Steal This Film 2 Round-Up

Just forty eight hours after the release of the film and the web’s capacity to extend the reach of media through voluntary cooperation is being made clear. English subtitles were made available for the film on its release, a gambit which has paid off as almost immediately people began translating them into their own native languages. So far there are working subs available in Russian (tnx Beast + Lord Russian Nightmare), Finnish (tnx Janne Peltola), Italian (tnx to Chiara Micheli), German (thx Christian), Spanish (tnx Habladorcito) and Portuguese (tnx Felipe) on the website; Dutch, French, and Greek translations are on their way.

As always the gang at the Pirate Bay have been a rock of support, pumping the film on their blog, adding a download link to every page and, in fact, ye scurvy dogs may have noticed that we have taken over their front page, displacing the usual pirate ship!

At time of writing it’s really paying off as there are nearly 5,000 seeds for the three different files containing the film, providing an effective speed equal to that obtainable by any notion picture studio employing global server co-location like Akamai and local caching services like Google, not bad for a bunch of amateurs working from the grassroots! If it’s not coming down fast it may be your ISP is throttling your line, ring them up and complain, and support the fight for Net Neutrality…

Naturally it’s also available at Mininova, (Erik, who appears in the film, blogs about it here), who are showing it their support by deploying a high performance content distribution network to help its distribution. Meanwhile other people have been busily re-encoding it for upload at other sites such as rapidshare, but anyone who’s reading this and wants to support us should check their network of choice (Gnutella, Kazaa, eMule, Direct Connect) and ensure that it’s made available through your shared folder.

“In the universe that did happen…” Bram Cohen, inventor of Bit Torrent in their corporate headquarters in downtown San Francisco. Whilst not in the current edit, the interview will be in the archive.

Help has also come from Bit Torrent Inc. who are hosting the film on their site both as a download and as a stream (even though they’re also working for Hollywood, poachers and gamekeepers and all that). Another version is also available on google video.

Other viewers are so enthusiastic that they want to work with us – offering help shooting in different locations, to compose music, design skills. Keep them coming, it’s really appreciated and we’ll get back to you when things clam down a little.

Mural from the Other Cinema in San Francisco.

To our delight, donations are pouring in, although obviously there is a long way to go to finance another film. If you are in an educational or arts institution, please persuade them to make a donation to us or bring us to your venue to present the film.

Filmmaker Craig Baldwin is pretty sceptical about technological optimism…

eAnd in the end, we appreciate all those who have written to us with their opinions of the film – criticizing its weaknesses, attacking aspects they don’t agree with. Likewise to those opponents who have taken the time to talk to us, and lastly to those who just wrote to tell us with information, or to say they (appreciate what we’ve done), (will spread the word), and (are in solidarity with the ideas the film professes). We did it for you, or rather, for all of us!