sometimes you're unskippable
Over at the Guardian, Cory Doctorow wrote an article about how the movie and TV industry believe streaming is the new and safe way to give us content; safe because there is the transaction between provider and custom, and zero sharing.
It’s this last part that has the technologically naive excited. They assume that because a downloading client can be designed in such a way that it doesn’t save the file, no “copy” is being made. They assume that this is the technical equivalent of ‘showing’ someone a movie instead of “giving them a copy” of it.
Doctorow continues by saying streaming will not decrease downloading, or that when people listen to something on the radio, they will most likely go out and purchase for their personal collection.
I recently Netflix-streamed The Office, a series for some reason I never bothered to torrent – I can’t even remember the last time I watched network TV on a TV. After watching its fifth season and consuming the first half of the fourth, I ordered the DVDs on Amazon – partly because they were a Black Friday item, mostly because I wanted a physical copy. Sure streaming is insta-convenient, but it’s not necessarily the best quality.
And with all DVDs I buy, I ripped the fuck out of The Office so that I can toss the discs aside and never touch them again.
Sure I can torrent, but among other things, this leaves me in the hands of the file’s creator/uploader. My compression standards might be different than theirs; maybe I don’t want their area’s network station to vomit its logo or whatever seasonal announcement after every commercial break. All I ask for is a clean viewing, and ripping the files from the dvd myself is satisfaction. I dictate the resolution; whether or not I want an episode’s commentary as a separate audio track. And more importantly, ripping is convenience.
Name me the last dvd you saw that, after loading the disc, you were taken straight to the dvd’s main menu. Name me a time when you sat and watched those “Also Available on DVD” previews.
Maybe I’m an idiot, but sometimes I just want to pop in a DVD and watch a movie without having to go through a dozen goddamn button presses.
Ripping puts all the files on my hdd, where I can access whatever movie or TV show without the junk. The only “loading time” is the time it takes my computer to open the file. Double-clicking – goes straight to the movie.
So choke on that, studios. I ripped your DVDs so that I never have to be inundated with your bullshit previews and unskippable warnings. I got you, you fucks.
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Then again, I did buy the DVDs, so they already have my money. A winner is them.
