A trading standards service officer in a warehouse full of pirated DVDs. Photograph: Graeme Robertson
Movie fans will be rejoicing at news that the movie industry is about to change its most irritating and counter-productive anti-piracy campaign. For almost three years, DVD buyers have been forced to endure the notorious "handbag" trailer prefacing major new releases. In case you've missed it (not easy given that it can't be skipped) it's the one with the blaring rock music and flashing captions declaring "You wouldn't steal a car ... you wouldn't steal a handbag. You wouldn't steal a movie."
What fans objected to was not being made aware of digital piracy, which is real and rising, but the fact that these trailers seemed to target the very people who were doing the right thing in the first place. Conversely, pirated DVDs usually edited out the trailer along with that other insufferable niggle - unwanted previews of future releases. In fact, the use of unskippable inserts of any kind is a lingering and inexplicable insult to movie fans. Do Arctic Monkeys fans have to sit through a complimentary James Blunt track before they can hear the latest album? Come to think of it, do they have to be reminded endlessly by voiceover of how evil they are even to consider piracy? Why are movies any more suited to such strongarm tactics?
There was another problem too. The handbag trailer showed a girl making an illegal movie download in what appeared to be about 30 seconds. This always came as a shock to those of us who spend days on BitTorrent trying to download one 60-minute episode of Lost, which turns out to be a porn movie featuring a transvestite called Evangeline Willy. It also made many feel that the industry was taking the wrong tack all along, focusing on the ethics of piracy rather than the quality and reliability of the downloads themselves.
The movie industry has tried various angles over the years to bludgeon consumers into changing their wicked ways. There was the "branding" campaign in the late 90s - linking pirate DVDs to organised crime. Although based in fact, it smacked of scare tactics and was replaced by the more factual Piracy is Crime campaign, and finally the aforementioned Handbag. Now a two-video campaign is being rolled out by trade body, the Industry Trust and will start appearing on DVDs and posters in May. It has a slightly different feel, aiming to influence public awareness of organised crime in the same way as drink driving campaigns, but by all accounts the video trailers will still be unskippable.
So did the last campaign achieve anything other than irritating enormous numbers of DVD buyers for several years? The industry maintains it did - or at least the continuing rise in illegal downloads justified them making the effort. A better way, perhaps, might be to stop cluttering the DVD experience with warnings and marketing ploys, thus establishing clear blue water in one area where the pirates can't compete - quality.
