TPB AFK is here.

[TIG]

Source: http://www.wired.com/underwire/2013/02/pirate-bay-documentary/



Get ready to pirate the pirates — legally. DIY indie documentary The Pirate Bay — Away From Keyboard (aka TPB AFK) premiered Friday at the Berlin International Film Festival, and quickly became available for viewing via YouTube, paid digital download, and, naturally, the torrent-based file-sharing site The Pirate Bay.
Partially funded by Kickstarter, where director Simon Klose raised more than $50,000 for the film, TPB AFK documents the hectic trial of Pirate Bay administrators Fredrik Neij, Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, and Peter Sunde, who were eventually convicted in a civil and criminal copyright case in Sweden in 2009 that pitted them against the government and the entertainment industry. The men were given jail sentences and millions of dollars in fines for their work with the torrent-based site.

True to the spirit of his subjects, Klose is offering his movie in almost every online format there is; you can pay to download the film, watch a YouTube stream, or (naturally) torrent it for free via the Pirate Bay. (There’s also a DVD pre-order for those who want to keep it old-school.) The director is encouraging fans to share and remix his movie however they like, with a Creative Commons license.

“The cool thing is that you guys are going to be part of the premiere.… We’re streaming the film online, for free. You can download it, you can share it, you can remix it – it’s all up to you,” Klose said in a video announcing the premiere on the movie’s website. “I’m doing this because I believe, from a personal perspective, I want my films to be seen by as many people as possible, so my problem is that a normal copyright would become an obstacle between me and my audience.”

As of this writing, the film’s site reports that it’s already processed some 2,000 paid downloads, bringing in a little over $22,000 (the base price is $10, but buyers can opt to donate more). TPB AFK will have its North American premiere at the South by Southwest Film Conference and Festival in March.

 

[TIG]

I have been looking forward to this movie for a long time. I am downloading it as I type this from the pirate bay itself.

For those who don't know what torrents or file sharing is let me explain. A torrent is a file that lets your computer talk to multiple other computers to get pieces of a thing you want to download. That thing can be any type of computer file, such as movies, music, documents, programs, etc. Anything that can be used by or installed on a computer can be torrented.

How it works is you install a program on your computer like Utorrent. You find the torrent of something you want. Let's say the movie "Serenity". You run the "Serenity" torrent in your Utorrent client. Your Utorrent client now talks to every other computer out there who is also running the "Serenity" torrent. All these computers talk back and forth sharing all the pieces of that movie that they have.
It is like thousands or millions of people all giving you separate copies of pieces of the same jigsaw puzzle so you end up with an exact copy of the puzzle when it is done.
At the same time you are making copies of the pieces you have and sharing them out to others. All for free.

This is copying a product and distributing it without paying the copyright holders. It is illegal under US copyright law, IF the item being shared is under a copyright that forbids copying without permission. Any items not copyrighted or any items that are under copyrights that allow free copies to be distributed are legal to torrent.

Big Hollywood has been spearheading the persecution and prosecution of file sharing sites and owners because they don't want anything distributed without them getting paid for it. Even though the sites and owners usually are not the ones doing the sharing, they are the easy targets because the sharing congregates at their servers. It's like shutting down a mall because its where drug deals are happening. They have also gone after some actual individuals and won because this is such a clear violation of copyright law.

If you torrent you can be sued for each piece of that item you shared. It can potentially be for amounts in the millions of dollars.

Torrents are the way that people share content with each other for free in the information age. It is the same thing as you making a copy of your favorite album and giving it to your friend. Only times a million. Is it wrong to give your friend a copy? Is it wrong to give a thousand strangers that same copy?

It is technically illegal but it is here to stay. The laws that govern copying and file sharing are old and being stretched to the limit with the changing world we live in. Should creators and owners of content be paid for each time that content is consumed? Is it ok to share a thing with someone else even if they didn't pay for it? Do we spend resources to combat the activity or do we figure out a way to still profit off our content in a world with sharing?

People will always want something for nothing. File sharing is here to stay. The question you should ask yourself is: do you feel right obtaining a copy of something without compensating the creator/owner?

 

[Ultra CHEZ]

I'm really excited for this film. This is an issue I often discuss with my friends (although admittedly the "discussion" never delves as deep as I'd like). While I agree with being able to share that which you purchase, making copies and then helping to distribute them is wrong in my opinion. When I borrow a game from someone, say for my Xbox or DS, that's still one single copy. Furthermore, I might decide to purchase the game myself after returning my friend's copy. However, with piracy, there is little to no incentive to purchase the game/movie/song legitimately. That takes away money from developers and producers and other people who work hard to produce that art. In addition, studios and companies of all sizes are affected, with the smaller ones being affected at a much greater level. Can Microsoft afford to lose money to pirated copies of Windows? Probably. Can a couple of people making their first game do the same for their product? I don't believe so.

"Big Hollywood" is by no means innocent either. Prosecuting individuals who outright steal your product makes sense, but shutting down a site or a YouTube video because they used part of your song or an image from your movie does not. Also, when they prosecute sites such as MegaUpload or The Pirate Bay, users and files not in violation of copyright laws should not be negatively impacted. And solutions such as always online DRM are not creative, well thought out ones. They often alienate portions of the fan base inadvertently.

It's called Piracy for a reason. When you download a product meant to be paid for without paying for it, that's stealing. Justify it however you like, it is what it is. Governments, producers of content, and consumers need to work together to come up with comprehensive solutions to this issue. I agree with T1G, file sharing isn't going away anytime soon. But the next time you torrent something, consider how the producer would feel. If they intended to give out their product for free, I doubt that you'd have to go to The Pirate Bay to even obtain it. That's my opinion on the issue, anyway.

 

[TIG]

That youtube link in the first post is the full movie. It is also hosted on all the sharing sites and is free to copy. They even encourage it to be copied and shared however you like.

I watched the whole thing and it played more like an extended news segment only from the view of the pirate bay guys. Most documentaries will at least give you a kind of wrapping up at the end and we didn't really get that. It did a good job of getting the story of these 3 guys out there though.