We live in a very different age than that which has passed. We live in an age where the world's corporations have told use emphatically that we NEED a 'digital lifestyle' and should have it NOW...! And so, like dutiful little lemmings, we went out and did just that - we bought all those machines and devices they insisted that we buy and we hooked them up to the 'information super highway' that they said we had to connect to... But now they're angry at us; they're very afraid of what we might do with the devices of the digital lifestyle that they told us we had to have.
Turns out the devices and machines we bought have only ONE purpose, only ONE function, only ONE true ability - the ability to Copy, the ability to Replicate and the ability to Diseminate. Whether big or small, thats what a computer does. It makes copies, it stores copies and it distributes copies. But now the movie studios and record companies and software developers are all very grumpy at us for using the devices to do exactly what they're intended to do....?
Arguments about Right and Wrong a largely irrelevent - the computer 'tool' is designed for one purpose - to copy - and so when we flood the world with copy machines we really shouldnt be surpirsed that they start... you know.... Copying... Much like America's gun-laws - If you're going to have a national community flooded with 192 million guns which have no purpose other than to maim and kill you really shouldn't look surpirsed when 30,000 people per year are maimed and killed by firearms. Its bleeding obvious.
But this is the very different age we live in - an age where laws of 'ownership' and 'copyright' developed in the industrial revolution suddenly find themselves hard pressed to be relevent in an age of mass-duplication.
Agan, this is not about theft or morality its simple pragmatics. We - creators - need to re-think some of the paradigms. Not because we want to but simply because we'll have to. We live in a very different age with very different sensibilities driven by the technology that knits our society together.
In this context we get Steal this Film. A documentary that made headlines in 2006 now has a sequal in 2008. Whether you're a staunch believer in copyright protection or a futurist looking for alternatives like Creative Commons - this film is certanly worth the watching.
Posted by film dude on January 20, 2008 at 04:37 AM EST #