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Respect for intellectual property rights
A young couple sit enjoying a drink in a pub, when they're approached by a singer with a guitar, intent on serenading them. Their delight at this charming treat turns quickly, though, as they realise the song is detailing the weakness of the bloke - his girlfriend, having thus discovered the reality of her boyfriend's dark side, storms off, and the man is left sitting, looking shifty, as his shame continues to be detailed by the musician.
So it is that the movie industry is currently attempting to teach us to be ashamed of ourselves if we buy cheap movies through the cautionary tale of 'Knock off Nigel'. The message of respecting the intellectual property of others might be a little stronger, though, if the whole idea hadn't been stolen from the Mexican Pot Noodle advert from a couple of years back.
It's a knock-off advert,
built on knock-off ideas,
it's a knock-off advert,
built on stolen ideas
7 comments:
I hate the line that doesn't scan: "Buys knock-off dee vee dees."
Does he sing in a Scottish accent where you are?
The best thing about this advert is that it clearly shows that the industry has given and accepted that no-one gives two hoots that bootlegging is illegal.
Good luck with trying to persuade us that it's a social status issue now.
'given in' of course
Thom's right - On the plus side, the industry seems to have finally realised that nobody was buying their claims of "That £2 you paid for 'The 40 Year-Old Virgin'? Went straight into Osama bin Laden's bank account to pay for a roadside bomb in Baghdad, that did. You're killing Our Boys, you are".
Snakes alive though, I hate this new advert with a passion. What the singer fails to mention is that, while Nigel is enjoying a beer in the pub, all us legal DVD buyers are sitting at home cursing our screens because all we wanted to do was watch Casino Royale, but first we're having to sit through thrity minutes of unskippable trailers*, idents and adverts reminding us not to buy pirate DVDs. Nigel, meanwhile, will stroll home at his leisure, pop in his disc and get straight to the film.
Forcing legal DVD buyers to watch these adverts is a bizarre tactic. Isn't it the equivalent of HMV putting their security guards at the counter to frisk anyone who tries to pay for things?
*Seriously, which wingnut thought we'd want to watch the same trailers EVERY TIME we watched the film? "You know what, darling? At first I thought 'Are We There Yet' looked like a steaming pile of pratfall horseshit. But after seeing the trailer for the eighth time, I now realise it's got hidden depths and is just my kind of film"
James, I imagine that HMV staff would be so surprised by anyone trying to buy anything in one of their stores they'd react with violent suspicion anyway...
Arf! "Quick! To the Gennaro Castaldo-phone! Ask him to tell BBC News Online we've seen a surge in sales as a result of the Spice Girls reunion"
Thank goodness I'm not alone. Does anyone else think that the people behind the advert don't have many friends?
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