Do petitions even work?

[takearushfan]

Though I doubt they're that helpful, it's worth a shot.
Here are a couple I thought I'd share, if you'd like to help out -

https://www.change.org/petitions/uni...pit-on-blu-ray

https://www.change.org/petitions/par...day-on-blu-ray

Thanks for (possibly) signing

[EricJ]

Umm, NO--
That's a fallacy buried deep in the DNA traces of the home-theater industry dating back seventeen years to the birth of DVD:
Back in those days, studios didn't understand the new market, didn't know what to put out first, and thought we didn't care how we got it. (Ie., just upgrade the LD master and put it out.)
Some studios actually WOULD ask customers in HTF chats, or, in some cases, solicit information from hit sellers like Amazon and DVDExpress. Yes, those pages on Amazon that say "Pre-order this non-existent disk today, an we'll notify you!" Back then, we had this belief that the info would be passed on to the studio. Today, of course, we call them "placeholders", and they serve no function whatsoever.

It was easy back when studios thought they could rerelease anything to the "niche" DVD market....But then we got a hitch: DVD became a major industry. Studios now had to divide up the royalties, which made disks just as complicated to release as VHS tapes. Disks now needed restoration, which cost money, if the source materials were still available, and some titles might not be. Music rights and property rights now had their hand out to the legal department.
But we still thought we coudl "tell the studios what to do". For the next five years.

(To be effective, a petition has to have four things:
- The correct name of the person responsible for the grievances, who will be aware he is being petitioned,
- Responses aimed at the specific request, in a form the studio will accept--If they say "Mail only", don't bother e-mailing.
- Awareness that the grievances CAN be addressed (eg., do they own the title and does the source exist), and we're not just asking for an ice-cream cone and a pony, and
- A specific timeframe in which the responses will be collected and delivered, and not just left up on a website for him to find if he ever wanders over there sometime in the next couple years.

Name any Internet petition in history that met at least two of those qualifications. For contrast, when the Founding Fathers wrote the Declaration of Independence, they didn't simply write "Dear King: You stink!", sign their names, and tape it up on a statue back home in Philadelphia.
Oh, but yes, there was that Disney thing--We all faced down Disney on the "Princess Mononoke" DVD back in '99, and Disney blinked. Here's the thing, though: They asked US for the petition. That's how they made sure it met all four.)