TorrentFreak

• Ernesto
• September 19, 2010
• 68
• Faith School Menace,
  Richard Dawkins
• Print

Professor Richard Dawkins is one of the best known evolutionary biologists today. Affiliated with the University of Oxford and Berkeley, he is famous for his fierce and outspoken critique on religious institutions through his publications and documentaries. In common with many scientists, he wants his work to be read and seen by the public, even if that means ignoring copyright by going to The Pirate Bay.

Professor Richard Dawkins needs no introduction and any attempt at one will inevitably fall short considering his impressive track record. With several honorary doctorates and many awards, he is one of the best known and most renowned scientists today.

To top it off, Dawkins is the person who coined the term “meme”, which has started to lead a life of its own on the Internet.

An outspoken atheist and prominent critic of creationism, Dawkins has made several documentaries where he shows that the world would be a better place without religion. His most recent documentary Faith School Menace explored the detrimental effect faith schools have on children.

The documentary, presented by Dawkins, aired on Channel 4′s television channel More4 last month in the UK. The reviews of the film were mixed and as always highly correlated with the beliefs of the viewers. However, most of Dawkins’ regular followers were impressed. That is, the ones who got a chance to see it.

The majority of Dawkins fans are not located in the UK, and this caused the usual problems. Due to copyright restrictions only people in the UK could see the show, but luckily for people abroad Professor Dawkins had the ultimate solution.

“Is there any way to watch this from Australia? I’d really like to see it,” one commenter wrote on Dawkins official website, followed by another saying, “I´d like to see it, too. Is there any way how to watch it from Czech Republic?”

Dawkins, a man of answers rather than questions, had an easy solution.

“Do you mean that none of these work in your countries?” the Professor commented under his official account, while linking to several YouTube links and a torrent file on The Pirate Bay.

Ironically, one of the YouTube links has been taken down after a copyright complaint from Channel 4 (before it was set to private). The torrent file on The Pirate Bay, however, is still very much alive.

It appears that Professor Dawkins thinks that the world would be a better place without copyright restrictions, in this particular knowledge-spreading instance at least. Perhaps that’s a good topic for a future documentary?

TorrentFreak contacted Prof. Dawkins two weeks ago to find out more about his defiant position, but thus far we haven’t had a response.

Professor Richard Dawkins needs no introduction and any attempt at one will inevitably fall short considering his impressive track record. With several honorary doctorates and many awards, he is one...