The Return Of Knock-Off Nigel

There's a new advert by enemies of logic The Industry Trust for IP Awareness (or, as they seem to be calling themselves this week, The Industry Trust), featuring that lovable Knock-Off Nigel character that failed to catch on with the British public last year. This time the action, such as it is, sees Nigel in an office, downloading a film, only for co-workers to mock him. Quite predictably, it's rubbish. None of the co-workers make the perfectly valid point that there's no need to download films illegally or even buy them at full price, just wait three months and there's a huge chance they'll be less than a fiver in HMV, Tesco or Asda. 

What they should have done is this, by Adam Buxton:



From Graham Linehan's Blog (about two and a half weeks ago, aren't we on the pulse of popular culture?)

But anyway, here's a fact (no pun intended) for everyone to enjoy. The Industry Trust recently issued a backslapping press release, proudly stating that "the number of people buying illegal DVDs has reduced by 2% from 8% to 6%" and "two thirds of consumers (67%) now regard copyright theft as "nothing to be proud of", compared to just 22% prior to the new campaign."

Woo! Mission accomplished, eh? Everyone wins, too. The Industry Trust get to bask in the smooth satisfaction of having performed their duty impeccably, raising the percentage of people who only watch their movies and TV shows through completely legal means to a massive 94%. The producers of the intellectual property involved are even more duly rewarded for their work than ever before. And for the DVD buying public, we can expect to suffer the perpetual indignity of being treated like filthy criminals no longer, being able to watch an episode of Arrested Development on shiny disc without having to suffer an unskippable lecture. Every. Single. Time.

Hurrah!

With this in mind, what did we see when we plopped our £14 copy of Futurama: The Beast With A Billion Backs into the trusty BrokenTV DVD player? That we paid for with our own hard-earned money, instead of just downloading it from Rapidshare, which the movie is all over like a digital rash?

Oh, for frig's sake. Yes, with 94% of the British public now on their side, The Industry Trust have decided we'd relapse into our 2%-more-criminal ways if they halted their relentless nagging for just a second, and as such we still need to be treated like sticky-fingered idiots. If you're a legal purchaser of DVDs, that sighing sound coming out from under your nose right now will be the sound of you, sighing.

With this in mind, we've decided to run a new campaign of our own. Eagle-memoried readers may well recall our satirical piracy poster that spawned a minor internet meme in 2007. Well, we've re-engergised our paradigm like nobody's business, and just done exactly the same thing again, only changing some of the words. Hey, just like the new Knock Off Nigel advert! Click to see the full-size version.

Should anyone wish to contact The Industry Trust about their policy of annoying literally millions of people who have done nothing wrong, they can be contacted here. Alternatively, FACT, the industry's anti-piracy body can be contacted here. All we ask is that no-one try and make some sort of Mark Thomas-y stunt where you phone FACT (on 020 8568 6646), then read out this entire blog post to them before letting them speak. That would be awful.