David Pogue has a column today about DVDs and FBI piracy warnings:
I absolutely cannot stand those stupid warnings. So typical of the short-sighted, pigheaded, greed-driven video industry, isn’t it? . . .There is at least one such Good Guy, though a quiet one: the Criterion Collection. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a piracy warning before a Criterion film. That absence seems to me a gesture of profound respect, treating the viewer as a viewer (and good customer), not a potential thief.
I don’t understand why some movie studio doesn’t decide to become the Good Guys of the industry. Get rid of all those annoyances, all the lawyer-driven absurdities, and market the heck out of it.
I wrote to Jon Mulvaney at Criterion this past summer to ask about this matter. No reply. Without watching every Criterion release (not a bad idea), it’s impossible to know if no-warning-before-film is a blanket policy. If anyone at Criterion sees this post, and wants to comment, I’d welcome their words.
comments: 1
David Pogue is right. These warnings are really stupid but he should watch one of these German DVDs that contain a special trailer (so to speak). In that trailer, a woman and a child are singing "Happy Birthday" in front of, which turns out, a prison where the husband and father is doing time for illegal copying. Incomprehensible!
I am a very happy happy owner of several Criterion DVDs, and I can't remember seeing the FBI warning on them. One more reason to buy their DVDs!
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