It might be 2008, but guess who's stuck in 1988? DVD retailers! Yay!

Clueless. Clueless. Clueless.

I'm in HMV. I'm looking to buy, at retail, actual physical product. Films. On DVD. You may remember this ancestral custom or rite (hence the saying, the custom-er is always rite), which involves handing over tokens in exchange for glittering slivers of mystery and delgiht.

My first experience is certainly mysterious. Set up alongside the DVD section is a large wide-screen HD display with a Sony Blu-Ray player and some angry-looking speakers. A poster alongside says "See the real difference of High Definition". I watch, entranced, as exquisitely high definition text, in every language known to man, slowly plays as threatening a list of sins and punishments as Assyrian king ever carved into the sides of his temple. The real difference of High Definition, apparently, is that you have to sit through Hungarian denunciations of copyright abuse, followed by Romanian, followed by some Slavic language I couldn't quite identify.

At length, as we pass Faroese, Old Norse and Klingon (ritual disembowling if you let someone glance through your front window while the Blu-Ray is playing), I tire of this new entertainment and go to complete my purchase. Penury denies me the chance to pick up the complete Carry On oeuvre (ninety quid! Thirty films! Five million single entendres!), and I settle for Pom Poko - seven quid's worth of Studio Ghibli animation devoted to shape-shifting raccoons with unfeasibly large testicles (it's OK, it's folk art. It's allowed).

Back home, and it's time to consume my media, safe in the knowledge that I won't be playing it on an oil rig, pub or place of worship, nor copying it nor allowing copies to be made, and that I've paid real money to a real retailer. I feel virtuous.

It's a good thing that virtue is its own reward, because I'm not going to be watching any raccoons. On the side of my new DVD case, under the shrinkwrap, there's a catch -- a red button holding the case closed. And, no matter how I try to push, slide, rotate or tweak it, the case remains closed.

Eventually, by vicious distortion, the case pops open and there's my DVD - held securely in place by the selfsame red button. Further investigation reveals that it extends in a long bar across the back of the case, pressing against the spindle and preventing removal.

This isn't just some sort of clever lock: it's some sort of anti-theft device that the retailer has forgotten to remove. Time to get smart and go online - and here it is, the RedTag from AGI Amaray, A MeadWestvaco Resource. A "user-friendly anti-theft device", it's designed to stop people from removing DVDs from cases in shops,

AGI Amaray, A MeadWestvaco Resource, continues: "Anti-theft counter measures have created barriers to sales, slashing sales volumes and retailer profits. They involve repackaging product, reduce shelf space and increase [sic] labour costs. Designing a retailing environment with thieves in mind actually creates a culture that puts people off buying."

No, rilly?

The RedTag stops the case from opening. If forced, it breaks the case and, often, the product. "Benefit denial", purrs the website.

Here's a further observation: relying on dozy neds behind the till to remove the damn thing is self-defeating. Preventing the punter from getting at their legally purchased goods is not much of a sales enhancer either.

It took me about two minutes to work out how to get the thing off safely with a pair of pliers, and a further thirty seconds to identify a weak spot in the design that would, I think, let me defeat it in about three seconds using a slightly modified hacksaw blade. I don't think such ideas will have escaped the criminal fraternity. The rest of us? Well, we get to go back to the shop days later with our receipt to persuade the gormless minimum wagers to stick our goodies in their detagger.

Meanwhile, free of endless warnings in Gujarati and fingernail-breaking benefit denial, the same content is available for a mouseclick online. Being virtuous only gets you so far.