Thread: Internet Piracy

Steal This Film - Part I

Steal This Film - Part II

Originally Posted by Ynot

Steal This Film - Part I

Steal This Film - Part II

Personally I though that Part II was more refined, more indepth, and more reasearched than part one. Part one more or less was about pirate, and although good, it was not as good as part II and they really did a fantastic job with part II.

Well I see both sides of the issue. There is no completely right perspective. On one hand everyone should be compensated for their work, on the other hand with music only a few percent go to the artists.

Personally the problem is that we have shifted away from live performance. The point of recorded music was orginally to give an artist publicity so they could make more money doing concerts.

I mean look at all the famous rock bands of the 80s and early 90s. All of them became famous, partitially because of their music but also because they were fantastic showman and gave one heck of a concert.

These days our most popular arists are not very good live. Just look at the grammy's or the VMAs pretty much all the hip-hop and pop acts lack luster.

It really is sad because live music is really amazing.

Personally I don't buy music and instead spend a lot of money going to concerts and I bring like 4 other friends in my car. If I'm gonna spend my money on music I want something tangible and fun. I'm not going to pay for some digital file! Besides when you go to concerts all of your money goes to artist.

The problem with copyright ATM is not that it hurts artsits but instead it hurts the big corporations which produce artists and basically leech off content. The problem with the system is that it is so entrenched and that it is almost impossible to make it in the music industry without selling your soul to a record company.

Personally I'm a big fan of radiohead because they own their own label and aren't slaves to a record company.

Originally Posted by aceofspades

Personally I though that Part II was more refined, more indepth, and more reasearched than part one. Part one more or less was about pirate, and although good, it was not as good as part II and they really did a fantastic job with part II.

Oh, absolutely
Part II really brought the issues home

I loved the bit where they explained the "real threats"
The fact that the Phantom Menace has been downloaded 5000 times isn't the threat

While this does cause the distributors to lose out on potential profit
this is not why "piracy" is fought so vigorously
the real threat is the shift from consumer to producer

Where as before, to create and distribute content you needed huge amounts of capital to finance a work, and even more to distribute it to end-users
Suddenly, ordinary people can produce and distribute creative content for pennies

The old-fashioned gate keepers of media distribution losing their power and control over content creation and availability is the real threat

Now content creation is a free-for-all
distribution is, for all intents and purposes, free

Who needs a distributor?
Who needs a record deal?
Who needs a publisher?
Who needs the financial backing of any traditional media gate-keepers?

Consumers turned producers
Decentralised media production and distribution