DVDs and Citizenship
I bought a DVD player--nothing fancy, not terribly expensive, but I've heard about all the extras and the great picture and the fact that some things come out on DVD now rather than videotape. And of course the DVDs themselves are smaller and take up less room on the shelf.
But here are the things I didn't know when I bought it. I can't hook it up to my television because my television has only one hookup--for coax. My television is not that old, it's a perfectly good television, it works fine and I don't want a new one.
I do have a VCR that does hook up to my television and it was two sets of video/audio connections. So, just like I hook up my cable box (when I have a cable box), I should be able to hook up my new DVD player. Like this: DVD-->VCR-->television. Except--oops!--because the rights part of copyright and particularly fair use are under attack. And because it apparently is easier and certainly more potentially lucrative to assume everyone's a criminal. And even more certainly without any benefit to me, the person paying for the bloody machine, my VCR has been 'enhanced' with copy protection so the picture from my DVD player when hooked up through my VCR is dark and distorted and altogether unwatchable.
So now--unknown to me when I bought my DVD player, unknown to me when I bought my VCR, unknown to me when I bought my television--I have to buy more stuff. I have to spend money I shouldn't have to spend because we have decided that it's acceptable for the entertainment industry to treat us all like criminals, to interfere with my use and enjoyment of things I legally own.
Well, I say 'we,' but I didn't have a say in it (did you?). The first I knew about it was when I tried to hook up my DVD player in a perfectly reasonable useful to me, the owner, way. I couldn't have protested. I didn't know, wasn't asked, wasn't considered important enough as a mere consumer to be involved in the discussion.
Here's an important bulletin--I don't want copies of your damned DVDs! Except possibly for archival purposes which is--check it out--my right. And if I did want to make archival copies of my DVDs (my right--see above), I sure wouldn't want to copy them onto tape.
Get this straight. I am not a consumer. I am a citizen. As a citizen I have rights--the right of fair use, the right of first sale, the right to have a say in things that affect my ability to exercise these rights.
Aaaah, you say, don't buy this stuff if it bothers you. If people really care, the market will take care of it. Let me say this again--I didn't know.
And I will not apologize for not knowing. How would I have known? Why should I not expect that a product will work in accordance with my fundamental rights as a US citizen? Why should I not expect that if it does not work that way that truth in advertising would result in it stating explicitly on the box the rights I give away, the extra equipment I have to buy, the hidden charges?
Call me naive. Call me a loser. But market does not trump citizens' rights. And deceit does not trump the Constitution. Defending those who attempt to do so with the argument--oh, they were just trying to make money--gets no truck from me. I am just trying to live as an honest, ethical citizen in a democratic country that I love. The least they can do is do the same.
Comments
You might be able to plug it in through a video-input jack in the front of the TV (the kind of thing they include so you can hook up your camcorder to the TV). It's not an ideal connection, but it works on one of our TVs where the other connections are maxed out.
See, I'm not really a geek, as my lack of appropriate knowledge and technojargon here attests. :)
Posted by: TM(tm) | August 11, 2002 08:35 AM
Hi TM! :-)
You'd think that might work. Except ::ahem:: I don't have one of those either (I know you're thinking--that TV must be older than she thinks it is, but it's not--I swear!).
I do know the piece I need, it just peeves me. As you could, perhaps, tell from my comments....
Posted by: debco | August 11, 2002 02:27 PM
I once cried for lack of a SCSI cable.
I feel your peevedness.
Posted by: TM(tm) | August 12, 2002 01:33 AM