Digital Availability
p2pnet news view P2P:- Just for the sake of argument, I will for a moment, set aside my vicarious file sharing ways and go thru the exercise of purchasing a movie. (Don’t everyone have a heart-attack, this is only an exercise…)
The movie Heavy Metal (circa 1981), licensed and distributed by Colombia Pictures, (which was absorbed by Sony Pictures) was probably THE most influential, and incredibly awesome movie I ever saw growing up. I went back and saw it 3 times.
After doing alot of research, I find the movie, Heavy Metal was a 1981 Canadian animated film from executive producer Leonard Mogel, who was also the publisher of Heavy Metal magazine. With Ivan Reitman producing and Gerald Potterton directing, the work was expedited by having several animation houses working simultaneously on different segments, including CinéGroupe and Atkinson Film-Arts.
Production budget was $9.2 Million USD, and the box office gross profit was $19,571,091, and then re-released in 1996 for an additional $546,545, rental profits to-date in upwards of another $9.5 Million USD, and I could not find any profit calculations for actual VHS sales. (no such thing as DVD back then). The soundtrack, presentation, and theatrical experience was one-of-a-kind for its’ day that had an impact on the industry that reverberated for years and years afterwards.
So, now, 28 years later, I want to purchase this movie, and since we are in the digital age, I want to download it and watch it tonight. So I tediously search, and search, and search some more. The best I can find is a re-mastered (read someone added saturation and a sharpen filter) of the original in DVD format on Amazon for $40 USD.
Wait a minute, hasn’t the content cartels been touting that there are ‘numerous legal alternatives for digital content’? I should be able to find several places to buy, download and watch, bing bang boom! Hasn’t the cartels made a profit of over 30 million on a cartoon? You would think that for that amount of money they could setup SOME form or fashion to access this movie digitally by now!
Ya, riiiight…
Ok, exercise is over, I do a quick search for real ‘alternatives’, and viola, I find several servers are hosting this movie in digital format with quality that is greater than the original VHS, it takes me less time to download it that it did researching ‘legal’ alternatives, and now I can watch it tonight, after taking a few aspirin for my troubles.
If this was MythBusters, this would be a colossal FAIL. I now return to my regularly scheduled file sharing…
surfer
Share The Wealth!
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win ~ Mahatma Gandhi
July, 2009
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July 15th, 2009 at 3:54 pm
salut
July 15th, 2009 at 4:57 pm
The South Park homage to the original “Heavy Metal” movie is extremely well done: reminded me how utterly awesome the original was, and still has me laughing out loud each time I watch it. Two paws up – and I believe Comedy Central has a clue and makes those episodes available easily on their website. . . . complete with bodacious Ta-Tas!
July 15th, 2009 at 5:01 pm
You see me now a veteran of a thousand copyright wars
July 15th, 2009 at 5:20 pm
hahahahahhaha
@IratePirate, spot on mate!
July 15th, 2009 at 5:35 pm
‘it’s time we had a break from it..’
July 15th, 2009 at 7:49 pm
LMAO…for more reasons than alot of you will ever know!!
@iratepirate….that was classic!!
side note…i have that song you and surefer gallantly qoute
took almost as much searching as surfer finding the
movie!! Pop quiz…..who was the artist???
stw
July 15th, 2009 at 10:05 pm
“The movie Heavy Metal (circa 1981), licensed and distributed by Colombia Pictures, (which was absorbed by Sony Pictures) was probably THE most influential, and incredibly awesome movie I ever saw growing up. I went back and saw it 3 times.
After doing alot of research, I find the movie, Heavy Metal was a 1981 Canadian animated film from executive producer Leonard Mogel, who was also the publisher of Heavy Metal magazine. With Ivan Reitman producing and Gerald Potterton directing, the work was expedited by having several animation houses working simultaneously on different segments, including CinéGroupe and Atkinson Film-Arts.
Production budget was $9.2 Million USD, and the box office gross profit was $19,571,091, and then re-released in 1996 for an additional $546,545, rental profits to-date in upwards of another $9.5 Million USD, and I could not find any profit calculations for actual VHS sales. (no such thing as DVD back then). The soundtrack, presentation, and theatrical experience was one-of-a-kind for its’ day that had an impact on the industry that reverberated for years and years afterwards.”
I can’t believe you made a post about Heavy Metal without mentioning the fact that the copyright mess surrounding the music used in the film, delayed the home video release for *15* years! The film came out in 1981, but wasn’t released on home video until 1996! Of course bootleg copies were available, many taped off the premium cable channels like HBO, but you couldn’t buy a legal copy.
“So, now, 28 years later, I want to purchase this movie, and since we are in the digital age, I want to download it and watch it tonight. So I tediously search, and search, and search some more. The best I can find is a re-mastered (read someone added saturation and a sharpen filter) of the original in DVD format on Amazon for $40 USD.”
Can you post a link? None of the DVDs I looked at on Amazon said anything about being re-mastered, and there were no digital downloads that I could see.
“Ok, exercise is over, I do a quick search for real ‘alternatives’, and viola, I find several servers are hosting this movie in digital format with quality that is greater than the original VHS, it takes me less time to download it that it did researching ‘legal’ alternatives, and now I can watch it tonight, after taking a few aspirin for my troubles.”
My copy is a DVDRip by a user named Croyd in the a.b.m.scifi group. Last year, he ripped and posted his entire movie collection. The color looks fine, although the video is a little grainy and the picture tends to jitter in spots. Not quite as bad as the cable copy though, where the picture used to sway back and forth during Taarna’s swim in the temple.
I see that there was also a 1.4GB, MKV/x.264 rip of the SuperBit copy posted 188 days ago to the same group.
I assume you have the sequel as well? Not nearly as good as the first, but it made a pretty good game.
July 17th, 2009 at 12:25 pm
Blue Oyster Cult