So I was watching a Battleship Gallactica episode earlier this evening, and for some reason fast forwarded to the end of the dvd (a legal one by the way, borrowed from a friend who loves the writing of Gallactica). And there at the end of the dvd was an anti-piracy ad….

And as I watched it and it got to the bit where the voice over goes, “and piracy funds terrorism… and takes away jobs… and…” I thought to myself, “my God this is the same old same old that we got from Cheney and Bush: “They hate us and want to take away our freedoms” and “Saddam has weapons of mass destruction”….

The point is this: Some people have said for generations that if you repeat a lie long enough it becomes perceived as the truth. That drove US policy for eight long years. And then the people in the US decided that they needed to make a change.

When you sell dvd's and include an ad that apes that eight year long, totally wrong way of thinking, you are stuck with the ad being in the public's hands. And every time they see it, your credibility is blown more.

I have no doubt that somewhere there are terrorists that benefit from the sales of illegal dvd's. But then again banks facilitate the activities of terrorists too by enabling funds to be moved from one account to another. And a whole lot of other professions too…

It would be nice if there could be a sense of proportion on the part of the content owners when they make ads. As I blogged recently, what would be better is if the ad was a positive one that said, “Thanks for buying a legit product, guys. We appreciate it!”

Or even better, it would be nice if they ran a competition for consumers to come up with a slogan to combat piracy. And gave away a million bucks to the winner. And made it a condition of entry that you have to insert a special code that you get with a legit dvd.

Think out of the box, people. This is the great time of change. And if the content companies don't show the ability to change the way they think, they will definitely go the way of the dinosaur…

This entry was posted on May 28, 2009 at 11:45 am. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Posted in Main Page by Chris Gilbey No Comments Yet