Director of ‘The Nines’ Talks to TorrentFreak About Piracy
Written by enigmax on January 18, 2008Earlier this week we published an article where John August, the director of the hit movie ‘The Nines’ said that he wouldn’t think bad of people who downloaded his movie using BitTorrent. We caught up with John who kindly shares some thoughts on piracy and reveals an innovative future plan.
John August, the director of hit movie ‘The Nines’ said he wouldn’t hold it against BitTorrent users who downloaded his movie. So what exactly does he mean by this? TorrentFreak caught up with John who shared some more of his thoughts on piracy with us.
He’s not exactly pleased that his movie is available for unauthorized download, but he’s remaining realistic. “I’m not bouncy with joy over my movie getting torrented,” he told us, “but I think it’s a stretch to equate unlawful downloading with traditional theft.”
Many people in the copyright debate agree that personal use is much different to physical theft, with many drawing the moral line where personal use ends and commercial piracy starts. John seems to do the same: “I get pissed off when I see blackmarket DVDs sold on the sidewalks, because those are literally discs we’re not selling. It’s an organized crime. But an individual watching a movie he’s downloaded for free isn’t on the same scale for me.”
So how does John view the usefulness of BitTorrent for marketing purposes? He told us: “The pro-torrent argument, particularly for indie films which get limited distribution (like The Nines), is that a torrent allows a lot of people to see the movie who otherwise couldn’t. And yes, a filmmaker wants his work seen.”
Of course, monetizing content is something that film makers have to consider, as John explains: “[the filmaker] wants to be paid for his efforts. No matter where you work - an office, a factory, a retail store - you do your job with the expectation of getting paid. If your employer decided he didn’t want to pay you, you’d be upset. If the employer said, ‘Well, the customers decided to take the products without paying for them,’ you’d rightly tell him to get off his fat ass and hire a security guard.”
Many discussions about the ’solutions’ to piracy touch heavily on the need for more reasonable, appropriate laws and greater ease of access to legal content. John seems to be of a similar view: “There are lots of things that can and should be free - or at least freer. Copyright needs to be re-thunk, particularly in terms of corporations and their endless time limits. And legitimate, convenient alternatives need to be available, so that’s it’s not any more difficult to find and download a movie legally.”
Finally, John told us about an interesting idea he’s hoping budding film makers will pick up on: “One of the things I hope to do with The Nines - sometime after the writers’ strike, when I can call Sony again - is to release a low-res version of all the source material for The Nines, so budding filmmakers can try their hand at cutting (and re-cutting) a real feature.”
John finishes up with a thought about the motivation behind someone downloading his movie: “I’m watching this first wave of torrents carefully, hoping the people who are downloading The Nines are doing it because they love movies, and not because they want to screw over some mythical ‘The Man’”
Maybe we should let Tom Corelis over at DailyTech put your mind at ease John? Here he is, writing about Ernesto’s recent article charting the success of an independent, free to download movie:
Meanwhile, TorrentFreak attributes Steal This Film II’s success to the creators’ wise avoidance of psychological reactance, which states that people are inclined to respond in a manner opposite of the rules when it inhibits behavioral freedom
You know it makes sense.
Previously: uTorrent and Official BitTorrent Client Vulnerable to Remote DOS Attack
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46 Responses
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I wish all directors think like this, but that’s not going to happen. Im gonna watch the movie now :P
well i for one,never sell what i d.load,i d.load them cause i know it will be a while till i get my hands on the dvd,and for one,i hate watching good movies at the cinema,at home you can pause it and come back to it :p
for those who d.load and profit from it,shame on you
wait until he falls for the charms of MD. They’re on the comeback with a new ad campaign….:
http://img244.imageshack.us/img244/7373/safftheassmh5.jpg
Wtf is he talking about ‘The Man’…
Were fighting something real, the companies that protect your movies. He is a little clueless about what we are trying to do here.
This isnt all about you, the fact that you even thought your movie might not be leaked is hilarious.. all of this is alot bigger then you, your just another grain of sand that passes by.
Again, even if I could get this movie for free, I would still download it, those companies WILL change or die.
Im glad you are able to accept the inevitable, and that we draw a very distinct line between personal use and commercial piracy, just try and understand WHY we do what we are doing.
i see torrents as “try before you buy” im not rich and dont want to spend £10 -£20 on a dvd etc that i might not like or want in a weeks time, im not fighting anyone, not sticking it to any “man” im just spending my ££’s wisely
[quote comment="266510"]i see torrents as “try before you buy” im not rich and dont want to spend £10 -£20 on a dvd etc that i might not like or want in a weeks time, im not fighting anyone, not sticking it to any “man” im just spending my ££’s wisely[/quote]
Or wisely not spending them =D
it looks a bit like the wheel slowly is starting to turn….yet it´s way to early to relaks. Everyone who´s doing something for the p2p, please keep fighting, it´s going the right way! Have a nice weekend, remember to share! ;-)
/Pantonamia
Try not to worry about all the reports about isohunt being so heavily monitored by the Canadian Gov, though true, file sharing is not currently illegal for canadians. I was a little worried when I got a letter from Sony but its just bull theres nothing they can do
[quote comment="266500"]Wtf is he talking about ‘The Man’…
Were fighting something real, the companies that protect your movies. He is a little clueless about what we are trying to do here.
This isnt all about you, the fact that you even thought your movie might not be leaked is hilarious.. all of this is alot bigger then you, your just another grain of sand that passes by.
Again, even if I could get this movie for free, I would still download it, those companies WILL change or die.
Im glad you are able to accept the inevitable, and that we draw a very distinct line between personal use and commercial piracy, just try and understand WHY we do what we are doing.[/quote]
Seriously get over yourself. Although comments on torrentfreak liker this are usually quite amusing to read its also incredibly, incredibly sad.
You arent a member of the scene, and admin to a top site, a private tracker or a large public tracker, all you do is download/upload.
“We’re fighting something real”. Right now ‘we’re’ not fighting anything, were sitting here being anonymous getting sh*t for free. Want to make a difference? right to politicians and stuff, just dont come over all this bull that you’re part of a ‘movement’.
I’m all for filesharing and p2p but all the controversy has gone to peoples heads. While the RIAA are on one side of the extremist spectrum rmemeber there are others on the other side.
ie torrentfreak making out that he is supporting his movie being shared. And constantly linking back to steal this film and that other one where the director thanked everyone.
The director is spot on, he should get payed, and while people said their should be a donate page, that jsut encourages people to get it through these means and then pay nothing/pay 1 quid for it.
Cut off the middlehands and there will be a new distribution form. Probably 1 big website will come into being with direct downloads (DRM free ofc) and a payment system that is easy fast, optional (if artist wants) and no transferance fees (aka paypal minimum 1 dollah).
I believe The Pirate Bay are very likely to be the ones who does exactly that, since they mentioned something about paymentsystem before ;)
Anyways i think thats the way to go, and it will be fought to the very end by the middlemen and record labels. There will always be a need for materialization, some people will want plastic discs or memory sticks or even some other hard real item (stuff signed by the artist etc?) so record labels have another role they can take up, they will never die completely unless they continue their self destructing ways as of today..
The future looks good, certainly not as harsh as the middlemen wants us to think. Its only harsh for the dinosaur, the virus, the blood sucking money leechers, the freeriders of content creators and its natural they will try to not go extinct ;) For the consumer lies a new world with instant and endless content where they are free to pick and choose, something that only pirates today can experience, even though most of the world population with internet are pirates there will still have to be law changes.
I believe those law changes need to be about digital entertainment, movie/music/photo entertainment should get their own copyright law.
Something like a Open source licence cheme but for movies/music etc. Always provide means of donation/payment and certain information and your free to download/share and use stuff how you want basicly. Artist (creators) income is secured, provided people like their product.
This also act as a balancer so junk cant be spit out expecting steady income because of a nice box and crappy content and protection by copyright laws for a lifetime like in some places today..
It also completely eliminates real pirates. This wont happen over night, and it wont hurt a bit but im pretty confident that it will happen, maybe not today or next year even but eventualy entertainment will be “free” and easy to get without breaking some law from the 70s..
SHUT THE FUCK UP!!!!!!!!!
[quote comment="266594"]Try not to worry about all the reports about isohunt being so heavily monitored by the Canadian Gov, though true, file sharing is not currently illegal for canadians. I was a little worried when I got a letter from Sony but its just bull theres nothing they can do[/quote]
AFAIK uploading is still illegal
Has anyone watched this movie? / recommends it?
I’m agreeing with 11 (sort of..)
Stop taking things so seriously.
Yeah some people who download/upload/provide have to fight lawyers etc.. but taking it seriously and getting worked up will get you tired, more annoyed and probably make you give worse arguments.. so i think we should leave that to anyone opposing us! :)
.. Let them make mistakes
// Sickness
[quote]You arent a member of the scene, and admin to a top site, a private tracker or a large public tracker, all you do is download/upload.
“We’re fighting something real”. Right now ‘we’re’ not fighting anything, were sitting here being anonymous getting sh*t for free. Want to make a difference? right to politicians and stuff, just dont come over all this bull that you’re part of a ‘movement’.[/quote]
File sharing is a movement, actually. Some people are in it just for free stuff, sure, but others are in to to express their opposition to the current system of copyright.
Yes, the movement is accessible to anyone - that’s the major problem people like you have. You’d rather it be a small little club where people can act superior to others, and you think it has to be like that to be a movement…
[quote]file sharing is not currently illegal for canadians.[/quote]
Sharing copyrighted data (Infringing on copyrights) IS illegal in Canada, except downloading (and only downloading) music (and only music).
“except downloading (and only downloading) music (and only music)”
Haha… that’s funny. Got a source for this silly claim?
there is a real moving movement in shweden, Piratpartiet, the Pirateparty. And it might just make it in to swedish parliament next election, just need 4% of the votes…
It might happen, and it is a real fucking movement that will do fucking stuff.
[quote]Haha… that’s funny. Got a source for this silly claim?[/quote]
google “p2p download music legal canada”, click on cnet or zdnet link
@13
Yes, I’ve seen it and it was good. Odd, but good. I wish it had been more open-ended, up to interpretation, instead of pseudo-concrete in its explanation.
Nice Guy! Really got his head skrewed on right, I totally agree that commercial piracy isn’t exactly fair but personal viewing is quite orite! I’m going to download his film and if i like it i’m going to buy it just like ‘the man from earth’
[quote]Has anyone watched this movie? / recommends it?[/quote]
Most of the comments on it I’ve seen were that is was very good, except for one comment on TPB.
have not yet seen this movie, hope it is good, good to see that he is semi-enlightend.
[quote comment="266686"]“except downloading (and only downloading) music (and only music)”
Haha… that’s funny. Got a source for this silly claim?[/quote]
it is not that silly of a claim i have heard of this before, dont know if this the right story but
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2004/03/31/download_court040331.html
i, for one, downloaded ‘the nines’ right when it came out. it looked like a good movie, and i wanted to check it out.
i download movies and music all the time, and hardly ever pay.
and i’m never going to stop. and i don’t give a shit whether some idiot directors cares or doesn’t care.
that being said, i DO support the artists/producers that i like (to a certain extent; i can’t be spending thousands and thousands of dollars on movies every year), and i’ll probably buy the nines when it comes out on dvd just because it was that good and it deserves to be bought.
I call it BS. Publicity stunt.
of course it’s a publicity stunt! the guy has a movie out that he wants to make money from - do you expect him to hide under a rock or something?
“And yes, a filmmaker wants his work seen”
a Bad Thing (economically) has happened to his movie and he’s trying to spin it in a way that turns it to a positive and you think that’s BS? do you actually live in the real world or have you just flown in here on your way to Planet Clueless?
he clearly has a more liberal attitude than some in Hollywood, but the guy still needs paid, especially if he wants to work again. So of course he’s going to reach out to those that are getting his work for free, try and explain his situation and show that he understands their situation and hopes that they understand his.
the real cool bit of his interview was passed over, and that’s releasing the source material for amateurs to have fun cutting into their own movies. I doubt Sony would go for that, but it shows the director is thinking out of the box and has some good ideas for involving his audience directly in his movie.
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