Steal This Film

SargeantLobes writes "Steal This Film is the first part of a free documentary series about file-sharing. This part focuses on The Pirate Bay, and copyfighters Piratbyran. From their website: "There have been a few documentaries by 'old media' crews who don't understand the net and see peer-to-peer organisation as a threat to their livelihoods. They have no reason to represent the filesharing movement positively. And no capacity to represent it lucidly.""The film is free for you to share, watch on your DVD-player or on your iPod, or show in cinemas." Torrents are available on their website, or watch part one, two, three and four on YouTube."

Comments

Confusion About Abbie Hoffman

[eldavojohn]

Steal This film

First off, why isn't the 'f' capitalized? It is in the summary. Come on, even the Washington Post can handle that.

Secondly, when I saw this title, I thought immediately, Abbie Hoffman--a revolutionary.

Abbie authored Steal This Book which was made into Steal This Movie which was then inspired Steal This Wiki. I heavily advise reading/watching all of them.

If the four parts of "Steal This Film" have the same spirit as Abbie Hoffman's movement, then I'd probably be OK with this. And from what I've read of Hoffman's work, I think that he would be speaking out against the **AA left and right were he alive today. I'm just concerned that people will be tempted to confuse these two cinematic features.

I don't have the time to watch the first parts right now but can anyone tell me if this really is a documentary like the summary says? Because when I go to the site, they are asking for donations and from their page:

IN 2006, A GROUP OF FRIENDS DECIDED TO MAKE A FILM ABOUT FILESHARING THAT *WE* WOULD RECOGNISE. THERE HAVE BEEN A FEW DOCUMENTARIES BY 'OLD MEDIA' CREWS WHO DON'T UNDERSTAND THE NET AND SEE PEER-TO-PEER ORGANISATION AS A THREAT TO THEIR LIVELIHOODS. THEY HAVE NO REASON TO REPRESENT THE FILESHARING MOVEMENT POSITIVELY, AND NO CAPACITY TO REPRESENT IT LUCIDLY.

(their caps, not mine) This doesn't seem to be a documentary so much as a kind of biased viewpoint of file-sharing. Aren't documentaries supposed to show all sides of the story and pose the most important views so that the viewer can understand the whole situation perfectly? And what documentaries are they thinking about that are made by 'old media' crews? Actually, the one documentary I have seen is Revolution OS which is definitely not 'old media' crews. There's no use for me to watch a documentary that simply makes me say, "Right on, brother! Preach to the choir!" I can get that if I mention RIAA or MPAA to anyone my age.

Some enjoyable quotes from Hoffman (taken from the Wikipedia entry about him):

"Avoid all needle drugs. The only dope worth shooting is Richard Nixon." -- Steal This Book
"Free speech means the right to shout 'theatre' in a crowded fire."
"You measure a democracy by the freedom it gives its dissidents, not the freedom it gives its assimilated conformists."
"Revolution is not something fixed in ideology, nor is it something fashioned to a particular decade. It is a perpetual process embedded in the human spirit."

Re:Confusion About Abbie Hoffman

[ZachPruckowski]

The tendency to make biased documentaries is pretty old (relatively). See "Moore, Michael" or "Fox News", or anything like that. This is simply the extension of polarized politics to another field. It's not like "the other side" is anywhere near unbiased on the issue. Mainstream media just takes orders from corporate headquarters and assumes that filesharing is bad and costs them money.

Re:Confusion About Abbie Hoffman

[antiaktiv]

in fact, there's hasn't been any objective documentaries made, ever. the views of the filmmakers always shines through one way or another.
</film nerd statement>

Re:Confusion About Abbie Hoffman

[ZachPruckowski]

in fact, there's hasn't been any objective documentaries made, ever. the views of the filmmakers always shines through one way or another.

There's a massive difference between "filmmaker's view shining through" and "film created to make a point". I agree with you on the former, but we're discussing the latter here. No offense, but your point isn't really relevant (albeit likely accurate). What we're talking about here are "documentaries" designed to sell an idea. there exist documentaries that either attempt to tell both sides equally or just aren't out to sell you on something, but they're becoming more and more rare.

Re:Confusion About Abbie Hoffman

[ZachPruckowski]

You can have minority propaganda. Propaganda, however, has gone from an objective meaning "a one-sided piece designed to convince", to a throughly negative meaning roughly equal to "lies disseminated through media". The original definition is more correct here (since we can't easily evaluate who's lying and who isn't). Given the negative connotation of "propaganda", I hesitate to use it in this case (just as I would if the MPAA released something with anything approaching objective fact in it).

Re:Confusion About Abbie Hoffman

[suggsjc]

There is no such thing as an unbiased opinion. Everyone has an idea about what they perceive as truth and that will come through in one way or another.

There is nothing wrong with opion and bias. However, what we need to do is accept the fact that opinions and biases exist, so when we see/hear something we don't blindly accpet it as truth. Doing that simple task (although difficult for some) is a very good first step in being able to have better understanding of the underlying topics.

Re:Confusion About Abbie Hoffman

[Jerf]

There's a massive difference between "filmmaker's view shining through" and "film created to make a point".

And what exactly would that massive difference be?

It's impossible to create an "unbiased" work; I think this is mathematical fact, in the highest sense of the term, not a mere rhetorical point.

Given this impossibility, the only difference between "filmmaker's view shining through" and "film to make a [presumably different] point" is how honest the filmmaker is being about their own point of view.

I'd honestly rather see a documentary that accurately reflects the maker's viewpoint, because anything else is likely to be dishonest and probably sub-par, because if they don't believe what they are saying that, too, tends to come through.

The key point here is that it is possible to hold a nuanced opinion, or to believe that the situation is very complicated and you just want to give up, or that the situation is pretty complicated, here's what I think the facts are, here's my call, your call may differ based on the same facts. I know this because I have many opinions of my own of that nature. This is only bad if you assume that everybody always has firm opinions about every question, which I think is something that only someone naive enough to have firm opinions about every question can believe. (Many other people don't think this explicitly, but clearly reason with it as an implicit point.)

All documentaries "make a point". The better people may make documentaries with more nuanced points, but points nonetheless. The only question is whether the filmmaker is lying about their viewpoint to appear "unbiased", and whether they are lying about the facts.

"Unbiased" is actually itself a social construct that prescribes certain beliefs and viewpoints, and is definitely a bias itself; for instance, the "unbiased" social construct states that if there are two opposing sides, and that both sides have the slightest fact in their favor, than we are obligated to throw up our hands and say "We can't decide who's right, the situation is complicated." It doesn't matter how overwhelming the evidence may be, if we are to be "unbiased" we must not make a call. Without speaking to the truth or falsehood of this view, that itself constitutes a "bias" in both the mathematical and human sense (which overlap more than it may appear upon casual inspection of the mathematical definition(s)), a "bias" against making firm decisions about who is right and wrong. This is merely one part of the "unbiased" myth; ultimately the very word is an oxymoron.

Re:Confusion About Abbie Hoffman

[Jerf]

I still see that as a distinction without a difference.

But rather than taking the obvious argumentative tack of trying once again to convince you of How Wrong You Are In The Light Of My Obvious And Transcendental Rightness (TM)*, I'm going to point out this is a great example of different biases (in the mathematical sense), in this case about the nature of documentaries. You are making a claim that with my personal biases basically can't even be expressed. With your biases, clearly there is one.

Who's right? Who's wrong? And most interestingly of all, do those questions even make sense with such a subjective subject?

Personally, I tend towards separating the act of "definition" or "distinction" from the act of analyzing the distinction. So you have provided a definition/distinction, I've disagreed that it means anything, and now it is for the reader to decide.

The upshot being that neither of us can claim to have an "unbiased" opinion about the goodness of a given documentary. (Not that you were making that claim any more than I was.)

(*: Just to be clear, that's sarcasm.)

Re:Confusion About Abbie Hoffman

[crabpeople]

Why would a film maker make a documentary if he wasn't trying to say something with it? Conversely, would you believe a documetnary where the author didnt come to some loose conclusion at the end? It would look like the film maker was intellectually lazy not drawing enough conclusions from his research.

Re:Webpage design

[legoburner]

Kind of stylish in a gives-you-a-nosebleed-and-a-headache-at-the-same-t ime sort of way? :)

In Korea

[kamapuaa]

In Korea, making movies for a profit is only for old people.

Don't Understand?

[MaestroSartori]

'old media' crews who don't understand the net and see peer-to-peer organisation as a threat to their livelihoods

Sounds to me like they understand the net perfectly, because P2P networks as they're currently used *are* a threat to their livelihoods. Note that this isn't the fault of the technology, but the people using it. And the threat isn't all that big or serious, but it is there.

And while I respect the fact that they're releasing their film in this manner, I wish they'd respect the rights of the people making the content they facilitate the downloading of. But hey, that's just my opinion... :)

Re:Don't Understand?

[ZachPruckowski]

Sounds to me like they understand the net perfectly, because P2P networks as they're currently used *are* a threat to their livelihoods. Note that this isn't the fault of the technology, but the people using it. And the threat isn't all that big or serious, but it is there.

Not necessarily. There are some risks to P2P for content providers, but P2P can be helpful in some instances (getting you hooked on a show, like what the high piracy rate of "33" did for BSG). A model based around P2P could work even better. P2P might harm some business models (release a crappy movie, overhype it, and hope everyone sees it on week 1), but other business models survive.

Re:Don't Understand?

[gstegman]

Yeah because all the low income humans I know have PCs and high speed connections to download movies.

The only people I know who use P2P file sharing are friends of mine who just want everything that comes out so they download them and then play them on their $10,000 entertainment systems. I think for them it is the fun of getting something for free rather than an issue of income that drives them to file sharing.

Dunno, maybe I am just sheltered and don't know the file sharers who would truly qualify as "low income humans"

Re:Don't Understand?

[Anonymous Coward]

"It's not like they (the Pirate Bay) actively go out and find torrents"

No, but it's another thing to actively dis-respect other artist's forms of distribution under the guise of "free information for all", "anti-copyright", blah blah blah...

And what exactly does the name "Pirate Bay" infer?

"Meanwhile, there's a separation between filesharers and customers; do you know what it is?"

Greed? The same thing that many people are railing against the MPAA for? The idea that you are entitled to something for nothing is inherently greedy and selfish.

Most people I know who can't afford to buy the movie outright do one of three things: rent it, check it out from the library, borrow it from a friend.

About 1/2 of the P2P users I knew were trust-fund college kids with an exaggerated sense of self-entitlement that comes only with being rich.

The other 1/2 of the P2P users I knew could afford to buy or rent the film, music, etc but just didn't want to.

And 100% of the P2P users I knew routinely bragged about the size of their collection and how much they got for "free".

"Still, it comes from a conversation I was having with a couple of friends last weekend, with the lower-income'd friend borrowing and ripping the higher-income'd friend's DVDs."

Borrowing a DVD is something completely different than P2P. What is the difference? Scale.

"You call it stealing. I call it instantaneous price repair."

So is stealing a painting from an artist's workshop, but then you'd have to look someone in the face to do it wouldn't you? (Queue pseudo-intellectual discussion on how copying a digital work isn't theft ala the definition of a physical vs. digital object, blah, blah, blah....it is still morally equivalent to theft)

Re:Don't Understand?

[Kadin2048]

You might have a point, except that the laws that you're talking about don't cover the sort of mere "facilitation" that you can perhaps the Pirate Bay of doing. If the Pirate Bay was actually committing copyright infringement, then you'd have a basis to go after them via the Berne Convention. However, the legal system there has held that a BT tracker isn't actually infringing, since it merely points to files held elsewhere (the "Napster Defense").

Thankfully, just because a particular legal argument isn't valid somewhere, doesn't automatically extend that precedent everywhere. Although I have no doubt that somewhere, the *AA organizations are working on a treaty that will solve that little "loophole" too.

Re:Don't Understand?

[jb.hl.com]

You call it stealing. I call it instantaneous price repair.

I call it "a bullshit excuse for being a cheapskate". Just because you don't agree with the price for something doesn't give you a license to steal/P2P it (I expect the usual hundred responses talking about how "copyright infringement isn't stealing", and it isn't. I know that. It's just a useful shorthand. Give it a rest.)

You do not NEED major label music, big name films or anything like that. If you cannot afford it, don't buy it. Listen to the radio or watch TV. Download from PeopleSound or listen to bands on MySpace or something. You're not entitled to anything.

Also, you're assuming that people download stuff out of financial necessity. Most don't. They download stuff because they know it's free, and they'd rather download a song off P2P for free than pay 99 cents/79p for the same song off iTunes. Seriously, it's not out of protest against the music industry for prices or DRM or rootkits, it's more like "hey! free stuff!".

Re:Don't Understand?

[betterunixthanunix]

I accidentally copied a space into that URL. Please use this: http://www.unc.edu/~cigar/papers/FileSharing_March 2004.pdf

You don't believe the researchers? Contact them about it. You cannot site a single study to support your point of view, but you are making blind assertions based on the statements of biased parties. Whether or not you believe actual research, the numbers show that P2P networks, including Napster, have not had a statistically significant impact on content sales.

You saw small CD stores close down between 2000 and 2003? Guess what? There were hard economic times! I saw many, many, many small businesses close their doors back then, CD stores among them. The fact that P2P networks were at their height at that time is pure coincidence. Plenty of other fads were occurring, and it is as ludicrous to blame P2P networks on CD stores closing as it is to blame the rise of blackberries. Unless you can find some basis for making this claim, other than "they happened at the same time," your opinions bear no relevance.

Kazaa outdid Napster's popularity, with Napster peaking at under 30 million registered users and Kazaa peaking at over 50 million. Kazaa is also a far more efficient network than Napster was and it scales better. The RIAA has been 100% ineffective at preventing P2P traffic. This cannot be explained by anything other than people who cannot afford to buy CDs going to P2P networks instead. How is this different from the pre-Napster days of burning copies of your friends' CDs?

In fact, P2P filesharing is no more dangerous to profits than CD burners, which were lobbied against, or FM radio, which was lobbied against...the RIAA has a history of vehemently opposing any new technology that allows people to hear music when they could not have afforded to otherwise. It is a group that is led by millionaires, who can afford to buy whatever music they wish to hear, not average people who have to be scrupulous in their buying decisions.

Preaching to the Choir

[CheeseburgerBrown]

Is this going to get a wider release or is their market targeting pretty squarely focused on people soft on piracy? It's a little bit like making an anti-STD video for people who never get laid.

For the record (since this sort of thing often comes up in these discussions) I am a content creator who thinks copyright should expire after a decade, period. I give most of my works away for free, but figure on revenue-generating works that if you can't make money off it in ten years it either sucks, or you do.

Re:"Generation Steal"

[Fordiman]

I prefer to think of us (I'm an X'er, actually) as the "Freedom of Information" Generations.

'Course, you appear to be a coot of some nature. Shame you posted as AC; I'd be able to 'Foe' you.

Wait a tick... when did Slashdot become Myspace?

Re:One thing is for sure

[Fordiman]

True, but like you, it spread a lot of ideas about 'How can this be done better'.

Unfortunately, they took the cool title already. I guess 'P2P' is still available.

Re:Webpage design

[niceone]

What's with the javascript to generate the text then? Surely they could have done it with regular HTML so that people with no js would still be ok?

On my site I've tried to create 'an atmosphere' with text effects and yeah. it also makes it pretty hard to read.

But! I use regular HTML and with js to apply the effect - if you have js off you just get regular text. I also let you turn the effect off if you don't like it.

Re:Webpage design

[Anonymous Coward]

Nice to see everyone stay on topic. OMG, he doesn't use hexits, what a loser. Oh, wait, that's you.

I severely doubt the HTML for their webpage is their primary concern, and I know that their CSS not being up to your s'kiddy interpretation of the standard is no keeping them awake at night.

Have you seen the Bush movie?

[avasol]

Well, have you? It's called "Steal This Country". Note, DRM-protected. If you're caught watching it, you're sent to a POW-camp and tortured.

Re:One thing is for sure

[Bob9113]

we needed to pay for IP because the only movies that'd be left would be horrible pieces of crap like this.

Great movies aren't always about great CGI and slick editing. Check out Hard Boiled or The Killer (Woo/Fat) or Clerks for examples. Which is not to say that this documentary is a great movie, but that even if copyright infringement did lead to a decline in production values, it would not necessarily lead to a decline in the quality of movies. The sterile and prohibitive movie industry in America has its own quality problems. Different than independant film, but not necessarily better or worse. A point made in the documentary is that the money has shifted the focus in Hollywood from creative expression to putting butts in seats. When you primarily serve the latter, you often short-change the former.

If you feel that good production values are necessary to tell a good story, you are missing out on a lot of great film.

The only result is that fair use will get marginalized and ignored.

You are mistaken. This documentary is not advocating the retention of fair use rights under existing copyright. It is advocating a change in copyright law. It may not be a position you agree with. It may not be a position I agree with. But if you see this as a poor job of advocating fair use, you have missed the point.

You may think it is all about getting something for nothing. Some people think fair use is all about getting something for nothing. Neither is the case. Both are far more complex issues. And as long as there is not understanding, there will not be resolution.

Re:"Generation Steal"

[goldspider]

Which "free" are you talking about, beer or speech?

When it comes to the likes of online distribution of music and movies, chances are you're really talking about the former. That's not activism, that's being cheap.

How Downloading Pirated Video Cost Me $400+

[Greenisus]

I never download movies or TV shows, but an old friend of mine recommended Six Feet Under to me. I ignored her, and then she told me again to check it out. So, I downloaded the first episode and immediately loved the show. It took me several hours to download it, and I had to watch it on my laptop, so I wasn't going to get the second episode that way. I ended up buying the Season One box set for $80. Then I bought Season Two, then Three, Four, and Five. I was so happy about this show that I wanted to see what else HBO offered, so I finally caved in and signed up for the $8/month HBO subscription in addition to my regular cable. Sure, pirating is technically wrong, but in this case a free episode was the best advertising HBO could possibly have to get my money.

Re:How Downloading Pirated Video Cost Me $400+

[jb.hl.com]

Why did you do this? Was the downloaded copy of poor quality? Took too long? Inconvenient? All of these problems can be fixed and will be over time.

Maybe he just, I dunno, wanted to support the people who made the show?

Re:"Income" might not be the best metric

[Artifakt]

This is one point that is entirely factual, but half the people argueing for ANY side on copyright, DRM, and piracy don't take it into account.

      People buy entertainment from their disposable income.

There are spin off rules that are also (at least approximately) true:

        People who buy more than trivial amounts of entertainment with non-disposable income soon take themselves out of the market.
        People who spend less on one form of entertainment use the remainder of their disposable income largely on other entertainment.
        'Spare' money that a person has already characterized as disposable very seldom gets applied to non-disposable areas just because it's freed up.

        I sort of disagree about your "exact same thing". People who understand what's meant by the 'Tragedy of the Commons' may see downloading and such as not giving the exact same thing, as it doesn't ensure money supports the artist, so the downloader isn't getting the same chance to buy future works their puchase would give them. Therefore, the RIAA's real solution is obvious - they merely have to educate the typical Brittany fan until they are the sort of person who would actually read one of those books that 95% of them never heard of, and the rest all gave up and just read the synopsis (which is what I did).
        So it's not really the exact same thing, but it looks like it to most consumers, and what they do next is an opportunity cost calculation, just as you've said.

Re:Addendum about artist's rights:

[shark72]

"Yes, and the penalities are actually much less for stealing property, if you get caught."

The confusion is the media's fault -- whenever the RIAA or MPAA goes after a file-sharing whale, the press paints it as if they were busted for "downloading," when the reality is that they were nailed for making a bunch of stuff available for distribution.

Thus, "person nailed for filesharing" and "person nailed for shoplifting a CD" is not the best comparison. Closer to the mark is "person nailed for filesharing" and "person nailed for having 1,000 unauthorized copies of a CD in the trunk of their car." In the latter case, it's the same section of Title 17 that applies: $750 - $3K per work statutory damages and the like.