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.
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!
ReplyDeleteI 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!