New unskippable FBI warnings for US DVDs and Blu-rays
Legitimate customers are getting a special gift when they buy DVDs and Blu-rays in America: 20 seconds of unskippable anti-piracy warnings!
With sales of DVDs and Blu-rays not bringing in the money that studios used to enjoy a few years' back, you'd think that all concerned would be doing everything possible to make disc-based movies as enticing as possible. To reward honest customers. To make sure that buying a disc is a no-brainer.
And then you happen across a story like this.
Basically, in the US, Immigration and Customs Enforcement - ICE to its presumably very few friends - has come up with a plan to help in the ongoing fight against piracy. Would this be, you'd rightly ask, something that legitimately deters people from buying a pirate disc, or downloading something illegally? Has it come up with a clever and cunning plan to enrich the value of buying a disc in the first place?
Nope. It's come up with a plan that, bluntly, can do little but piss off a legitimate, honest customer.
ICE has decided, in its clear wisdom, that what those who legally buy DVDs and Blu-rays require is some education. To that end, it has decided to add two unskippable warnings to future disc releases. The key word there, we might add, is 'unskippable'.
So, basically, if for example you go and buy your copy of The Avengers or The Dark Knight Rises Blu-ray on day one, rather than getting hold of the film in a manner that does the film makers and those behind the movie no benefit whatsoever, then you're going to get a pair of warnings. Both will last ten seconds, and you can't skip through either. One will tell you copying the disc is illegal, and could land you with a big fine. The other will tell you that piracy is not a victimless crime.
We're not quite sure where to start here. To be fair, the battle against piracy isn't an easy one, and to an extent, those involved are damned if they do, damned if they don't. But it seems to beggar belief that it's the honest customers who get penalised here. We wouldn't in a million years advocate piracy, and nor will these warnings stop us buying a disc (it remains the best way to watch a film at home). But it's a bit of a punch in the gut for the people who shell out for their movies. The irony, as always, is that the pirates won't be inconvenienced by this at all.
In the UK, they've gone about this in a slightly different way, and a far better one, for our money. Instead of hitting you with a big unskippable warning, you get a cheesy animation that thanks you for buying a proper disc, and supporting the film industry. It's skippable, too.
Isn't that the better way round to go?
Not for the first time, the wrong people appear to be in the firing line for anti-piracy measures. And, as usual, the ones who get kicked in the guts are the very people the industry should, surely, be cherishing.
We'll leave the last word to John Morton, the director of ICE. Here's what he said in a statement:
"Our nation’s film and TV business is critical to our economy. Its creativity and imagination have made American entertainment one of our greatest exports over the decades, but criminals are increasingly engaging in new forms of digital theft. Law enforcement must continue to expand how it combats criminal activity. Public awareness and education are a critical part of that effort.”
Sheesh, John.
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And this is a deterrent to piracy? How? Surely this will be further encouragement to torrenters to hit Pirate Bay rather than the DVD/BluRay stockists? And it merely penalises those of us that actually buy the genuine format
I've pirated many a film imalreadybown on blu-ray simply because the blu ray is such an arse to get to the film.
Ugh...
10 seconds?? Seriously?? 10 seconds?? Has society really got so little patiecne that waiting 10 seconds is such an issue???
10 seconds?? Seriously?? 10 seconds?? Has society really got so little patience that waiting 10 seconds is such an issue???
typical, dont reward customers, punish them. nice business model.
I guess the FBI really wants people to stop buying DVD's and Blu-Rays!
20 seconds? long enough to get to the fridge.
This is how it starts, 10 secs will turn into a full blown commercial...
Now tell me how you would feel if you bought a brand new car that didn't start unless you waited 20 seconds total.
and a campaign ad duisguised as a PSA
i hate , repeat, HATE being forced to sit through this kind of rubbish and don't get me started on dvds that have you sit through trailers before the menu ...
those poor buggers over the pond eh?
If I've bought the film I don't need a piracy warning now do I, who decides these things? If I get a disc with an unstoppable warning, I return it, easy.
It's not just 10 seconds but 10 more seconds on top of whatever other BS you have to deal with. Between a few seconds here and a few seconds there you could have the dang thing ripped and streaming from a server in another room by the time you finally get to watch the movie you paid for.
Another reason to start downloading. We pay the huge costs of these disk and still get to be accused of pirating the rest of the movies we watch. Grrrrr!
Unless your brand new car cost you twenty quid and is only going to be driven a handful of times in its lifetime I'd suggest the comparison is pretty crap.
Excellent. The FBI and ICE prove themselves to be CHILDREN by creating a reason for legitimate consumers to pirate their media: pirate copies don't have un-skipable warnings! Hey kids, the game industry already tried this - it PROMOTED piracy. Putting root kits, installation limits and spyware on computers pushed thousands of honest gamers to piracy to find copies of their games that didn't break their computers and actually WORKED.
In actuality this will only wind up hurting hardware sales as people like me will avoid their BluRay players and simply play from their BluRay enabled PCs that can and do skip these worthless chapters.
Again...FBI, ICE - children.
Simply don't buy and write a nice letter to your congressman explaining why. Downside? They'll write you back. Yeah, I know but what are you going to do?
Done.
I just threw down $40 dollars. YES I refuse to wait 10 seconds. And BTW, It's 10 seconds of search + 10 seconds of play + 10 more seconds of cue. It isn't 10 seconds. And again...there is still the matter of my having dropped $40 for the privilege to wait these "10" seconds.
If my car is going to be driven twice, I'd pretty much demand it start immediately with no lag, nag or searching. Sounds fair to me.
I am failing to see the issue? The FBI and FACT (UK) decide that we, as Joe Public, need to see the warning. However, the digital pirate's of this world don't care about such things and even include them on the copies!!! People (pirate's) know the rules and penalties of their activities and we still warn them?? Surely, it would be a better idea to try and catch them instead of warning them that your looking for them!!
Would you kill a policeman? And THEN STEAL HIS HAT?!
Come on, you guys.
I don't understand what the problem is. DVD and Blu-ray owners have had to deal with unskippable trailers and other stuff for years, and I'd say the majority of the releases I have already include unskippable anti-piracy warnings. If anything the story here is that we're finally going to see some new slides rather than the same old, same old we've been looking at for the last decade. Maybe someone will also realize that reminding us that the current rules date back to 1977 - before commercial VHS releases were even a going concern - doesn't help the cause any, either.
Mine will just send me a pro-industry form letter.
Been there and done that already.
It's more nonsense to add to the rest of the nonsense that's already there.
It's yet another reason to run Plex or XBMC.
Here's a great idea. Lets punish the people who are actually paying for our movies. I'd make a good executive.
I actually legit still buy dvds and blu ray. I buy used however, so it doesnt support the film industry but its better than downloading. plus dvds are so cheap nowadays I dont mind spending the 3 or 4 bucks for a dvd plus I dont really see a big difference between blu ray or dvd, so im happy with dvd still. unless it's a movie I really want to watch and dont want to pay the 10 bucks in theatres, i'll buy a bootleg copy....
hey remember the old vhs... the good old days when you could fast forward past the warning message lol.. the good ol days.
When I watch a DVD, I put the thing in the player, go downstairs, make a drink, grab snacks and come back up again. By this point the DVD's usally on the menu screen. It makes life so much easier.
I randomly checked the latest BR I have (Apollo 18) and probably the biggest release (Inception) and both of them were over a minute and a half from pressing the eject to load the disk to the movie starting, and that includes skipping 10 minutes+ of trailers on Apollo 18. (I do have a new player that prides itself of speed of loading)
If this is allowed then what next? unskippable trailers? banning of chapters? banning pausing? forcing you to watch all the credits at the end?
This is stupid. We're doing the right thing by buying a DVD, what more do you want? We don't need to see warnings because we're being honest citizens if we buy a DVD. Instead of picking on sales, what they SHOULD be doing is to get these messages up on Piracy / Bittorrent websites or they should just go on the internet and disable every site they see like they've successfully done to PirateBay. Problem solved. Well, sort of. Though i'm not living in America I do love to buy Imported DVD's from Amazon from time to time. And isn't that helping the economy, too?
You know what else I hate? Movie Trailers on DVD Releases that you can't SKIP. URRRRRRGGHHHHH!!!! >___________<
Sometimes on the Australian DVD Releases we sometimes get unskippable trailers :(
We get them in the UK as well, at least trailers is not *quite* as bad since well it is a trailer and you might be interested in the film.
I miss VHS where you can put the tape in and be playing it at most in probably 20 seconds, I've had DVDs where I start the DVD, go the the loo, make a drink come back and it is still loading!!