Black March

Starting yesterday (it escaped me notice yesterday), this month shall be called Black March. If you have read the above you will know that this means a boycott of purchasing or otherwise procuring entertainment media. I support this wholeheartedly.

The media has long been an enemy of human liberty and a propaganda tool for the enemies of human civilisation.But this is beside the point. Hollywood, the television studios, the major music labels, all of the major players are backing attempts to introduce censorship into western internet usage. The SOPA and PIPA acts are being used to do this on the pretext that internet piracy is damaging their business.

I say that this is pure hogwash. What is damaging these businesses is a combination of economic recession affecting buying power, a decline in the quality of popular music, films and television programmes, the shaky quality levels of video games and more importantly the high prices often required to indulge in these forms of entertainment.

To blame piracy for these things is arrogant and absurd, it only shows just how distanced the elites who own the major record labels (which often own many smaller labels also) and the execs of the film studios are from the rest of us. To them, undoubtedly cinema prices are a bargain and £20 for a DVD film is a good way to get rid of loose change.

The quality as I mentioned is also appalling, you only have to watch the talking picture box in the corner of your room to see advertisements for god-awful films featuring untalented actors and unimaginative plots to realise why Hollywood is losing so much money. How much does every piece of two hour trash cost?

More than most of us can ever dream of owning and yet Hollywood makes dozens of such things every year, and then the execs wonder why they are running short of $100 bills to wipe their arses with!
These wealthy men and women do not care that we mere mortals may not have the money to pay high prices for products of wildly varying quality.

Disc based media is a good example of how media can be reproduced cheaply and reliably and yet large companies see fit to play 'dinosaur' and pretend that anything produced by their factories must be worth far more than the cost and that it is a pleasure for us plebs to be the recipients of their digitally encoded generosity, whatever price we must pay for it.

As a man of progress and a man who loves the arts and occasionally contributes to them it pains me to see the money that these companies can throw around to publicise and produce their sexually deviant music or their inane films. These companies could encourage a love of knowledge, portray the bravery of countless soldiers, question the more insane parts of our culture, instead they give us women in skimpy outfits killing much loved songs and cookie cutter rom-coms featuring the vacuum of talent that is Hugh Grant.

More can be said about other motives for the PIPA and SOPA acts, it is likely they are a wedge into the door to allow more and more internet censorship but I feel that enough has been said for now.

Hit them where it hurts and show them what we really think of the arrogant leeches.