulary surrounding works of art.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
I have a 5-disc DVD Sony DVD player. I've had it for ages, and it's pissed me off to no end with the unskippable ads or warnings. The only reason I haven't replaced it is because it's also the head for surround-sound. My current plan is to toss the damn thing (or maybe inflict it upon some other poor soul from ebay) and buy a separate surround-sound head unit + a blu-ray player.
Finding a DVD player that doesn't have unskippables or region-locks is pretty easy, usually the cheaper brands work best.
Does anyone know of a decent blu-ray player that
a) Doesn't take 10000001 years to load
b) Doesn't prevent skipping the threats and ads sections
c) Preferable doesn't region-block
d) Is generally affordable (but if it does all the above, that's more important than cheap)
Not only is the mpaa taking away our right to enjoy a movie. But they are also literally taking away our rights, along with privacy. They are a force to be reckoned with in the road to overtaking congress in bills that challenge our ability to govern ourselves. A lobbying firm. Which doesn't stand for what some Americans believe in are the motivating force in the war to decrease privacy and change the way America operates. They are not included in governing ourselves because they say what companies stand for. Not the American public. Right after George Bush passed companies have the equal rights and say as normal Americans this country has ruined the saying the right to govern ourselves. It is my knowledge that companies automatically would have a say far more proportionate then American citizens because companies make a shit load more money then normal people would. I can't start a campaign with the amount of money in my pocket. I do not have enough.
Take away companies have more rights or the same as citizens and you give this country back to the people.
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've been saying this for ten years now, but User Operation Prohibitions, just like region restrictions, on equipment that people own are simply not acceptable.
I have seen so many DVDs with unskippable previews, FBI warnings (on region 4 DVDs no less) and of course the stupid "You wouldn't steal a car.." campaign. No wonder this depiction is so accurate.
That said, I was pleasantly surprised when one DVD I rented recently had just one message that lasted about 5 seconds and simply said (paraphrasing) "For supporting the movie industry, THANK YOU". Presumably this is an attempt to give warm fuzzies (positive reinforcement) for not pirating (rather than punishment for those who do). Of course that could always end up on a ripped copy anyway but that's not the piont...
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
I was such a bad, naughty person before, but now I will bow to be spanked by the MPAA and the government!
Vote monkeys into Congress. They are cheaper and more trustworthy.
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.
an ICE spokesman says the intent isn't to deter piracy but to educate the public.
Let's go ahead and finish the logic, shall we?
"... to educate the public so that they will be informed enough to avoid committing piracy"
Therefore, the intent is to use education to deter piracy.
Therefore, the intent is to deter piracy (through indirect means).
Yet they said that their intent is NOT to deter piracy.
They can't even put together a coherent statement that stands up under the mildest logical scrutiny.
Yes, why cant it detect the set language, crap HDMI allows all sorts of data and control, surely the player can detect what it, the receiver, TV and other devices are set to and select that language automatically.
Single snotball in your coffee... that's too much for you to suffer through?
Fuck, just scoop it out with a spoon. You probably won't even notice any taste change.
If this is the level of inconvenience that would cause anyone to get upset, they need to see a shrink because they have issues.
The first time I ran into that "not permitted" message trying to skip past a preview, I said "Fuck these guys. Fucking control freaks. I'm never buying a new DVD again."
The first time I rented a DVD and ran into that "you must purchase this DVD to get the bonus content," I said "Fuck these guys. I'm never renting a DVD again."
Seriously - the reason I rented the movie was because I hadn't seen it yet and didn't know if it was worth buying! Duh. Why should I have to buy it to see the bonus content? There's no reason to block it except that they're greedy fuckers.
I don't pirate Blu-rays or DVD's, I actually purchase any that I want. (I have a couple of hundred at least). However an additional 20 seconds of forced notices at the front will certainly encourage me to rethink my approach. If you want to educate me, don't try and do it by pissing me off or I will most definitely take the opposite view of what your trying to push.
DVD's are a valuable means of delivering advertisements along with product. However, in order for the ads to be valuable, the users must be forced to watch them. So, making the content unskipable is a major selling point of the format to content producers.
The fact that consumers hate it does not matter, consumers will buy it anyway since there are no ad-free alternatives at all (the force of law ensures that there are no other options, and it works perfectly).
unskippable content is nothing new and hasn't seemed to do squat. Childrens movies/shows are the worst. It's not just an FBI warning, its unskippable previews, unskippable ads for various crap, unskippable commercials for various childrens networks. I gave up. Every new DVD gets ripped, stripped to menus and movie and reburned before the kids ever see it. less than 10 minutes spent up front = hours saved at viewings. Of course now we've converted all our movies to MP4 and have them on a proper media server so discs are just a delivery method now days.
Anyway, I fail to see how MORE unskippable "education" is going to discourage anyone at this point.
Sure, ill rent it now n then... but they can go to hell if they think I will put up with this on something i OWN
And anyone who says 'oh but you down own it, you own a license' can go to hell...
Imagine the uproar if you got told AFTER you just bought a car, no you cant loan it to your friend/family, you cant use it on roads not approved by the manufacturer, and every time you got in, you had to watch a 20 second thing on why its important to use X brand parts (oh, and btw, no you cant change the colour/add in a new stereo/seat cushion) because 'its a license to use the car, not ownership)
I wonder if that translates to "Winning the hearts and minds..."
The very last DVD I bought, years ago, had unstoppable trailers. I haven't bought a DVD since, on principle.
Good job, movie execs. You've made your products even less palatable compared to your black market competitors. Not only do the people downloading illegally not have to pay, they also get a better product that doesn't force them to sit through this crap. I'm sure this plan won't backfire at all.
Bogtha Bogtha Bogtha
Dear Studios. I own over a thousand legally-purchased DVD's and Blu-Rays. I am your CUSTOMER. I've had enough. No more money for you.
I HATE unskippable content.
I decided a while back not to purchase disks from Lions Gate anymore because I had enough of watching their unskippable 30 second gears and doors logo. No more money for them.
I stopped buying CD's when their copy protection prevented me from playing disks in my car. No more money for them.
I disconnected cablevision because they made me pay for dozens of channels I didn't watch and kept upping the rates. Now I have an antenna. No more money for them.
You honestly believe people will accept these new ICE warnings in addition to the MPAA warnings, FBI warnings, commentary warnings, piracy warnings, studio logos, as well as prison licensing terms and conditions screens in 17 languages?
Yes, I am serious. No more money for you.
There's no way I can get to the bathroom, take a leak, clean up and get back in 20 seconds.
It's mostly just the Democratic Party of the United States that is bought and paid for by Hollywood.
The No Electronic Theft Act and Digital Millennium Copyright Act were passed under a Republican-controlled House and a Republican-controlled Senate.
Patent the algorithm and require you to implement DRM to get a license.
Patents on 1997 inventions run out in five years.
We have the same stuff on french DVD, thought not on all of them : I suspect they are not mandatory. However, there is a workaround. Selecting France's french gives me the lengthy antipiracy warning, but I skip it if I select Belgian french.
......
Truth isn't Truth - Guliani
How much more obvious does it have to get ?
There is a very small number of very rich people who are in bed with the
government and they are willing to cooperate to screw the average citizen.
Fuck them all.
Rip all you can, pay for nothing, bring them to their KNEES.
And I'll continue to rip my legitimately purchased DVDs and Blu-Rays to my hard drive, removing this (and all other) forced content and previews. And the MPAA and FBI, and ilk like them, can shove their heads up their asses. If I want to play my discs in my toaster oven I will do so, and I don't give even one single flying fuck what they think about it.
I want a new quote. One that won't spill. One that don't cost too much. Or come in a pill.
Grandpa, what is this "disc" thing you speak of?
Need Mercedes parts ?
Good see they have found a solution that both doesn't inconvenience the viewer and will stop piracy in its track? Maybe they could make passenger watch a similar video on terrorism before boarding aeroplanes, then we will then have this terrorism thing beat also. What other problem can be solved by this approach?
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at least, it seems like i'm from the future. just about every dvd i've bought or rented in the last 10 years has had at least 60 seconds of anti-piracy government warnings. well, at least they did 5 years ago. i'm really not sure about the last 5 years. i've been ripping just the main title for that long.
We just love watching those stupid, idiotic, USA-centric bullshit pieces on legally purchased/rented discs.
Yeah, right. Like most of us didn't already have a bit of dislike for the USA..
No point in buying that kind of crap.. just download it with the stupidity already removed.
If you buy the dvd then why do you need to see a warning about piracy? If you pirate the dvd then its not going to have a warning.
This is just more annoying paying customers who actually paid for your product. Its annoying little shit like this, drm in games and so on that make me want to pirate stuff. When I pirate something I get the product hassle and annoyance free, so why exactly would I want to actually pay for extra hassle and annoyance?
Little shit like this annoys me and makes me want to pirate simply because its there at all. If I actually pay for a product with my money and the companies get a cut of it then why am I subjected to this kind of shit? It simply makes no sense at all.
http://imgur.com/Intj2
Circumcision is child abuse.
i believe you are partially correct. at this point, they don't want anyone to buy dvds. they would prefer you to buy blu-rays. however, they would prefer you didn't buy the blu-rays either. at this point, they're looking for any excuse to quit distributing physical media because drm on physical media is rigid and weak. drm on downloadable or streamable content, however, can be ever-changing and adaptive. movie studios have never liked 'home video'. they tried to kill vcrs and 'home video' in the 80s. they are finally winning. how will they make money without 'home video'? how did they make money before 'home video'? content and licensing agreements with cable companies and tv networks. now they also have online streaming companies and satellite companies to collude with as well. those are deals they can 'bank on'. very secure, predictable revenue channels that keeps them in control of their content.
Well it makes perfect sense to me, if you're still buying DVD's at this point you obviously don't know about piracy yet.
Can they make it longer? Maybe 1 minute 30 seconds in total? Just about enough to make a cup of coffee, prep some popcorn and visit the bathroom?
When all is said and done, nothing changes...
Yeah, you heard him right.
An election is coming up here soon. The government IS dangerous
I wish I could vote to limit copyright terms....
Each time I watch a DVD I paid for they show be this black screen with words 'prison', 'illegal', 'fine'. I'll probably read though this text once or twice. After this - this screen will just affect my subconsciousness making very strong association from DVD I bought in Walmart with words 'prison', 'illegal', 'fine'. Result - I'll subconsciously feel guilty every time I watch a legally bought DVD and every time I even think about buying a DVD. Movie industry is putting great amount of effort to make their product subconsciously uncomfortable for people. The purpose of this move is a mystery.
at least with DVD's - one reason I now buy blurays as much as possible is not just the higher quality (and many are not even that) is that they don't, yet, have this (and, ironically, they are often cheaper than the DVD version).
And if I have to buy a DVD it gets ripped, sans warnings and menu, and put on my media server.
seriously I'll admit to torrenting a fair number of shows (all ones that aren't shown locally) but I have 3 whole shelfs on a bookcase full of legit DVD's and BluRays two deep two high (300+ at last count (that and a couple of thousand CD's accumulated over 20 years) and will pre order shows I know I like from viewing the torrents so odds on bet I'm one of their best customers....
and I hate that these people treat me as their enemy - every time I'm forced to sit through these stupid "you wouldn't steal a car why steal this movie" shite on a DVD I've just coughed up real cash for another straw is added to the camels back that will eventually say "fsck you twunts"
I don't know what's more painful, sitting through 20 seconds of fluff or sitting through 60 minutes or more of a modern Hollywood film release to DVD/Blu-ray which is pure crap.
Seriously, how many GOOD movies have you seen coming from Hollywood in the last 20 years? Most are a bunch of unwatchable bullshit, unless you like the evil vampire/ghost/chop-chop/zombie/etc shit.
Soon TV and Movies will just be people hacking away at each other like Ancient Rome.
... an extra 20 seconds for me to get a soda before the movie starts. If you look at these little warnings as nothing more than extra time to grab your snacks they're not that bad. They don't think I'm going to actually sit in front of the TV actually watching their propaganda, do they? I do agree with other posters that they are more than a little insulting. I've paid for the DVD so it's obvious that I'm not a member of the population who they should be aiming these 20 seconds at. Surely the studios doesn't expect me to go to work tomorrow and tell all my coworkers about the riveting anti-piracy messages I saw last night. Or are they really that dumb?
Sure extra junk like these messages are annoying but since they come at the beginning of the DVD before the actual feature begins, I find that they're pretty ignorable. The thing about the newer DVDs that really makes my blood boil is when you have to wait and wait and wait for a cursor move to be recognized while moving around the menus. The older DVDs that we own don't seem to impose these silly delays. Next on my list are the DVDs that seem to screw around with our players and turn on subtitles. Add to that those multisecond delays as you navigate through the menus to turn the darned things off and you're in a foul mood before the movie even begins.
CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
AnyDVD software is looking really good right now
... who are LEGALLY watching a movie?? So how is annoy the people who are doing "the right thing" (buying or renting) going to "educate" the people pirating movies?
Another amazing idea by the idiots in the movie industry.
Without even having the decency of calling it rain. They think we're dumb enough for same sentence double speak... and for the vast majority they're probably right.
When I put a Blu Ray disk in to the player the booting up and handshaking takes several minutes to complete. I could rewind an entire VHS tape in the time it takes to start working. What is it doing during all that time? I am betting that is has a LOT to do with anti-piracy measures. I would love to have a player that simply played the damn movie that I paid for, not that I am buying many Blu Rays there days.
There is a Fox executive not yet ground into Executive Powder who is listening, he is listening to the caching of the cash register as your dollar votes come into the Fox bank account. You voted, in favor! Good for you and you can be sure he is listening and coming up with more ads for you to watch next time.
What has to be remembered is that customer relations is a very young field that is barely researched. For most businesses, they translate a sale to a positive customer experience. It is in reality possible for a customer to use a company time and time again, in fact to totally depend on them and STILL hate its guts. This goes anywhere from users of public transport to haters of big government using government handouts (is that you bankers?) and everything in between.
You buy their product, so they reason you must love them. You don't but how are they supposed to know? Nobody in their offices is going to tell the boss he is an idiot and that you a purchasing customer are hating the product you bought of your own free will with your hard earned money, they would look silly and not be in line for promotion and bonuses.
I have actually had to deal with these kinds of things as an underling, the disconnect is amazing. From transport companies that wanted people to give unfiltered twitter feedback on their home page, to advertising campaigns where the only message to reach the consumer would be that they are paying for ad support for things they hate on a product they have no choice to buy from that company whose prices have gone up (water companies in Europe).
You think some are getting the message but allowing you to skip it... NO THEY ARE NOT GETTING IT. If they got it, the ads wouldn't even be needed to be skipped, they would at most be an optional to the side extra. WHY do you think a company gets it if it thinks it can shove advertising on an already paid for product?
See how much you have been conditioned already? You are like a girl who thinks she found a new age modern man because he only beats her with his bare hands! Just because your new owner doesn't use the whip as often does not mean you are now free slave.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
So basically, you replace 20 seconds of unskippable ads with about 20 minutes of them?
Smart.
Also, saying Green Lantern is crap when saying you watch Transformers a couple of times isn't going to impress anyone. It just says you won't every piece of dog shit shoveled in front of you. That does NOT make you a connoisseur, it just make you a finicky shit eater.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
20 seconds per movie seen.
The rental market in the US is approximately $7.5 billion per year. If we assume $3 per rental average (Redbox is $1.25), and 1.5 people that watch the movie that's 75 billion seconds per year. Or 2376 years per year - but round down to 2000, we don't have more precision than that anyway.
The full, entire time of 2000 people. That's what ICE Director John Morton and his pals destroy to stroke their egos.
Eivind.
Doubting the existence of evolution is like doubting the existence of China: It just shows that you're uninformed.
It seems it's only a matter of time before streaming from Netflix and similars is hit in the same way.
...but no-one wants my money!
Downloading a DVD quality movie takes about 20 seconds (250mbps here), fiddling with my tv remote to start the movie over dlna takes another 5 seconds
When i insert a DVD, it takes 10s for boot up, another 5 sec to load the DVD, 20s of warnings that do not apply to me (Europe), 10 sec of warnings that do apply to me (selling/distributing pirated copies is illegal here, downloading is not), 2 minutes of fast forwarding (if possible) through the trailers, 10s for the menu to load, 10s for the movie to load, 30s of studio logos....
So if i want to pirate the movie, it takes me (from the idea to actual movie) ~25 seconds. When i don't want to pirate the movie, it takes me 185 seconds (if I'm lucky) in addition to the trip to video store?
There are no streaming services available here (i would be more than happy to pay for Netflix) and movie studios keep making paying for their work harder and harder....
For BluRay, the time to start BR disc / download and play from net is about the same for me, but i can go make a sandwich while downloading instead of manically hitting "FF/Next/Play" on my remote
TL;DR.
Have gnu, will travel.
You just don't actually start watching the movie until after the warnings, using the time to go take a piss, get popcorn and soda, etc.
Or better yet, refuse to buy films from these studios. Send them a big fat "FUCK YOU!!!" from customers who don't want to see these bullshit messages every time they want to watch something.
Beginning next month, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration will require that all new cars sold in the U.S. display a H.U.D. screen on the windshield for a full 20 seconds before the driver may put the car in drive. The screen will convey a message about the dangers of drinking and driving. A spokesperson from NHTSA says the purpose is not to prevent drunk driving, but to educate the public.
In July, all new hammers will require the user to listen to a 20-second public service message about watching out for your fingers. Accelerometers in the device will sense any attempted use prior to the end of the message, and will trigger a restart, this time being sung as an off-key duet by Adam Sandler and the Aflack duck. A spokesman for the National Hammer Thumb Safety Administration says the purpose is not to prevent accidents, but to educate the public that it too is known as the NHTSA.
Also, Nokia replied to criticism of its new Lumia 900 cell phone by saying that the perceived network problems are actually an enforced 20-second delay. A Nokia spokeswoman said, "sorry for the delay in returning your call. I was captivated by the beautiful interface on my new Lumia. The point of the generous -- we don't like to call it enforced -- 'respite' is not to prevent you from doing something dumb on the Internet. The point is to stop and smell the roses... To immerse the user in the Windows interface so they can become familiar with it and truly appreciate it."
These studios have a very large market share.
They're cooperating to effectively add 20s of annoyance to every DVD/Blu-Ray - that is, they are agreeing not to compete on an area where there definitively is possible to compete.
Does anybody know whether there is any law that could be used to run a class-action against this? The benefit wouldn't be to get the 30 cents or whatever that each member of the class (everybody that bought DVDs) would get, it would be to forbid the studios from pulling this kind of stunt, and that they'd be hit with the costs of the lawsuit.
ever!!!!!!!!
fuck these thugs.
i use my hard earned cash to buy some mediocre piece of shit rip-off disc with overpaid actors and a shitty script, and they have the fucking gall to force me to see this shit??????????
yo sir, you bought our horrible crap. now we'd like to treat you like a criminal.
your player is a hostage of ours and it won't do what you want (skip). it will do ____our____ bidding which is to force you to watch shiiiiiiiiiiiiit about not doing what you didn't do (pirate)!
f u c k y o u!!!!!!! this whole industry neeeeeeeds to die. fuck you alll!!! you fucking wallet-raping cunts!
your unskippable content insults me in my own home after i bought your overpriced shiiiiiiiiiiiit.
die!!!! die a horrible death!
it's faster to download pirated content than it is to drive to the store or to wait for delivery.
it's good quality and i am not treated like a criminal, even though i am doing doing something illegal.
so, if i decide to do the "right thing" you ____do____ treat me like a criminal.
you fucks are completely insane. fuck off and die, you fucking greedy bastards! die!
i will not buy your shit, ever gain!
fucking cunts!
I could never get past the first few lines. Something with "Warning" in big red letters, if I recall correctly. Good that they're lengthening it, though perhaps 10 secs will still not get me to the bottom.
</sarcasm>
Way to go movie industry. Make life more annoying for those who *are* willing to spend money on your products.
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
Will they squeeze warning from every government in the world?
Or just usual crap about FBI which has nothing to say outside the US?
Hmm, if people can be harassed anywhere for "breaking US law"
can we arrest US tourist abroad for "breaking OUR law" when they stayed in the US?
I never buy DVDs. However, the wife does buy some second hand crap for the kids to watch every now and then. I typically put them on when I get out of bed and want some peace and quiet to sip my coffee. Waiting for a minute for this crap and having to sit it out because I still have to click the play button once its done with 2 impatient kids on the couch has made me destroy almost all those DVDs in frustration. The kids now hate DVDs and the wife doesn't buy any new ones. Problem solved. Fuckers.
0x or or snor perron?!
These people really seem to live in some parallel universe if they think forcing 'unskippable' content onto people that paid for disks is somehow 'educating' them.
I recently bought a British film on BR which has a "by buing this Blu-Ray, you're supporting our film. Thank you!"-message at the start. Doesn't take more than about 4-5 seconds (basically as long as it takes to read out the sentence to you)... Even if it is unskippable, I somehow don't mind that one too much.
I gave up sigs almost a year ago.
OMFG it's like preaching to the choir in the most annoying possible way. So much that it would get them to convert....
i author DVDs for a living. thankfully in a slightly saner country.
this shit just pisses me off.
DVD retail sales were shrinking at a whopping 15% per quarter this time last year.
so how do you sell more DVDs? by punishing the only people loyal/moral/dumb enough to buy them!
FYI, if a client asks for their shit to be unskippable, i politely forget to disable skip and fast-forward. say "oh, crap, i forgot, you see our policy is to make all that stuff skippable, so i didn't change that bit from the template project". usually it doesn't come to that though.
myself and my colleagues are all painfully aware that downloads are faster, better quality and more convenient than DVDs. they're approaching blu-ray for quality, and shit all over them for convenience. do we really need to scare off what remains of our market?
Nice project. Now I finally have a good reason to revive my b0rked Toshiba laptop with the burned out video processor and turn it into a media player.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
"I'm the human being. I should be in control. It should not be that I buy a machine and that something else is controlling it - because then I become the object."
Mitchell Baker; Mozilla Foundation president.
The major selling point on DVD for consumers was "direct access".
Go figure.
Remember when theaters did NOT show commercials before the movie?
Theater chains added a few short cute commercials as a test, nobody protested that much, so now we have 5-10 minutes of ads.
YOU ARE PAYING THEATERS TO WATCH COMMERCIALS
http://themovieblog.com/2007/why-commercials-before-movies-is-worse-than-piracy/
How long until a mandatory 5 minute ad on every DVD promoting the blessings of our "Dear Leader", how piracy kills jobs, or how skipping commercials is un-American?
Just for fun ask your local theater chain what time the actual movie starts, they will do their best not to tell you that there are 15 minutes of ads, previews, and coming attractions.
Just say no.
I wonder if a GOG.com type of scheme would work for movies? What do you think? No DRM, no bullshit, throw in some extras, possibly concentrate on older stuff only.
Some studios are playing nicely. Criterion Collection's discs don't have warnings, just their and occasionally Janus Films's logo. Same applies to Eureka's Masters of Cinema releases. Blue Underground's Zombi 2 has a 5 second FBI warning in the beginning, but to my astonishment the disc resumes playback from the previous position without prompting - the first disc I've seen that does this.
On the other end of the spectrum is Fox. Sigh.
"an ICE spokesman says the intent isn't to deter piracy but to educate the public that pirating DVDs and Blu-rays allows you to skip the bullshit and get right to the movie."
ICE: what a bunch of maroons.
There they go again, degrading the quality of their product, where the competitor already had a greater quality product, at a lower price.
Waiting for you by the bridge
I actually have not played a DVD on a TV for more than a year now; recently I have thrown away the DVD player as it was just taking space near the TV. I watch movies on netflix or saved programs on DVR. I cannot be bothered to go to the movie rental place which is 10 minutes walk from my house anymore.
Does anyone buy these any more?
Korma: Good
EXCELLENT IDEA! Thanks for educating me about that!
You wouldn't steal a baby. You wouldn't shoot a policeman. And then steal his helmet. You wouldn't go to the toilet in his helmet. And then send it to the policeman's grieving widow. And then steal it again! Downloading films is stealing
Having the screens up, ok, but having them unskippable is just stupid and even pushing people who buy them legit to download..
I've far too gorram many movies that already lock me out of the controls until I am forced to watch the government warnings, the anti-piracy commercials, the advertisements for the Blu-Ray format and how spiffy it is, the coming features...
I have one disk that literally forces me to sit there for 15 minutes before I can get to the menu, another 20 seconds of the menu's fancy-dancy artwork to finish, then another 15 seconds of the studio's bullcrap.
And they wonder why people go to piracy?
In my case I found a nice way to get around it. Quasi-legally in fact. And the idea came from the DVD/Blu-Ray Piracy software sector. When I found out that the software to defeat the copy-protection and the region encoding also defeated the control lockouts, I did my research and found one that was cheap and works. I went with Slysoft's AnyDVD software.
Now when I built my Media Center PC with the Blu-Ray drive, I have that program running. *If* I were to be pirating the movies, this program allows the next program (a ripper/compression/burner) to do its job. But as a nice side effect it deactivates the lock-outs and allows me to load a disk, bring up my DVD Software (VLC) and go straight to the menu. The only wait I have now is if there is the studio promo but I can tolerate 5-15 seconds as long as I'm not forced to watch 20 minutes of crap.
And this is why it's not going to make much of a difference. Either they're going to go up against people like us who are tech-savvy enough to do the same thing that I did and tell them to slag off, or they're going to up against pirates who are going to rent the movies from Blockbuster/Netflix/Redbox and burn copies (assuming that they just don't download .ISO's from The Pirate Bay).
Or they're going to shoot themselves in the foot by pissing people off to the point where they stop getting DVD's altogether and start using the online streaming providers. Between Netflix and Blockbuster's streaming services...I can get most of the movies and shows I want without having to worry about DVD lockouts and government warnings.
And there is the added benefit of watching over and over again and not having to worry about a physical disk to get scratched.
-- Wiccan Army, 13th Airborne Division "We will not fly silently into the night"
If you live in the U.S., industry *is* your government in a very practical sense. They write the laws, and they choose who signs them.
[Sir Garlon] is the marvellest knight that is now living, for he destroyeth many good knights, for he goeth invisible.
just name all those a-list actors, directors, film execs or people in related businesses like music who are big fans and donors to the GOP.
I always thought Rupert Murdoch's Twentieth Century Fox was GOP-affiliated.
Since I paid for it, i think I should be able to skip that, and I should also be able to go to the menu anytime I like as well, but a lot of DVD and BlueRay disk have that ability disabled. Let's also not forget that their copy protection means disk will freeze up, not be able to play, or will skip in the middle.
BlueRay is the worst of them so I have gone back to DVD only, and that has gotten so bad that I have decided to RIP everything into a solid state digital format. of which I will heavily edit out all the crap since I don't want to see it.
I'm also sick and tired of soundtracks that don't actually have all the songs from the movie.
As a consumer, I have reasonable expectations which are not being met.
The pirate version is better, but they will claim people want it only because it is free.
If this was proposed/enforce by an Islamic Government...
Apparently pirating a DVD is valued at a higher cost than buying it. So doesn't the studio cartel *want* more piracy and less legit buying - that way they can cherry pick victims to extort through settlement offers and civil court actions, for far more than a single sale. Or even dozens. So yeah, the strategy is to release for legit sale, but make the alternative seem vastly more attractive in the hope of encouraging others.
Course, this all falls down if whistles are blown and it gets established that they're encouraging piracy, thus authorising use and distribution :p
>an ICE spokesman says the intent isn't to deter piracy but to educate the public
I'm guessing educate is the new way to spell annoy.
For me, the 20 seconds isn't really a big deal. I don't like it, but I honestly don't really care. I have never pirated, nor will I ever. However, having said that, I also realize that this industry is one of those "give them an inch and they take a mile" sorts of industries. I would not be surprised to see the next step being an interactive dialogue, to where AFTEr the 20 seconds, they're now going to want you to have to scroll down to the bottom of the message with your down arrow button and then press your select button to get through the menu. Keep in mind, it won't be just clicking it, but you'll have to scroll down because that's how they get the sense that they've forced you to actually acknowledge their message. I see computer gaming companies doing this a lot now with their EULAs. The interesting thing is that when I buy something on Itunes, I don't have a warning message at the beginning. It just starts the movie. The industry needs to realize that if it wants to somehow maintain some control over its own escaping market.
Really? So the honest person who pays for his/her copy of the product will be forced to have this crap shoved down their throat. It's as stupid as gun laws. Those who abide by the law pay the price of the stupid ones enacted due to the not so honest folk.
Pathetic.
Life takes interesting turns, but the most interest is when you're off the beaten path.
All DVD's and BluRay's never get played until they are Ripped and stripped of that crap and then put on the NAS so the XBMC's around the house can play them.
I dont tolerate that crap.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Shirley, you jest!
The reality of it is this:
If I put the DVD in the player, I watch the unskippable content, and then bitch about to my wife, get all in a tizzy and try to explain to her that we bought the content, yadda, yadda, yadda. She gets annoyed, and stops listening.
If she puts the DVD in the player, she goes out to the kitchen gets a glass of wine, maybe makes some popcorn, when she returns to the TV, it is waiting at the main menu, she clicks play, and the movie starts.
I love the NIPRC eagle. Nice touch. Even the official seals of the armed forces don't have such menacing eagles on it. That logo practically screams, "Americuh! F*** yeah!"
Proverbs 21:19
It's only another 20 seconds. You already are forced to sit through 15 minutes of trailers of worthless straight-to-video trash on Blu-Rays nowadays, what's another 20 seconds?
Can someone tell me how to always play these clips? I normally use:
mplayer -dvd-device dir dvd://1 -vf ...
but occasionally the main feature is in section 2 etc.
Are these going to be in section 1 and 2 predictably? I want to update my script
so I do not miss these educational messages.
Thank you!
Can I buy a TV that can "learn" what these videos look like and when it recognizes one playing, mutes the sound and puts up a countdown timer:
"You have 20 seconds to use the bathroom" ...
"You have 19 seconds to use the bathroom"
"Bathroom break over in 3"
"Bathroom break over in 2"
"Bathroom break over in 1"
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Only the legitimate consumer gets annoyed.
Good going, media protection racketeers.
I paid money for a disk so I didn't have to watch commercials or any other BS. I want to see the movie, and only the movie - so the more they put this crap on - the more incentive I have to RIP these puppies and put them on my encrypted HDD.
DVDFab. Done. No annoying bullshit.
It will only further annoy people.
What do people still live in the 20th Century?
I live in South America.. and I can't remember the last time I used such obsolete technology. Today is all about streaming content.. Netflix, iTunes.. who needs that obsolete region locked garbage?
I guess that means I won't be buying anymore plastic discs.
Anyone know where I can find a torrent of the govt. warning video? I can't wait to see it. I'd even settle for a cam. Anyone?
http://www.acetonestudio.com
Simple solution. Rent a DVD from Redbox, Rip the DVD with Handbrake, play the video at your leisure on your Roku, Appletv or whatever you like when you want.
No warning message.
It is VERY inconvenient that I cannot pause the sequences that occur just after I insert my DVD.
I get it that they really want me to see the scary opening disclaimers.
I pay for this media and I don't like the fact that I am subjected to periods of time I cannot use my
controls to pause the operation of the player. The desire of the government or the copyright
police to display this information to me is not more important than my need to be able to answer
a phone call or go to the bathroom, or listen to what someone is trying to tell me.
If you want to set things up so that I have to listen to the beginning sequence before I more on, that is fine,
but I have to be able to pause that machine at will.. Anything else is unacceptable.
paying to see a warning? just gonna pirate it then...
You are a thief and a criminal.
Or something like that.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
If they bought the DVD why would they need to watch a antipiracy clip? Wrong target audience completely. Not even close.
If they were to sell the DVD's as downloadable products they would be able to see the browsers cache and then display the appropriate gentle privacy warnings.... Like google does with PPC to show applicable ads.
So I legally buy a DVD/ Blu Ray....and because I did I get a message stating that I shouldn't pirate? It is idiotic. The real place for these ads is on television or internet ad's not on paid content. For some reason government & the MPAA seem to be hell-bent on punishing those doing things the legal way...its almost comical that they don't think people will find a better way on their own.