Freeloading Fritz

I spent the last week in NYC. Tuesday, Free Culture @ NYU, Digital Freedom and NYU ACM
hosted the first US screening of Good Copy Bad Copy. Thanks to Fred Benenson, BoingBoing and Gothamist, lots of people showed up. I was a bit nervous about this high noon set-up with Fritz Attaway, MPAA's Executive VP and Special Policy Advisor. It turned out a pleasant surprise as Fritz was obviously – and successfully – on a charm offensive.

For years, the major studios and music of repeating the same meme – that ”Piracy” (ie. normal cultural consumption in the digital age) equals ”stealing” – but surprisingly Fritz called students filesharing non-commercially ”freeloaders” rather than "thieves". This is interesting, and a much more powerful argument, if the MPAA and the Hollywood studios want to stay relevant to the the new generation of media users. Maybe a guide to ”ethical filesharing” or closer collaboration with the hacker community is up next (a nice change from lawsuits against college students).

Other than the screening I had the chance to go on an epic surf trip to New Jersey (!) and ride around the city on my new bike (which I hope to blog more about soon).

Thanks, Fred, for capturing the Kodak moment :)