More stupid warnings

May 12th, 2012 at 10:16 am by David Farrar

Arstechnica reports:

You know those FBI warning messages that appear at the beginning of DVDs and Blu-ray discs? They’re getting an upgrade—and they’re multiplying.

The US government yesterday rolled out not one but two copyright notices, one to “warn” and one to “educate.” Six major movie studios will begin using the new notices this week. …

The second notice shows the logo for the National Intellectual Property Rights Coordination Center, which involves 20 different US government agencies. It features one extremely angry eagle who would probably pluck your eyeballs from your sockets if he could get those talons near you. ”Piracy is not a victimless crime,” says the notice. “For more information on how digital theft harms the economy, please visit www.iprcenter.gov.”

Oh God. There are few things more frustrating than sitting through those inane notices on the legal DVDs you have purchased. All they do is encourage you to acquire versions without the stupid notices – ie torrented files. They are the most counter-productive messages I know if, and now they are doubling them in length!

Tags: copyright

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11 Responses to “More stupid warnings”

josephh(1) Says:
May 12th, 2012 at 10:41 am
So legitimate purchasers are [further] punished, and pirates will not see the warnings anyway! Madness.

Cheers,
Joseph
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barry (1,317) Says:
May 12th, 2012 at 10:53 am
The land of the free – my arse. More like CCCP every day.

I was talking to and old traveller recently and he remarked that travelling to the USA was only different from travelling to communist Russia in that after you got into the country the secret police dont follow you quite as much. Otherwise the rules and the bureaucracy of the two are pretty much the same.

I think Osam has achieved his objective much better than he ever imagined.
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annie (507) Says:
May 12th, 2012 at 11:32 am
Every time you watch a DVD you are forced to watch an extended reminder that you could have downloaded it for free. And that doing so is so simple that it’s cost-effective to inconvenience and irritate every single legitimate user with extended unsubtle bullying warnings that can’t be skipped over.

Conclusion: “Hmmm. I’m now pissed off enough to look into that”. Especially since pirated DVDs apparently have the warnings stripped out.
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gazzmaniac (1,628) Says:
May 12th, 2012 at 11:56 am
I miss the dumb fast forward function of VHS.
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petal (697) Says:
May 12th, 2012 at 12:23 pm
You try and explain to an excited 5 year old that he MUST sit through all the warning, the pre-views and the THX et al advertising before he can watch the movie.

Idiots.
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tom hunter (3,852) Says:
May 12th, 2012 at 12:44 pm
Please, please tell me that there are some GOP members of Congress and the Senate who will be willing to stick it to Hollywood on this matter – since they’re the ultimate source of this crap.

A chance to do the right thing, win huge plaudits from many people – and sink a huge axe into the people who most hate your guts culturally and politically and do everything they can to help your Democratic Party opponents. Win times three.

But the Stupid Party probably won’t. Idiots.

I was talking to and old traveller recently and he remarked that travelling to the USA was only different from travelling to communist Russia ….

Sigh. Sadly I must agree. A relative of mine went to see her daughter in Washington D.C. last year (the daughter married a Yank) and came away spitting tacks about the USA and making direct comparisons to the USSR. And she had been in the Soviet Union in the bad old days so knew of what she was comparing. Admittedly she hit town during the whole tenth anniversary of 9/11 so it was probably worse than usual, and D.C. is notorious anyway for officials treating the little people like shit.

But I could not deny her comparisons, especially os the TSA announcements regularly coming over the loudspeakers at the train stations warning people that ‘If You See Something, Say Something™. That, she said, made her feel exactly like she was standing back in the Moscow Metro in 1972.
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redeye (596) Says:
May 12th, 2012 at 1:50 pm
If you haven’t already seen it the TED talk on copyright maths is a suitable link for this thread http://www.ted.com/talks/rob_reid_the_8_billion_ipod.html
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GPT1 (1,949) Says:
May 12th, 2012 at 2:40 pm
Do the right thing and get bored senseless by inane warnings about something you haven’t done. Excellent. Must work out how to download…
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Alan Wilkinson (1,538) Says:
May 12th, 2012 at 3:53 pm
Yep, gave up buying US DVDs after these warnings decided to steal my time.
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Viking2 (9,461) Says:
May 12th, 2012 at 5:17 pm
And never forget they want to include all this crap and more in the TPP. Apparemntl;y now the FBI no longer solves crimes it is just another arm of the movie industry.

Guess we will all stop watching what is mostly crap from them and move onto sexy Indian Bollywood. or download it from you tude.
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Fletch (4,305) Says:
May 12th, 2012 at 7:15 pm
When I’m watching on my computer, I use AnyDVD. It automatically allows you to skip all that stuff and go straight to the movie.

I just had a look at the settings. it allows you to –

* Remove annoying clips from menus

* Remove annoying intro and outro clips from menus

* Remove annoying titles shorter than [set time amount on slider - eg, 1 minute]
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