Are Internet Pirates Our Friends?

Much has been said about the business of "free", as it relates to filmmakers trying to get their work seen and their potential to drive would-be customers to their personal websites to purchase special edition DVDs, and other merch. For those that are interested in this sort of thing, this may be an alternative (or even something to add) to your free online streaming efforts. The following is an interesting point of view from TorrentFreak about the pirating of feature films, and how in one case, they may have actually helped the film's producers financially. Read all about it, and feel free to offer your thoughts on the subject, after the jump:



"When a filmmaker first discovered that his new movie had leaked to the Internet, he was pretty upset. However, this creator has some hacker friends who persuaded him to feel more relaxed about reaching a whole new audience. Right now, he is embracing file-sharing and even the uploader who released his work via BitTorrent sites.

Last week, ‘godcanjudgeme‘, a prolific uploader to Demonoid, The Pirate Bay, Mininova and OneBigTorrent, made another upload to add to his long list of releases, but this one turned out a little differently to all the others.

Blue Gold : World Water Wars from director Sam Bozzo is a movie about one of planet earth’s most precious resources – water. It examines the ‘future’ for water and how various corporations are plotting to control its supply, how governments use water for political gain and how the control of this essential liquid could be the source of future military conflicts.

Of course, when anyone uploads a movie to the Internet in breach of copyright, there is always the chance of a different type of conflict – one with the entertainment companies and their anti-piracy allies. However, this particular movie is independent and less likely to attract that type of attention. Perhaps because of this and a warmth towards independent creators, the movie’s BitTorrent uploader godcanjudgeme added a note to his release on The Pirate Bay, encouraging people to financially support the movie by giving donations to the creators via their website."

Read all about this and the film's producer's personal note to the torrent uploading community HERE.