Copyright Cops: stylish Brazilian short about youth, the Internet and copyright

Brazilian filmmaker Julio Secchin and friends created "Copyright Cops," a stylish, short film about copyright and youth. The movie is a little disjointed, but it's very beautiful, and they've made the raw footage available for remixing:

This is a short film about teenagers who are growing up in an environment with tons of information per second, being treated as criminals as they download a couple of songs from the internet, while trying to chat with their friends. The main goal here is make a reflection on subjects like freedom of information, online relationships and how all of this blends inside the head of a teenager, no matter where he lives.
Therefore, our conceptual statement always had among its goals the wish to make our entire project an open source platform. We've made this for the internet and for the people starting in the creative / audiovisual area looking for something to be remixed. We hope you enjoy it.
Being the adventures of a young man whose main interests are illegal downloads, violence and chatting with the girl he just met in the Internet.

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

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Message lost in the artsy stuff, imo.
- Anonymous
  
  I thought it was a good description of how it is for youth today, the troubles of living in an information society with the constant paranoia of terror police. Who aren’t a criminal anymore.
zapgunner

Julio,

“And while we’re not trying to make money out of this, we’re making an argument”

I applaud this argument, but where does non-intent to profit turn to unintentional profit? You stand on firm theoretical ground, but the nature of capitalism can instantly turn your basis to sand. All it takes is the right P.R. to convert your argument to the opposite in the eyes of the viewer.

But, as I said, I applaud the argument.
Anonymous

“This is a short film about teenagers who are growing up in an environment with tons of information per second, being treated as criminals as they download a couple of songs from the internet, while trying to chat with their friends. The main goal here is make a reflection on subjects like freedom of information, online relationships and how all of this blends inside the head of a teenager, no matter where he lives.”

I’m behind the EFF and have a firm belief that creative commons licensing may be the way of the future, but unless something is licensed in a way that allows for it to be downloaded for free then downloading it without paying for it is stealing.

And here’s the thing, information isn’t free. It has a cost. Someone produces it. Just because something is a physical object does not give it greater value. A pack of gum is not more valuable than a song. Just because it’s easy to find it on a torrent and download it does not mean it should be free and that taking it without paying for it isn’t a crime.

What would happen if someone walked into a store and stole a pack of gum? What if they did it 100 times, or 10,000. Should they suffer legal consequences? I’d say yes.

Stealing digital music, movies, books, games is no different. There should be consequences for people who steal materials.

The argument shouldn’t be that information is free, therefore people who download “information” in the form of music, games, books, etc., aren’t criminals, they are.

The arguments should be, that there needs to be a more common sense approach to copyright, its length, who benefits and what can and can’t be accessed by people reasonably as fair use and what the consequences are for someone who violates copyright.

Right now the consequences don’t fit the crime. Things are out of whack because of out of touch copyright laws and because our lawmakers are too easily swayed by corporations and not the people who elect them. That’s what needs to change.
- Julio Secchin
  
  I feel that is a nice thing to encourage the debate on this subject. I totally agree with Lawrence Lessig on this matter, the law should have different standards for amateur and professional use. As a producer myself, I really believe this is the path to be followed for this kind of project.
  And while we’re not trying to make money out of this, we’re making an argument.
  Thanks, I appreciate people sharing their believes on this subject.
  best,
  
  Julio Secchin
- sabik
  
  Anon, making a metaphor between copyright infringement and stealing is not conducive to “a more common sense approach to copyright”. An analogy between a song and a pack of gum is misleading, not because one or the other would have a greater value, but because they are different in kind; what the economists call “rival” and “non-rival” (sometimes going as far as “anti-rival”).
norskamerikansk

Cool film.
Anonymous

What’s the license on the footage? I’m not downloading 2GB just to check

I just want to know if I should make fun of them for using a CC license with an “NC” clause
- Anonymous
  
  Don’t know anything about the source footage, but the final clip is indeed by-nc-sa 3.0 (see description on vimeo page)