Piracy
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Stealing Thunder: How to Fight Piracy While Remaining Cool
If you’re like most young-ish filmmakers, you grew up and matured in an open source world of Napster, YouTube and BitTorrent. Whether it was making mixtapes for your college girlfriend, or ripping CDs and DVDs with your film school pals, “appropriating media” might have been a way of life for you to consume and share your favorite songs, films and TV. You scoffed at FBI warnings on VHS tapes and mocked MPAA PSAs. You’ve mashed up, mixed up and just plain stolen your way through the early 21st century with nary a tinge of regret. Hell, we’re living in an […]
by Dan Mirvish on Jul 24, 2015 -
transmediale 2015: Nicolas Maigret, BitTorrent and The Pirate Cinema
Since 1988 transmediale has been one of Europe’s premiere events for showcasing transmedia and technology for art and narrative and nonfiction storytelling. Director Kristoffer Gansing (who spoke with Filmmaker last year) and his team continue to assemble cutting-edge films, installations, performances, workshops, and other events, turning the House of World Cultures in Berlin into a hub for all things new media. It ran last week, and I spoke with a number of artists who presented video-based pieces at the festival. Nicolas Maigret is a French artist who has been active since 2001. His work explores the internal functioning of media like the Internet by making its processes — […]
by Randy Astle on Feb 23, 2015 -
Torrenters, Six Strikes and You’re Out!
Has a peculiar notice popped up on either your TV set or computer reading: “Copyright Alert! #1”? This notice is the first of six that digital communications users will receive as part of the Copyright Alert System (CAS). Having failed to get Congress to adopt the SOPA/PIPA legislation last year, the movie and record industry trade associations, the MPAA and RIAA, respectively, have taken a second bite at the apple in their effort to address the problem of illegal downloading of copyrighted entertainment content. CAS, which went into effect on February 25, ties the major content trade associations to the […]
by David Rosen on Mar 6, 2013 -
An Independent Filmmaker Confronts Piracy
Producer Matt Compton says he knew the feature he produced — a “thinking man’s horror film,” Midnight Son, directed by Scott Leberecht — would eventually be pirated. “I always knew the film would end up on the torrent sites,” he writes in an email, “and that there would be nothing I could do about it. If the major studios can’t stop piracy, surely an indie producer such as myself can do nothing.” But he wasn’t prepared for his film to show up three weeks before the film was commercially available, when whatever word-of-mouth to be gained by the filesharing couldn’t […]
by Scott Macaulay on Aug 6, 2012 -
INTERNET SITES GO DARK TO PROTEST SOPA, PIPA LEGISLATION
Grass roots opposition from the anti-censorship left and the anti-regulation right, the lobbying muscle of a startled tech industry, and a nuanced and surprisingly critical response from Obama administration have drastically altered the momentum of the anti-piracy bills SOPA and PIPA as they march through Congress. Still, sites as diverse as Boing Boing, Wikipedia and Google are all continuing their efforts to alert the public to the dangerous elements of these bills, which, in their attempt to thwart pirating of intellectual property, dangerously tamper with internet architecture and loosen free speech protections. Wikipedia and Boing Boing go dark today while […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jan 18, 2012 -
SOPA, PRO AND CON
I’ve linked to several articles critical of the Stop Online Piracy Act, which is being debated in Congress this week, and wrote about it in today’s newsletter. Today’s markup hearings were absolutely fascinating, and it was amusing to hear the plight of the low-budget independent filmmaker cited at one point by a pro-SOPA congressman. As you’ve heard from me arguments against the legislation in its current form, I thought I should perhaps link to the other side of the discussion. And then I found this “truth annotated” version of Viacom’s spot lobbying for SOPA. Here, then, in one handy clip […]
by Scott Macaulay on Dec 16, 2011 -
LOUIS C.K. OFFERS $5 DOWNLOAD, ANSWERS QUESTIONS ON REDDIT
As one of Filmmaker‘s “Best of 2011” posts, Dan Schoenbrun hailed Louie as one of the year’s best TV shows. And now, as the year closes, the comedian has launched one of the year’s best DIY distribution and marketing efforts. As John Biggs wrote at Techcrunch, Louis CK is offering his Live at the Beacon Theater concert film for $5 as a DRM-free download or stream. And while the Hollywood studios are currently fighting piracy by borrowing a page from the firewalls of authoritarian regimes (see the SOPA legislation currently before Congress), C.K. is taking a more human approach. He […]
by Scott Macaulay on Dec 13, 2011 -
MEDIA CURRENT: THE IP WARS
After the Thanksgiving recess, Congress is expected to vote on two bills that will influence the future of online Intellectual Property (IP). The Senate bill (S. 968) is dubbed the “PROTECT IP Act” (PIPA) which stands for the “Preventing Real Online Threats to Economic Creativity and Theft of Intellectual Property Act”; it was adopted by the Judiciary Committee in May. The House bill (H.R.3261) is the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and is currently being deliberated. The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), the music industry and a handful of digital rights holders, including games companies Sony and Nintendo, are […]
by David Rosen on Nov 28, 2011 -
DON’T PIRATE GAY FILMS!
That’s the message of “Pay to Play,” a PSA campaign by Wolfe Video that adds an LGBT twist to the studio-style anti-piracy campaign. The socioeconomics of pirating are perhaps a little more complex than the campaign acknowledges, but I agree with the central point that non-mainstream communities are particularly hurt by a migration of audience financial support. So, really, if you enjoy work by today’s gay and lesbian filmmakers online, make sure that they are compensated.
by Scott Macaulay on Dec 15, 2010
