The Movie & Music Industry Needs To Get Smart

No, this blog entry will not be a review about the movie, although my experiences with watching the movie and trying to LEGALLY put it on my laptop have shown me something about the movie distributors, production company, the movie industry and its studios, or whoever. I think I've written a blog like this in the past concerning musicians and record producers, and the underhanded tactics they use to make money and trick their fans into buying the same works under the guise they've changed it to a collector's edition by adding one new track to it.

But this post, I'd like to tackle movies and television shows.

In the last year or so, it's become more common place, depending on the movie studio, to release DVDs with a legal 'digital copy' of a movie to put on your computer or media playing device, provided you go online or through their instructions, and usually provide a password or code they give you in the packaging of the DVD. But the basic idea is if you buy the DVD, you have a legal and "easy" way of putting the file on your computer without having to rip the disc or download the movie from a file sharing program. A great solution the movie industry thought it had to the whole file sharing and piracy problem, right?

So I bought my brother a movie, in good conscience believing that I'd put the digital copy on my computer and maybe watch it on my video iPod when I had gotten it eventually this summer. I travel a lot and like having my movies and CDs on my laptop and/or possibly my iPod, and the 'backups' are in boxes in my parents' basement. Being on long flights, and many churches increasingly creating video podcasts of their sermons, such a device was also convenient for that purpose (Note, Jerry, that's actually how I watched my first Mark Driscoll sermons). But I like watching a movie now and again this way.
I've even gotten in the habit of renting movies in iTunes before going on a long flight, bus or train ride, or just when I'm going to be traveling or doing something that puts a lot of time on my hands.

Well, I come to find that in order to get the digital copy one has to use Windows Media Player, because the movie studio doesn't co-operate with Apple or iTunes, and I own a MacBook. Now, I know I'm in the minority and that more people use Microsoft-based computers than Apple MacIntosh computers, but to the best of my knowledge, iPod devices and the iPhone make up over 70% of the total market for mp3 players and media sharing devices (this might even be a conservative estimate---I've heard much higher). The Microsoft Zune hasn't even had an accumulated total number of units sold (in over 2 years) of just how many iPods Apple has in the last financial quarter of 2008 alone--for just one competitor's example.

My point is this: if the big wigs at movie studios want to stop piracy, and have people legitimately buy or legally put their own property (the DVD) on a media playing device, why not give them the option of allowing it to be compatible with whatever device the consumer owns, instead of the one the studio determines? I realize competitiveness and the free market are at play in this situation, but still, this matter is quite stupid, because the very problem they're trying to solve, they're actually creating when consumers don't use the software or the device they've made their digital copy compatible with.

What? I can't get the digital copy from my DVD of The Dark Knight? Fine, I'll just go to bit torrent to get it.

This causes many to go download programs from off the net and just rip the DVD to their hard drive in mp4 format compatible with iPods. I use the word legal and lawful differently, since for example, abortion may be 'legal' on a federal level, but not necessarily morally right.

So I paid for the ability to watch said movie that will remain unnamed, but yet the movie studio is telling me I have to purchase a device of their choosing if I want to watch it on the go, or that making it playable on my iPod is illegal.

I recently rented Get Smart (a very funny movie) on iTunes, and watched it to relax after work one night before going to bed. I enjoyed it (and recommend it since it was clean and almost no cussing or suggestive stuff, and it was FUNNY as heck). I suggested it to my brother the next day--we both were working together at the same place of employment. He gave me the idea to buy the DVD for him for Christmas, so I picked the one out from Future Shop that had a digital copy for a few dollars more than the normal edition, so I also could benefit from legally owning it as well. In this case, the digital copy was compatible with iTunes, and with the 2nd disc and a connection to the internet one can download the video to their movie library in under five minutes if they have an iTunes account. This was a smart move on this movie supplier's side to increase the ease with which consumers can access the digital copy should they want to. However, the DVD my brother bought for me for Christmas--The Dark Knight--is not compatible with iTunes or Apple despite being released by the same DVD supplier. *Sigh*

Why can't ALL the movie industries out there 'get smart' about how they solve the problem of file sharing, torrents, and movie piracy by offering a solution that the average law abiding consumer will WANT to cooperate with, instead of making it so difficult and creating the rules for what devices and media players one has to already have in order to benefit from the digital copy on the disc?

I try abiding by their rules and legalities, but they make it so ridiculous and almost impossible to do the right thing (or just the thing they want) --it's no wonder many people just go to file sharing and piracy to obtain the movies they'd like to watch! By the way, despite my ranting, it's worth letting you know that the only movies on my laptop are ones that I've purchased in DVD form or had given to me, and the music I listen to is all purchased or from CDs or iTunes gift cards given to me. I've run into the same type of snag with the DRM on songs I've purchased online in that I can't make mix mp3 CDs to listen to on my mp3 ghetto blaster at work since we wound up getting forbidden to listen to headphones due to some morons not leaving them turned down low enough when forklift operators were trying to get their attention to avoid hitting them.

I appreciate the effort the movie industries, and even the recording industry are trying to make, but it's really ridiculous, and they need to get smarter about how they want the consumer to play along. I've gone and downloaded software to allow me to listen to music I PAID for, the way I want to--that removes the DRM on my songs, and I've decided to just resort to ripping DVDs to my computer since less than 1/3 of the DVDs I've bought, or had given to me, in the last year are compatible with the devices I use to legally watch them.

I'm sorry movie and music industry, but I've played by your rules and you need to get smart if you want people like me to abide by them. I'm sure I speak for many others when I say I'm getting tired of them...

The old fasion "year in review" blog post.

Or "The Year of I Told You So"

Well, I’m finally writing an update.

It’s the end of the year, again, and I find myself over here in Brantford, Ontario visiting extended family and my grandparents on both sides of the family, like I seem to always be doing every year around Christmas. I don't mean I do the visiting every year, because I do that regardless. But I mean the introspection and seeing where God has brought me over the previous year, only this time it's not home from the mission field, but well, home has been the mission field, since other than a 6 week trip to Peru, and a 2 week trip back to Holland in the summer, and a weekend long trip to Lakeland Florida (funny how fast that went into oblivion and almost nobody is talking about it anymore....), I've been almost all year in Canada.

Right now, I just want to write something--anything. I don’t know what about or to whom in particular, but just that I need to write something. On here. For who knows who that will read it and wonder if I’ve gone half daft. It's like how earlier in this week, I went through my cell phone and just called a few people to talk to someone--anybody who would listen. I feel the same impulse about writing something, anything, regardless of who will read.

I’ve not really sat down to write a post on my personal blog in months, and once you reach a certain amount of time of not having written, it becomes more and more daunting, and the updates you could post become too many to adequately update on. But I’m going to just try to pretend you want to know, and that you’ve been aware of my life in the last few months.

I was working at Craaytech Painted Plastics since Sept 28th—the same place I’d worked in July before returning to Holland. They demanded much overtime of their employees and us Manpower temps this summer and fall, so I’d put in 6 day work weeks about half of that time. I also moved out of my parents to rent a room the same week I got hired back on, and I also got more aggressive on the fund raising and a little bit of itinerating for Peru. Due to working afternoons, oftentimes 6 days a week, I saw a noticeable difference in my social life and my ability to really do anything to communicate with the outside world about what I was doing to get there and how much help I needed to get there, other than using the internet.

They laid me off on Monday, which was expected and assumed when I took Saturday's shift, that that one might be my last, and I wasn't so worried about it. However it did kick start the fiery week I wound up having anyway....

If I ever come of the mission field (which I feel my back up against the wall about not going back on even now…) then I’m going to finally start preaching and writing about integrity in the form of finances and being a People of God who do what we say we’ll do [with our money, time, talents, etc...], once I no longer feel the need to bite my tongue for fear of offending people into not helping me—what’s the point of worrying anyway? I used to out of a conflict of interest because if I’m trying to raise support, I don’t want to anger people into not helping me, but if people aren’t going to keep their word, why is that a reflection of my integrity? It makes for good sermon material, but it hits you even more like a freight train when you’re the one depending on people keeping their word. It has sharpened me into being so ridiculously careful of not saying I'll do anything or set myself up for an opportunity to disappoint--if I can help it, I'm obviously still far from perfect--with so much as neglecting to make a phone call or answer an email (which I'm still working on with the things in my inbox I get anymore!)

Three years of this, and one would assume I wouldn’t be so naïve, eh? But, me and thinking the best of God’s people, instead of being suspicious…

Besides, I'm beginning to suspect the real reason most people teach and preach about tithing and curses coming on people for not tithing, or things about offerings, is because some people need the security of knowing the mortgage for their church will be paid. Or that their personal helicopter will never stop being paid for. I’m not saying all pastors are motivated this way, but I’ve talked to some who’ve admitted to me they understand that temptation to look at what bills need to be paid in church and the temptation to preach guilt on the congregation in order to not get into debt. I know this because of the experience of needing the help from the rest of the Body of Christ for myself. I'm telling you as an insider, I'm pretty certain this is the case a LOT of the books and teachings on tithings have been birthed out of.

I know of some people who need their whole year to be scheduled in advance, and knowing those places will take up minimum amounts of offerings for them. And I feel sorry for them. I envy the point they don't have to worry about money for the year, but I feel sorry for them that THAT is their sense of security instead of the Lord, who is sustainer and provider of all things, no matter what the year may hold....

I don’t preach any topic from a place of getting people to feel guilty about what they're not doing or doing, but wrong. I try motivating and edifying INTO what I’m talking about, but money and what we do with it has always been a tough one for me b/c of the church game I’m already forced to play. God forgive me if I ever reach the place I where I beat the sheep because of my own life and lack of security in trusting Him and feel the need to make it other peoples' problem...And the idea that people would think I have an ulterior motive. Problem is that since I don’t, then the real motive becomes fear of what people will think or speculate. Ridiculous isn’t it? But if I quit the mission field, and work full time, then I’m turning loose on the Body of Christ and going off in my realms of influence (blogging and podcasting) about that as hard as I have about faith and healing. Heck, why wait till I'm off the mission field?

This year has also been the year of “I told you so”. I’ve probably not heard those words uttered to me so many times in life by people in my life such as my parents and some (not all) close friends. Trying to reach my departure date of early February for Peru looks more and more daunting the closer I am to it, and the more work I’m seeing still needs to be done. But the "I told you so"s are in all sorts of forms.

I take consolation in the fact God loves it when we make those kinds of mistakes--mistakes that are the result of assuming the best of people, and giving them the benefit of the doubt. You know who says I told you so a lot? The accuser of the Brethren, to God, about us all the time--constantly finding fault. So since God doesn’t listen to satan, and gives me chance after chance, that’s how I’ve tried to pattern my life with His other children.

Oh heck, this entry will be my ‘year in review’ post after all since I’m already spilling it out this way. 2008 has been hard, hard, and more hard. I repeat… hard. To sow and sow into things seemingly looking like they are for nothing at all….to taste the calling of God on your life even deeper, only to wonder if He is dangling a piece of carrot in your face He’s not letting you grab, but yet you’re reaching and reaching for with all your strength. To listen to person after person and how they offer help (usually financially regarding support for the field) only to wonder statistically speaking and based on past experience, if they are just blowing smoke up my butt since most people don’t follow through anyway….is hard, and not getting easier the more I have to witness it, listen to it, or experience it.

By the way, God doesn’t dangle things in your face to not let you have it—but to help you reach it. Somehow everything is located in His Spirit realm and requires us reaching into it and obtaining it. When that sick person doesn’t get well after you prayed a bunch for them, or that money doesn’t come in after trusting Him repeatedly and putting your hope in Him and not people or paychecks; or something that’s His will as plain as day doesn’t seem to be manifesting, it’s never that He’s playing “keep away”. So don’t even write me such bizarre theology to tell Him He’s seeing how much I’ll go for it.

I’m letting Him do a work in my heart to be so wholly dependant on Him, and lay my plans and ambitions on the altar, and if I get to go to Peru, I do, if I don’t, I don’t. But I’m content in Him and will make myself useful wherever my feet are planted. But I’m only getting to Peru in February if God comes through. I’ve laid that on the altar, and if He wants to burn it up and destroy it, He can, but if He wants to give it back to me and make it work out, then He can. I’ve come so far and so much on the line that if I’m not there, then it will become much harder to pick up the pieces and get there later. It might take a while, like a year. If it comes through, I won't be able to take any credit, because I'm telling you right now, only God can and He will be glorified...

Lurkers and voyeurs who are reading my blog to know about my life but not ask me about it; I trust HIM. I’m not usually so personal online, on something like my public blog. But I’m so desperate for more of HIM in my life and nothing else, I don’t mind who knows it. And besides, it gives you an opportunity to witness whatever He does in the midst of the fiery trials I’ve been going through, so that you can watch HIM at work and be glorified. I’d rather be in a place where once the shaking is done, I’m still standing strong with my integrity.

But I’m fine with that. And if I’m really not, then I’m closer to being fine with that than I was before.

Merry Christmas everybody.

Episode 37: Is It Possible To Live a Holy Life?

Dan & Steve are finally back after a bit of a needed hiatus. This week we begin a multiple part series on the topic of holiness. Is it even possible to live a holy, victorious and overcoming life, or are we always going to be bound to the sin that ensnares us? Is holiness the same thing as legalism? Can the believer still live however he/she wants, because sin has been covered by the blood of Christ? Is it possible or even likely to expect overnight change in the life of a new believer? We try tackling these issues in what will be the first of two or possibly three shows on this subject.

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Click here for a 3 part series called Sin Shall Have No Dominion, by Dave Roberson

Article: Satan’s Devices To Draw The Soul To Sin - by Thomas Brooks

Please visit our site at www.fireonyourhead.com, or consider subscribing to us in the iTunes store, the Zune Marketplace or at ZenCast listed as “Fire On Your Head”, where you will also have access to many other teachings from our conferences. Visit our new blog at www.fireonyourhead.org

FIRE Peru Missions Night

This is a recording from Thursday, November 13th at Auburn Bible Chapel. That night, Steve Bremner shared his heart, goals and personal vision for a vocation of missions in Peru early in the New Year. A little bit of biography, a little bit fundraising, and a whole lot of passion and conviction. Be sure to listen to this on your computer unless your iPod plays the album artwork in an enhance audio file, as this is our first mp4/AAC file. Many of the pictures used in the presentation that night are viewable only in certain mp4 compatible devices and media players.

Blessings and check back next week as we finally air our latest show.

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Please visit our site at www.fireonyourhead.com, or consider subscribing to us in the iTunes store, the Zune Marketplace or at ZenCast listed as “Fire On Your Head”, where you will also have access to many other teachings from our conferences.