Most people who watch The Big Bang Theory will know Sheldon’s
arch enemy Wil Wheaton who plays a fictionalised version of himself. (Wil
Weaton played Wesley Crusher in Star Trek: The Next Generation and has been in
countless movies and television series). As well as an accomplished actor Wil Wheaton
is also a writer, creator and blogger who has engaged in the piracy debate for
several years. (The Barenaked Ladies from Canada who wrote the theme song for the
show have also in the past taken a public stance on piracy).
I have really got to admire people like Kurt Sutter and Wil
Wheaton in the entertainment industry who become involved in debates like piracy.
Wil Wheaton’s position seems quite different from that of another of my
favourite fellas Kurt Sutter the creator, writer and actor in the television
series Sons of Anarchy.
After putting in the search term piracy in his blog page
WilWheaton.net I found some posts about piracy going back to 2008. He has
really opened my eyes to so much about piracy and has the power to educate
people like me. His topics about piracy include DRM on products, American
piracy legislation and who is to blame for piracy.
In 2013 Wil Wheaton made a video after an appearance at
Comic-Con in United States where he talked openly and honestly about content
access. He argued there will always be some people who pirate and will
never pay for anything, but most people are honest and will be happy to pay for
content. The entertainment industry just needs to make it easier for those
people who want to pay too gain access to content.
However, after the cancellation of his television show Wil stated
that in some circumstances piracy was good promotion for television shows. I don’t agree with people in the
entertainment industry such as actors who make their living from television, music or movies to encourage people to engage with pirated content for any reason. I have learned a lot from this actor about piracy. He is putting his thoughts out there,
informing and engaging fans and hopefully making a difference.
Perhaps one of the greatest things I learned about writing and writing is about going
back to the original source of ideas rather than reading other's interpretations
as they are used to support their own cause.
Below is a brief summary of some of his ideas about online
piracy from his blog. No copyright infringement intended.
WilWheaton.net
(no copyright infringement intended)
2008
In October 2008 Wil Wheaton wrote on his blog, a post titled
“Why I won’t infect anything you buy from
me with DRM” where he discusses why he won’t use particular distributors to
sell his book and why he won’t infect his book with DRM (I am not really sure
what DRM is although my understanding of how he explained it something that is
attached to products so they can’t be watched in different locations).
“I haven’t made them available there partially because Audible wants to take an enormous cut of the sales price, but mostly because Audible infects and cripples all of their files with DRM, even if the publisher and rights holders doesn’t want them.
Let’s talk about DRM
for a moment. It’s not a secret that I hate it and I believe that treating your
customers like they’re thieves is no way to run a business. “But what about
piracy you ask, and where can I get a stylish ascot like yours?”
I am not that worried
about piracy to be completely honest with you. I agree with Cory Doctorow that
obscurity is a greater threat to an artist than piracy, but I also trust my
customers more than the average publisher, because I believe I have a different
relationship with them (you) than the average publisher has with say, me. This
may be a little naïve, but hear me out…
Because I feel a more
personal relationship with all of you who’ve supported me and watch my work on
television, I don’t worry that much about piracy. I don’t believe that anyone
who reads my blog and is interested in hearing me perform my work would
deliberately steal from me any more than they’d walk into a friend’s house and take
money out of their wallet. (Awkward note: this doesn’t mean we’re friends, but
you get that right”)…
2012
In January 2012 Wil Wheaton wrote on his blog a post titled“Today the US Senate is considering the
legislation that would destroy the free an open Internet” and his response
to the proposed restrictions on the Internet.
“I am 100 % opposed to
SOPA and PIPA even though I’m one of the artists they were allegedly writer to
protect. I’ve probably lost a few hundred dollars in my life to what the MPAA
and RIAA define as piracy, and that sucks, but that doesn’t come close to how
much money I’ve lost from a certain studio’s creative accounting…
The RIAA and MPAA are,
again on the wrong side of history. Attempting to tear apart one of the single
greatest communication achievements in human history is a misguided attempt to
cling to the out dated business model instead of adapting to the changing world
is a fucking crime… He encouraged people contact their local senators and
vote no to the legislation.
In May 2012 Wil Wheaton wrote on his blog a post titled “An example of the usefulness of bittorrent
for entirely legal purposes” and the need to change a business model that
is out of date and the bad deal bittorrents are allegedly getting…
“I frequently find my
in an unpopular position in the entertainment industry: I believe in network
neutrality, I don’t believe that piracy is the end of the world as we know it.
I particularly don’t believe that a download or file shared automatically
equals a loss of sale and I don’t believe in crippling the Internet to protect
a business model that desperately needs changing.”
He then went on to describe how Internet Service Providers
are blocking bittorrent because people are under the impression they are used
solely for pirating content. He then provided a demonstration. …
“Some ISP are blocking
all bittorrent traffic, because bittorrent can be used to share files in a
piratical way. Hollywood lobbying groups are trying to pass laws which would
force ISPs to block or degrade bittorrent traffic...Anyway, my point with this
post is to illustrate that the bittorrent protocol is useful for more than just
infringement, so when you hear industry lobby groups make a lot to noise about
piracy, you’ll remember that they aren’t giving you all the facts”.
2013
In 2013 Wil Wheaton gave an interview in video about online
piracy shortly after he appeared at a Comic Con event in America. He said the
entertainment industry was to blame for the amount of online piracy in America.
“As soon as the entertainment
industry provides an alternative to bit-torrent or an alternative to online
piracy – that makes it ways for honest people to get access to program content then
piracy dries up.
Gabe newel (CEO of
Valve) says that pirates provide better customer service. How many times have
you paid for a DRM license for something
and the server goes down, or travel across the border? I rented some episodes
on Amazon for Dr Who: when I went to Canada – I paid for them in America: I
live in America – they say “you can’t watch it anymore because you’re not in
America anymore”. That made me angry because I was being honest. I was an
honest person. If I had stolen it, I would be watching it”.
2014
In 2014 Wil Wheaton wrote on his blog about the first day
about shooting The Wil Wheaton Project and encouraged people to watch it
firstly through legal means and in a way that counts but if not through piracy.
“ I know a lot of you
reading this don’t subscribe to cable or satellite, and as far as I know it
will be online at Syfy.com and probably Hulu and Hulu+ but I’m not sure how
soon after it airs. I also think it’s available as a subscription on iTunes. I
know that, because of a number of factors that are completely out of my
control, it’s only available in the United States. Totally unrelated to that, I
wonder if any of you non-American viewer shave of VPN services unblock-us.
So I really want
everyone in the world to see my show, because I’m super proud of it and I think
a lot of you will enjoy it. If you have to use some possibly questionable means
to see it, I’m not going to try to stop you BUT - if you can watch it in some
way that the network can score (on broadcast or via one of the
legally-supported websites), please do that, because the more people who watch
it in a way the network can count, the more likely it is they will order a full
season of the show”.
On the 3 August 2014 Wil
Wheaton circulated this article titled “Piracy
isn’t killing Hollywood, Hollywood is killing Hollywood” on tumblr and his
highlighted comments. I agree with what he said about the content being offered
by the movie industry and the writer of the original article said about the
slum of sales in the movie industry. Thanks for bringing this article to my
attention.
“If
Hollywood dies, the industry has no one to blame but itself. In regards to Hollywood’s current summer slate,
customers voted with their wallets.
They
don’t want what Hollywood is offering, in part because its continuously
catering to a demographic losing interest in the movies. That brings us to another explanation: Some believe
Hollywood’s predilection for all things testosterone-laden is causing the
downturn.
As
Kelly Faircloth of Jezebel glibly put it “If you essentially ignore half the
population, you’re leaving money on the table.” The number paint a clear picture “Females made up only 39 percent ofAmazing Spider-Man 2’s debut
audience, compared with 42 percent for 2012’s The Amazing Spider-Man and 46 percent for Spider-Man 3.
The
same trend applies to Transformers.
This summer’s Age of Extinction skewed
64 percent male during its first weekend, more than the previous two films, and
it played the oldest.” Women
are not interested in seeing movies so generically masculine they’re tantamount
to a two-hour Dr. Pepper Ten commercial. Summer 2014 was so brutal because
Hollywood ignored the most profitable demographic—not because of The Pirate
Bay.
References
Wheaton, W. 2008, ‘Why
I won’t ever infect anything you buy from me with DRM’ published 13 October
2008 at WilWheaton.net
Wheaton, W, 2011, ‘The
Entertainment Industry Is To Blame For Piracy.’ YouTube 27 July 2011at
WilWheaton.net
Wheaton, W. 2012
“Today the US Senate is considering the legislation that would destroy the free
an open Internet” 17 January 2012 at WilWheaton.net.
Wheaton, W. 2012, ‘An
example of the usefulness of bittorrent for entirely legal purposes.’ post
on 12 May 2012 at WilWheaton.net.
Saccaro, M. 2014, ‘Internet
piracy isn’t killing Hollywood-Hollywood is killing Hollywood’. Published
on 30 July 2014 at daily.dot
Wheaton W. 2014, ‘Today we shoot the our first episode' at WilWheaton.net.
