Pirates Say “Don’t Make Me Steal” – A Digital Media Consumption Manifesto
A loose collective of digital media pirates have created a manifesto that outlines what they say rightsholders need to do to stop them pirating. While its aimed at the film industry, the five point Don't Make Me Steal manifesto has wider implications for music and all other digital content.
The 5 Point Manifesto:
1. Price: using cinema tickets as a pricing benchmark, it states that film downloads should not cost more than the price of going to a movie theatre while rentals should be, at most, one-third of the price. Monthly flat rate subscriptions should not exceed the cost of three cinema tickets.
2. Language: Multiple-language audio options should be standard and purchasers are allowed to create and share subtitles.
3. Convenience: Content a consumer purchases is instantly available, it comes without ads (or piracy warnings) if paid for and can be found online through multiple search criteria (film title, country, genre, director etc.).
4. Choice and release dates: Release dates are global and everything released is available to download in any country.
5. Rights: Content is platform and device agnostic and comes DRM-free with use terms totally transparent.
Point #1 is totally dishonest, they will always find a lower threshold.
This whole thing is dishonest. I pirate movies because it’s free, that’s it. Manifestos are just an itemized list of excuses.
It still blows my mind they’re trying to create a political party off this.
I agree– the entire thing is dishonest, not to mention thug-like. “Don’t make me hurt you.” What an excellent role model for civilized behavior in the 21st century.
Is there an obvious problem here when pirates, themselves, have to inform Digital Media companies how to target paid movies/music to them?
I think these are all valid points. If this was framed as coming from a “consumer group” instead of pirates, would it still be labeled as dishonest?