It seems my catchphrase at IDFA Talks 2007, ‘Embrace The Pirate’, is catching on. Over at Renew Media, Pamela Cohn (thanks, Pamela!) reviews my talk, noting quite rightly that I was feeling a bit ecstatic (cf., a bit tired and emotional) at the time. The basic gist (first time I’ve formulated it this way; I’d like (someone) to draw (me) a graph) is that the status of media as commodity is challenged precisely to the extent that the media distribution/scarcity problem is solved.  Note I do not say ‘that lack of product scarcity makes the possibility of making money vanish’, but simply that we should be giving away the media and using it to build strong supportive bridges between ‘producers’ and ‘consumers’ of media. Cohn says:

A completely anti-intuitive concept, yes, but apparently true as we watch the landscape shift irrevocably beneath our feet.

I think this concept is going to become completely intuitive to a new generation of media makers and with STEAL THIS FILM, we’ve staked the farm on it. Not that we have a farm. Or even a house.

http://resources.renewmedia.org/2007/11/29/embracing-the-pirate-the-new-landscape-of-online-media-sharing/#more-210