Open Letter to DVD Manufacturers and Stores That Carry DVDs
I'll be the first to admit that I have an addiction to DVD movies. I have about 450 movies and/or boxed sets in my collection, and it grows weekly (I frequent Circuit City and Best Buy weekly bargain bin specials). I usually bring home about 2 to 5 movies each week (sometimes double those figures). Simple math will tell you; that's a lot of movies.
My DVDs are an investment. I use them (I watch them regularly, and I would never buy a film I don't consider worthy of multiple viewings), but I also display them. Thus, presentation is very important to me. I'm almost anal about removing all traces of price tags, foreign stickers, and that damned security tape! Therein lies the problem.
The security tape varies in ease of removal from very easy to very difficult. I am very careful in my efforts to get rid of the stuff, but even when I exercise the utmost care, I often end up with a damaged cover (where the edge of the cover has caught beneath the tape and peels away with it) or a damaged slipcover. In fact, I have several DVDs where the plastic slipcover has been so ravaged as to be torn away completely (or very nearly). Likewise, I have many DVDs that have partial (or nearly complete) price tags, bar codes, or other stickers attached to the slip cover, primarily because the damned things have proven irremovable by any means available to known science!
I understand that there are unethical people who would go into a store, crack open a DVD, and steal the disk, leaving behind the empty packaging; I get that. But does it really deter them that much to have to slit the security tape and do the same thing? And when you have security tape and shrink-wrap, isn't that just overkill? It seems to me that all the current system does is result in damage to DVDs that I have purchased legally!
And to stores that put pricing and other stickers and extras on DVD packaging, could you please put these things on the outside of the shrink warp, so that I don't end up having to fight to get rid of it without marring my movie packaging? I don't know why you see the need to replace bar codes with your own stickers (especially since, in most cases, the numbers are the exact same), but it leaves nasty gunk behind when I try to remove it.
I purchase my DVDs legally. I do not copy them using rippers, I do not steal DVDs from packaging in stores, and I do not download them from the Internet; please stop punishing me for doing the right thing.
If any DVD manufacturers would like to offer to send pristine replacement packaging for my damaged packages, please feel free to contact me and I will make arrangements with you. I am not asking for replacements for the disks, just the damaged packaging.
My DVDs are an investment. I use them (I watch them regularly, and I would never buy a film I don't consider worthy of multiple viewings), but I also display them. Thus, presentation is very important to me. I'm almost anal about removing all traces of price tags, foreign stickers, and that damned security tape! Therein lies the problem.
The security tape varies in ease of removal from very easy to very difficult. I am very careful in my efforts to get rid of the stuff, but even when I exercise the utmost care, I often end up with a damaged cover (where the edge of the cover has caught beneath the tape and peels away with it) or a damaged slipcover. In fact, I have several DVDs where the plastic slipcover has been so ravaged as to be torn away completely (or very nearly). Likewise, I have many DVDs that have partial (or nearly complete) price tags, bar codes, or other stickers attached to the slip cover, primarily because the damned things have proven irremovable by any means available to known science!
I understand that there are unethical people who would go into a store, crack open a DVD, and steal the disk, leaving behind the empty packaging; I get that. But does it really deter them that much to have to slit the security tape and do the same thing? And when you have security tape and shrink-wrap, isn't that just overkill? It seems to me that all the current system does is result in damage to DVDs that I have purchased legally!
And to stores that put pricing and other stickers and extras on DVD packaging, could you please put these things on the outside of the shrink warp, so that I don't end up having to fight to get rid of it without marring my movie packaging? I don't know why you see the need to replace bar codes with your own stickers (especially since, in most cases, the numbers are the exact same), but it leaves nasty gunk behind when I try to remove it.
I purchase my DVDs legally. I do not copy them using rippers, I do not steal DVDs from packaging in stores, and I do not download them from the Internet; please stop punishing me for doing the right thing.
If any DVD manufacturers would like to offer to send pristine replacement packaging for my damaged packages, please feel free to contact me and I will make arrangements with you. I am not asking for replacements for the disks, just the damaged packaging.