New Movies To Display 20 Seconds Of Unskippable Warnings

Martin Brinkmann
May 10, 2012
Updated • May 10, 2012
Music and Video, Video
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25

If you are living in the United States, and like to watch a movie from time to time, you are in for a new treat courtesy of the government, the FBI, ICE, and six major movie studios. According to an Ars Technica, new movies will soon carry two unskippable government warnings, that legit buyers will have to look at before they can actually start watching the movie.

The first notice displays a warning that "the unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted word is illegal", and that "criminal copyright infringement is investigated by federal law enforcement agencies, and " punishable by up to 5 years in prison and a fine of $250,000". The screen shows both the FBI and the ICE logo.

The second warning explains that "piracy is not a victimless crime", and that "more information on how digital theft harms the economy" can be found online.

The best part? The screens are shown one after the other, each for ten seconds, with no option to skip it the first time, or any time thereafter.

Once viewers hit the main play button, they will first see the movie ratings on the screen, before the unskippable warning are displayed on the screen for the next 20 seconds.

If you compare that experience to pirated copies of the movie, you will come to the conclusion that it is less comfortable, which seems a counter-productive thing to do. The warnings may have another effect: It may deter some movie buffs from purchasing new DVD or Blu-Ray movies because of a number of reasons.

  • Copies come without the warnings, resulting in a better experience
  • Legit customers may be insulted by the warnings, as they have bought the DVD or Blu-Ray
  • Having to sit through 20 seconds of warnings every time you pop in a movie adds up to be a colossal waste of time

Some players support codes that let users skip through the unskippable parts. Try pressing stop twice before play again to see if that works for instance. Research on the Internet may help in this regard.

What's your take on this? Will this drive customers towards streaming services or piracy, or will they just sit through the thing without changing habits at all? I for one will return any movie containing such warnings right to the store I bought them in.

Back in 2006, I said the following about a similar experience in cinema, where they let you sit through a series of "piracy is bad warnings" before you can actually watch the movie you paid for.

What the industry currently is doing is to criminalize their customers. Can’t they see that this has one major effect? Customers are getting annoyed by this. If I buy something I don’t want to be reminded that piracy is evil – I want to watch or hear the media i bought – that is all.

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Comments

  1. ilev said on July 27, 2012 at 5:42 pm
    Reply

    Beware of http://loginhelper.com/web-browser-maintenance/

    WOT warning.

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  2. Fine citizen said on July 27, 2012 at 10:17 pm
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    hehe, I saw 1100hp Ford GT with a cute blonde video :p

  3. ilev said on July 28, 2012 at 5:46 am
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    “the excellent Web Browser Maintenance” ?

    It is a malware site flagged by WOT.

    1. Martin Brinkmann said on July 28, 2012 at 9:10 am
      Reply

      Well since it is my site I’m pretty sure it is not a malware site.

      1. ilev said on July 28, 2012 at 9:59 am
        Reply

        Martin,

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        http://www.mywot.com/en/scorecard/loginhelper.com?utm_source=addon&utm_content=warn-viewsc

      2. ilev said on July 28, 2012 at 10:00 am
        Reply

        Martin,

        Nevertheless WOT flags it.

        Maybe you should take action with WOT.

        Warning: Keep out. IP/Hostname/Website created in order to perpetrate fraudolent activities against users. For any question, reference to this user: http://www.mywot.com/user/915771.

        Fraudolent activity detected: Phishing-Activity “

      3. Martin Brinkmann said on July 28, 2012 at 10:49 am
        Reply

        Those are untrue I have requested a review.

  4. James said on December 31, 2012 at 8:37 pm
    Reply

    Martin,

    I tried this out and while I appreciate the sleek and intuitive design, I think YouTube needs to pick a theme and stick with it. I love having distinct categories tucked away at different corners, so this looks a bit disorganized for me. Do you know of any Userscript I can use to revert my YouTube homepage back to classic view?

    Best,
    James

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