DVDs, Blu-Rays To Show 20-Second Unskippable Govt. Warnings 587
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."
Educate the public? (Score:5, Insightful)
To do what? Download the pirated copies so they don't have to watch the unskippable content?
that's the reason I prefer the pirate version (Score:3, Insightful)
Pirates (Score:5, Insightful)
Why? (Score:5, Insightful)
People who will see that screen _already_ have bought an original DVD...
why are we paying for that (Score:5, Insightful)
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"
That's ADORABLE. (Score:1, Insightful)
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.
Re:Educate the public? (Score:5, Insightful)
.
That sounds like a good plan to me if the goal is to push paying customers away.
Re:Twenty Seconds? (Score:0, Insightful)
For an idiot and waste of space like yourself, time is not valuable at all, so you ironically have a point. It is not generalizable though.
Pirating. (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't feel morally righteous or justified in downloading pirated shows, but it's just so damn convenient.
Re:Twenty Seconds? (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Pirates (Score:5, Insightful)
They just as well make the 20-second message say "Please rip this disc!" - it's the first thing *I'm* going to do with any disc with this crap on it...
Re:Consider this... (Score:4, Insightful)
Nobody, because the DVD and Blu-ray panels would sue the vendors into oblivion for patent infringement.
That is how the DRM is enforced at a legal level. Patent the algorithm and require you to implement DRM to get a license. No DRM, no patent license.
20 seconds to sit through a warning. (Score:5, Insightful)
Enough time to set up a torrent download for the movie and let the regret of purchasing set in.
Re:Twenty Seconds? (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Educate the public? (Score:5, Insightful)
Exactly correct. The two 10-second pieces of unskippable "educational" content will serve only to annoy those people who legally purchased the DVD and Bluray discs. Those who acquire illegal copies will not be subject to such annoyances.
That sounds like a good plan to me if the goal is to push paying customers away.
Yes and no. I (and I think many /.'ers are similar to me in this regard) do get annoyed by this sort of thing, yet I am also inclined to support the entertainment that I enjoy. As a result, I do in fact go out and buy the shows that I like to watch to send a (I know it is meager) message to the content creators "Hey, this makes you money. Make more of THIS." but I do come home, transcode it to a nice file without all the rubbish advertising and crap "announcements" that they put on the loading sectors of discs. I was quite amused by Startgate SG1 for example, but towards the latter half of the series, each time I inserted a disc, forcing me to watch (I kid you not) A Fox? Studios advertisment, followed by a trailer for Startgate Contimuum, then a trailer for the Stargate video game, then an advertisement for Stargate Altantis, then an anti-piracy message? Give me a break. If I am buying the damned discs, you have made your money and let me enjoy my content already.
So while I do enjoy feeling good about supporting the entertainment that I enjoy, the taste is often more and more bitter. The only upside is that some content providers seem to get the message and skip anything like that. From a pragmatic point of view, I think that actually makes me enjoy that more as I am no longer associating that show with forced advertising.
Especially irritating for foreigners (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Educate the public? (Score:3, Insightful)
Right, that's why they want to put a warning on something that you DIDN'T pirate, to tell you that you shouldn't do what you didn't do in the first place, and probably never planned to do
Ah Yes, Those Threats From Foriegn Countries. (Score:5, Insightful)
Especially since a hell of a lot of those DVDs are pressed in Canada.
Re:Twenty Seconds? (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Educate the public? (Score:5, Insightful)
That sounds like a good plan to me if the goal is to push paying customers away.
That!
I found myself watching less and less purchased content after the "warnings" and the interminable previews. To the point where I haven't bought anything for 4 or so years now. It's just too much a PITA.
And it's silly too, which is part of the issue. How many people don't know that it is illegal to copy and sell copyrighted videos? Finally, it's such a nice treat to get a threat of fines or imprisonment. Wow - these movies are dangerous stuff! No thanks, I'll just watch whatever is on the net that is free, not really any need to do the illegal stuff. And I have more discretionary money now too.
Re:Twenty Seconds? (Score:4, Insightful)
You've just spent more effort and time typing a response to somebody you don't agree with than it would have took you to simply sit through the annoying message and not worry about it.
But... what if he likes replying to people? Perhaps it's more enjoyable than watching pointless commercials? There is a difference.
When you can download an entire pirated movie in less than the time it takes to sit through the warnings about piracy
Except that you can do other things while it's downloading, you don't have to pay, and there are no commercials. Furthermore, you don't have to leave the house.
Re:Why? (Score:5, Insightful)
People who will see that screen _already_ have bought an original DVD...
Exactly. The only thing you should see is a 5 second "Thank you for supporting our business".
Re:Twenty Seconds? (Score:4, Insightful)
Imagine disturbing a heart surgeon for twenty random seconds in the middle of heart surgery.
Imagine disturbing for twenty seconds a poet reading a poem to a thousand people.
Imagine disturbing for five seconds making love to your SO.
The twenty seconds is not the thing, it's the destruction of the movie watching mindset and the hatred that colors thinking for far more than twenty seconds after.the "pick up that can!" message.
Re:Twenty Seconds? (Score:2, Insightful)
If your reaction time is over a second you should not be driving.
Re:Educate the public? (Score:5, Insightful)
To do what? Download the pirated copies so they don't have to watch the unskippable content?
Exactly my thought. And it is disingenuous to call these "government warnings" when they are really industry warnings. My warning to the industry is: "you are losing me".
Re:Twenty Seconds? (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Educate? (Score:4, Insightful)
The point? It's to move people to digital downloads and streaming services, where you don't get all this crap, but where the studio has more control over the content (they can disable playback.)
Re:Twenty Seconds? (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Ugh (Score:5, Insightful)
Up until the mid-1990s, it was pretty rare [archive.org] 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?
UOPs must die (Score:4, Insightful)
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 [netdna-cdn.com] 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...
Re:Educate the public? (Score:5, Insightful)
And you've hit the nail on the head.
A lesson to the studios:
If you want to deter pirating, make the official and legal copy MORE CONVENIENT than the pirated version.
Yes, 20 seconds isn't a lot of time. But every time someone puts in a DVD and has to watch it for the 100th time, they're going to get annoyed. And maybe next time they WON'T buy your product because they feel insulted.
We could sit here and argue all night about whether pirating a copy to spite a studio is okay morally (and I'm very, very certain that's what will happen) but at the end of the day it boils down to this, right or wrong: Annoy your customers, and they'll go someplace else, legal or not.
Re:Twenty Seconds? (Score:4, Insightful)
It's not an inconvenience - it's a foot in the door.
First it's the little warning. Then it's the unskippable lecture. Then it's a required political 'lesson' - starting with something safe, like a reminder that all men must register with Selective Service. And then it becomes required that you cannot rip a legitimate copy without those government-imposed blurbs.
Bad enough there are 20 minutes of unskippable trailers on the friggin' thing, which is why I rip the things in the first place.
"Only" 20 Seconds? Wrong. (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Twenty Seconds? (Score:5, Insightful)
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?"
It should be obvious (Score:4, Insightful)
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).
Re:Twenty Seconds? (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Twenty Seconds? (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Educate the public? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Twenty Seconds? (Score:5, Insightful)
You've just spent more effort and time typing a response to somebody you don't agree with than it would have took you to...
But... what if he likes replying to people? Perhaps it's more enjoyable than...
This is easily the best exchange I've ever read on Slashdot.
Re:Twenty Seconds? (Score:5, Insightful)
And people will find other sources. Many of the great falls in business can be attributed to not realizing the willingness of customers to go somewhere else when sufficiently annoyed. And that's the problem: once you piss of those customers, they stay pissed, for a long time.
Re:Twenty Seconds? (Score:4, Insightful)
There, FTFY. YVW.
Re:Twenty Seconds? (Score:5, Insightful)
What are you talking about? Everyone values their time differently, and not everyone values each second the same way. You seem to think others should value their time in a certain way, and that's not going to happen.
This is absolutely pointless. This is a needless waste of time, and I don't think anyone enjoys it.
Additionally, as others have said, it's also the principle of the matter. And if you keep stacking on negative after negative, it'll eventually be too much for people to stand.
In a nutshell, it's more of a waste of time to gripe about it than to just put up with it. Either that, or go live in your own universe where everything caters to you.
Their criticisms are valid no matter what you think. They're their own feelings.
Oh, and there is an easy way: either pirate the movie, or don't buy it at all. To people sufficiently angered by this, they simply won't buy it.
Re:Educate the public? (Score:5, Insightful)
Or use a DVD player that is not blessed by the DVD consortium.
Is it so hard to make a DVD player that plays the movie when you put it in?
A No it is not hard, just not allowed.
http://www.geexbox.org/ [geexbox.org] Play your movie. The menu and extras can be viewed if desired.
This is exactly the question I was wondering. But why is it not allowed.
Because the Government likes to punish it's law abiding citizens.
Re:Educate the public? (Score:4, Insightful)
I am also inclined to support the entertainment that I enjoy.
Yet you do admit that the added annoyances bother you and that you remove them from your viewing.
. /. represents a minority of the world. Yes, you can rip and stream the DVD without the annoyances, but what about most people?
My point is that
I am not opposed to supporting the entertainment industry. I just have to wonder why the entertainment industry seems to be in the business of pissing off their legitimate customers? Why is the entertainment industry driving their prospective customers to the pirate industry which provides a better, i.e., less annoying, product?
Re:Twenty Seconds? (Score:5, Insightful)
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?
Well, sheep, what is the message (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Twenty Seconds? (Score:4, Insightful)
To people sufficiently angered by this, they simply won't buy it.
I say keep it up. Maybe when it get real bad, it will drive people to start reading again.
Re:Twenty Seconds? (Score:4, Insightful)
Ripped-off? Just rip it! (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Educate the public? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Twenty Seconds? (Score:5, Insightful)