Disney Urged To Drop Disposable DVD Idea (1 Viewer)

i gladly signed this. the idea of disposable discs infuriates me to no end. i can't believe how wastefull and lazy you'd have to be to think that leaving your home for 5 minutes to return a dvd is such a chore. go for a walk! ride a bike!

Not to defend them, but a lot of us don't live next door to the video store. For me, at least, it's a 6-mile trip one-way.

But I still have no trouble renting and returning discs.

Oh, it's an email petition.

I gladly signed this. If someone doesn't want to waste the time to go back to the store to return a rented DVD, they probably don't care enough about seeing the movie to go waste the time to go to the store and rent it in the first place.

Signed and signed. One of the better petitions. The waste is inexcusable, not to mention significantly less value, when most chains offer 5 day rental now.

RETURN OF DIVX
JUST WHEN IT WAS SAFE TO GO INTO THE VIDEO STORE AGAIN!

I signed it. Shades of DIVX! It was a bad idea then and it's a bad idea now.

Here's what I sent. It's nowhere near as good as their excellent letter, but I didn't want to say what everybody else was saying.

Dear Disney,

Please think twice about these environmentally-unfriendly, disposable DVDs. Is this a legacy Disney wants to hand down to our grandchildren and their grandchildren? Don't we have enough problems with waste and pollution? Why would you willfully and cheerfully add to those problems?

I'm appalled, and I'm boycotting Disney products for as long as this plan is in action. I did the same thing with Circuit City's horrible DIVX format. They were wrong, and you are wrong. Until a technology exists for a DVD to dissolve completely, leaving no residual chemicals, the idea of disposable DVDs is irresponsible.


Sincerely,


Vickie Mapes


(I must admit that boycotting Disney isn't going to be that hard. Right or wrong, I don't consider Pixar "Disney." Also, I still refuse to enter a Circuit City store. I'm forever soured on them. They didn't go bankrupt as I'd hoped, but I'm still not going to give them my money.)

Okay, I appreciate what certain people are trying to do here. I love you guys, you complete me, but I feel I need to voice my objection to this.

I think most people here are probably upset as to what they see as Disney milking the cash cow. I really don't know why this had to be turned into an environmental issue right away. So should we ban all plastics too? We live in a consumer fueled world. But that's a whole other subject really, and one that we can't and shouldn't get into too deepley here.

I am hugely concerned about the environment too. But instead of trying to railroad Disney's efforts to even produce this product, you should be signing a petition to try to make people more aware of recycling and it's benefits.

I'm not going to sign any petition that masks my real intentions about why I want something done, and I urge that others don't as well. You just don't want Disney to make money this way, just admit it. You hated Divx and you hate this. I honestly have to say though, that this is a very underhanded way to try to get Disney to stop production on these things. I love this forum as a consumer advocacy group, but let's not let our passions about the subject lead into dictating politics to people.

Frankly, I think consumer advocates should be delighted that just maybe, Blockbuster Video finally has some legitimate competition. If we want to help consumers, like I know most of you do, we need to support efforts like these, not try to stop them before their product even gets out to the consumer.

That's not to say we still shouldn't voice our concerns to try to get Disney to make the product better hopefully. But these are disposable discs, and they *do* possess dangers to the environment, and there's not much we can do to get around those facts. If you care about the environment, make people aware of recycling programs, and if there aren't any in place locally, you need to urge people to vote for people who are concerned about these issues.

But trying to blackmail Disney into not producing these discs because you didn't like Divx, under the guise of "save the planet", isn't good consumer advocacy in my opinion.

No, I'm not a Disney plant. But rental shops are a thing of the past, people don't want to rent DVD's. Just remember how many Mom and Pop stores Blockbuster put out of buisness. I won't be sad to see them go.

But I'll say it again, the 48 hour window, for seven dollars isn't going to cut it either. Disney needs to loosen up a little bit with that.

Uh, no. I actually do think this is a horribly irrespoansable waste. Along the lines of those mats you can buy that make it unessesary to wipe the counter after slicing meat. Please do not assume you know better than I do about how I think. It's just rude.

But I for one am not the least bit worried about it. It will be dead before it even starts. There are a million average joes to every home thatre forum reader. and thousands of those are sure to pick up thse disposable dics, not knowing the difference, and be on the phone to disney complaining about a defective product. This is not a product anyone wants, and to say that no one wants to rent DVD is just plain stupid. I was in Blockbuster tonight and it was jam packed full of people renting those DVDs. People treat them just like VHS, they are used to video stores, and are not chomping at the bit for a new system to replace them.

My dad is one of these people. He doesn't even look at any of the extra features when he rents a DVD, he doens't see the point. It's just a movie to him, same ad a video, except it sounds better. (on his TV, it doesn't, however, look better).

Petitions like this are pointless. Vote with your wallet. Don't like it? Then convince all your friends and relatives to convince their friends to not buy it. Its as simple as that.

If it gets to a point where you can only see a certain disney movie through this kind of disc then don't give in and rent it anways. Stand strong and don't give in.

Mike- the problem is here, that once they get unleashed on the market- whether they are purchased or not- they are automatic landfill.

What I am a bit wary of, is not the petition itself, but where it's coming from. Act For Change seems to be sponsored by a commercial organization who's into communications (media delivery?)- so it seems a bit self-serving.