TPB AKF (The Priate Bay Away from ther Keyboard)
Channel: jim fouratt's REEL DEAL : MOVIES THAT MATTER
Date: 09/03/2013

Troubling film about the most successful creative work piracy website ( the pirate bay) based in Sweden. the US government pressured  the Swedish Government to prosecute. What  is troubling is the the film makes heroes of the three founders and sees them as fighting to keep the internet free from government control by censorship. ht and protection of copyright   The downloading of creative work owned by an artist is quite different I believe than downloading  a diplomatic cable, a corporations cover up game plan or posting a video that shows a government or an agency or corporation or an individual is lying or breaking the law.  Not one frame deals with the ethical question of if you you think you have the right to download with out compensating  the creative work of anyone be they a Hollywood studio or an individual poet or indie rock musician. TPB AFK is well crafted  and structured with the rhythm  of an action film shot by a slacker, TBK AKF is a necessary must see film to understand how non-creative people (computer geeks are essentially scientific technicians. Even when gifted with genius they are not in my view artists,Yet they feel they can profit ( usually by sex industry  adverts) from  the "free" distribution of an artist's  creative work be it film, writing or music or visual art with out their permission, The conflating of what many artist call thief with freedom of expression and unregulated internet is the the core and nexis of the ethical problem. I fear  what will intimately happen is the diminishing of artistic value  because of the lack of economic protection and incentive and the devaluing of artistic  and  creative labor,

 iof the disconnect and the  the quality of art will be fundamentally diminished if the  common ethic is it is ok to "steal" or upload anything on the internet. In this Q&A the director lays out why  he spent 5 years following this story. When asked how were artists to survive , the best he could say was; " I don't know. A new distribution steam needs to be developed that answers that question, " He did say from day one he has made his film available for free on the internet (YouTube etc) . His producer who paid for the work and the theatrical distributor both present in the audience did not participate in  the Q&A .