this is all g.r.r.m.'s fault, anyway

[rone]

Let's be clear: i don't like The Oatmeal.  I found Matthew Inman's humor juvenile but inoffensive at first; even in the cartoons that had material that i liked, his delivery seemed off in the way that the dorkiest of nerds have when they overtell or overexplain a joke.  He finally lost me with his issues-revealing Utilikilts cartoon, and that's colored everything else that i've had the misfortune to witness (and you'd call me an idiot for continuing to follow links there, and you'd be right).  His approach to things in his life is relentlessly adolescent, and his current comic about how HBO has forced him to torrent the "Game of Thrones" series, which has been pounded across my social network with much delight by my so-called friends, is a prime example of this: entitlement and rationalization in the face of unenlightened self-harm (and, yes, the fact that it's about the much overrated "Game of Thrones", which book many of my friends inexplicably love and consequently turned them into morbidly obsessed fans of the HBO series, doesn't help).

Here's the thing: HBO doesn't owe anyone the "Game of Thrones" series outside of the terms in which they make it available (i.e., pay a shitload of money a month to the local cable monopoly and be glad that they deign to convey their munificence to your hovel).  Is Inman truly advocating that we should we bend or break the rules every time an incompetent business doesn't offer us their product in a timely fashion after we've declined to adhere to their idiotic terms and conditions, simply because we really, really want it?

If you're going to torrent it, torrent it, but don't waste time rationalizing it.  Just because the MPAA is acting like Javert doesn't mean that you're Valjean, and "Game of Thrones" isn't a piece of bread.

Comments

[vampyrecat.livejournal.com]

I'd never seen that particular Oatmeal comic before (kilt). Charlotte insisted that I let her look at the last panel for a while. I asked her "what is that?" She giggled and said "a but!" She is 4. I didn't think it was funny and I was thinking that the guy in the comic was an asshole. I mean, there is nothing about a kilt that forces you to think about balls. I never think about balls when I see a kilt. I think about legs because that's what I can see. What an ass. That said, I have seen some Oatmeal strips that I liked a bit but I can't remember what they were.
Also, you are of course right about intellectual property theft in this case. Making people pay for a new release for a few years is totally reasonable. Making copyrights valid 50 years after the original creator's death is not. I am in the "information wants to be free" camp AND the "artists and authors and such need to be compensated" camp. My main objection to the MPAA is that they are primarily distributors, NOT creators. However, in the case of HBO's original content, they should be able to charge whatever they want and I am content to wait 9 to 18 months for it to be available on Netflix. Just please for the love of God people stop the spoilers.