To calm yourself down, you decide to put on a DVD from your extensive collection. As you insert said DVD into your player and lie back to settle in for the night, something appears on your TV screen that is so gut-bustlingly annoying, you wish you hadn’t bothered. Yup, I’m talking about those anti-piracy advertisements that are cropping up on more and more discs. You know the one I mean… Etc, etc. This advert has been hilariously parodied in The IT Crowd and rightly so. While it’s message is undeniably honourable, the advert itself is one of the most annoying of its ilk. It sounds like a Michael Bay trailer, all eighties rock guitars and thumping drums accompanying various cut scenes of nefarious activity, all shot with a dark hue. Its tone is so accusative it’s bordering on the offensive, like the assumption is that you download pirated movies all the time and that it’s a good job you were warned. It’s like being told by a security guard before you enter a shop, ‘You’d better not be thinking of stealing anything sonny, because I’ve got my eyes on you.’ How effective this advert is I don’t know. What I would say though is that it is slowly finding its way on to the majority of DVDs I buy nowadays and it’s really beginning to do my head in. Judging by a quick search on the web, I’m not the only one. Anyway, I much preferred the classic ‘Don’t copy that floppy’ adverts anyway.
