Aug 15 -

Yesterday, Fox announced the 3D Blu-Ray release of James Cameron’s Avatar, the box office behemoth responsible for Hollywood’s 3D mania. Kyle Wagner at Gizmodo took issue with this press release not only on its own terms (really, three years for the highest grossing film of all time to get a home video release in the format it popularized?) but as a launching pad to go on a rant about the movie and music industries’ piss-poor handling of content in the digital age. I was on board, even when Wagner’s piece reads like a consumerist temper-tantrum, until this: The subtext is clear. It’s not even subtext—it’s super-text. We are the assholes. It’s our fault that movies are bad and the music industry can’t figure out how to monetize itself. And the copyright gestapo is coming for us. That’s the message, the threat, looming over every idiotic decision that pushes us closer to BitTorrent. You know what? Yeah, it sucks Avatar hasn’t been released in 3D yet, and yeah, it sucks you can’t stream Adele’s 21 on Spotify. And I can see how the idiotic policies enacted time and time again by the gatekeepers of media content drive people to pirate movies and music instead of buying them, especially as it’s often the least convoluted way to get them. But you know what? That’s their prerogative. Fox doesn’t owe you Avatar—it’s theirs and they can do whatever they want with it. Is it absurd that it has taken this long to get Avatar in your home the way James Cameron intended you to experience it? Sure, but rationalizing the decision to pirate it doesn’t change the fact that it’s illegal. Continuing to pirate will only feed the morons enacting these ridiculous policies more reasons to keep doing what they’re doing to feebly counteract people cheating the system. You really want to change that system? Put your money where your mouth is. Buy Louis CK’s comedy special through his website. Pay a little more than you normally would for a new Radiohead album. Hell, just fund a Kickstarter. When’s the last time throwing a fit got anyone anywhere?