I’ve just finished watching the second installment of ‘Steal This Film‘. Put this on top of the first part and it is a damn good look at the ‘culture of copying’ which has existed (as a form of communication) since the dawn of time. I met with one of the makers behind this worthy project at Picnic Network last year and was very impressed with the idea behind the film. It does the necessary job of putting into motion pictures the issues surrounding copyright which are being written about so much these days by forward thinking scholars. The first part focuses largely on the debate surrounded piracy online and in particular the story of The Pirate Bay. This recently released second part takes a closer look at the history of ‘copying’ with good sections on the printing press (which was accused of being black magic on it’s dawning!) and on the rise of the internet from it’s inception as a reaction to Sputnik.
Anyway I won’t ruin the film, that would be worse than stealing it…so go ahead and download it!
RELATED LINKAGE
I Wouldn’t Steal
Good Copy Bad Copy
How do you start a movement with a marker pen? What’s the connection between the nun who invented disco, and file sharing? How did a male model messing with disco records in New York in the 1970s influence the way Boeing design airplanes? Does hip-hop really hold the secret to world peace? How did three eleven-year-olds revolutionize the video game industry by turning Nazis into Smurfs? And what’s going to happen to Nike when it’s possible for kids to download sneakers?
It started with punk. Hip-hop, rave, graffiti, and gaming took it to another level, and now modern technology has made the ideas and innovations of youth culture increasingly intimate and increasingly global at the same time.In The Pirate’s Dilemma, VICE magazine’s Matt Mason — poised to become the Malcolm Gladwell of the iPod Generation — brings the exuberance of a passionate music fan and the technological savvy of an IT wizard to the task of sorting through the changes brought about by the interface of pop culture and innovation. He charts the rise of various youth movements — from pirate radio to remix culture — and tracks their ripple effect throughout larger society.
Well I’ve ordered this book pretty much straight away after finding out about it. It’s not yet available on this side of the pond so I went for the US version via Amazon as I couldn’t wait for the UK version to come out in May. It sounds really good indeed and I can’t wait for it to arrive. I will do a review after I’ve read it.
The video above is great too. I found this after ordering it and was delighted, as I had spontaneously whipped out the plastic earlier for this addition to my bookshelf!
If this has spurred your interest you can grab it from Amazon from the link below.
