I've already bought your DVD! Stop telling me not to steal it!

These days, it seems that whenever I put a DVD in my player, I'm treated to a five minute 'advert' from FACT encouraging me not to steal movies. Naturally, this advert can't be skipped. Likewise, every time I visit the cinema, there's an advert saying how great the cinema experience is, and how I shouldn't use cheap, low-quality pirate DVDs.

I think perhaps that might just be the stupidest use of time and money I've ever seen.

Let me break it down for those responsible: in order to put the DVD in my player, and therefore see your wonderful "don't steal DVDs" advert, I have to have bought the DVD in the first place (or, potentially, have rented or borrowed it). Illegal DVDs don't have the "don't pirate DVDs" adverts on them. Similarly, to see the cinema adverts about how great cinema is, don't I have to have bought a cinema ticket? Call me crazy, but I'm rather of the opinion that you don't need to tell me not to use pirate DVDs instead of real DVDs/the cinema when I am, in fact, in the process of using said real DVDs/the cinema.

What makes these things even worse is that the adverts aren't even accurate. Firstly, they insist on claiming copyright infringement is theft. This is, technically, inaccurate. Copyright infringement is a crime, to be sure, but it's not that crime. (In one of the few cases on this matter, the lawyers for the studios were called on this very issue by the judge involved. Exactness matters.) Secondly, the DVD adverts very helpfully include a list of things that it is illegal to do with the DVD. Some of these are specifically and explicitly legal under UK law. They are banned under the DMCA, which is an actual law - but it's a US law that doesn't apply here. Thirdly, the cinema adverts state that most pirate DVDs have extremely dodgy picture and sound, and images of people getting up to go to the toilet. Which is rubbish - most pirate DVDs these days are made from digital copies of the completed film that are leaked from the studios themselves, either by corrupt employees or by corrupt reviewers/academy members who are sent free copies for their troubles. As such, the quality, being digital, it little different from that of the actual DVD when it comes out.

(None of the above should be taken as an endorsement of piracy in any form. I don't own any pirate DVDs, and don't use them. Philosophically, I take the view that it is right to pay for the films and other entertainment we use, so I do. My personal preference would be to skip cinema, and just buy the DVD straightaway, especially now that 2 cinema tickets cost more than the DVD does, but that's not currently an option.)

While I'm on the topic, I really really hate these new and extremely long animations at the start of DVDs. We get the anti-piracy advert, then whatever adverts the studio want to force on us for their latest product (which look really dated a few months later), followed by the studio's intro to the DVD, followed by the pre-menu animation. After about five minutes of dead time, we finally get to the menu allowing us to (gasp!) watch the film. Which proved quite good last night, as I was waiting for the oven to heat up to cook my dinner, and it did that while the DVD got itself ready.

(And then, of course, there are those DVDs that don't wait for the user to choose his preferred option. Wait 2 minutes on the menu for "Deep Blue Sea", for one, and it'll start the film without you. Because DVD players have busy lives, you know, and just can't afford to wait for the user to catch up.)