/ Cory Doctorow / 6:03 am Mon Jan 30, 2012

Hollywood: a corrupt empire, founded by pirates

Writing in the Toronto Sun tabloid, Alan Parker rails against the corruption of the entertainment industry, and the hypocrisy of the way that they've painted Kim Dotcom and MegaUpload: "The film corporations that were spawned by the very pirates and outlaws who created a hole-in-the-wall getaway hideout in Hollywood are now leading the charge to eradicate uncontrolled Internet access to works and technology they say they hold copyright and patent title to." (Thanks, Brian!)

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  1. Ya know…  I’m still waiting on the expose on piracy *IN* Hollywood.
    Things like having rare 35mm prints of films that belong to the studios and so on.

    It’s a well known practice with a lot of Hollyweirds elite Into the buying/selling/swapping of these print’s.

    A glimpse of this was written about back in the 70’s when Roddy McDowall was busted by the FBI:
    http://www.thesmokinggun.com/documents/crime/roddy-mcdowalls-planet-tapes-0

    And it still goes on to this day ;)

    1. Films which are thought to be lost – the studio archives don’t have a copy, or they degraded – sometimes turn up in old private collections, or in libraries/archives (who received them after the collectors died and their kids didn’t know what to do with them, or whatever the case may be) who don’t realize what it is exactly that they’ve got.

      I would think this is one reason Hollywood turns a blind eye – private collectors are doing the archiving that the studios themselves should be paying for :)

      Plus, by the time film prints and so on are in the hands of insider collectors, the film is already out there and has been bootlegged by outsiders. So these collectors don’t really represent “lost sales” which is all they claim to care about, or a route for bootleggers to obtain the films.

      I actually have some reels of film that theoretically belong to various film studios, that I acquired by being an “insider” of sorts. They’re just a neat thing to have :)

      1. So, it’s not ok to download a movie but it’s fine to steal/possess an actual print of said movie that does not belong to you?

        “theoretically belong”
        LoL

        -=edit=-
        Would love a comment/opinion from Cory D. on this!

  2. I case some of you will think: “tl;dr”, pls visit the link provided in the ‘Update’ at the end of the text, which links to an interview with Yochai Benkler, Faculty Co-Director of the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University.

    ‘I think the moral authority a the networked public is on a completely different plane than the moral authority of companies paying lobbying.  And that’s an enormous power to be reckoned with.’

      1. While reading “debt, the first 5000 years”, i found a interesting claim about local “communism”. This based on the “from each based on ability, to each based on need”. We seem to default to this concept when we perceive no threat from those around us. I suspect various online projects can be seen in that light.

  3. Heh, i wonder how many local politicos looked the other way as long as Capone slid a bottle or two under the table ever so often…

  4. “Pirates and outlaws”?

    With rare exception, the turn-of-the-century independents weren’t pirating anything or breaking any laws.  

    Edison’s trust was engaged in illegal restraint of trade.

    Edison was trying to claim that, because his trust had bought up most of the patents relating to motion-picture cameras and projectors, everyone had to have his permission to make movies, distribute movies, and exhibit movies. And anyone who used his equipment had to buy their film from his approved suppliers and obey any other rules he happened to come up with – because he had affixed a plate to the equipment that said so.

    Even though  NONE of those things are covered by the patent laws .

    None of that is piracy.  None of it is outlawed.

    (I suppose I should be grateful that at least he didn’t claim that they “ripped off Edison’s patents and fled to California”, huh?)

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