As Peter Mandelson continues to show us that he completely misunderstands the nature of the internet, a general failing of “content-owners” can be seen when you try to do something very simple that you should be able to do in this day and age but can’t.
At the weekend I thought I’d try to get hold of a nice Hammer film to watch. (NB. I dislike the over-Americanisation of Halloween, but still enjoy the odd horror film, and Hammer films are a guilty pleasure).
We live in a world of instant gratification, but not always that instant.
The thing you need to bear in mind here is that I like to watch films on the big expensive device that monopolises my living room. It’s there to serve precisly this purpose. My iPod or laptop aren’t as good.
Amazon had the film in stock, but I’d have to wait until Tuesday to get it. Where else can one buy legal films on the internet to downlaod? Not Amazon who only currently sell music. Basically I was going to be stuck with iTunes who do have a great selection.
But there’s a problem. I can’t then watch my purchase on my TV. That’s not entirely true. I can plug my laptop into my TV. But the quality is poor. I need either an HDMI cable (by TV isn’t HD), or an S-video cable, and audio cable.
I wasn’t about to pay for an inferior experience. I’d prefer to be able to burn to DVD. But I can’t. I had a look around the web to see if there were any workarounds, but they all involve screen-captures of the movie played back on the laptop, recorded and then converted to DVD.
Apple lets you burn your music to CD – it even let you do this when it had copy-protection included. But you can’t burn purchased films or TV programmes onto DVD.
What I can easily do is go online and find a DivX file of the film I wanted, download it, and play it back in my DivX compatible DVD player. Or I can use my Xbox to play the file direct off PC wirelessly.
In other words, downloading an illegal copy is much easier for consumers. And that – very simply – is why entertainment companies are losing so much money.
Of course the amounts being lost are nonsense. If all illegal activity was shut down, you’d be a fool to believe that the money to buy the films and music that’s being shared or stolen would suddenly appear from nowhere. It’s being spent on legal games, and music, mobile phone bills and satellite packages.
William Gallagher was recently extolling the virtues of Lou Grant on the excellent UK DVD Review podcast recently. Yet it’s never been released on DVD. I can pay for it and download it on iTunes, but I can’t watch it on TV. And while portable players offer a certain amount of convenience, I still like to watch proper dramas on a proper TV.
I actually spent a little time searching around the internet to find out any other legal downloading initiatives. The only UK specific service I could find was from Lovefilm who seem to offer a limited number of digital films online to buy, which each come with a free DVD which is then mailed to you.
But nobody seems to offer a service that lets you download a film or TV show, letting you either play it back online or burn to DVD.
Another lost opportunity from an industry so scared of piracy that they’re cutting their nose off to spite their face.