http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/16/movies/16SCOT.html?th
In today's NY Times, A.O. Scott sounds off on the MPAA ads meant to deter people from pirating movies on the Internet. The General, of course, already addressed this so-called problem last week under the heading Why Digital Piracy Is A Good Thing. Here's what Scott says:
"Why else would the association [the MPAA] put these announcements up on the big screen?
Because the thrust of this campaign is not to address a present crisis but, somewhat remarkably, to attack the cultural roots of one that looms just over the horizon. The easy exchange of sounds and pictures makes it easy to forget that someone — a lot of people — made them, and that someone (else) owns them, and that taking them without paying is a kind of stealing. No amount of cyberlibertarian sloganeering can wish this basic axiom of capitalism away. Information may want to be free, but art costs; property may be theft, but the theft of intellectual property is still a crime."
Like I said, this misses the point. It used to be "legal" to own a slave, but people eventually overturned that "property" law, Mr. Scott. What kind of tunnel vision do you use to write for that would-be liberal rag, the NY Times? Think outside the box, man. Digital piracy is a good thing exactly because fewer movies will be made, and more people like the people in those MPAA ads will find different jobs doing something that (hopefully) does not contribute to the cumulative mental clutter in America's psychic economy.
7:58:51 PM 
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