When I signed up for my new ISP, I received 3 movie tickets as a thanks. That’s pretty nice. However, the movie tickets turned out to be movie tickets for “viewing movies online.” I.e. a movie industry move to tackle those pesky downloaders.
Unfortunately I don’t have Windows.
Unfortunately for them.
If they expect a consumer to support their business (i.e. not download stuff from the ‘net) and purchase their products, they had better try harder than this. The movie site which provides the movies (sf-anytime.com) dismisses its linux users indifferently, saying DRM technology is unsupported on the platform and thus, the linux users can go fuck themselves. Using their hard earned movie tickets, perhaps. The same, by the way, goes for the Mac users. Yessir, you wanna be legal and watch movies from home, you better be using Microsoft Windows. “With all the doubts of crystal clear,” as Peter Murphy puts it.
So I contacted my ISP, saying I would like reimbursement for the 3 tickets I got. They did reimburse me, a whooping $2 US or similar. (Though in their defense, those tickets are still valid — I just have to go to some funny friend who’s dumb enough to run Windows.) Gotta give it to them, though. I definitely didn’t expect them to give me anything at all.
Conclusively, the message from the Music and Movie Industry is clear. Download stuff online, as you have no other option. “Buy the DVD,” you say? Well, sure, but that, too is borderline illegal. The encryption algorithm for DVD playback has already visited court on one occasion, and who knows when that whale resurfaces. “Buy Windows,” you say, and I shall steeple my fingers and snicker.
Update (2006-08-20): I emailed my ISP telling them that my mother is in the exact same situation, and she, too, got the $2. Cute. (But to be honest, it’s actually not $2. It’s $1.39 according to the current exc. rates.)
Well that just plain sucks. I’d feel completely ripped off and complained to my ISP about the companies they are choosing to work in collaboration with. Let them know you aren’t pleased with the fact that they are in a joint effort with a company that makes no effort to provide for customers who don’t use Windows.
Yanno what babe, I think you and I need to start a vigilante wiki (if there isn’t one already) where people can list all the software and companies, websites etc… that don’t even bother to accomodate other viewers. The whole issues pisses me off, which is why I got involved in standards in the first place, but using Linux as my primary computer now really drove home exactly how annoying and ignorant it is for people to assume that the world uses only Windows.
Yep. The $2 my ISP gave me was a fucking joke, sort of like a pat on the head for the trouble I’m forced into because I don’t run Windows. If they’d given me $10 and made my tickets invalid (by grabbing the code printed on them — easy thing to do, surely), I would’ve just nodded and, well, bought some food or something.
The bigger point though is that media corporations are not discouraging *me* from downloading stuff online, when they don’t give me a my-turf-alternative. Who knows, I might’ve fallen head-over-heels in love with the online movie deal. It’s not that expensive, and I’ve got enough “movie” equipment plugged in to my computer to make it actually worthwhile. But I can’t, cause I don’t have Windows, so I’ll just keep on downloading those movies, I suppose.
(To be honest, the sad fact is, I don’t. I don’t download movies. Because I find them incredibly dull. Occasionally a friend or family member sends me a movie, though.)