last night jonno and i watched “avatar”. not at the cinema, after paying £20 and dealing with the crowds and transport on a saturday night, as one might generally expect, but from the comfort of our living room.

yep, we download. and i don’t even feel a little bit guilty about it.

in fact, i’m quite glad after seeing “avatar” (which i found trite, formulaic, and downright corny [not to mention insulting on some levels]) that i did not spend an hour plus getting to and from the theatre. i’m quite glad that i didn’t have to worry about us not getting seats together. i’m glad i didn’t have to sit through a full *quarter-hour* of advertisements, and another 15 minutes of previews. and i’m quite glad that i didn’t fork out £20 for the ultimately disappointing experience.

all of these are factors which hold more and more sway in my decision about my movie-going (or not going) habits. it’s all become such a hassle. it’s all become so shamelessly overpriced (£10 for a ticket and another £5 for some popcorn and soda?!). it’s all become more about the marketing than the actual movie.

and it’s a model which no longer works. it’s outmoded. twentieth century. the idea that the filmmakers have a god-given right to hold you hostage and milk you for every penny in order to subsidise ever more ridiculously budgeted movies – well in the age of the bit torrent, i resent it, and i don’t have to put up with it. i’m voting with my bandwidth.

as are millions of others. a few years ago, bit torrents were the domain of the technically savvy. today, bit torrents are completely mainstream. sure, the enforcement agencies continue to try to crack down on torrent sites, with some success (mininova and the pirate’s bay having both recently gone under). but like a many headed hydra, more spring up to take their place.

and it’s not a new conundrum – the music industry has also faced the same issues. so one might ask, do i also download music?

no. and why would i? why would i spend time searching through dozens of torrent sites for a single well-seeded torrent of an album when all i want is one or two songs? why would i use peer-to-peer programs which are rife with bloatware and malware? why would i take the risk of downloading a virus from some unknown computer out there?

why would i do any of that when there’s itunes and amazon and emusic that allow me to easily download exactly the songs i want for an extraordinarily reasonable and addictive 99p per song? without risk, without hassle, without a second thought.

so here’s what would make me stop downloading movies: a digital rental of up to £5, that allows me to decide if i want to stay in to watch a film, that allows me to watch indie movies which i might otherwise have to wait for mainstream distributors to release on dvd to see, that doesn’t leave me feeling ripped off if i actually didn’t care for the movie, and that doesn’t try to fleece me with millions of unwanted adverts. and where nearly everyone has an “on demand” feature from a cable box, or has the ability to stream content over their computer, there is absolutely no reason this model can’t be done. it would cut also down on piracy and give the independents a wider audience.

what it *wouldn’t* do is force me to subsidise the next £300 million James Cameron piece of rubbish.

and i’m okay with that.

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