Original: Steal This Film
I have just seen a great movie from a DVD I legally bought and I'd like to share it with you all but apparently I can't. I had to spend some 5 minutes of my time watching an introduction that warned me that sharing this movie is as bad as stealing a car, or breaking into someone else's house.
I don't want to be a thief and you certainly wouldn't like to receive stolen goods, right?
Right, except that this wouldn't be a stolen good and the comparison is quite unfair.
Say in 50 years time, this particular film had just vanished from the market, originals lost, my own DVD will not, probably, be working by then. Only the future knows if there will be DVD players available in 50 years, in the first place.
If you come around with a copy of that lost movie, you will be a culture hero, you would have saved a piece of mankind's culture from dissappearing and you will be bringing to a new generation to share what has been produced in the past.
And this would happen thanks to the magical technology that is copying.
You may even be able to make a profit by selling your copy to a media company which may pay quite well for it.
Fear not, they won't question if that comes from an illegally downloaded file or even if you broke into someone else's basement and stole it from an abandoned collection. That's not stealing, that's preserving culture, your sharing spirit will be acknowledged.
Fear, my friend, is for those who try to perpetuate culture that is not yet thought to be lost. Fear and punishment are for those who would illegally copy the film you saved after it's already saved.
As it happens, I think that comparing file sharers with burglars is quite unfair. I would say that if fairer to compare them with the people who produce (as opposed to commercialize) culture.
Yes, you and your favourite band, or your favourite filmmaker or author probably have one very strong thing in common. You want to share.
The primary reason people make music, films, books, painting, design, sculpture and whatever other form of expression you may think of is because they want to share.
Now, please do NOT take this as endorsement to piracy because it's not. I do believe that authors need to be paid for their work, and even the guys who commercialize it do.
Producer companies are not the bad guys for creating viable ways of delivering cultural products to the public. When they are the bad guys it's for a different reason, is because they want to own what it doesn't belong to them.
Filesharing (illegal or not) is making culture to reach more people and record companies claim they are losing sells, so they call you a thief. The reason why this is an unfair argument is because not everyone who received the files were potential buyers in the first place. Statistics show that more music and films are being sold today than before.
If that is in spite or because of filesharing is not clear, but I'm willing to bet it's because. People don't just like more music today than they did in the past, but because it's more accessible people are actually buying more.
On the other hand, if someone were to claim ownership over the Mona Lisa and say is to be locked never to be seen again, no complainer would be suspected a thief for willing to see it, but whoever locked it down would be stealing World Heritage.
Why it's the moral associated with contemporary culture the other way around? Why our contemporary culture can be lock down by an intermediator who suspects you a thief and threatens you for five minutes before you are allowed to see a film?
Again, I'm not in favour of piracy and I'm not claiming charing for culture is imoral. My point is actually very simple:
Culture is not something someone could just lock away. Once you are exposed to culture, it becomes part of your identity and you are no longer a mere expectator.
My good fried Daniel pointed me to a film called Steal This Film which materializes very well my view on the matter. And because they allow the public to, this one I'm sharing with you.
