A Day in Paradise

I had this weird dream last night. I was in a parallel universe, it was the weirdest thing. In my dream, I was at the park talking to a good friend of mine, we were chatting about this and that and at some point I said

“Hey, I watched this great VDV from NotFlix last night” to which “Steve” said “REALLY?? That has been in my NotFlix queue forever, but it’s got a long wait and I’m not sure when I’m going to get it. Can you make a copy for me?” I agreed and after a bit more chit chat we went our separate ways.

Next thing I remember we’re in the car driving home, and my 7-year-old asks me “Daddy, isn’t it illegal to copy VDVs?” – apparently in this parallel universe they have some really strange laws.

Do I agree and convince my daughter that her father is a criminal, or explain to her the intricate details of copyright law and fair use and turn my impressionable 7-year-old into a budding little anarchist just like her father?

“Steve is paying for NotFlix already, but can’t get the movie because too many people want to watch it. My making a copy of the movie and letting him watch it is not hurting anyone and even saving Notflix postage fees and clearing up the movie for other NotFlix members who are waiting for the movie. Laws are meant to stop and punish people from doing bad things and hurting people, but some laws are pushed into place by big companies who just want to make more money than they are already making”.

I continued with an analogy “When you and your sister go to buy an ice cream, you choose strawberry and your sister likes Chocolate. More likely than not, one of you will ask for a taste of your sister’s ice cream and you’ll share bites. What if the ice cream makers decided that they are losing money every time your sister tastes your ice cream, and they use their money to push through a law that says that tasting someone else’s ice cream is stealing and if you a taste of that ice cream you should buy a scoop of that flavor yourself”. She laughs “That would be silly”! “Yes”, I respond “It would be”.

I wake up thinking about stealing, and think of a scenario which is much more realistic to this universe, and something that upsets me every time I go out to watch a movie (a couple times a month).

I pay from $8 – $13 to watch a movie, with my family that comes out to between $32 and $52. Popcorn and drinks adds another $15 – $20 onto the tab. We arrive early to get the seats we want and wait for the cinema to darken and our movie to start. At the time advertised the cinema darkens, but instead of showing the feature presentation, or even trailers we get “a word from our sponsors” which go on for 10 or 15 minutes. That is hugely offensive to me as a paying customer, but I’m not going to rant.

I bill $180/hr. which means for every minute I am watching a commercial I am losing $3. Lets say I watch a movie on IMAX with my kids ($52) plus drinks and popcorn ($20) plus at least 10 minutes of time watching ads ($30) that brings my tab up to $102.

So to pull this rant together, it costs me $102 each time I go to a movie (enough to buy 5 DVD movies), and then I buy DVDs (I have a shelf of kids movies and old favorites to prove it), and then I have Netflix subscription on top of that. I don’t TIVO, which means I sit through commercials (20 minutes of commercials every hour makes $60 in lost billing time). And then after all of that, each time I sit down to watch a movie I get an FBI warning that if I make a copy (for any reason) I would be stealing and committing a federal crime. How I am expected to explain this logic to my kids is beyond my control.

It’s just silly.