Participant Observations 17/7/18 - Motivations for VPN Use

While I was at the ANZCA conference a few weeks ago, I sat in on a presentation about Artificial Intelligence, and representations of it in the media. The presentation talked about texts like Westworld and Terminator, as well as some other films I hadn't heard of, or considered viewing, such as Ex Machina, and Blade Runner 2049.

Given my love for Westworld and representations of AI, I thought I'd see if I could find these other texts, and find out more about other versions of AI representations outside of Westworld.

Specifically, I looked up Ex Machina, Blade Runner, Blade Runner 2049, Terminator Genisys, and Futureworld.

I began by looking through ALL of the catalogs that I have access to - Foxtel, Netflix, Amazon Video, and all the FTA on-demand apps.

I could ONLY find Blade Runner 2049 on the Foxtel Now catalogue. I also found Ghost in the Shell there, which was also a nice find (Scarlett Johansson).

Even so, unable to locate many of the other titles, and not wanting to purchase another subscription to Stan or iflix or anything else, I felt I had no option but to download the content illegally. So I switched on the VPN and got the content I needed.

The VPN allowed me to step around the blocking of Pirate Bay in Australia, and the content was downloaded relatively easily. The quality was ok (720p). I could have downloaded 1080p content, but the file sizes are significantly larger. It was then just a matter of copying the file over to a USB and playing it on my gaming PC so I could watch them on a large monitor.

I think this supports various other observations in the literature and through primary sources of information, that if a person is faced with a situation where they can't get the content they want easily, even where a legal option would have been preferred, an illegal path will be taken.

I don't feel like a pirate, so much as frustration at not being able to legitimately get the content I wanted. Perhaps this is the 'trickster' mindset, but I think because of the overt and deliberate use of VPN and the aversion to paying for it, while I would still classify it as Informal Media use, is probably more at the 'pirate' end of the spectrum here.

Some other observations is that the exercise demonstrated to me how limited some of the catalogs are on subscription OTT services, and that the FTA catch-up apps basically have no movies on them at all, suggesting how limited the rights are to have movie titles for FTA's.

Finally, I think my interest in AI is obviously the ethical questions it raises, and the implications it has for mankind more broadly, such as notions of doom. Most of these texts are set in the future, and I really like the different versions of the future these texts portray, whether it be minimalist, technological, post-apocalyptic, or perverse.