Ignorance or Duplicity: P2P Labeled “the bane of Hollywood” on TV Program

In my personal top most annoying things lately, I would have to include people who talk about p2p, BitTorrent and illegal file sharing without having a single clue about any of these. What annoys me, in fact, is this ‘talking' being done on TV shows by biased, opinion-forming TV hosts who don’t even do their homework properly before appearing in front of the camera to pass on sententious judgments and claims.

Here’s the latest example – how piracy affects Hollywood was a ‘fat’ topic Sunday night on Leslie Stahl’s 60 minutes. The broadcast started off with what seemed a dramatic Hollywood script introduction – “Mobsters have moved into the movie piracy business and it is bleeding Hollywood to the tune of billions of dollars a year.” The rest of the ‘story’ continues in the same note, like the MPAA itself had been commissioned the text (or did they?). Besides being grossly inaccurate this ludicrous piece of so called journalism lacks what any piece of journalism should render – objectivity.

When Stahl took on the task of explaining what P2P networking and Bit Torrent technology are, she did it not suggesting, but clearly stating that they are ONLY used for pirating movies, totally neglecting the fact that so many media companies are using this technology to distribute their content due to its low price and high efficiency or the digital epoch we live in and the irreversible progress (that is not all evil) that copyright laws must cope with altogether.

There are so many errors in Stahl's report to make a list of. She juxtaposes the image of pirates selling physical copies of movies to make money illegally with file sharers who are swapping or distributing content for free online. Moreover, file sharing is lined up next to drug selling and prostitution as gravity and issue to be dealt with by police. However, she wasn’t so comprehensive as to inform that P2P technology has legitimate content distribution purposes and when interviewing MPAA spokespersons and director Steven Soderbergh she didn’t stop to wonder or ponder how come MPAA members are in partnership with BitTorrent after all.

Anyway, watch the video below and judge it yourself:

Without further comments I let you instead read some of the comments from those who’ve also watched the program:

KSpyrka
“The pirates are reacting the way any pirates react. They are seizing the opportunity the Industry has left to them by pricing their mediocre product way too high.”

Exx-Traddition
“The actual copyright law is not compatible with the internet and all the new technologies, and since it's obvious we can't stop progress and the internet won't go away, the solution is to change the law and to try to stop the internet…. which is just impossible anyway.

if you succeed to block one download software or protocol a new will rise, the movie and music industry refuse to acknowledge that things are changing, and so they need to find new way of doing business. They are 10 years too late anyway, the internet is here to stay and it should remain neutral, and free for government control. Otherwise it would mean killing one of the greatest invention of the 20 th century.”

Luciousbrutus
“Businesses will always make money. I am a file sharer, but I still go to the movies. I still pay for cable. But when a movie or song has been out for a long time; when it has had a chance to become more common than grass or rain water, then attempting to charge for it is dubious. Of course by time this information has proliferated across the Earth, the media companies have already made millions. They will always make millions so long as they stay innovative and find newer and better ways of doing what they do, thus giving people new reasons to buy their goods.”

LarryMovies
“File-sharing is wrong, don't misunderstand me. But equating millions of individuals with physical pirates and the mob is just yellow journalism. You don't get to fix a problem with your best customers by suing them (see the most recent survey in the UK saying file sharers are the largest purchasers of content). It took the record industry some 30,000 law suits against consumers before they realize what a toll it was taking on their own industry's image amongst its best customers.

This is a really, really embarrassing piece. I have seen infomercials with more accurate facts than this "report."”