Pirate Cinema Knoxville

Pirate Cinema Knoxville

STARTING FRIDAY JANUARY 4, 7PM

COPYLIBERATED FILMS EVERY FRIDAY AND SATURDAY NIGHT - 7 PM

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In war with reality

The Film industry's war against pirates is a war against reality.

Total control over who is using culture, when they use it and under which circumstances it can be used is not only an illusion, but is also an extreme violation of civil rights – in the fashion of a bad remake of George Orwell's 1984.

Naturally, the Film industry is an industry that thrives on the production and selling of fantasy. it portrays an image of a the lonely heroe s fight against injustice, hostile lifeforms on distant planets and the battle between Good and Evil. However, with the claims of how copyright should be protected, it seems the film industry has lost the ability to seperate fantasy from reality.

These scare tactics are not new. In the 80's, the game industry made a prophecy that the copy friendly floppydisc would be the end of the video game. The music industry predicted the cassette tape would kill the music industry (and thereby music itself!).

In 1982 the former president of the American film lobby MPAA Jack Valenti claimed that "the VCR is to the American film producer and the American public as the Boston strangler is to the woman home alone." Today there is more diversity of media and increased access to both video games, music and film. And this only seems to continue.

The battle of copyright is a battle for control. The film industry is fearing to lose control of whch films we want to watch, how we want to watch them and how we produce new film. The technological evolution is giving access to a gigantic supply of film. Video technology is incorporated into cheap cameras and mobile phones.
Now that we also can edit our our own film on our computers, the film industry is scared - and they should be - of loosing their monopoly on creating film culture.

So far legislators worldwide have been convinced that pirating is as dangerous as aliens and terrorists, and several countries are punishing piracy harder than violence and theft.

But Hollywood is forgetting their own history. Companies like FOX grew to giants in the beginning of last century by fleeing the long arm of the patent laws and the patents on film production held by Thomas Edison.

The film indutry's war against pirates is a war against the technology, against people and against that reality we all really live in.

Pirate Cinema reclaims the cinema.

- Pirate Cinema Copenhagen, 1.10.2006

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The Art Gallery of Knoxville
317 N Gay St
Knoxville, TN 37917

www.theartgalleryofknoxville.com