Steal This Film 2 Released

Vanessa Renwick’s neon installation sits atop the door to Rick Prelinger’s library of serendipity in San Francisco.

After the usual last minute antics, the second installment of Steal This Film has just been released. You can download it here. There is also a quick interview with my friend Jamie on torrent freak. The film attempts to insert the conflicts over file-sharing and distributed communication in a historical context. Beginning with the book and the printing press, STF 2 tells of the disruptive consequences of new technologies of reproduction, and how these inventions are resisted by those in power.

With historian Elizabeth Eisenstein in her home, April 2007.

Of the many people interviewed there wasn’t space for everyone in the final cut, which will be remedied through the making available online of an archive of the source materials. Undoubtedly the film has innumerable shortcomings, we hope that others will appropriate the materials release, make their own versions, and deepen the discussion.

Wendy Seltzer in Greenwich Village, New York April 2007; creator of Chilling Effects and one of those who are not in the final cut but to whom we are enormously grateful for their generosity. 

Interviewed in the film: Aaron Schwartz, Adam Burns, Brokep (the Pirate Bay), Bob Darnton, Brewster Kahle, Dan Glickman, Eben Moglen, Elizabeth Eisenstein, Erik (Mininova), Felix Stadler, Fred Von Lohmann, Ghetto, Howard Rheingold, Lawerence Liang, Raph Levien, Rick Prelinger, The Grime Reaper, Seb Lutgert, Seth Schoen, Siva Vaidhyanathan, Wiley, Yochai Benkler.

Interviewing Eben Moglen from the Software Freedom Law Center in Manhattan, April 2007.

Special thanks to those who were generous enough to allow us to interview them but who are not in the film, sometimes for technical reasons (sound ) or simply because as a film takes shape it has to hug tighter to a theme. Our discussions with people were wide-ranging and sometimes the conversations just didn’t fit with what was eventually to become Steal This Film 2.

… the next film will be more visual!