Michael Moore contradictions

I this interview featured in BoingBoing Michael Moore says that he does not believe in Intellectual Property Rights (IPR), just to contradict himself seconds later to say that he is willing to let others share "his" work if they don't profit from it. If he says that there are no Intellectual Property Rights why would he care if a guy with a computer, hight speed internet access and a DVD burner starts selling his movie to guys who do not have high speed connection? So he does or does not believe on IPR? You be the judge.


I was not willing to pay for a movie theater ticket to watch Moore's latest release Farenheit 911 especially after all sort of op-eds in major US newspapers decrying that the film is full of inaccuracies. But since he has allowed it to be free, I feel no remorse in downloading it and see by myself why so many people are talking about it.

I believe in IPR, you cannot deny the existence of ownership of ideas and things, but I am not sure how you can enforce IPR in in a digital age. And that is the reason why I think the current approach by defenders of it are wrong. The whole enterteinment industry needs to reasess themselves and try to reinvent their business model. New technologies are making each day more difficult to enforce IPR and on the other hand its friends are using 18th century concepts to enforce them.

I believe that authors should start working more in a bussines model where their income does not come from selling a book, a record or a movie, but rather from lecture tours, concerts, or the selling of the movie memorabilia. After all an actor, book writer, or singer wants to be listen, read, and commented. They do need a revenue to compensate them for their creative work, but it has to come from other sources, not by selling the product itself. The product in a way is their ad campaign for people that find interesting the author's work and will like to go the extra mile and support those efforts. I don't expect anybody to pay me to write this nor I expect to be paid if someone quotes me, but I do expect that if I become quoted and read by people, they will acknowledge or recognize that I did it and that it will in turn open the door to jobs writing, more income for selling to somebody first my comments or just be supportive by someone sending me a gift choosen from my Amazon wish list. At least if I don't cash anything for my efforts, I will develop some prestige and a lot of fun doing this kind of work.

In any case if you are interested in finding out by yourself why Michael Moore is right or wrong check Eduardo Arcos Blog about a good comment on how to find the movie and what software you need in order to dowload it and watch it. By the way thanks to him that his post alerted me about watching Michael Moore for Free.