Bo's Blag

RANT: Why I wont bother paying for digital downloads anymore..

So a few months ago I heard about a movie called ‘Bang Bang’

Read a couple of reviews and watched some YouTube trailers and thought ‘sweet! I’ll just order a copy’ .. So I went over to the official site to order a copy.

After browsing around for awhile I realized that physical copies were only available for sale in US and Canada.. No sweat.. ‘I’ll just order a digital copy, it will be faster as well’ .. Browsing the site again I found a link to the iTunes store “SWEET and it’s only $9.95 as well!!” Upon clicking the buy button I was greeted with the dreaded ‘Not Available in your Country’ screen.. FUCK ME..

I then tried to hunt for an alternative location (tried many other legal websites but couldn’t find it).. I was on the verge of giving up and not bothering with it..

A few weeks later, a second trailer popped up on YouTube which made me determined to find a copy of this film!!.. First off I checked every Torrent, Usenet and forums I could fine to see if I can source a copy.. still no go.

I then thought.. “Hey, why don’t I just create a US iTunes account and buy it off there.”.. Tried to create one but it required me to enter a valid US credit card.. Did some googling around and found out you can create a US account if you purchase a iTunes gift card and use that to register. Jumped on eBay to try and find the cheapest $15 gift card I could find.. Ended up paying $18 dollars for a code.

So after creating my account I was finally downloading my movie!.. All is well now I hope?.. It downloaded pretty quick surprisingly. Once the download was finished I copied it onto my server to be watched on HTPC ‘hurray!’.. Tried to watch the movie but it wouldn’t play.. Hrmm.. Must be a codec issue I thought.. Jumped on the XBMC Wiki to check out possible solutions.

XBMC does not support playback of DRM’d content

- ATV2 XBMC not playing iTunes bought video

FUCK SAKES! was my initial reaction upon reading that post.. I thought DRM applied to movies in which you have rented not bought..

I didn’t want to watch movie on the computer nor did my parents… So I went to check out some solutions to strip the DRM from the movie.. Many guides I found were outdated and didn’t work on the current version of iTunes.. and some solution were dodgy requiring you to run screen capture programs to record the video (which would result in a drop of quality and even then the software costs $49!!).. After trawling through more forums and not finding any possible solutions ………… I accepted my fate and decided to watch the movie on my computer…

Now let’s take a look at piracy vs legal downloads.

Pirate

1. Find Movie
2. Download Movie
3. Watch Movie

Freely to copy it anywhere you want, and watch on any media player you desire.

Legal Download

1. Find Movie
2. Check if movie available in selected country
3. Download Movie
4. Watch movie in propriety application

Restricted to only authorizing 5 computers to watch it.. Having to watch it under iTunes… DRM’d tighter than nun’s cunt etc..

…. As much as I want to support some film makers.. They are making it very hard..

I think this comic strip by The Oatmeal sums it up.

I tried to watch Game of Thrones and this is what happened..