Comments on: Tarkovsky Films Now Free Online

By: Fleissenstein

Fleissenstein — Sat, 17 Dec 2011 23:31:22 +0000

Considering Tarkovsky’s been pushing daisies for a damn long time, I think it’s pretty funny to see people argue which team of lawyers should reap the benefit of work they didn’t do, and are probably younger than most of the films by Tarkovsky. Bunch of necrophiliacs.

By: stumpy

stumpy — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 00:14:02 +0000

now its not free. epic fail.

By: aSinc

aSinc — Tue, 18 Jan 2011 08:00:10 +0000

La questione dei diritti d’autore è inevitabilmente centrale nella circolazione delle opere audiovisive ed entra prepotentemente in gioco quando un’opera supera i confini del proprio bacino linguistico. Dovrebbe essere la politica culturale a occuparsi di risolvere il nodo del superamento delle barriere linguistiche attraverso il doppiaggio e/o il sottotitolaggio destinando risorse adeguate in modo da favorire lo scambio culturale tra i paesi.

By: visible

visible — Wed, 29 Sep 2010 09:10:40 +0000

I doubt there is no problem for Criterion having these free to view online. The main point of their DVD releases is the quality & often excellent extras. This online stuff doesn’t come close to the quality of the DVDs. This is great reference material & might pull a few people new to these films who should go & buy the DVDs to see them in their full beauty.

By: kert

kert — Wed, 11 Aug 2010 20:52:02 +0000

Cool. I wish “Test pilota Pirxa” was available somewher as well.

By: Pavel

Pavel — Sun, 01 Aug 2010 09:21:25 +0000

Nice!

By: FD

FD — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 17:23:44 +0000

I don’t deny economic justice to anyone. I think the equation is clear. If there is no hope of remuneration for the production of cultural items – if that expectation is unjustified, don’t bother making them. Find some other way of earning an income. That’s the best way not to be exploited. That’s how a free market works.

Just to puncture your hysterical rhetoric: copyright infringement is not theft. Theft is a crime. Piecemeal infringement is a tort. Tort is addressed not by prosecution but by litigation. It is a civil matter.

Ignoring the technicalities for a moment, it isn’t a theft in commonsensical terms either. It is not an “unlawful taking” because it isn’t taking. It’s copying. Nobody gets deprived of the item on which the infringement is performed. It’s importantly different from theft, and those differences speak to the very origins of copyright law, its involvement in the economics and metaphysics of intellectual works, and the difficult situation we find ourselves in now. To ignore them is to risk being whipped up by industry propaganda into a moralistic frenzy. Clearer thinking here is what is needed, and the license to consider the topic from as many angles as possible, and not to rule out innovative ways of thinking about it as “stupid,” indicative of a lack of “conscience,” “contemptible.” That’s just an immature way to have any discussion.

Finally, I can hold my breath for your forgiveness. Your forgiveness for having enough respect for you to discuss an important issue with you over an internet comment stream. You have to forgive me because I dare to disagree with you, and speak my mind about it. LOL

By: twiddledum

twiddledum — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 16:30:29 +0000

Mike,
This conversation isn’t over. In the last decade, copyright welfare has suffered its greatest blow. Despite draconian laws passed at the start of last century, copyright welfare must face the realities of a capitalist competitive society. Were it for people like you, industry could never renew and we’d be stuck with the horse drawn carriage. It’s only fair, hypocrite.

By: Mike

Mike — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 11:36:31 +0000

A person of conscience is mindful of the lives of anyone affected by any transaction. The fact that you would consciously deny economic justice to a group of people whose products you enjoy is contemptible. My analogy of currency counterfeiting was right on the mark; the reason people don’t stand for counterfeiting is that currency value affects virtually every person on the planet, while only a minority are protected by copyright laws — a minority vulnerable to exploitation by the majority who are consumers. Your analogy of the candle maker/lighbulb is a pure idiocy, and exposes an inability to reason. We are not talking about a group of people whose products have become obsolete by a new technology; we’re discussing the rights of a group of people whose products are still very much in demand and can now be readily stolen due to new technology. I can forgive stupidity, FD, but not the willful denial of justice to people other than yourself. This conversation is over.

By: FD

FD — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 22:37:58 +0000

There is considerably more justificatory weight behind the maintenance of a national economy, and the prohibition of forgery, than there is behind the defense of copyright. Society does not grind to a halt if artists are no longer given an incentive to produce work.

Your analogy is false, but to it I offer another one. The outlook you profess would have us prohibit the availability of the electric lightbulb because justice demands that the chandler is owed a living.

The traditional jurisprudence of copyright law, and indeed patent law too, frames the law in terms of incentivization. I’m not choosing to frame it that way. That’s the way jurists have since the Statute of Anne. If you have a conceptual problem with that, it is entirely yours.