This "Remixed" Film is the Definite Documentary

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Ralph Bernardo
Phone: 212-342-7393
Email: dvd@disinfo.com

This "Remixed" Film is the Definite Documentary of the Digital Age

For review copies of RIP! A Remix Manifesto and interview requests with the filmmaker, please email dvd@disinfo.com.

NEW YORK, NY — What would it mean if, ten years ago this month, we did not have the ability to share files freely online? The whole idea of sharing viral videos through a site like YouTube would be completely gone. Forget about sharing photos with your family and friends on Flickr, and even those ever-present LOLcats (this is perhaps a mixed blessing). Would we be listening to music over the Internet on such sites as Pandora, or downloading songs without having to buy the whole album from a virtual "record store" like iTunes? Simply stated, the Internet is the most effective way human beings have ever devised to share their ideas. The question of how easy — or not — it is for us to share our music, photos, videos, all our creative works or any media — is the focus of Brett Gaylor's definite documentary of the digital age, RIP! A Remix Manifesto.

RIP! chronicles our media revolution over the last ten years since a teenager named Shawn Fanning in June 1999 changed the face of entertainment, copyright, and the way we look at the Internet. His problem child, Napster, took the idea of sharing "ideas" — notably in the form of music — from the backrooms of bulletin boards to a much wider audience — one very hungry in the late '90s for what they were (not) finding on the radio or "music" television.

If you read the word "Napster" and are thinking "theft" — RIP! is a film that's NOT about making all things free and destroying our system of commerce. This documentary is about our cultural transformation from a media system of a few, very expensive means of distribution, to one where anyone with a computer and an Internet connection can be a consumer as well as a producer of media. Gaylor affirms that balance is needed to ensure that Innovation is: 1) Encouraged and not stifled; 2) Beneficial to all and not just the powerful; 3) A matter of civic cooperation and not for the criminal justice system.

Just how we can strike this delicate balance, RIP! proposes a remix manifesto based on four assertions:

Culture always builds on the Past

The Past always tries to Control the Future

Our Future is becoming less Free

To build Free societies, you must limit Control of the Past

These assertions are then supported using some very captivating studies about several people including: iconic remix artist Girl Talk (whose music you can't find on iTunes except in this film); visionary remix lawyer Lawrence Lessig (author of Free Culture, Code 2.0, and Remix, all available freely at lessig.org/blog); steadfest remix activist Cory Doctorow (co-author of the widely-popular cultural blog BoingBoing); and pioneering remix politician/musician Gilberto Gil (a former Brazilian Minister of Culture, a rare case of a politician who is a contributor to culture and not a controller of it).

To prove that RIP! pays more than lip-service to the debate, the entire film is available for remixing at OpenSourceCinema.org. During the production of the movie, footage was made available for anyone to create "mash-ups" which found their way into the final film. A participatory media experiment from its inception, says Gayor, "RIP! is an attempt to move beyond the traditional relationship of producer and consumer — we want to recognize that this passive era is over ... and that the film remains an evolving conversation about intellectual property in the digital age."

On the consumer end of the spectrum, RIP! is available in a variety of ways. After premiering at the SXSW Film Festival in March, numerous theatrical screenings have been held throughout the U.S. On the filmmaker's directive, a "Name Your Price" campaign exists at ripremix.com where site visitors set their own price (including free) to download the film. The Disinformation Company has launched digital purchases through iTunes and other platforms, and will release on DVD at the end of June. Exactly how the viewer would like to experience RIP! is for the individual to decide, and not a few corporate decision-makers.

So what will we see from here? Who knows for sure, but the place to start discovering what the future may hold is by watching Brett Gaylor's RIP! A Remix Manifesto.
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For review copies and interview requests with Brett Gaylor please email dvd@disinfo.com.

About The Disinformation Company: The Disinformation Company Ltd. is active in TV production, book publishing and home entertainment. It is most widely recognized for its distribution of opinions and facts not usually covered by the traditional media. Recent DVD exclusives from The Disinformation Company include Michael Moore's Slacker Uprising, the best-selling Robert Greenwald documentaries Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price, Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism, and Uncovered: The Whole Truth About the Iraq War, as well as Robert Baer's The Cult of the Suicide Bomber, the Sean Penn-narrated War Made Easy and the self-produced documentary, 2012: Science or Superstition.

RIP! A Remix Manifesto

Genre: Documentary

DVD Street date: June 30, 2009

Sug. Retail Price: $19.95 (DVD) / $9.99 (iTunes)

ADA Catalog #: DIS055

ISBN: 978-1-934708-31-6

UPC: 826262005597

Running Time: 86 mins. + 90 mins. bonus footage

Victory Over The Pirate Bay Will Be Short-Lived

http://www.pcworld.com/article/163366/hollywoods_victory_over_the_pirate_bay_will_be_shortlived.html

Hollywood's Victory Over The Pirate Bay Will Be Short-Lived
Daniel Ionescu, PC World
Apr 18, 2009

From Sweden to London to Hollywood, protectors of copyrights are celebrating the conviction of the four men behind the world's most popular torrent tracker The Pirate Bay. The four convicted men behind The Pirate Bay -- Frederik Neij, Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, Peter Sunde, and Carl Lundstrom -- say they can't and won't pay the $3.6 million in damages and promised the site will continue running. So much for Hollywood's sweet victory and happy ending.

Hollywood may have won a battle, but the war against piracy is far from over. Unauthorized file-sharing will continue (and likely intensify), if not through The Pirate Bay, then through dozens of other near-identical swashbuckling Web sites.

Of course, The Pirate Bay's case is nothing new. Eight years ago Napster was shut down after getting sued. It tried a few legal business models, but never managed to even get close to the popularity it had when it was operating illegally. The shutdown of Napster turned its creator, Shawn Fanning, and Napster into a into heroes and martyrs, inspiring others to develop new ways to pirate music.The Pirate Bay site itself is still up and running while the case is appealed.

What Hollywood needs to remember is that sites like The Pirate Bay are like weeds. When you try to kill one, they grow back even stronger. In this case, The Pirate Bay already moved most of its servers to the Netherlands, a change that could keep the site running even if The Pirate Bay loses its appeal.

The bad news for copyright-holders is there is obviously a market demand for this type of content distribution model. And while the entertainment industry seeks compensation via lawsuits, other similar services (which I do not endorse) such as Mininova, Demonoid and Torrentbox to name a few, will continue to thrive. That is, of course, until they get sued into oblivion as well. And then there are always new technologies on the horizon. Hollywood might want to start looking at a budding new peer-to-peer tool called OneSwarm that aims to let file-swappers preserve their privacy by cloaking their IP address.

Best Buy will acquire music-sharer Napster

http://www.businessweek.com/ap/financialnews/D9375HSG3.htm

September 15, 2008
Best Buy will acquire music-sharer Napster

Consumer electronics retailer Best Buy Inc. said Monday it will acquire online music-sharing site Napster Inc. for about $126.8 million in cash in a move to boost its digital media capabilities.

Best Buy will begin a tender offer for all outstanding Napster shares for $2.65 per share, representing a 95 percent premium to the stock's closing price Friday of $1.36 per share.

According to its most recently quarterly filing, Napster had about 47.9 million shares outstanding as of June 30, implying a price of $126.8 million. In a statement, Best Buy valued the deal at $121 million -- or $54 million after netting about $67 million in Napster's cash and short-term investments.

The takeover is expected to close in the fourth quarter. The deal includes Napster's 700,000 subscribers, its Web-based customer-service platform and mobile capabilities.

Napster Chief Executive Chris Gorog and other senior management will continue in those roles. The Los Angeles-based company has about 140 staffers and Best Buy said it does not plan to relocate the headquarters or make "significant" changes in personnel.

Napster said it will postpone its annual meeting of stockholders, scheduled for Thursday, due to the acquisition agreement.