Well you wouldn't necessarily think so from the numerous adverts claiming "Piracy supports terrorism", "Piracy funds organised crime", "Piracy supports George Bush" (I made that last one up, but it's the most plausible of the bunch), shown before the Return of The King the other night.

Further thoughts about the unpleasant cramped conditions in the cinema, and the way the whole experience left a nasty taste in the mouth has made me realise how deep a hole the movie business has dug itself into.

The average cinema today is certainly encouraging piracy; let's face it, why on earth should someone pay good money to spend an evening in an unpleasant environment?

Here's some things I don't want to experience when I go to see a film:

• A big shed multiplex cinema miles from anywhere - I'd like to eat somewhere reasonable before watching a film, in my experience decent restaurants are rarely based on retail parks or industrial estates
• Buckets of carbonated drinks - what can can I say other than yuck?
• Overpriced fast food - ditto, food poisoning whilst being ripped off
• Cramped conditions - if land in the UK cost £1 million per square foot maybe I could understand the need to cram someone into 5 or 6 square feet, but it doesn't cost anything like that, so give us enough room to sit down!

Here's some things I'd like to see:

• Town centre location - access to decent food, accessibility, and even cutting down on the need for people to drive, all good things
• Bar - enjoying a glass of wine or a pint with the film is a very civilised way to pass the time, maybe it hasn't got the profit margins of sugared water, but who's the target audience? Penniless yoofs, or adults?
• Comfortable seating - make it enjoyable and people come back, make it a crap experience and people write stuff like this
• Good heating and aircon - seems obvious, if only it was...

My local cinema fulfilled many of these needs, but it's closed down - it needed a refurb and with another new cinema being built within 50m I guess the refurb wasn't viewed as being profitable enough, and I bet they can make more money by turning it back into part of the restaurant. Damn :-(