Thanks to the total lack of effect adverts about stopping piracy are having, the bastards have made them unskippable (on some rental DVDs too, I notice), and have pumped up the music and increased the size of the warnings on screen.
Genius strategy, I must say.

"YOU WOULDN'T STEAL A CAR/PURSE/TELEVISION/(and the best one!)MOVIE." it says, despite the fact that film piracy is quite obviously stealing movies, you fucking morons. Not to mention, I imagine quite a lot of people WOULD steal those items IF the chances of them getting caught and prosecuted were infintesimal.

I also love the assumption in "YOU WOULDN'T STEAL...". Surely it should be "WOULD YOU STEAL...?". I think FACT (or whoever the fuck it is, who cares?) are making dangerous assumptions there that are obviously ruining their shit.

And not to mention the fact that putting warnings against PIRACY on a LEGALLY PURCHASED DVD is a bit fucking pointless. Why do people who buy DVDs legally need warning not to pirate films? Stupidity of this magnitude is staggering.

It's like the warnings on Xbox discs. "DO NOT MAKE ILLEGAL COPIES OF THIS DISC."
I can just see a pirate sat there, about to knock out a few hundred copies (which will no doubt go towards funding terrorism, yes, nice try there, I don't think. Incidentally, if any of you think I'm angry about that because I first thought the "Film piracy funds terrorism" posters in cinemas were some sort of new film advertisement at first, you're wrong. Totally wrong. I assure you) and suddenly seeing that warning and going "Allah hu akhbar! (because piracy funds terrorism, you see, all pirates are in fact terrorists) we had better not copy this disc! It says not to! We must carry out our jihad without the funds from dead or Alive: Naked and Sweaty."

Wankers.

They remind me of years ago you had to fast forward through a very boring man sitting telling you how the "new" age ratings on videos worked. Unreal, that they thought people wouldnt realise what a "18" certificate meant.

"MOVE PIRACY IS STEALING. STEALING IS AGAINST THE LAW."

Like pirates, upon seeing this, will then look at each other and go "What? Really?" and then stop pirating films. They know piracy is stealing. They know stealing is against the law. But they don't care.

Shit. I was unaware

Thanks for the info!



Personally, I like having the original versions of everything because it just looks nicer and you occasionally get a neat little booklet etc.

It is rather shit that they make you sit through it though. I can understand it in cinemas, as that's before it;s available on DVD and other easily copyable mediums, but the latest ones with the slides that come down to an ever-more intense background noise - NO NEED!

I had to sit near a speaker as seats were running thin at a screening of something I watche recently and the seats started to vibrate. I couldn't hear because of the fucking ringing in my ears for the first ten minutes of the film!

Wouldn't it be funny if FACT got sued over that?

Don't get me wrong though, I'm with you guys - copyright has a point and should be inforced, but this way is moronic at best. People know it's wrong, and pirates aren't going to be put off by a warning, no matter how much bass you put into the backing track! (Though, they may shut off their DVD copiers if you can make the copyright warning screech as bad as an old ZX Spectrum tape loading a game ).

I doubt pirates would provide me with an inflatable axe if I bought a copied version of Kung Fu Hustle.

Ahem.

Sorry, I shall stop going on about that.

I do feel insulted, though. I go out, spend my cash on a legal version of the DVD, then have to sit through a fucking lecture on not pirating films. Surely there's going to be people going "Right, you fuckers, I'm going to pirate some films now, just because you made me sit through that shit." Doing more harm than good.

The best ones I find though are the multilingual copyright notices - you know the ones, they've got the red warning header and white writing on a black background.

I only have this gripe when watching extras on some DVD's where I can be bothered, but despite having just watched a DVD in English, almost invariably after the first extra you watch, you're subjected to the same copyright warning you saw at the very beginning of the DVD in a multitude of different languages.

One DVD - I fail to remember which at the moment - had a good 20 notices (well, same notice 20 languages) apugins for about 30 seconds on each. I let it run, thinking (much like Sam Beckett in Quantum Leap) that the end of each copyright screen would be the leap home to the menu, and the next special feature.

WHERE'S THE POINT?!

More to the point, this happens often on discs where the language options only give three languages, and those same three languages are available as subtitles. If we assume the other 17 copyright screens are for countries where people may be watching the DVD because they know English, WHY NOT LEAVE IT AT THE ENGLISH VERSION!!!

Ah, yes, I know them well. Sometimes they actually bracket the feature, so you get them both before and after. As if seeing them twice will indelibly burn them onto your consciousness.

But no! I want to show my film on an off-shore oil rig and the warning says I can't!

I love the way they keep throwing this stuff at us, and schools/colleges and other government establishments break the laws at the end of every term/semester/festive period by showing DVD's in those locations it says you're legally not allowed to

The one whereby you're not allowed to let your mates watch it (by lending it to them) is a good'un too

Err... so to be savfe, we should buy a film and seal the house up to make sure there's no peeking from anyone else...?

"FACT will not fund the window-covering steel shutter system necessary for viewing this film."

Charming.

Shall we see if we can get an official line on this from FACT when we get a few more regular visitors to the site?

I reckon we could get a few dozen questions together to make them contradict themselves

That would be great. Censorship censors self. We could get a lot of mileage out of that.

i HATE that whole- you woudlnt fund terrorist attacks would you? rubbish! grrrr stupid stupid stupid!

I find it hilarious. In an indirect fashion, we HAVE funded terrorist attacks. And revolutions and wars, invasions, bombings, assassinations and all sorts that governments regularly do.

Yes. It should read "Corrupt government's fund piracy! Enjoy your film"

"Pay your taxes and install a regime...er, democracy in the Middle East."

Hahaha, I can't believe that they are actually trying to associate piracy to terrorism?, that's indeed hilarious I've seen the FBI warnings "Blah blah is against the law, blah, blah", but never seen those!

This sort of thing:

http://xo.typep...d_terrorism.jpg

I won't point out the irony that the silhouetted weapon is an M16, the main weapon of the US infantry since Vietnam. Great work, chaps.

I remember having a conversation a while back - you can just imagine Osama with his life support machine or whatever sitting in a cave saying something like "Only 3,000 more copies of Pirates of the Caribbean to sell before we can afford our very own tank, and then the world shall tremble at our presence!"

Anyone else think there's something wrong with that picture?

Get this, my friend recently bought a DVD burner, and set off copying his friend's DVD's, and has come accross a hidden piracy message. In the burnet copy, some time into the movie, about half way though, a red devil, pitchfork and all, comes up and keeps saying how bad piracy is.

That's just... weird.

I notice the size of the BBFC certificates on the front of game cases has also increased. Not that that's a piracy issue, it's a censorship thing. Silence, my poor brain.

Ha harr, that's wot I likes, piracy!

On a related note, what the holy fuck is the point of that little bit of descriptive text next to the BBFC rating?

Example from my Night Watch DVD:

Contains strong violence, horror and language.

Oh no! It contains language? Won't somebody think of the children?! Obviously here I'm just taking the piss out of extremely poor sentence construction, but you see my point. If you've only got a small amount of space to explain what the film contains, perhaps you should do it clearly.

From Kung Fu Hustle:

Contains strong violence.

Er, no it doesn't. The BBFC rating is a 15, and the violence is never graphic. It's quite caricatured, if anything, and obviously unrealistic. Idiots.

What's the point of putting this text on the back? Are you going to let your 12-yeard-old watch a 15 if it has violence and swearing, but no sex? Because that's illegal (and quite twisted, I might add. Censoring sex while allowing violence and bad language is retarded). If you're the kind of person that lets someone watch a film when they are under age (and I think most of us are, within reason) then you're not going to care what it contains (sex, violence, drug use, swearing etc).

If you aren't, then you're not going to let that under age person watch it whatever it contains.

However, most pathetic description ever goes to Ice Age 2:

Contains mild adventure peril, language and innuendo.

How can peril be MILD?

Peril - noun - great danger or jeopardy.

Here's a hint, BBFC. Don't use words when you don't know what they mean, okay?

We need to find somewhere that will print these on the front of t-shirts - it's genius!

We have the copyright though eh? This thing could get big!!!

Er, what if someone Pirates them?

Hmm the blagards!! We'll hang em from the yard arm!!!

We'll add text to the back "Please do not pirate this T-shirt."

That'll teach those pirates.

Yeah, you show em FA!! Wow what a guy! 'Smoke him a kipper - he'll be back for breakfast!!'

*flick of the bouffant hairstyle, shades on*

Hey! I'm waiting for a "What a guy!" here!

Okay, I'll stand in.

"What a guy." *big sigh and longing looks*

Thank you. I can now stride off in my tinfoil flight suit.