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

[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.)

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"

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: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

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: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.

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.

"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:"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.

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.