Ok so I’m still thinking about piracy – though I still think we need to phrase the whole debate better. After all, Pirates are cool. This, I presume, is why the Industry (or The Man, an even cooler name if you ask me) is desperate to rebrand internet Pirates as Thieves. However like so much else in the virtual world this is still giving far too much kudos to the activity. “Surfing for pirate p2p networks” is a very glamourous…
So piracy is wrong but it isn’t stealing (see below for details). In film making there is, however, another confusion and our own beloved Shooting People website is a very good example of it. Filmmakers, especially those who make short films, are constantly encouraged to give their work away for free. So much so that it can often be seen as quite an affront if you refuse to do so. Shooting People offers a superb online streaming service where members…
Ok so I still don’t know what I think about piracy. One thing that does annoy me is the “you wouldn’t steal a handbag” line of reasoning that hopes to make people question the morality of creative piracy. At first glance this is a compelling point. I certainly wouldn’t dream of stealing someone’s handbag, I wouldn’t smash a car window and take a stereo and when a man hit me in the face and ran off with my laptop I…
OK so this is me working out my thoughts on piracy as I go. The previous post, (VIKING ATTACKS) which is well worth reading, talks about music and the way that pirate recordings on the internet can encourage you to seek out and buy new things that you would not have otherwise fallen in love with. It also talks about how Spotify (who aren’t sponsoring me but should be) can act as a brilliant replacement to a radio industry which…
I find myself in an unusual position regarding the Pirate Bay ruling which has seen a bunch of Swedish Pirates (or Vikings as we used to call them) sent to prison. Normally I am boringly full of opinion about events but the surrounding buzz about the rights and wrongs of piracy and the entire future of creative capitalism leaves me confused. First of all I, naturally enough, agree with Lee’s sentiments about getting paid for making stuff up. However I…
