Ruffled Thoughts

Well, right now BBC World is airing some interviews about p2p and piracy so I’d like to state my point of view on this matter. I’ll be honest and frankly: it happens that I download some illegal material off the net. But. But I will never watch or buy a pirated movie, especially low quality ones. Watching a movie -even the ugliest one- in such a way it’s simply an idiot thing. I personally know people that spend 8 € for a really bad copy of a DVD (ie. a direct “rip” done at the cinema with really poor audio and video). These are a pain in the ass for the cinema industry and for the pure viewing pleasure. Right know I have more than 150 legally bought DVDs. I try to spend my money wisely because DVDs aren’t cheap at all and I’d like top quality of course (just read some previous posts). For minor or missed movies a DVD rental it’s a good choice. The big screen (and I mean it) is the only choice if the movie really attracts me (and, in these years, it’s often a disappointment).

But.

But I’m not the mainstream guy so if a movie has some connections with previous ones (for example The island) I’d like to see also its ancestors. And where I can find them ? I’m in Italy and, believe me, there are no savvy-blockbusters stores only real ones where if a movie is more that 10 years old it’s dead (in fact I may want to watch not a blockbuster movie but a B one or even worst). So I download it from the net.
I will never download Star Wars Ep. III in a bad version (screener or similar) just to avoid paying the theater, I’d prefer to wait and rent the DVD (I’ve got a pretty good home theater system that gives some satisfactions).

In my case everything could be solved with an iTunes-like online movie store with a good choice of titles (not only the biggest ones) of course not DRM-driven and that works even with Linux (thanks DVD Jon).

Just think of the IMDB with a button “watch it now for X €” (maybe a matroska encoded file with subtitles and AC-3). Awesome.

Next stop: talk about anime…

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 27th, 2005 at 22:07 and is filed under Movies, Technology, Trash. 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.