Have you emailed Cirque Du Soleil and explained your problem - I bet you'd get a freebie if ya did! Worth a try at any rate!

Edit: two friends have recently had a similar problem - putting on a horror film night in a local venue. Whislt they had gotten the licences etc required, the HD downloads they had gotten had a similar restriction. They contacted the publishers and got free Blue Ray editions of the problematic films from two and a full refund from another.

vent all you want!

Our schools always blocked YouTube because it was "inappropriate." We just bypassed the blocking system by using secure browsing with firefox's HTTPS-Everywhere plugin.

I think the movie industry is more to blame than iTunes.

I mean, there is a reason why the music on iTunes is DRM-free and the movies aren't.

But yeah, between the fact that digital movies are DRMed to the bone and Netflix has a suboptimal selection in Canada, I'm still stuck purchasing the occasional DVD despite living in the digital age.

To add salt to the wound, they always put those long FBI notices that you can't skip and the occasional advertisement (on a DVD that you paid for). Thankfully, those I can skip now by ripping the DVD.

If you want a DRM-free experience with movies, buy physical DVDs and get a free ripper or pay for one.

Those guys definitely deserve whatever piracy they get. For my part, I buy the strict minimum from them (movies that I thought were really really great and that are not on Netflix).

That sucks but try not to let it get you down too much. I can imagine it must be very frustrating having to deal with issues like this when you are spending money out of your own pocket for the kids.

I hope it helps to tell you that there are a lot of us who really appreciate what you do and how you put yourselves out for our children and for that matter, ourselves when we were growing up. You really do make a huge difference and this world a better place for your efforts.

You deserve praise and thank you's more often than you get them. So thank you for trying to do this for those kids and for taking them to the circus. I bet they had a wonderful time. Days like that for children are the stuff fond memories are made of.

You have literally given me goosebumps with your kind words. Thank you so much. You have made my day. And yes, it was a hectic day, but a great time was had by all.

Oh, good. I'm glad that helped a little. I'm also glad to hear the circus trip went well. I can only try to imagine what it must like shepherding a group of young children through a crazy day like that. I bet they had a blast though! I hope you had some fun too. :D