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

[kfg]

Abbie authored Steal This Book . . .

I'm such a wuss, I bought my copy. My only excuse is that I was just a kid and didn't understand the ethics of theft.

KFG

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

[antiaktiv]

Don't worry, when discussing art you can't really take offense. I could imagine the latter category of documentaries being very unengaging and boring. Even a film like "Capturing the Friedmans" is so captivating because despite its attempts to show an objective view of a situation, the filmmaker's own passion in telling the story itself inherently becomes the message. Thus it's selling a point, the point of "this is a story that needs to be told, go tell it to your friends". Much like "Steal This Film". I hope that made some sort of sense. English is not my native language.

Re:Confusion About Abbie Hoffman

[ZachPruckowski]

English is not my native language.
I honestly wouldn't have ever guessed that. Your English is great.

What you're saying is that the very act of capturing something on film is taking an opinion on it. That's true, and it is a bias, but it's not a deliberate bias. The bias I'm talking about isn't "this story needs to be told", it's "this is the answer, the other guy is a twit". "I want to tell this story" is a totally different level of bias compared to "This is my point of view disgused as fact". The former is an assumed part of every story, whereas the latter is a deliberate attempt to deceive. When I say that un-biased films can exist, I mean only that they don't deliberately attempt to sway you to their side, they just want you to see what they have to say, and maybe get you to talk about it.

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

[Pooh22]

First of all, if I'd had mod-points, I'd mod you overrated.

The documentary is basically showing the Pirate Bay's side of the story, including the political muscle-work of the MPAA/RIAA via the US and Swedish governments to arrest citizens in sweden without any (local) legal basis. (The Pirate Bay was not sharing movies, just meta-data, which doesn't seem to be illegal in Sweden).

I'd say they bring a message that the endless plots to pull money out of the distribution problem of old, is no longer very plausible. There's no way they can keep up suppressing human desire to _Share Culture_ unless they put everyone in prison.

And besides this, they should realise that most people have some sense of quality and taste (even Americans ;-) and they will at some point stop buying the crap they put out for people to spend money on. No wonder sales are dropping.

Cheers

Simon

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.

Webpage design

[PrayingWolf]

Pretty intresting website design. Kind of refreshing to see a page that can do without flash, gif animations, even images and still be... kind of stylish...

sig?

Re:Webpage design

[legoburner]

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

Re:Webpage design

[cortana]

Perhaps it is their own form of copy protection? I'm finding it difficult to read the page at all. :)

Re:Webpage design

[Digital Vomit]

Kind of refreshing to see a page that can do without flash, gif animations, even images...

And yet, the page -- which is simply text -- is needlessly generated using javascript, rendering it as a black nothingness for those of us surfing with javascript disabled.

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.

Moviesizes

[crull]

iPod .mp4 = 152MB
Regular .mov = 336MB
DVD .iso = 1.43GB

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?

[Fordiman]

"I wish they'd respect the rights of the people making the content they facilitate the downloading of"

It's not like they (the Pirate Bay) actively go out and find torrents, nor it it like they don't have torrents pointing to legal content.

It's quite literally not their job to police their users' activities; they are not required to do so by their local law.

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

Income.

Example:
Low income human: I do not have expendable income, but I want to see this thing. So, I use a P2P client and download it.
High income human: I have expendable income, and while I know I could download it for free, the Real Thing (tm) lasts longer, doesn't occupy HD space, and has lots of extra content. Totally worth the cut into my extra cash.

It's a bit straw man of an argument, I know. 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.

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

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?

[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?

[SanityInAnarchy]

c) Even if artists got a pisspoor share of royalties, I'm sure they would much rather prefer it to the fuck all they would get if stuff was P2Ped.

No they wouldn't. Not if they were smart.

Important quote for the lazy:

This story is about a bidding-war band that gets a huge deal with a 20 percent royalty rate and a million-dollar advance. (No bidding-war band ever got a 20 percent royalty, but whatever.) This is my "funny" math based on some reality and I just want to qualify it by saying I'm positive it's better math than what Edgar Bronfman Jr. [the president and CEO of Seagram, which owns Polygram] would provide.

(some number crunching)

Since the original million-dollar advance is also recoupable, the band owes $2 million to the record company.

If all of the million records are sold at full price with no discounts or record clubs, the band earns $2 million in royalties, since their 20 percent royalty works out to $2 a record.

Two million dollars in royalties minus $2 million in recoupable expenses equals ... zero!

How much does the record company make?

(more number crunching)

So their profit is $6.6 million; the band may as well be working at a 7-Eleven.

When you look at the legal line on a CD, it says copyright 1976 Atlantic Records or copyright 1996 RCA Records. When you look at a book, though, it'll say something like copyright 1999 Susan Faludi, or David Foster Wallace. Authors own their books and license them to publishers. When the contract runs out, writers gets their books back. But record companies own our copyrights forever.

To sum it up, I can't find the exact quote for this bit, but most artists -- even top artists -- would be better off financially if they didn't try to distribute at all, if they played in bars and such, or if they self-publish, via the Internet (magnatune, mindawn) or burn their own CDs. They'd be less popular, but they'd actually make money.

So yes, I think the smart artists, the small-time, bar/nightclub players who distribute their albums on their own CD-Rs, would really, truly, honestly not care whether they get P2P'd. They (like everyone else) make the real money from live concerts, which they get more and better of if they are more popular, which is much more likely if their stuff is getting P2P'd.

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.

It's a trap!

[eln]

Where can I purchase this film on DVD? This is clearly part of the MPAA's insidious plan to trap pirates, and I'm not falling for it!

Re:It's a trap!

[Anne_Nonymous]

No, here's the scam. It's the first of a four part series. The first film is free. You'll be billed for parts two, three, and four as they are shipped to you. Just four easy payments of $29.95. You are free to cancel at any time where allowed by law. Operators are standing by. Call now and receive a free gift.

Re:HTTP?

[neonprimetime]

Mov file - http://thepiratebay.org/tor/3514711/StealThisFilm. Part1.mov
iPod Video file - http://thepiratebay.org/tor/3514718/StealThisFilm. Part1.iPod.m4v
DVD Image - http://thepiratebay.org/tor/3514722/StealThisFilm. Part1.iso

Re:Obligatory question

[ThiagoHP]

Ooops, of course they are in the website, but it seems to me that just part 1 is available as a torrent: http://www.stealthisfilm.com/torrent/StealThisFilm .Part1.torrent.

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:So what?

[Fordiman]

Broken how? I just did a search for "William Shatner" that came up right.

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?

One thing is for sure

[sielwolf]

These guys aren't filmmakers. The first thing that struck me was that, no matter how OTS and easy to use the tech is, it takes a certain professional to actually make something that doesn't hurt the eyes. Long rambling interviews, close ups that where too close up (really, no one wants to be that close to that guy's beard), odd choice to shoot one guy out of focus, and no real cohesive story from beginning to end. It was a series of bad choices, like using too many Photoshop plugins because they are there. And some (like the choice to. show. only. one. word. of. text. at. the. beginning. so. you. couldn't. read. the. narration. all. at. once.) really hurt whatever they where trying to convey.

One of my coworkers said "you know, this movie's so unrestrained and poorly done that you actually respect all those big generic Hollywood movies for at least being coherent." You felt that maybe these guy's weren't right: we needed to pay for IP because the only movies that'd be left would be horrible pieces of crap like this.

Four parts was unnecessary. The whole episode was given no context (no history of IP at the beginning to set the table, no explanations of the differences in nations' IP laws or how international treaties work. Of course the creators might not know any of that themselves... which came off in a sense that they where really talking from the selfish desire to get away with whatever they want. And that's no way to sway opinion). There was no objective devil's advocacy (is there such thing as bad IP theft? Bad theft? What of Hollywood's concern about the East Asian bootleg DVD markets?), no attempt at compromise (is there some way to maintain creator's right to his work while at the same time preserving the consumer's right to fair use) or suggestion for future international law. Basically the movie just blew a big raspberry at corporations which makes the fair use camp seem childish. The only result is that fair use will get marginalized and ignored. The exact opposite effect of actually changing the landscape of intra- and international copyright.

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: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:One thing is for sure

[jackbird]

Production values isn't what the OP is talking about. He or she is talking about coherent editing, camera work, and story telling, which has been proven time and again to be possible on low or no budget. These guys just don't have the chops to make a decent film.

Re:0/10

[Fordiman]

Aww, that means my sig has no useful content.

*pout*

Re:Awful Movie

[Tanktalus]

You're not wrong about that. However, it's a delicate game to play. If you present a "documentary" that shows both sides in a debate where only one side is getting any airplay otherwise, you extend legitimacy to that side.

Instead, you must do what your grade-school teachers told you to do: present the other side point by point, and refute them. In this day and age, you must do so in rapid succession, since the attention span of your viewer is really short - you need to get the rebuttal in before they've forgotten the point you're rebutting, otherwise they'll just have internalised and accepted the point as valid which is exactly the opposite of what you're trying to do.

I'd propose that this is difficult - and perhaps a biased opinion towards what you want to get across is the only way to get it across.

"Income" might not be the best metric

[Kadin2048]

Low income is relative. Actually, I think in this case it's not so much a case of "low income" versus "high income," but a person's relative amount of disposable income. That is, two people might be making the same amount of money, but one person might have a lot more money to spend on entertainment, while the other person might have significantly higher fixed expenses. (Say, a wife and kids. Or husband and kids. Whatever.) Assuming you treat the computer and internet connection as a sunk cost, the person without the additional disposable income could "afford" to download, but not to buy DVDs.

It's not really an excuse for piracy so much as an explanation of the motives involved. Given the choice between paying for something and getting the exact same thing (or something they value equivalently) for free, people are always going to pick free. Honestly I think the reason people with higher incomes don't download is not because they see much additional value in the DVD, but because they value their time more highly, and don't want to mess around with file sharing programs or hunting down torrents. At a certain point, it just becomes easier to drive down to Blockbuster/Best Buy and buy the disc than it does to download it. It's an opportunity cost calculation.

Re:"Income" might not be the best metric

[freeweed]

Yes, although you're missing one important factor here. Think "bottled water". Yes, in many areas local tap water is horrible. However, in many cities where tap water is clean, tasty, and relatively soft, you still see the usual breakdown of people:

1. Cheapest - drink from the tap.
2. Less cheap - buy a Brita or Pur or some sort of home filtering system. Fairly cheap, but you're still paying money to "enhance" your drinking experience.
3. Most expensive - bottled water.

Note that the most convenient and time-saving option by far is (1). Also note that many people with money will often go for (2) or even (3). Sometimes, people don't go with free. Sometimes it's worth a bit of money to get something "extra", even if it's not tangible per se. The disposable income comment was spot on, btw. I know many people making $50k and up who download like crazy - because they literally could afford 2 or 3 movies a year otherwise. I also know people making half that who own huge DVD collections.

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:"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+

[cdrguru]

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.

The idea that this is some kind of marketing channel is absurd. You downloaded one show and gave up because the pirates aren't doing a good enough job. By purchasing the product you are undercutting your entire generation and all people that are demanding free access to entertainment everywhere.

No, this is a form of advertising because for every person that gives up there are 10 that do not and just download the whole lot. Then, because their friends might not want to download it all, burns a DVD so everyone can share.

What is needed here is to stop the halfway measures and make sure not one more CD or DVD is ever sold in the US. Stand outside WalMart and hand out URLs to download sites. Go up to people in a checkout line and say "did you know you can get that for free?" Push the envelope. Stop the sales.

If this is done, a response will come. Either we will be living in a world where only amature productions exist or someone will figure out how to stop the piracy. One way or another, there will be a solution.

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?

Steal This Film fails to persuade...

[Chabil Ha']

I downloaded a copy of "Steal This Film" last week. The whole idea of "Steal This Film" was to provide not only an opposing view to the seizure of their servers, but to provide a counterpoint to the whole piracy and peer to peer debate.

And unfortunately, I think they only half-succeeded. They historical events don't seem to be lacking at all, but TPB seemed to lack any philosophical basis for their reasons to justify piracy. Honestly, I came into this movie hoping to get more ammunition to justify piracy, but because there didn't seem to be a real argument in favor it, I actually came away from the movie thinking that it is wrong.

One of the 'Pirates' was explaining that she felt that it was against her ethics to buy a CD or movie on DVD. That's it. No explanation. Another remarked that he felt by supporting TPB and facilitating the theft of over 150,000 copyrighted materials he was committing 'civil disobedience'. Could you elaborate?

Unfortunately, TPB really seems to cast itself in an immature light with their reasoning in favor of piracy. For example, they played a clip of an MPAA executive stating that obvious economic facts that their product cannot just be given away for free. TPB's response? "It's not my problem to come up with an answer."

Interesting. TPB, at least through this documentary, really tries to portray itself as an advocate for change in intellectual property laws, but fails (in my opinion) to offer any real compelling reason why that should be, and fails again in really pushing for an alternative to outrageous movie prices and the equally ridiculous idea of getting it for free.

They were right about a few things, though. The MPAA and RIAA really do need to change their business model. With the advent of online music stores such as iTunes, the RIAA is slowly moving into the 21st century along with the rest of the world's digital civilization, but even still, their model for business is quite inept for the age we're in.

People ought to be able to get music and have fair use with it. Before the age of Digital Rights Management (DRM), it was quite easy to be able to buy a CD, duplicate it, make mixes of different songs, copy it to a cassette tape, etc. within the bounds of personal use. The new locks that come with downloadable content are unacceptable because they remove the ability of the user to play it whenever, wherever, and on whatever they want. This only adds fuel and justification to the piracy movement.

No, "Steal This Film" fails in providing a real compelling pro-piracy justification. But who knows, maybe in Part Two (scheduled for release in two months) they'll redeem themselves. Until then, TPB really has lost ground on the offensive.

Yup

[paranode]

It's so important that they have it that they will set up sites dedicated to getting the content and connect with thousands of other peers who want it, but then they claim that the people who created this content have no right to ask for money for it. Parts of the DMCA are definitely in need of repair, but the underlying copyright schema is an ownership/creator interest that has existed forever. I'm no model citizen in that regard, I've downloaded the stuff myself, but I'm don't kid myself that I'm doing 'the right thing' and that the copyright owners are waging some kind of immoral war against me.

Re:Yup

[Fordiman]

"I don't kid myself that ... copyright owners are waging some kind of immoral war against me."

Maybe not you in particular, but the copyright extensions that have gone through since copyright's inception in the US in 1790 seem like a plot against the customers of content creators. Read the below if you don't believe me.

REF:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_Act_of_1790
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_Act_of_1909
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Copyrig ht_Act_of_1976
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonny_Bono_Copyright_ Term_Extension_Act
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Millennium_Co pyright_Act

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.