Vanity Fair presents: Pirates of the Multiplex

Vanity Fair has provided quite an insightful current events article in the war between Big Media and The Pirate Bay. Illegal media downloads have been the hot topic for some time now, yet this article manages to refresh the current state and update with interesting tangents. Here are some quotes:

Pirates of the Multiplex

One person who is relishing the idea of asymmetrical warfare with the M.P.A.A.
is Pirate Bureau chief Rasmus Fleischer. "Mark Getty [the photo-archive mogul] said that intellectual property is 'the oil of the 21st century'—and oil apparently means war," states Fleischer. "Copyright is so incompatible with so many cultural and technological developments. This is going to be a growing
problem for years ahead."

"The modern M.P.A.A., as if to prove itself capable of a more nuanced approach to the file-sharing threat, recently collaborated with the Boy Scouts of America, who are now offering a merit badge for anti-piracy activities. "

Among the few senior entertainment executives who have been able to absorb this seemingly basic aspect of human nature is Anne Sweeney, president of DisneyABC Television. In her keynote speech at the October 2006 MIPCOM audiovisualcontent market in Cannes, France, Sweeney broke ranks with her boardroom peers to make a bracingly pragmatic statement. "Piracy is a business model," Sweeney said. "It exists to serve a need in the market—consumers who want TV content on demand. And piracy competes for consumers the same way we do: through quality, price, and availability."

And now that iTunes has leveled the distribution playing field to the great disadvantage of major labels, Birgersson poses the question "What do you need these multi-billion-dollar companies with all their skyscrapers for? We shouldn't sacrifice a lot of these gains to prolong that system for another few years."

Sweden's "Broadband Jesus" appears to be suggesting that the sun is setting
on the era in which Ben Affleck got paid $15 million for Paycheck.