The Pirate Bay Conviction

In February, I wrote an entry about The Pirate Bay, the torrent tracker on trial for providing easy access to illegally copied files. Today, they were convicted. Will this win media companies such as the IFPI reduce the number of people using torrents to access games, movies, television and music?

My guess is no. It might deter a few potential users, but it will attract more.

As I said in detail in my February post, The Pirate Bay is one of the least of those responsible for the chain of file sharing. There are many .torrent sites who are far more responsible for making file sharing possible: members of "The Scene" who provide the actual rips, members of Topsites, and private .torrent sites who provide much more hands-on service than The Pirate Bay does. None of these people will be affected by this conviction in any way.

Nor will it affect the consumer. As many people have pointed out, searching for torrents on Google is just as effective. Even if The Pirate Bay goes offline (which it may not, even with its owners in jail) there are many other torrent sites, although few as classily designed as The Pirate Bay, around.

The Pirate Bay was an easy target. It is large, well-known, has a provocative name and logo and arrogant young people running it. One of the people, convicted Peter Sunde, said this:

It's serious to actually be found guilty and get jail time. It's really serious. And that's a bit weird.

I think Sunde is feeling pretty weird about being convicted. I'm not surprised: what he and his three friends do probably doesn't feel like crime at all. They effectively run a specialized search engine. There are no dark corners in their world: no vast amounts of money being accumulated, no violence, very little sneaking around (if any!). No other criminal activity runs like this. Sunde goes on:

The court said we were organised. I can't get Gottfrid out of bed in the morning. If you're going to convict us, convict us of disorganised crime.

It was probably a bit of a shock to realise that they are doing what the world might call "organized crime". This trial gives new meaning to the phrase. And yes it is kind of bizarre (although not entirely incorrect).

So what do the spokespeople for the prosecution say? They must have known that The Pirate Bay is just a flag for any number of operations that they could never ever hope to quash completely. The Chairman of the IFPI, John Kennedy, provides some answers:

There has been a perception that piracy is OK and that the music industry should just have to accept it. This verdict will change that.

I'm sorry, Mr. Kennedy, but I don't think it will. I think you're sort of missing the point. People don't download illegally because they think it's legal, they do so because it's so overwhelmingly convenient compared to other methods of getting media. Illegal media is unparallelled in its variety of content, size, quality and format, in its ease-of-use, and, of course, in its cheapness.

This is not, I think, the case of illegal vs. legal that the IFPI thinks it is. I think it's a case of supply and demand; product and consumer.

Review: Dollhouse (Pilot)

SPOILERS, but nothing you can't get from a summary of the premise of the show.

Revered television writer Joss Whedon's long-awaited new show Dollhouse, starring Buffy the Vampire Slayer's Eliza Dushku aired last week and I finally got around to watching it. (Sorry, that was quite the sentence).

It wasn't great. Pilots have never really been Whedon's strong point-- even the Firefly pilot was slow to get started. However, I felt this lacked the extra spice that made shows like Buffy and Firefly, to steal a phrase, shiny.

Whedon can weave great stories and create great characters. And I did like the characters... but I felt all of them seemed to be not quite themselves. Perhaps that is due to it being early in the show-- many shows lack centered characters at the beginning. But Whedon has historically been pretty good at getting characters right first time, and I didn't get that from this episode.

Dushku plays Echo, one of a set of men and women who can be programmed into being the perfect whatever-- the perfect assassin, the perfect cello player etc. Whedon wrote the show for her to play the lead, but I think that at some point along the way in the development the character slipped from her into someone else and left Dushku's conception of the role behind. I think that the finalized role would have been better off in the hands of a newcomer who came to the role as an outsider, rather than Dushku. Not only did she not manage to quite capture the complete transformation of the 'programmed' characters, she also seemed to lack the qualities that made her a convincing and intriguing blank slate when she is between roles.

Echo's disjointed life makes it difficult to pull her together, perhaps, but the other major characters, among them her handler and the scientist behind the dollhouse project, also seemed to not really have a good sense of who they were. Someone described this as the characters not seeming to have lives that extended beyond where the camera was pointed and I think that's an apt description. The characters lacked the details and consistency that gave both the audience and, most importantly, the actors, a sense of who the character is.

This is especially problematic given the unstable main character-- but I don't think Echo had to be quite so disjointed. I think she needed some minute anchor that is enough to hold her together. This could be some uneraseable feature or something as simple as having the other characters begin to form a predictable reaction to her: some exchange of dialogue. The desire of her handler to create some kind of relationship with her, for example, could help to define even a totally unresponsive Echo while at the same giving her handler a key personality feature.

Although I did not notice this while I was watching the episode, I realised that there was no humour. Humour has always been a key part in the formulation of Whedon's characters and perhaps because this show demands a more serious outlook (especially considering the main character cannot crack jokes) the characters ended up a little blurry and bland.

I think what the show lacked was reality. By "reality" I don't mean gritty darkness, I mean the little details that make characters and worlds work. I've already talked about the characters, but this was also true of the sets, which were decidedly undetailed. In a world as complex as the one of Dollhouse, the sets need to have more practical and imaginative thought behind them than just 'girl's bedroom', 'broken down cabin', 'party', 'futuristic living space'. They need to contribute actively to the story, rather than being a passive (and occaisionally impractical) backdrop.

And finally we come to the plot. The entry was a little ragged, with a lot of disparate threads and backstories coming together all at once-- I do not think quite so many needed to be included; the opening could have been far more streamlined. However, it did hang together and I do think the concept is worth pursuing, and not only because Whedon is at the helm.

It does need work though. The writers need to pin down what their characters are like and give them detailed dialogue. The set designers need to think realistically and creatively to give the world more solid depth and give the actors a further sense of who they are and where they are.

I'm hopeful. Buffy had a start that was less than stunning but proved its strengths over time and I'm hopful that Whedon can give this rather dull show a shine of its own.

Take a look. Don't expect Firefly quality, think instead Dark Angel-- but Dark Angel was watchable, and it wasn't even Whedon.

The Pirate Way

Disclaimer: I am no expert on this topic. I have done my best to outline it to the best of my understanding.

You may have read on the news that The Pirate Bay is facing legal action from a variety of media firms. This BBC Article describes the defense of the two fellows who run it. Basically, they claim innocence because they don't actually host any files only the files that link to files. This is the defense their lawyer will use when they go to court.

This is all well and good in the sensible world, but on the internet reality, everyone knows they are one of a small set of people who provide one of the means to facilitate illegal downloading. They do break the law, and they know it.

However, these fellows are only one link in a chain of illegal television dissemination. Sensible world people point to the legal options for music and television downloading as evidence that the media companies aren't simply out of date. However, the chain of which The Pirate Bay is a small lower part outstrips legal downloading companies in efficiency, breadth of content, variety of quality and sheer usability.

At the top of this chain is what is what I'm going to tentatively characterize as The Scene. The Scene is probably the most (self-proclaimed) shadowy internet organization around. One only needs to read the apparently totally benign Wikipedia Article to get a sense of how deliberately shadowy this non-organization is. The article says almost nothing: there is more in the talk/discussion pages-- somebody's rules, somebody's philosophy, and above all the controversial nature of what The Scene actually is (it is not all dedicated to illegality, but even if it isn't). Its unifying characteristics seems to be that it is stoically alternative, libertarian and firmly based on quid-pro-quo.

Nevertheless, whatever variations on different groups within The Scene may define it as, The Scene consists partially of the type of people, formed into Release (or "Warez') Groups, who make up the top of the illegal downloading chain. These are the clever people (always credited at the end of the file name, e.g. "The.Mentalist.S01E01.PREAiR.DVDSCR.XviD-MEDiEVAL" where MEDiEVAL is the group) who turn HD television, DVDs, games and other software into useable computer files. If there are any true Pirates, these are them. They are also part of the reason this system is so efficient-- speed is a mark of skill.

The next link on the chain is Topsites. Topsites are the uberfast FTP-based stock exchanges of the pirated media world. They allow the uploading and quick movement of files between members of Release Groups. They are secret and secure from prying eyes, open only to those in the know both technically and socially.

There is a line here between public and private. Until now, these releases have been elite, restricted to those involved personally in the piracy business which is highly reciprocal-- that is, downloads are balanced with uploads, everyone contributes. As we enter the public sector of piracy, we enter a consumer culture where the downloader gives little back. I have been told that there is a very strong sense of resentment among the more elite towards the masses who leech off the skills and risks taken by people they may not even be aware exist.

Now we have reached BitTorrent tracker sites. Certain individuals-- people who have access to topsites but are not members of The Scene (who tend to be, marginally ironically, highly protective of 'their' files)-- make .torrent files available for public or semi-public download. This is called seeding; all those with partially downloaded versions of a file are peers. The journey to the consumer is very quick: From the end of a television show to seeding on public torrents, a high demand show may arrive in a mere 20 minutes.

There are two types of torrent tracker sites. More elite and generally faster are private torrent sites, generally restricting their users to those chosen by invitation or only opening public sign-ups at certain times. Most popular and far more famous are public torrent sites, which allow anyone with a .torrent client such as BitTorrent or utorrent. Some of these public sites closely control what is shared via their site, and initially seed all content themselves-- for example EZTV, which contains only television torrents, releasing one for each show (whichever is first released by a Release Group). Others are far more lax, providing only the medium for exchange between average joe consumers. The Pirate Bay is one of these.

Other means of exchange exist. For example, some organizations and groups (such as colleges) have their own private Direct Connection groups, which allow direct and rapid exchange of files between consumers on the same network. Again, these small groups value speed.

At the bottom of the chain is you and me: the average consumer, leeching off the energy or skills of the more dedicated pirates above us in the chain. We may be totally unaware of the work that goes into the file we download using our .torrent client. The only remnants of those shadowy upper levels on which we rely are the Release Group's moniker at the end of the file name and the in-built upload/download ratio requirement built into the BitTorrent protocol: We must share in order to receive.

It is bizarre, but perhaps understandable, that it is the consumer and the public torrent tracker that receive the most media attention for the piratical activities. Owners of torrent sites like The Pirate Bay are probably the most public figures in the process: they own vast numbers of servers which process vast numbers of transactions every second, allowing vast numbers of people to connect to each other and retrieve free media. They are easy to find, high profile and making money. They make a splashy, easy to understand story

Yet they are not, generally, the people waving boarding ships. It is the elite who are getting their hands on DVDs before the release date, and encoding television shows moments after they finish airing. Those people are no doubt of great interest to police, but they are the ones who have the skill (and ability, by the nature of their activities) to hide. Neither do they make a good news story, as they have shadowy, complicated, text-based presences.

They are the people who make illegal downloading considerably more attractive than the legal kind. Despite their elite status they are essentially consumers themselves, and so they produce files in formats and qualities they want to use, attach no pesky strings, annoying commercials and DVD menu screens-- and because they are individuals they produce a highly diverse selection of media. Not only is it a completely free product, it is better product. Only when legal sites match the useability of illegal sites will legal downloading become a viable alternative for those who are even slightly technically apt.

I have no doubt that, in sensible world terms, the entire piracy chain is acting illegally as a whole, each contributing a little to a grand scale theft and distribution. I also have no doubt that this is not crime in sensible world terms. They are not doing it for the money or the power. They do it for love of the product or the work, for balance against corporatism, for freedom of information, to screw a rigid system, because it tests their skills, for the sense of importance, for the benefits of the reciprocal culture that defines file sharing and because it's fun.

And why are people like the guys who own The Pirate Bay so brazen? Because the chain of piracy is much bigger than just them. Their involvement seems flashy but is actually negligible. Perhaps the individuals will change their tune behind bars, but the piracy will go on without them nevertheless; perhaps even their own site will go on without them, run by a new set of bright young things with the right passwords. Unless continents shift, the house cannot win.

Likely someday they will. Either some genius will come up with a way to entirely disrupt the chain and/or media companies will figure out how to match it while charging customers-- or, the companies will go out of business and the whole media system will collapse. Until then, the arrest of middlemen will ultimately be a fruitless gesture and one that does not even match the sheer determination and inventiveness that goes on in the admittedly illegal activities of the internet's pirates.

Review: Life on Mars (US) - Pilot Remake

Remember this? This was a June entry in this blog, comparing two lines from various makes of the show Life on Mars. The former was from the UK version, starring John Simm, the latter from the US pre-air pilot released over the summer and widely panned.

SAM TYLER: I used to come here. I bought my first… Gary Numan. ‘Cars’.

SAM TYLER: I used to get all my CDs here.

This is what I wrote about these two lines, summing up my views on the pre-air episode:

The first is precise, human, delighted with the memory, evocative, and harkens back to another era, if not quite this one. It reveals detail about the character.

The second is boring, entirely uninventive, vague, and perhaps refers to the very first years of the 21^st century, when Sam bought ‘his CDs’. I understand that the choice of artist might need to be different, as may the language used to express the sentiment, but that doesn’t mean that a slick, fat line can be replaced by a shoddy thin one. The lines were there for the adapters (Josh Appelbaum, André Nemec and Scott Rosenberg) to see. They turned a fat line into one there purely for plot purposes.

But there's a new contender for this line. Yes, they remade the episode and wrote a new line for this moment in the show. Here's the new lineup:

SAM TYLER: I used to come here. I bought my first… Gary Numan. ‘Cars’.

SAM TYLER: I used to get all my CDs here.

SAM TYLER: Wow! My mom used to take me here. I bought my first Hall & Oates album-- er, my, my, first Led Zeppelin album here.

Let's pause for a second to review these lines again, because the gods have indeed been kind to us.

Yes, as evidenced by the above dialogue, this new version of the remake is better than the pre-air. In this new version, the writers fixed many of the problems I noted in my original blog post. Whereas the pre-air was bland, uninspired by the era and muddled the characters in such a way that they lost much of their quality, this new pilot captures more of what made the original UK pilot so excellent.

I've heard it said that the pre-air was much closer to this September pilot script-wise, but I would argue that they are both equally distant. While the pre-air kept many of the exact same lines as the UK version, it seemed to stray exactly in the wrong places, muddling the script so much it seemed . The woman police officer in a man's world Annie lost her moment to be the hero, for example, and it was given to the lead Sam. In the September pilot, the line was returned to Annie, but re-written for her. The words are different, but the important bits are once again the same. The writers, who as far as I can tell are the same fellows who wrote the pre-air, seem to have woken up and the show has woken up again with them.

The writing is only part of the improvement. I wrote before about how I felt nothing evocative from the era to which Sam returns. There was no joy in an era long past but still remembered by so many people. This joy is back- perhaps the transplant of the show to New York opened a few doors in the creators memory. The music of the era once again dominates, the culture is vivid, the camera-work, photography and art direction is more inventive, expansive and full of delicious details.

Here's what I said I would like to see in the remake:

A slicker, wittier, more evocative, far more compact, more detailed and more nuanced performance from the writers and cast, and more expansive, scene-sensitive work from the director.

We got all of this. The show was almost ten minutes shorter than the pre-air, getting right to the details with none of the meaningless, slow talk that we saw before. I've already mentioned the increase in details in the writing and the production.

All that remains is the acting and the actors. It was better, even from the lead Jason O'Mara, who was wholly slab-like in the pre-air. The reintroduced details in the script gave everyone, including Jason O'Mara, a little more to cling onto. It is much easier to deliver the first and third lines of dialogue listed above than the middle one. That said, O'Mara still pales in comparison with John Simm's Sam Tyler, as do all the cast, even with the improved script. The only main actor who really seemed to be making the role his own was Harvey Keitel, playing the role of Gene Hunt. Keitel was, like most of the Life on Mars actors, taking over from another actor played in the pre-air by Colm Meaney. Although I preferred the actor playing Annie (Gretchen Mol), I don't think that any of the replacements were necessary. Perhaps the move from Los Angeles to New York played a significant role in which actor were available.

Although this September pilot mostly sticks to the plot of the UK version, there is a small plot change in the way the pilot unfolds, especially towards the end. I didn't mind hugely, except it seemed a little shoddily handled. (An eyebrow-raising key plot detail had to be explained with the the cringeworthy line, "you're not going to believe this, but..."). However, this new show already has several episodes under its belt and needs to tread its own path, even if it means a few missteps at the beginning.

I must say, having three versions of the same television episode made no more than a few years apart is amazing. I doubt it has ever happened before. It is a unique opportunity to really see what makes a show tick and what makes it grind to a halt.

Will I watch more of Life on Mars? Perhaps. For all the improvement on the dire pre-air it has achieved, the US show must make itself stand apart from the UK show before it can truly catch my attention as the original did. The good news is that from what I've heard it has improved, which is a good thing from a reasonably promising beginning.

I just wonder what was going through the writers heads when they wrote that pre-air.

An American in America

It must be strange to be an American this week. So many people overseas and not-so-overseas were following this election that it almost seemed as if President-Elect Obama had been elected President of the World, not just one of the United States of America.

I was just beginning to pay attention to government and international relations when President Bush was elected, so for me it feels like Bush has been president forever. It's a shock when I hear a voice on the radio speaking with similar authority but in such an entirely different way. Bush is folksy. He makes foreign policy sound like a very complicated discussion on what kind of barbecue sauce to use.

Obama is the complete opposite: in his much-applauded acceptance speech at midnight on November 5th, Obama promised his daughters a puppy. Discussion about the type of puppy Obama will get for his girls has been rampant. I heard a response from Obama on this topic and the President-Elect can make a discussion about what kind of puppy he's getting sound as serious (although not as complicated) as foreign policy.

Whatever you may think about Obama's policies (more about them later), he will certainly be a very different type of politician. Obama is a fairy-tale President. It's an enlightening coincidence that in the lovely movie Dave, Dave is the 44th president and, at the end, runs on a slogan of change. Dave is an Obama president. Or Obama is a Dave president. Both fulfill an idealism imagined in the fairy-tale world of stories. Obama is an American among Americans.

What kind of resistance will the politics of hope receive among a real population? Can Obama pull off the kind of change he outlines at change.gov? What does the fairy-tale look like when it is put into action on earth? I look forward to finding out.

You will hear more from me about this subject. I'm not an American, but I live less than an hour from the border. And Barack Obama may not be my President-Elect, but his approach to this election has actually elevated his candidacy past the mere winning of the presidency of America. He has in fact managed to centre himself- at least for a brief period- as one of the first new, truly electric leaders of the almost entirely interconnected Earth of the 21st century and this millennium.

Stay safe, Barack Obama. We all want to see what you can do.

Review: Merlin (Pilot)

This review contains no plot spoilers.

British mythical history is a rich resource that television loves to mine. Doctor Who is arguably a new vein; the adventures of Robin Hood an old one. None, though, is quite so old as King Arthur of Camelot. Merlin delves into Camelot from, obviously, Merlin's point of view- through the eyes of a young man with rather astonishing skills.

I think that the makers would have had to try very hard to leave nothing worth watching, but there is more than just competence here.

First, some parametres. Merlin is a light ahistorical 'family' show- more so than Robin Hood or especially the new Doctor Who ever were. The pilot, at least, has a relatively simple story and the magical aspects usually lean towards the humorous/corny, a fact not due to the special effects themselves, but to the way they are included. However, the show is well written, well-acted, well-produced, interesting, funny and entertaining.

A few things stand out for me in this first episode of what promises to be an excellent show. The first was the dialogue: it is good. For a show that delves into high fantasy (an area avoided by most television due to the difficulties of pulling off the word 'destiny'), having solid dialogue is of the utmost importance. Merlin has managed to do this and it gives the entire production- the acting especially- something solid to stand on.

Or perhaps it is the actors that can make the dialogue sound convincing. This is not a deep drama, but the cast is one that could easily handle something far more complex. We have Buffy's Anthony Stewart Head playing a rather more believable-and-interesting-than-normal 'bad' character. I was delighted to see Eve Miles (Torchwood, Doctor Who) also being highly convincing, and Richard Wilson, who I didn't recognize but has an extensive, high-quality and wide-ranging repertoire of television and film experience that is clear in the first few minutes of his appearance.

Merlin himself, the keystone of the show, is another Doctor Who actor, Colin Morgan. He's got little beyond Doctor Who in his imdb profile but the choice was precisely the right one. He's captured a youth delighted with a new city, over his head in a number of ways but intelligent and confident to act as he sees fit. He brings humor and believability to the role of Merlin and tightly ties the show together.

I can see how this show could disappoint some. It pays no little to other Arthur myths or timelines, or to the real history of Britain. It is not as dark as it could be, nor as complex.

And yet this first episode is solidly written and acted, highly entertaining and hints at greater things to come. It is an apologetically modern, fantastical take on a tale rich with detail to pick and choose from. I hope it continues to develop into its own version of the King Arthur legend, to draw on complex themes alongside the childlike glee it has begun with.

I'm looking forward greatly to the next episode, and what more can you ask for?

Extraordinary People

Canada’s role on the world stage stands on the brink of a knife. We have all that it takes to say, “Here we are, world; this is the future; Canada is the future.”

Canada is the second largest country in the world. It touches the Pacific, Atlantic and Arctic Oceans. It is hugely rich in all vital basic resources: water, energy, food, minerals. It is not militaristic. It has a reasonably stable economy when its closest ally flounders in economic confusion. It is successfully multicultural and increasingly so. It values education, intelligence, tolerance, ideas. It prospers.

It seems to have everything required to take the future in our grip. We do not have to merely be competent; we do not have to copy everyone else's methods.

So what should we do to turn that corner and set along that path of being the country of the twenty first century? Should we imprison our youth for their entire lives, increasing the prison population and achieving little else in the process? Should we eschew those who value creativity and invention as if there is some real distinction between us (‘ordinary people’) and them? Should we subvert environmental issues in lieu of economic ones and lose out on a chance to promote Canada as one of the first truly environmentally conscious nations?

I do not think that these ideas will help Canada very much.

Wouldn’t it be amazing if Canada, with all its wonderful wildlife and landscape that has historically been so integral to the development of this modern nation, became known world wide as a country that successfully combined energy, mineral and food production with stringent environmentally-conscious efforts? Canada has that chance.

Wouldn’t it equally be amazing if Canadian arts- no, not only Canadian arts, but Canadian invention, Canadian science, Canadian engineering, Canadian creativity- became not only renowned and respected worldwide but also sought after, inviting in droves of budding intelligences to learn and then return to their home nations taking their Canadian values of tolerance and education with them? Canada has that chance.

Wouldn’t it also be great to demonstrate to the world that a multicultural nation can work and work very well? That it can be richer in every area for being tolerant, accepting and even forgiving. That it can be environmentally conscious without sacrificing economic stability. That it can be tough and seek justice without becoming militaristic. That ‘ordinary people’ excludes no single group.

I’m not targeting a sole party leader here, although I am using one particular party’s ideology to illustrate my concerns. Canada has such potential the air in this massive, incredible nation should be palpable with possibility and yet people would rather vote south of the border. We have so much going for us and yet we flounder.

Somebody, please think firmly of that future- one of intelligence, education, environmental consciousness, arts, science, invention, tolerance, multiculturalism, peace, justice, cities and great empty landscapes, imagination and reality- and at least try, at least try, to grab a hold of it and hold on with all your might.

Because we can be that country.