Michael Moore Changes His Tune About Piracy, Becomes Big Giant Hypocrite

Ken McCracken • June 19, 2007

Here’s Michael Moore as quoted last week:

“I don’t agree with the copyright laws and I don’t have a problem with people downloading the movie and sharing it with people,” said Moore when asked about pirating. “I make these books and movies and TV shows because I want things to change, so the more people that get to see them the better, so I’m happy when that happens. I think information and art, ideas should be shared.”

Now here’s Michael Moore as quoted this week:

…for Moore, even piracy has its limits, especially when it comes to the timing, quality and source of the bootleg.
“Every filmmaker intends for his film to be seen on the big screen,” Moore said. “This wasn’t a guy taking a video camera into a theater. This was an inside job, a copy made from a high-quality master and could potentially impact the opening weekend boxoffice. Who do you think benefits from that?”
When asked about accusations that he may have leaked the film himself for publicity purposes, Moore scoffed at the notion:
“Oh no. The (Weinstein) brothers are devastated.”

Gotta love that kind of 180 degree turn-around. One minute he’s ok with his “art” being downloaded and shared all over the internet, now he’s upset that someone leaked a copy of his film to the internet.
I guess Mike’s concern about his bottom line trumped his socialist ideology, just as I predicted it would in my post over the weekend where I posted his film in it’s entirety.
Since Moore has clearly changed his tune, and since I do actually respect his rights to control the distribution of his own intellectual property, I’ve taken his film down.
And now I’m calling him a hypocrite.

Tags: Asshats, Cultural Marxism, Politics, The Loony Left

http://Array Mighty_Dog

Rob,

Sunday:

Now I fully expect that I’ll probably get a letter or an email at some point from Moore’s people asking me to take this down. Which I will, because unlike Moore and most liberals I actually do respect things like copyright laws and property rights. But until they ask, I’m going to take Moore at his word. And if I am asked to take it down, I will be calling Moore a total hypocrite.

Tuesday:

Since Moore has clearly changed his tune, and since I do actually respect his rights to control the distribution of his own intellectual property, I’ve taken his film down.

And now I’m calling him a hypocrite.

I didn’t get to see the video yet, but you’ve taken it down before they even asked you to (against your own word) based on the fact that Moore’s upset it was the mastercopy that was leaked, instead of the usual method of piracy.

Dude, you’re a bigger hypocrite than he is; and I didn’t think that was possible.
http://www.indymedia.org/en/index.shtml Angry Vertebrate

In his defence, even in a socialist society those doing work would still get paid. He hasn’t changed his tune, he just sounds as though he was disappointed that it was an inside job, i.e. betrayed by people he trusted.

Excellent documentary too. The fact that Americans (on average) spend far more on healthcare than any other 1st world country shows us all the efficiency gains of state-backed private oligopolies.
http://ndgoon.blogspot.com/ goon

…too funny. The entire liberal, Hollywood elite are such an embarassment. They say one thing, berate, deride and bully others with their sanctimonious, priviledged opinions derived out of a life of opulence. But what they practice is something altogether different.

And yet, the liberals all love them

Then they go out and buy the stock of the very company they are bad mouthing and berating.
dj

…charlie, of course you’re kidding, right? You really think that when Moore said he didn’t care if someone pirated his movie and shared it with people because “the more people that get to see them the better” he really meant to say that he felt that way only if that ‘shared’ copy was a shaky hand-held version rather than a perfect one duped off the master and that the person who did it didn’t have meany intentions?

Puhleese. The fact is Moore was caught in yet ANOTHER hypocritical moment. And the fact that you’re trying to defend this self-aggrandizing moron is laughable. You really need to pick your battles better ’cause this one’s a big loser for you.
binnster

It might’ve only been fair to include ALL the quotes he made in that article:

Is Moore concerned? He reiterated his stance this weekend that he disapproves of copyright laws.

“I think the music industry’s response to Napster was misguided … and for me, it’s about getting people to see the movie and that’s what I want, so they will talk about it,” Moore recently told Brandweek magazine. “… I would never want to prosecute anybody who would download (his film).”

And what you predicted in your post the other day was that “I’ll probably get a letter or an email at some point from Moore’s people asking me to take this down”. Did you?

NB: I’m not a Moore fan – never actually seen any of his films, including this one, yet.
dj

…too funny. The entire liberal, Hollywood elite are such an embarassment. They say one thing, berate, deride and bully others with their sanctimonious, priviledged opinions derived out of a life of opulence. But what they practice is something altogether different.

And yet, the liberals all love them, they eat up those stupid, foolish comments as though they were delivered from the mouth of the Dali Lama himself because the words have this high-minded, altruistic, humanistic, all-inclusive and holy ring to them.

Except the only ringing I hear is the sound of spoiled elites assuaging their own guilt by believing that noble words can somehow mitigate the high hypocracy of their lives, their actions and their relationships.
Californio

Hardy har har. Just exactly will certain preachy types “get it”? Michael Moore to Laurie David – they preach populism but practice a life of robber baron excess. “Regular guy” Moore travels by limo from his Manhattan apartment to go preach about those “rich” guys who do [health insurance, Oil, Drug companies, et al]. Of COURSE they are evil – they are RICH!!!! But you see, his money is from somewhere else, someone else so his bloated lifestyle is none of your goddamn business.
http://sayanythingblog.com/readers/author/Anna/ Anna

Every newly released movie is leaked and available online. Why they claim they will be able to remove this particular release from P2P sharing is ridiculous, especially when Michael Moore said it was ok to do so. How could that stand up in court? There are thousands of box office hits being pirated that the gov’t can’t stop (and they never gave out idiotic permission to dl) so what makes this movie more important and demanded off the internet? NOTHING.. it is all for further publicity.
Bat One

charlie,

With all due respect, what you offer is nonsense, pure and simple. And whether it is your nonsense or Moore’s, it is nonsense nonetheless.

The source of the leak and the “quality” of the pirated copy are certainly unlikely to make any difference to those who do, and don’t view the film at the box office. What you offer here is an all-too-convenient rationalization… a distinction with no difference.

Rather, I’d suggest that Michael Moore is publicly trying to cover his considerable tail end, knowing he was the source of the master quality leaked copy in the first place.
charlie olsky

You may have missed the finer point of Moore’s comment above– what bothered him was not that his film was leaked, but that it was leaked from a master copy and not from the typical source of piracy- somebody at an advance screening with a secret video recorder. While a lot of films are pirated by the latter means, very few are pirated by the former, because there are a very select number of master copies made, which are all placed under strenuous security. While Moore is not at all above a promotional stunt to advance his films, the Weinsteins- who own and control the masters- are ruthless businessmen not at all inclined to do anything which might jeopardize the box office of their movies, which would definitely include professional-quality video available online.
It thus is not a far stretch to say that whomever released the videos was, as Moore states, an insider- and as these were released with no financial reward, they did so only out of personal malice towards the filmmaker.
Moore’s resultant statements- that he continues to desire first and foremost that people see the movie, and is thus fine with file-sharing, but he is extremely troubled by the fact that somebody was able to release a master- have been understandable in the face of this. Regardless of one’s feelings for his general actions and/or ideologies, in this particular case, he has not exhibited hypocrisy.
Bat One

Is this the same Michael Moore who ranted and raved against the war in Iraq and the military/defense establishment in general, like a good little leftist, until it became known that his own investment portfolio included the stocks of Haliburton and General Dynamics, among others?

That Michael Moore? Of course he’s a hypocrite! He’s a liberal Democrat!
http://www.indymedia.org/en/index.shtml Angry Vertebrate

Rob, you keep confusing property and copyright. If you are unsure how to tell what is property, we can go back to an example by ol’ Thomas Jefferson himself:

(Paraphrasing heavily)
If a boy and a girl each have an apple, and they exchange apples, they each still have one apple. If a boy and a girl each have an idea, and they exchange ideas, they now each have two.

Deep huh? Copyright aint property.
Tim

So… where is the letter you got from Michael Moore asking you to take it down?

I wouldn’t want the Moore-ons to be able to accuse you of setting this thing up from the start.

“Now I fully expect that I’ll probably get a letter or an email at some point from Moore’s people asking me to take this down. Which I will, because unlike Moore and most liberals I actually do respect things like copyright laws and property rights. But until they ask, I’m going to take Moore at his word. And if I am asked to take it down, I will be calling Moore a total hypocrite.”

Sounds to me like someone could accuse you of interpreting half of a Moore quote into the response you hoped you would get, but didn’t.
dj

…mighty dog, too bad you don’t have a shred of common sense or general or legal knowledge. As long as Moore publically signaled his willingness to allow his ‘works of art’ to be distributed freely, and that the theft of ‘his property’ was of no consequence, this website, and others, could be free to post said video (and don’t add another silly comment about the distributor, not Moore having the distribution rights for this film, the only legal action they would have is against Moore for abrogating his distribution agreement). Once the fat f*&@ changed his tune from ‘access for ALL the people’ to ‘I need to protect my assets’, this site and others no longer had the implicit right to post the film.

Grow up and stop trying to step in to defend somebody who could give two s#^%*s about your existence. Moore doesn’t care about you or your cartoon avatar, mighty dog. He only cares that he’s now rich and that as a celebrity, his people treat him as if he were a prince in a castle.

Ask yourself, how many playgrounds or daycare centers or med clinics has he donated to his old flame, Flint Michigan? How many grips or camera operators or location scouts has he hired from the unemployed up in poor whittle Flint, MI? I’m guessing that the answer is exactly ZERO.

Hypocracy? Do the math. He drips with it.
charlie

Batone: where is the nonsense?
Moore complaint in the quote above is solely about the implications of the quality of the pirated version- that it must have been taken from a protected master, rather than a DVD screener copy, and that this implied a ; Rob saw fit to call this ‘hypocrisy’, and managed to interpret this as Moore’s retraction of his earlier statement that implied he was alright with file-sharing, despite the fact that in that very same article, he continues to say
“I think the music industry’s response to Napster was misguided … and for me, it’s about getting people to see the movie and that’s what I want, so they will talk about it… I would never want to prosecute anybody who would download (his film).”

This is the same line has has maintained throughout, thus making me wonder where hypocrisy is being shown.

It is not entirely outrageous to suggest that Moore may have had something to do with releasing the footage to the internet himself and is now lying about it, but there is no proof to suggest this would be true, and even if there were, it would be an entirely different charge than ‘hypocrisy’.

Regardless of whether one feels he has been hypocritical in the past, in this particular instance he has not shown anything of the sort.
Mighty_Dog

DJ, I’m not defending Moore, I don’t even like the guy, but to say that he won’t take it down until they ask him to and then taking it down before they ask is bullsh*t, and you know it.
http://maxine-log.blogspot.com/ ecj-MAXINE

Another POV about the leak:

Fear Of Seizure … Or Fear Of Failure

After the surprising breakout success of Michael Moore’s “mockumentary” Fahrenheit 9/11 … you remember, the “Palme d’Or” awarded 2004 film at Cannes designed to derail a presidential election and paint all people who believe our freedom loving way of life was somehow being hijacked by (not Islamo-Fascist terrorists) George H. W. Bush and his administration … the film maker had a very steep hill to climb with the release of his follow-on effort entitled “SICKO”.

He entered the film in the Cannes Film Festival for 2007 in the hopes of repeating his political and cultural coup. The film was a bust — no award, not even an honorable mention.

As one reviewer wrote, “Sicko, Michael Moore’s new film, is ostensibly about health care in America; it’s not, any more than Moby Dick is about a fishing trip.

Moore then tells how he anonymously sent a check for the cost of the wife’s treatment — $12,000. It’s a funny bit — and, to anyone who can parse a sentence, not actually ‘anonymous’ at all, anymore.

It’s that tone — of selfless self-celebration, of public altruism, of snide sensitivity — that undercuts a lot of Moore’s work, and it undermines Sicko.” – James Rocci

So now SICKO is reported as being leaked to a video posting site ostensibly to protect the film from being confiscated by the Federal Government.
—-
This excerpted from Zero Paid -

Michael Moore’s new documentary “Sicko” leaked on BitTorrent
posted by soulxtc in bittorrent – 6-15-2007

Won’t have to worry about copies getting seized by the Feds after all as his new controversial film makes its way around BitTorrent tracker sites everywhere.

A couple of days ago it was reported that Michael Moore had decided to stash a copy of his latest and greatest documentary “Sicko,” an apparently scathing expose on the US healthcare system, in Canada just in case the Feds decided to confiscate it.

He feared such a seizure because of the fact that part of the documentary was filmed in Cuba without proper authorization from the US Treasury Department. Its illegal for US citizens to travel to Cuba because of a trade embargo in place since 1962.
—-
We at MAXINE believe this, SICKO was pre-released to the internet so that Michael Moore would have a scapegoat for the films commercial failure.

With all of Michael Moore’s liberal, socialistic views … he has proven himself a capitalistic egomaniac and will go to ANY length to promote his products and give himself wiggle-room. Especially when the appearent success of his current product does not match up to previous efforts.

SICKO may be the title of Moore’s latest effort but it is also describes a bent in the personality of Michael Moore himself — A Counter-Culture-Capitalist!

Reference Link Here (with videos)>>
http://maxine-log.blogspot.com/2007/06/fear-of-seizure-or-fear-of-failure.html
tania

Why do ignorant people always talk about socialism as if it was pure philantropy? Why don’t they bother to read, for once in their life, a little bit about history, ideas and the principles that have shaped the world in which they live – quite comfortably since they have done nothing but criticise without knowledge-?
It is the US who relies on philantropy to take care of vulnerable ones, even when they have been rendered vulnerable through a service to their community, such as rescuing people from the Twin towers 6 years ago in NYC… Just one example of the many many many cases of unjustice in this country. And you still wonder why? Read bill H.R. 676 and do something for once in your life that is not directly related to your pretty selfish self.
FancyPants

I think he’s upset as any artist would be that HE should be the one to present his work… and someone else should not be.

I have no philisophical problem with piracy. The contents of ones mind bcomes public domain the second you express that to an audience. But you should be given the right to express it to an audience first.

This is like a someone presenting their idea and just as they open their mouth to do so…someone butts in and says…well what he’s about to say is this…. blah blah blah…

Well thats just not on! Let the man have his say…wheter it be a philisophical point, a sci-fi movie, a war movie, a book whatever…and AFTER he makes his point THEN you can discuss it…not before, that is truly immoral! And really pig ignorant!

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Michael Moore Changes His Tune About Piracy, Becomes Big Giant Hypocrite

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