I would like to preface this article by stating that I was never assaulted by NBC, never had a pet run over by an iTunes download, and I have never had a woman leave me for Peter Mandelson.
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So, I don't know whether you've heard, but there are plans afoot to create new powers for the Government in the UK to......Honestly I give up, I have no f***ing CLUE what sense the plans are supposed to make.
I've read a number of things lately about it, chiefly driven by the all-star hero Graham Linehan(Writer of comedic gems, chiefly known for his words coming out of Irish Priests and IT dept. geeks(But I'm most fond of his books). While I've tried to find balancing articles or quotes that would help me put forward some sort of advocacy - Along the lines of "Laandaaaan! vs. Esseeeeex!" - but I don't have any support for the plans to show you.
One part that isn't being mentioned as part of the plans to...."reform" the internet industry in this country, but used to be a major part of the plans, is a new tax of 50p, to be levvied against people with landline phones. Not people with broadband internet access, but anyone with a(presumably) active landline. One thought. Why is it that people who already pay the fee to an ISP*, for access to the internet over a landline, be paying to provide the same to someone who isn't paying the fees to an ISP? Second, why should someone who isn't currently paying for broadband internet access, but does have a landline, have to pay an additional charge(The tax), in order to provide internet access for someone else who is in the same boat, to get that broadband connection in about five years time. And I'd say 5 years would be conservative - 50p/person will not raise much money quickly, so unless there are plans to create new connections sooner than that, that this will pay for, it makes no sense. And even WITH such speculative plans to create broadband access, it seems to only have one purpose - to crowbar us all onto mobile broadband services which would ill-suit our needs right now.
But then, it's not being talked about as part of the new regulations or powers. It seems that the rest of those new laws are so controversial, the 50p tax has been moved to a much less controversial bill - the finance bill - in order to make sure as many of these things come to pass as possible.
The rest of the proposed new changes really are about as luddite and old-fashioned as you could imagine from a governmental office. Especially from an office headed up by a man whom, until he met Tony Blair, seemed to have a career as a Midge Ure impersonator. Oooooh, feel the ad-hominem buuuuurrrrn.
BoingBoing.net wrote an appraisal of the proposal's worst bits, and I recommend reading it, but the key bits are:
Honestly I am just consistently staggered by the ineptitude and beligerence of this set of proposed changes. The games system....Seriously?!?
A sign of how crazy this weird war between consumers and a tag-team of government & media conglomerates is, is that cinema employees can send someone to prison if they're caught filming a movie in a cinema, but they have little interest in using the same situation to keep kids out of older-age movies. But if some retarded parent buys their kid a game that is immensely too mature/complex/graphically violent/sexually show-offy/at all interesting to adults, or a similarly mentally deficient salesman at a games store sells the same game to someone wearing HEELIES....that is to say, it's not the system, but the people that permeate the system, that gets "Wrong things" into the hands of those it shouldn't be in the hands of. For the government to even consider such a thing is enough of a sign of the crass way in which they view this modern culture.
Gah.
Just GAAAAAAAHHHHH.
Even though it might be said above, it really does bear explaining that this is ALL down to copyright laws, in being the cause of the problem, the nature of the problem, and an ignored solution.
Lets call it what it is - a war on filesharing. And much like the "War on Terror", it won't ever amount to alienating a substantial amount of the people it was supposed to protect. Because much in the way that increasing security and criminalising human rights in a superfluous effort to "keep us safe", it only managed to piss us off - and the "War on Copyright Infringement", will(If these proposals are any indication), do nothing but piss us off, send innocent people to prison or bankruptcy, and stagnate a creative industry already suffering from the same problems as the American banking industry. That is to say; too few players, who are all too big to fail.
So, that's the nature of the problem in part, but part of the nature of it involves the nature of copyright infringement/piracy. I've known people over my life who have committed acts of piracy: People who have recorded from the tv onto a videotape, people whoa have recorded vinyl onto tape, people who have recorded CD to tape, people who have recorded their recorded tapes onto DVDs, people who have recorded live radio onto tape, then CD, then as MP3 files, people who have played their vinyl to their computer so it can make an approximation of it, people who have passed around pirate DVD's, VHS tapes, audio cassettes, MiniDiscs(Seriously), shared MP3's, AVI's, MOV's, VOB's, DIVX's, the list goes on. Why would they do it?
The content they pirate is key to this. The most common/commonly-known forms of piracy are the pirate movies that the entertainment conglomerates deride while I sit WAITING to watch the LEGAL DVD I BOUGHT, or music, or TV shows. There are books and games and all sorts of things shared across the internet that contravene copyright law, and while I know that pirated games are becoming a bete-noir for the games industry, they're not losing as much as the movies music or tv shows.
Well, the first thing I bet popped into your head is "cost.". While it might be the case that there are some people who do it for money - or rather lack of money - I've never known someone to do that. I have, on the other hand, known people to pirate a movie, or a tv show, or a song, for other reasons.
The first would be availability, the second would be accessibility. Availability, because there's no "legal" method available to procure it. Accessibility because there's no one-stop shop, no "Play.com", or "Amazon" for downloading this content. Okay, now the audience will split.
For those of you thinking "Total crap - Amazon has been unrolling media downloads for around a year and continues to do so, iTunes is everywhere and the Sony and Microsoft home consoles now both have video download services, while the Wii has access to the BBC's iPlayer", you miss the point completely. Amazon has an MP3 download store in the UK, whereas it currently has no video download store here, which it has in the US(So I really can't speak to how it is), the iPlayer along with it's content and DRM is still far from perfect, while the rest...
Ever watch modern professional wrestling? It has fireworks, fire, costumes, makeup etc, but everyone has their own theme tune. Some are obviously old tracks, such as Hulk Hogan's intermittent use of "Voodoo Child" by Jimi Hendrix, and have to be licensed one at a time, as a special deal, and the same goes when an artist you recognise made someone's entrance music. The rest, are all from vast music libraries, consisting of studio musicians put together to record a demo version, and the wrestling promoters rent access to these libraries, and have access to the tracks contained within. I feel that's the same with both iTunes and the PS3 media download library(Can't speak on 360, I sold mine). It took me all of a minute to notice certain films were unavailable in the PS3 store, that were also unavailable on iTunes. Certain films I could only buy, others I could only rent, while both were divided into those that you can only procure in SD(Standard Definition: DVD & old tv quality), or those that were fully available in both SD & HD versions, to satisfy those with either small OR large tv's. The choice is apocryphal and arcane, and completely driven by the one word to rule them all. "Rights", and who holds them. So no, iTunes and the home console content doesn't measure up. Partly because iTunes still only provides video in a format that works exclusively with Apple software, aswell as iPods, iPhones or AppleTVs, and that's just not good enough. It's not Apple's fault really, because they did the best deals they could for the rights to the content they lease from the media conglomerates. Level of choice is nowhere NEAR good enough yet, and choice of what to play it on is basically not even an option.
Availability is driven by copyright law, the deals that can be brokered on the back of it, and the money that can be leveraged by it. Movies are, in my experience, more often than not pirated because "they're not out here yet.". Motion pictures were once physically massive, chemically temperamental, and accompanied by organ music. So one would understand why our local single-screen cinema had yet to witness the latest Errol Flynn blockbuster, after reading about it in the (See if I can still spell this next one) "Newspaper". Today, motion pictures are really not called that anymore, unless you're 85 and work for The Academy of Motion Pictures, or the Motion Picture Association of America, a ridiculous entity that has a habit of issuing fatuous lawsuits like you would exude Carbon Dioxide. But what's more, they aren't as difficult to transport, and it's even easier and cheaper these days to make copies of the films for distribution, and when digital projectors become truly widespread(Not just America & London), the only part necessary will be copying the file from the company HQ to all the cinemas that have paid the company for the film. So why has the UK had to wait six months to see the latest Pixar movie, "UP"? I mean, the American audience got to buy it on a disc around the same time we get to see it(Legitimately).
TV Shows are as bad, if not much worse in some cases - One of my favourite shows is "Sons of Anarchy", an American drama about a small town and the biker gang that basically run it, and the fascinating story of the family strife and power struggle within said gang. It's such a good show, with powerful writing, an astounding cast and brilliant stories, and I'd really recommend it. Unless you live outside the USA, in which case you'd be forgiven for thinking it didn't exist - it took a similar six months or so after the first season finished for it to start running on BRAVO here in the UK. Why so long? It's not a universal thing - Sci-Fi hand-me-down "Stargate Universe" airs on Sky around a week and a day after the original US air date, and it's a similar thing to this autumn's breakout US hit comedy "Modern Family". Now, I freely admit that TV shows are harder to pitch than movies. Movies tend to strike out on their own path, and because it's only one sitting of around a couple of hours, they can garner positive press coverage easier than a tv show can, because of the drawn out nature of TV shows, and sometimes what is wildly popular in America can be garbage to other markets.
But usually, they both take that long period because of rights. And in the face of that, if someone reads about a new show or movie, watches the Youtube/Apple.com trailer for it, gets into it enough to flip through the IMDB listing or even so far as to enjoy viewing concept art for it on the web - all in the form of a digital file of one kind or another.....Quite frankly, what do people expect? And going back to the iTunes/PS3 media library, if I really want to watch a film like "Candyman"(A Clive Barker written horror movie from 1992), I can't get it from EITHER the PS3 or iTunes store. Weirdly though, I can go get the inferior sequel if I prefer. But if someone I know has a pirate DVD of it, or an AVI file of it that I can put on a pen drive, then why the hell am I doing anything wrong? If I simply can't get the digital copy of it from an online store that I'm perfectly fine with paying money to, then what exactly have I done that takes money away from film companies or stores that don't offer it to me? So if it's not available to procure in a legally acceptable manner, then why would ANYONE feel they were missing out by not having my business?
The other main reason I've found, is Accessibility. For those of you that stuck with the "Total crap" answer earlier, it's old ground - Not everyone has every electrical device. Some people have an Xbox, some have a Playstation, some have no home console, but have a DS or a PSP, some have none, but have an iPhone, while some still use other iPods and some hate the supposed hegemony of iPods that they buy a PMP(Portable Media Player - a generic term for something that plays media), from one of any number of other companies, whereas some really only have a computer. I guess I'm unlike some in this debate, in that I suppose I'm a piracy advocate, but I don't have as much of a problem with DRM(Digital Rights Management - the part of your digital file that says it will delete itself after the rental period expires, or that you can only use it on one computer or PMP). Or rather, I'd have virtually no problem with DRM if digital media was competitively priced and available for all my playback devices. But it's not. I approach it from this angle, because when iTunes first arrived with Apple's OSX, it had no store, but was there for you to record your CD's, then manage your library of sound files. The music companies went APESHIT, because they publicly announced they felt that was an act of piracy, and taking money from the mouth of the baby that Lars Ulrich was holding - therefore if people wanted to play music back in a digital format, they'd need to buy it again, in a digital format. The iTunes store arrived, and barring disputes between Apple and the individual rights holders over pricing and availability(US TV channel NBC yanked all of their programming for a few months. Bet they regret that now.), the theory was that everything was fine in the relationship between consumer and provider.
I can't get Candyman, I can't get "A Colbert Christmas", and I can't get "Sons of Anarchy"'s soundtrack EP. Not only that, but the only place I could have been able to get those, is the iTunes store, and I'd really have only been able to watch it on the laptop I'm writing this on. And the stuff I can get, has been previewed, reviewed, celebrated and in some cases given awards by the time it gets to me, never mind the sheer amount of writing and video that exists on the internet to promote shows like "Sons of Anarchy".
Amidst all of this is the completely ass-backwards way in which digital media is priced. To put it bluntly, "Competitively" isn't how it is. I've not seen it yet, but if I wanted to see "Pineapple Express", last year's stoner comedy featuring Seth Rogen doing whatever it is he does and James Franco circling the abyss, I have choices. It wasn't received brilliantly, and if people wanted it they'd have bought it on the date of release - so it'll be cheaper now than it was. Right now, as I write this, I can see it on Play.com, the PS3 Video Store, and iTunes. I can get it from the PS3 store to own, but in SD, for £11.99. iTunes has it cheaper at £6.99, again to own, SD. Play, on the other hand, has it on DVD for £3.99. I imagine there'll be one or two extras on there, but the point is clear - none of these stores apply any other charges beyond this charge to us, so for saving a few quid, aswell as potentially getting a gag reel or an EPK(Yet to see downloaded movies or TV shows bearing the extras on the DVD that I could get for less than the download), I'd wait a few days for the DVD.
Although if I really wanted the film, not just make a point, Play is currently the only place to get this movie in High Definition, with more extras than the DVD and a better picture - on Blu Ray - for £10.99. That's right, the download options, two of the very best available to us, are both inferior copies and lack any extras aswell as being more expensive than the DVD, while the only place to get it in a Hi-Def format, is on a disc that still costs less than one of the two download options, and only a little more than the cheapest, extra-less, low-quality downloadable option.
Stepping back a few paragraphs, the thing is though, with a movie like "UP", it's hard to be mad about it. Not that Pineapple Express is so awful you want to rest your head on a bench before smashing downward with a claw hammer, it's because "UP" comes from Pixar, a part of Disney. Apart from some people doing some mid-morning bitching about Disney not giving the honest, hardworking 2D animator a fair crack, pretty much everyone loves Disney and Pixar. Because they give you the feeling that what they do, or at least part of what they do, is FOR you, and in your interest. It could be giving the kids something to stare at in wonder, so you can pop out for a breather, or at least sit with an unoccupied lap, or something that charms you and engenders such an emotional reaction in you, that you're glad the people who made this weren't anyone else. I mean, it's our impression - I know that some people who worked at Disney to produce TV shows and movies didn't enjoy it and resented it(Simpsons writers, mainly), and in some ways, Disney is some way short of being benevolent in any way.....but we feel better about Disney than other companies. And because of the way it makes us feel for a couple of hours or so, we really don't pay attention to the way Disney treats us the rest of the time. Yes, I just compared Disney to a magic vagina. Because the other media companies that fund media production in order to distribute it, our time with them ranged from them hiding things from us for extended periods to nagging, all the way to screaming at us that we're not "doing it right", instead of enjoying the moment and being happy we were together at all. This acid trip takes us up to the present, where Peter Mandelson acts as a kind of "uncle" to the bad dates we had, and as part of his duties, tells us that things are going to be an awful lot different, after he had so many messages left about how you weren't "doing it right".
Suffice it to say, this stuff gets me cranky, and towards the end a little crazy. But if there was a chance at bringing both Availability and Accessibility to a digital store that was truly far-reaching in what it had to offer, was reasonably priced, could give us the same stuff our friends have, and could offer it to us the way we wanted, on the devices we wanted it on, this discussion would never happen. Instead, all we're left with is a sofa that feels too big, and an unanswered question in our head;
This stuff passes into law, I'd say I know how our future trysts with Viacom, Vivendi, General Electric, Disney and the rest will go. Just lie back, clench your eyes, and think of....well, England.
I've read a number of things lately about it, chiefly driven by the all-star hero Graham Linehan(Writer of comedic gems, chiefly known for his words coming out of Irish Priests and IT dept. geeks(But I'm most fond of his books). While I've tried to find balancing articles or quotes that would help me put forward some sort of advocacy - Along the lines of "Laandaaaan! vs. Esseeeeex!" - but I don't have any support for the plans to show you.
One part that isn't being mentioned as part of the plans to...."reform" the internet industry in this country, but used to be a major part of the plans, is a new tax of 50p, to be levvied against people with landline phones. Not people with broadband internet access, but anyone with a(presumably) active landline. One thought. Why is it that people who already pay the fee to an ISP*, for access to the internet over a landline, be paying to provide the same to someone who isn't paying the fees to an ISP? Second, why should someone who isn't currently paying for broadband internet access, but does have a landline, have to pay an additional charge(The tax), in order to provide internet access for someone else who is in the same boat, to get that broadband connection in about five years time. And I'd say 5 years would be conservative - 50p/person will not raise much money quickly, so unless there are plans to create new connections sooner than that, that this will pay for, it makes no sense. And even WITH such speculative plans to create broadband access, it seems to only have one purpose - to crowbar us all onto mobile broadband services which would ill-suit our needs right now.
But then, it's not being talked about as part of the new regulations or powers. It seems that the rest of those new laws are so controversial, the 50p tax has been moved to a much less controversial bill - the finance bill - in order to make sure as many of these things come to pass as possible.
The rest of the proposed new changes really are about as luddite and old-fashioned as you could imagine from a governmental office. Especially from an office headed up by a man whom, until he met Tony Blair, seemed to have a career as a Midge Ure impersonator. Oooooh, feel the ad-hominem buuuuurrrrn.
BoingBoing.net wrote an appraisal of the proposal's worst bits, and I recommend reading it, but the key bits are:
- Kowtowing to the entertainment industry, the conglomerates that own them and the shareholders beyond, by banning households from even ACCESSING the internet, if the connection at the house contravenes copyright law.
- A fifty thousand pound fine for you if someone contravened said copyright law by using the connection, and a two-hundred and fifty thousand pound fine for ISP's that don't police these copyright infringements.
- Oh, and there's no indication that any kind of proof, evidence or trial would be necessary for the above two punishments to be brought down on your head. Just to be snitched on by an ISP. And what if someone from a neighbouring property, or even someone in a car outside your house with a small laptop and a car-charger hacked your wireless network and perpetrated the "crimes"? "What if" indeed.
- A brand new form of Videogames rating. Because the last one was just broken apparently, as opposed to the people worst hurt by the last system being hurt by their own ignorance of the content of the games.
- No such revised system for books, films, theatre or any other form of culture, because no-one ever learned how to do something bad by doing something other than playing Carmageddon or Manhunt.
- Practically unlimited power for the government official in question to create brand new rules and punishments as he sees fit. (Again, at this point it's Peter Mandelson, an unelected hack, but if there is a new party in office next year, then it'll...probably still be Mandelson. I just can't see him being shaken loose.).
Honestly I am just consistently staggered by the ineptitude and beligerence of this set of proposed changes. The games system....Seriously?!?
A sign of how crazy this weird war between consumers and a tag-team of government & media conglomerates is, is that cinema employees can send someone to prison if they're caught filming a movie in a cinema, but they have little interest in using the same situation to keep kids out of older-age movies. But if some retarded parent buys their kid a game that is immensely too mature/complex/graphically violent/sexually show-offy/at all interesting to adults, or a similarly mentally deficient salesman at a games store sells the same game to someone wearing HEELIES....that is to say, it's not the system, but the people that permeate the system, that gets "Wrong things" into the hands of those it shouldn't be in the hands of. For the government to even consider such a thing is enough of a sign of the crass way in which they view this modern culture.
Gah.
Just GAAAAAAAHHHHH.
Even though it might be said above, it really does bear explaining that this is ALL down to copyright laws, in being the cause of the problem, the nature of the problem, and an ignored solution.
Lets call it what it is - a war on filesharing. And much like the "War on Terror", it won't ever amount to alienating a substantial amount of the people it was supposed to protect. Because much in the way that increasing security and criminalising human rights in a superfluous effort to "keep us safe", it only managed to piss us off - and the "War on Copyright Infringement", will(If these proposals are any indication), do nothing but piss us off, send innocent people to prison or bankruptcy, and stagnate a creative industry already suffering from the same problems as the American banking industry. That is to say; too few players, who are all too big to fail.
So, that's the nature of the problem in part, but part of the nature of it involves the nature of copyright infringement/piracy. I've known people over my life who have committed acts of piracy: People who have recorded from the tv onto a videotape, people whoa have recorded vinyl onto tape, people who have recorded CD to tape, people who have recorded their recorded tapes onto DVDs, people who have recorded live radio onto tape, then CD, then as MP3 files, people who have played their vinyl to their computer so it can make an approximation of it, people who have passed around pirate DVD's, VHS tapes, audio cassettes, MiniDiscs(Seriously), shared MP3's, AVI's, MOV's, VOB's, DIVX's, the list goes on. Why would they do it?
Or, to get to the point, why would anyone do it?
The content they pirate is key to this. The most common/commonly-known forms of piracy are the pirate movies that the entertainment conglomerates deride while I sit WAITING to watch the LEGAL DVD I BOUGHT, or music, or TV shows. There are books and games and all sorts of things shared across the internet that contravene copyright law, and while I know that pirated games are becoming a bete-noir for the games industry, they're not losing as much as the movies music or tv shows.
So why pirate those forms of content?
Well, the first thing I bet popped into your head is "cost.". While it might be the case that there are some people who do it for money - or rather lack of money - I've never known someone to do that. I have, on the other hand, known people to pirate a movie, or a tv show, or a song, for other reasons.
The first would be availability, the second would be accessibility. Availability, because there's no "legal" method available to procure it. Accessibility because there's no one-stop shop, no "Play.com", or "Amazon" for downloading this content. Okay, now the audience will split.
Part of you will be "Ok then." You're fine, skip the next two paragraphs.
For those of you thinking "Total crap - Amazon has been unrolling media downloads for around a year and continues to do so, iTunes is everywhere and the Sony and Microsoft home consoles now both have video download services, while the Wii has access to the BBC's iPlayer", you miss the point completely. Amazon has an MP3 download store in the UK, whereas it currently has no video download store here, which it has in the US(So I really can't speak to how it is), the iPlayer along with it's content and DRM is still far from perfect, while the rest...
Ever watch modern professional wrestling? It has fireworks, fire, costumes, makeup etc, but everyone has their own theme tune. Some are obviously old tracks, such as Hulk Hogan's intermittent use of "Voodoo Child" by Jimi Hendrix, and have to be licensed one at a time, as a special deal, and the same goes when an artist you recognise made someone's entrance music. The rest, are all from vast music libraries, consisting of studio musicians put together to record a demo version, and the wrestling promoters rent access to these libraries, and have access to the tracks contained within. I feel that's the same with both iTunes and the PS3 media download library(Can't speak on 360, I sold mine). It took me all of a minute to notice certain films were unavailable in the PS3 store, that were also unavailable on iTunes. Certain films I could only buy, others I could only rent, while both were divided into those that you can only procure in SD(Standard Definition: DVD & old tv quality), or those that were fully available in both SD & HD versions, to satisfy those with either small OR large tv's. The choice is apocryphal and arcane, and completely driven by the one word to rule them all. "Rights", and who holds them. So no, iTunes and the home console content doesn't measure up. Partly because iTunes still only provides video in a format that works exclusively with Apple software, aswell as iPods, iPhones or AppleTVs, and that's just not good enough. It's not Apple's fault really, because they did the best deals they could for the rights to the content they lease from the media conglomerates. Level of choice is nowhere NEAR good enough yet, and choice of what to play it on is basically not even an option.
Availability is driven by copyright law, the deals that can be brokered on the back of it, and the money that can be leveraged by it. Movies are, in my experience, more often than not pirated because "they're not out here yet.". Motion pictures were once physically massive, chemically temperamental, and accompanied by organ music. So one would understand why our local single-screen cinema had yet to witness the latest Errol Flynn blockbuster, after reading about it in the (See if I can still spell this next one) "Newspaper". Today, motion pictures are really not called that anymore, unless you're 85 and work for The Academy of Motion Pictures, or the Motion Picture Association of America, a ridiculous entity that has a habit of issuing fatuous lawsuits like you would exude Carbon Dioxide. But what's more, they aren't as difficult to transport, and it's even easier and cheaper these days to make copies of the films for distribution, and when digital projectors become truly widespread(Not just America & London), the only part necessary will be copying the file from the company HQ to all the cinemas that have paid the company for the film. So why has the UK had to wait six months to see the latest Pixar movie, "UP"? I mean, the American audience got to buy it on a disc around the same time we get to see it(Legitimately).
TV Shows are as bad, if not much worse in some cases - One of my favourite shows is "Sons of Anarchy", an American drama about a small town and the biker gang that basically run it, and the fascinating story of the family strife and power struggle within said gang. It's such a good show, with powerful writing, an astounding cast and brilliant stories, and I'd really recommend it. Unless you live outside the USA, in which case you'd be forgiven for thinking it didn't exist - it took a similar six months or so after the first season finished for it to start running on BRAVO here in the UK. Why so long? It's not a universal thing - Sci-Fi hand-me-down "Stargate Universe" airs on Sky around a week and a day after the original US air date, and it's a similar thing to this autumn's breakout US hit comedy "Modern Family". Now, I freely admit that TV shows are harder to pitch than movies. Movies tend to strike out on their own path, and because it's only one sitting of around a couple of hours, they can garner positive press coverage easier than a tv show can, because of the drawn out nature of TV shows, and sometimes what is wildly popular in America can be garbage to other markets.
But usually, they both take that long period because of rights. And in the face of that, if someone reads about a new show or movie, watches the Youtube/Apple.com trailer for it, gets into it enough to flip through the IMDB listing or even so far as to enjoy viewing concept art for it on the web - all in the form of a digital file of one kind or another.....Quite frankly, what do people expect? And going back to the iTunes/PS3 media library, if I really want to watch a film like "Candyman"(A Clive Barker written horror movie from 1992), I can't get it from EITHER the PS3 or iTunes store. Weirdly though, I can go get the inferior sequel if I prefer. But if someone I know has a pirate DVD of it, or an AVI file of it that I can put on a pen drive, then why the hell am I doing anything wrong? If I simply can't get the digital copy of it from an online store that I'm perfectly fine with paying money to, then what exactly have I done that takes money away from film companies or stores that don't offer it to me? So if it's not available to procure in a legally acceptable manner, then why would ANYONE feel they were missing out by not having my business?
The other main reason I've found, is Accessibility. For those of you that stuck with the "Total crap" answer earlier, it's old ground - Not everyone has every electrical device. Some people have an Xbox, some have a Playstation, some have no home console, but have a DS or a PSP, some have none, but have an iPhone, while some still use other iPods and some hate the supposed hegemony of iPods that they buy a PMP(Portable Media Player - a generic term for something that plays media), from one of any number of other companies, whereas some really only have a computer. I guess I'm unlike some in this debate, in that I suppose I'm a piracy advocate, but I don't have as much of a problem with DRM(Digital Rights Management - the part of your digital file that says it will delete itself after the rental period expires, or that you can only use it on one computer or PMP). Or rather, I'd have virtually no problem with DRM if digital media was competitively priced and available for all my playback devices. But it's not. I approach it from this angle, because when iTunes first arrived with Apple's OSX, it had no store, but was there for you to record your CD's, then manage your library of sound files. The music companies went APESHIT, because they publicly announced they felt that was an act of piracy, and taking money from the mouth of the baby that Lars Ulrich was holding - therefore if people wanted to play music back in a digital format, they'd need to buy it again, in a digital format. The iTunes store arrived, and barring disputes between Apple and the individual rights holders over pricing and availability(US TV channel NBC yanked all of their programming for a few months. Bet they regret that now.), the theory was that everything was fine in the relationship between consumer and provider.
I can't get Candyman, I can't get "A Colbert Christmas", and I can't get "Sons of Anarchy"'s soundtrack EP. Not only that, but the only place I could have been able to get those, is the iTunes store, and I'd really have only been able to watch it on the laptop I'm writing this on. And the stuff I can get, has been previewed, reviewed, celebrated and in some cases given awards by the time it gets to me, never mind the sheer amount of writing and video that exists on the internet to promote shows like "Sons of Anarchy".
(I actually checked again after finishing this article, almost a year after first checking
for the SOA OST EP, and it is now there. Posted Sept '09, took ages too long.)
Amidst all of this is the completely ass-backwards way in which digital media is priced. To put it bluntly, "Competitively" isn't how it is. I've not seen it yet, but if I wanted to see "Pineapple Express", last year's stoner comedy featuring Seth Rogen doing whatever it is he does and James Franco circling the abyss, I have choices. It wasn't received brilliantly, and if people wanted it they'd have bought it on the date of release - so it'll be cheaper now than it was. Right now, as I write this, I can see it on Play.com, the PS3 Video Store, and iTunes. I can get it from the PS3 store to own, but in SD, for £11.99. iTunes has it cheaper at £6.99, again to own, SD. Play, on the other hand, has it on DVD for £3.99. I imagine there'll be one or two extras on there, but the point is clear - none of these stores apply any other charges beyond this charge to us, so for saving a few quid, aswell as potentially getting a gag reel or an EPK(Yet to see downloaded movies or TV shows bearing the extras on the DVD that I could get for less than the download), I'd wait a few days for the DVD.
Although if I really wanted the film, not just make a point, Play is currently the only place to get this movie in High Definition, with more extras than the DVD and a better picture - on Blu Ray - for £10.99. That's right, the download options, two of the very best available to us, are both inferior copies and lack any extras aswell as being more expensive than the DVD, while the only place to get it in a Hi-Def format, is on a disc that still costs less than one of the two download options, and only a little more than the cheapest, extra-less, low-quality downloadable option.
Stepping back a few paragraphs, the thing is though, with a movie like "UP", it's hard to be mad about it. Not that Pineapple Express is so awful you want to rest your head on a bench before smashing downward with a claw hammer, it's because "UP" comes from Pixar, a part of Disney. Apart from some people doing some mid-morning bitching about Disney not giving the honest, hardworking 2D animator a fair crack, pretty much everyone loves Disney and Pixar. Because they give you the feeling that what they do, or at least part of what they do, is FOR you, and in your interest. It could be giving the kids something to stare at in wonder, so you can pop out for a breather, or at least sit with an unoccupied lap, or something that charms you and engenders such an emotional reaction in you, that you're glad the people who made this weren't anyone else. I mean, it's our impression - I know that some people who worked at Disney to produce TV shows and movies didn't enjoy it and resented it(Simpsons writers, mainly), and in some ways, Disney is some way short of being benevolent in any way.....but we feel better about Disney than other companies. And because of the way it makes us feel for a couple of hours or so, we really don't pay attention to the way Disney treats us the rest of the time. Yes, I just compared Disney to a magic vagina. Because the other media companies that fund media production in order to distribute it, our time with them ranged from them hiding things from us for extended periods to nagging, all the way to screaming at us that we're not "doing it right", instead of enjoying the moment and being happy we were together at all. This acid trip takes us up to the present, where Peter Mandelson acts as a kind of "uncle" to the bad dates we had, and as part of his duties, tells us that things are going to be an awful lot different, after he had so many messages left about how you weren't "doing it right".
Suffice it to say, this stuff gets me cranky, and towards the end a little crazy. But if there was a chance at bringing both Availability and Accessibility to a digital store that was truly far-reaching in what it had to offer, was reasonably priced, could give us the same stuff our friends have, and could offer it to us the way we wanted, on the devices we wanted it on, this discussion would never happen. Instead, all we're left with is a sofa that feels too big, and an unanswered question in our head;
"Was I fucking them or were they fucking me?"
This stuff passes into law, I'd say I know how our future trysts with Viacom, Vivendi, General Electric, Disney and the rest will go. Just lie back, clench your eyes, and think of....well, England.
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Before I forget, here's the link if you want to sign a protest petition to send to Downing St., and seeing as I dug up a "Monkey Dust" clip at the beginning of this article, here's another. Okay, three.
