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Moore Approves Fahrenheit 9/11 Downloads
13.7BillionYears writes "The Sunday Herald reports that Michael Moore has expressed his approval of Fahrenheit 9/11 being downloaded through networks like BitTorrent and eDonkey2000. He also champions a very Lessig-esque outlook in his reasoning. Quentin Tarantino's earlier support for such practices is also mentioned. Meanwhile, Lion's Gate says it has no plans to oppose the practice."
I saw this documentary yesterday and I was both shocked and impressed. I even cried a lot.
It's the only way to do that in the US. A documentary must be very shocking for people to care about. This doesn't work like that in Europ.
This decision from Michael Moore is not surprising as he has always said that his goal is to touch as many people as possible. I think he simply doesn't care about the money.
Besides that, I think the documentary raises some points while I think Michael Moore goes too far in some others. But this movie definitely deserves its Golden Palm.
Please, go there, watch it. Give it a chance.
Oh and I'm French and I'm living in the US so I'm ready to be modded down and insulted.
Iraq: war to save the U
The activist, author and director told the Sunday Herald that, as long as pirated copies of his film were not being sold, he had no problem with it being downloaded.
"I don't agree with the copyright laws and I don't have a problem with people downloading the movie and sharing it with people as long as they're not trying to make a profit off my labour. I would oppose that," he said.
"I do well enough already and I made this film because I want the world, to change. The more people who see it the better, so I'm happy this is happening."
Very few people download movies to make a profit off of them. We download the movies because it is convienient to do so (ala iTunes). We also download the movies because the theatres charge entirely too much money (anywhere from $8 to $11 from what I have seen) to watch it.
Let's stop making movies with tons of computer generated special effects, bad acting, and boring plots and then blaming the pirates when it doesn't do well.
Let's make a movie that is powerful, moving, and gets people into the theatres that didn't cost $200 million to make.
Michael Moore doesn't own the rights to the movie, Harvey and Bob Weinstein do. Even if Michael Moore doesn't care if his movie is pirated, I'm pretty sure the distributors do. At best, this can put your conscience at rest but it definitely doesn't mean you can start hosting the illegal copy in your website and expect not to get a cease and desist.
Yeah, I know, torrents are different, and slashdot isn't responsible for what we post. You, however, seem to be thinking that it's now legal to download F911 when saying, "I am quite pleased by Moore's decision to broaden his audience by allowing free downloads of the film." He's not really allowing them, he's just saying he doesn't morally disagree with the practice.
Warning: Opinions known to be heavily biased.
That said, you should also keep in mind that films do not need to be documentaries to show you the truth, or at least a given version of truth. That is what art is all about.
People hear the word "documentary" and they can only think of National Geographic and the Discovery Channel. Every big newspaper has a page of opinion columns. The goal of that page is to present well thought out arguments from different viewpoints. Think of Farenheit 9/11 as an opinion column using film instead of text. It's still a documentary.
-B
Since I know the claims he made in the movie, and these claims can be fact-checked independently of seeing the movie, why is this not "thinking for myself"?
Because you *can't* know all the claims he made in the movie unless you've seen the movie, or at least read the script. If you're going by what other people are saying about it, then you're getting a second-hand version - they're not going to present all the points, only the ones they picked up on, and they're not going to present them how Moore presented them, they're going to present their own take on them.
For example, reading a critique of the movie isn't good enough, even if you go away and check all the points the critic made and make sure that he's right and the things he claims the movie got wrong are wrong - because you only have his word for it that that's what the movie said, and he'll probably have left out things the movie got right.
And reading a positive review isn't good enough, even if you go away and check all the points the reviewer made, and make sure that all the things he claims the movie got right are right - because you only have his word for it that that's what the movie said, and he'll probably have left out things the movie got wrong.
And even if you read both, you still can't be sure that you have the full story.
Primary sources, Loundry, primary sources. You can't fact-check other people's reports of something - you have to go back to the primary source if you want to know whether what it's saying is true or not.
Without French naval assistance at the battle of Yorktown, General Cornwallis would have escaped, and the Americans would not have inflicted a crushing blow against the Brittish occupation of the colonies. Indeed, the Brittish themselves would probably have slaughtered American resistance long before without money, arms, and supplies from king Louis VI.
While the U.S. has oftentimes been at odds with French policy, we must remember that the U.S. exists mostly due to the efforts of France.
So as my country celebrates the Star Spangled Banner today, perhaps we should spend a few moments listening to the Marseillaise as well.
Hello! I'm your friendly pseudophilosophy bullshit meter. I rate my parent post at a 9.8 out of a possible 10!
Grandparent was initiating his response with a statement of contrary belief. It's not an argument. Not only is it okay, its the correct way to begin a critique.
Again, this clause is not an argument, nor does it attempt to unjustifiably make fun of you. He is stating, by his argument, that if you do not believe Fahrenheit 9/11 to be a documentary, then you do not understand what it is to be a documentary. It's the same as saying "If you do not think the world revolving around the sun is heliocentricity, then you do not know what heliocentricity means."
Now, if you read the rest of his post, you'd find his argument. His argument is that the movies cited are widely accepted as being documentaries, and since Fahrenheit 9/11 displays more characteristics of a documentary than these movies, a fortiori, it is a documentary.
If you want to attack his argument, that's it. Throwing around incorrect uses of informal fallacies isn't going to help you much.
yeah, questioning your leaders is definitely treason.
In a country in which more than 40% of the voters have been so disenfranchised that they don't even bother to vote anymore, and a significant portion of the rest feel trapped into voting for the "lesser of two evils" in election after election, I would think questioning and challenging such a system that is supposed to be "Of, By and For the People" and is plainly NOT would be considered quite patriotic.
But then, I guess any level of discussion of our government in negative terms is only ok if it involves a democratic president getting a blowjob, right? Certainly we have no room to be negative when we're at war, even if we can't generate one solid reason as to why we are at war and what good we are actually doing in a country that never threatened us directly, while giving up on and letting run free a terrorist that has attacked us several times including the largest foreign attack on our soil ever, who happens to be related to the business partners of our president.
Obviously our priorities are out of whack for questioning that. What ARE we thinking?
The website is:
..... "While I disagree with many of his points and his insulting style, he does raise factual issues."
http://slate.msn.com/id/2102723
Paragraph #1. Personal reminiscing. No facts to contradict f9/11.
#2. Still no facts.
#3. Still no facts.
#4. Still no facts. Speaks of a previous debate.
#5. Still no facts.
#6. Stating a premise of the movie is NOT stating a fact against that movie.
#7. See #6
#8. See #7
#9. See #8
#10. I'm not sure what he's saying here.
#11. His opinion of what the movie seems to be saying.
#12. Sets up false dichotomies ("Either the Saudis run U.S. policy (through family ties or overwhelming economic interest), or they do not.") that do not seem to be stated in the film.
#13. Complains about Moore ("In a long and paranoid (and tedious) section at the opening of the film, he makes heavy innuendoes about the flights that took members of the Bin Laden family out of the country after Sept. 11.").
#14. This one is cute. "A film that bases itself on a big lie and a big misrepresentation can only sustain itself by a dizzying succession of smaller falsehoods, beefed up by wilder and (if possible) yet more-contradictory claims."
Yet he has not managed to identify the "big lie" yet.
#15. Another cute one. "The president is also captured in a well-worn TV news clip, on a golf course, making a boilerplate response to a question on terrorism and then asking the reporters to watch his drive." But it is factual and caught on tape.
#16. Another cute one. "In this peaceable kingdom, according to Moore's flabbergasting choice of film shots, children are flying little kites, shoppers are smiling in the sunshine, and the gentle rhythms of life are undisturbed." But it seems to be actual footage of actual Iraqis before the war.
#17. "Moore asserts that Iraq under Saddam had never attacked or killed or even threatened (his words) any American." I'm going to need to verify that Moore said that. This may be one actual discrepency.
#18. "Thus, in spite of the film's loaded bias against the work of the mind, you can grasp even while watching it that Michael Moore has just said, in so many words, the one thing that no reflective or informed person can possibly believe: that Saddam Hussein was no problem."
Well I believe that he was not a problem. He was contained and his country was collapsing around him. He couldn't even travel without body doubles.
#19. "From being accused of overlooking too many warnings--not exactly an original point--the administration is now lavishly taunted for issuing too many."
And that is a factual error how?
#20. "Circling back to where we began, why did Moore's evil Saudis not join "the Coalition of the Willing"?"
Not even complete speculation. This does not count as a factual counter.
#21. No facts. He doesn't like the way Moore picks on Bush.
#22. No facts. He doesn't like the way Moore plays to racial inequality.
#23. No facts. "Moore has announced that he won't even appear on TV shows where he might face hostile questioning." So? Attack the movie. If you can.
#24. "However, I think we can agree that the film is so flat-out phony that "fact-checking" is beside the point."
He ADMITS that he doesn't have any facts to counter the movie with. Did you even READ this far into it? Fact-checking would be the FIRST thing to do to show how "flat-out phony" the movie was.
#25. Still, no facts to counter the movie.
#26. See #25.
#27. See #26.
#28. See #27.
#29. No facts. Just attacks on Moore.
Yet you claim
Perhaps someone could point them out? I've already gone through each paragraph, by the numbers. It can't be that difficult, can it?
"Patriotism means to stand by the country. It does not mean to stand by the President."
- President Theodore Roosevelt
"The President is merely the most important among a large number of public servants. He should be supported or opposed exactly to the degree which is warranted by his good conduct or bad conduct, his efficiency or inefficiency in rendering loyal, able, and disinterested service to the nation as a whole. Therefore it is absolutely necessary that there should be full liberty to tell the truth about his acts, and this means that it is exactly as necessary to blame him when he does wrong as to praise him when he does right. Any other attitude in an American citizen is both base and servile. To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public. Nothing but the truth should be spoken about him or any one else. But it is even more important to tell the truth, pleasant or unpleasant, about him than about any one else."
- President Theodore Roosevelt
And while we're at it, let's ask President Jefferson too...
"Dissent is the highest form of patriotism."
- President Thomas Jefferson
that if right-wingers and the press applied the same scrutiny they've given Moore's film to the Bush administration, we might not be in the mess we're in today.