Is piracy helpful? Kirk has some ideas.

Once upon a time, I pirated movies, television shows, music, and software without feeling the slightest measure of guilt. There are many ways that I used to justify this shameless disregard for the artists of the entertainment industry. In some ways I still think that piracy is warranted ethically if not legally. Although I have not given up piracy completely, the media world has changed dramatically and thus negated some of the excuses that I once used.

When I was in college, as I was introduced to piracy through a friend who had a then rare home broadband connection and a piece of software known as Napster, I was poor. I was the typical broke college student. I paid for music from the artists that I already knew about and whose music I knew I would enjoy. What I was downloading was merely for discovery purposes. These were artists that I would never have had a chance to listen to in that era. If anything, it broadened my taste. I probably bought more music as a result.

In the ten plus years since then we have music subscription services like Spotify, Google Play Music, and now Apple Music. I listen to most of the music I want through one of these services and do occasionally purchase an album I would like to own. The fact is, legal music adapted to what the consumer wanted. I could still be pirating music, but the paid alternative is more attractive. Which brings me to another justification that I once used and still, in some respects, do.

The industry has to compete. Prior to high speed internet, folks had to put up with any antiquated system that any of these media companies wanted to use for distribution. There was no alternative and would not have been any alternative without high speed internet. The technology to distribute content in a more user friendly way was there long before the big media companies decided to take advantage of them. I contend that without piracy, big media companies would never have been motivated to offer content on services like Netflix, Spotify, iTunes, Steam, or any of the other digital content service providers that exist in the wake of piracy.

Big media companies are champions of capitalism. In a capitalist system one has to compete with any other service providers. That does include black markets in this case. At first they resisted. They tried to sue their way back into the game. They were used to having control over the method of distribution and did not want to make changes for the kids of tomorrow. Eventually they have started seeing that they would have to offer a more alluring alternative to piracy. It wasn’t hard. Piracy can be clunky. Do you think I am going to pirate a movie or series that I can find on Netflix? Not a chance. It is so much easier to use Netflix and have a library of content at my fingertips. I even tend to choose something that is on Netflix over something else that I maybe wanted to watch which is not. This all because of the efficiency over piracy that Netflix provides. In that light, content providers are losing money by failing to provide it through such a service.

As much as I would like to say that I am a pillar of progress and that through only viewing content which is available through these types of services I am only supporting those content providers, I cannot. I have found that currently airing television series are still served superiorly to me through piracy. I think that network fragmentation is culprit there. Hulu has tried to offer a solution to that issue, but those particular content providers are still too greedy to go for it. I am pretty sure someone could improve on Hulu anyhow. Sorry, but serving ads along with subscription content will not fly.

So, dear reader, what do you think? Has your use or justification of piracy changed with the times? If you were a user of early services like Napster, do you still pirate to the same extent or at all today? Was it ever really justified or would we have progress just the same without it? Let me know your thoughts.

Kirk Aug

Kirk is still the new guy around here.  He is added some gravitas and intelligence to the group. Follow him on twitter @kirkaug

Cloves and Fedoras: Review of a little gem featuring the greatest indie actors of yesterday and today - AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON

Cloves and Fedoras is Seed Sings reviews for little known pieces of pop culture.  Feel free to contact us with your own submissions of undiscovered gems that must be known.

I know I usually review independent or small budget movies, but I recently saw Avengers: Age of Ultron and, oh man, was it fantastic!

I loved everything about this movie. The action is relentless. I love that about eighty to eighty-five percent of this movie was fighting, car chases, fights while in flight, etcetera. It was a seemingly endless array of action sequences. I also enjoy the fact that we got a little back story on Hawkeye. I was never a huge fan of Hawkeye as an avenger, I mean who cares about a sharp shooter when there's guys with crazy suits of armor, a super soldier and a doctor who turns into a big green super strong monster, but this movie made me like Hawkeye more than I thought was possible. The addition of Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch was great. Two new additions to a rather large buffet of heroes. I love it. The running time was about two and a half hours, but it flew by. I could have watched another two and half hours no problem. I loved every part of this movie, but there is one specific fight scene that's shot in slow motion, singling out every Avenger, that literally gave me goose bumps. It was incredible! James Spader as the voice of the evil robot Ultron was an excellent casting choice. I'm not that big a fan of his, but his voice acting was so good and creepy. A great role for him. Perfect choice.  Every person, everywhere needs to see this movie right now. It's phenomenal.

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture Editor for Seed Sing.  He enjoys the quiet thoughtful films punctuated with explosions

Cloves and Fedoras: Ty thinks you should give "I was there Too" a listen

Cloves and Fedoras is Seed Sings reviews for little known pieces of pop culture.  Feel free to contact us with your own submissions of undiscovered gems that must be known.

As with most people my age (let's say millennial) podcast are huge. They have a podcast for everything. From sports to comedy to food to politics and so on. It's all covered. I'm here to tell you about my new favorite podcast,  "I Was There Too". It's part of Earwolf's new sister network Wolfpop. Every two weeks Matt Gourley, who has been featured on other podcasts such as "James Bonding" and "SuperEgo". Matt interviews actors and actresses that have played semi small to bit part roles in classic movies. He's done 14 episodes so far and his guests have included, Paul F Tompkins from "There Will Be Blood", Ricco Ross from "Aliens", Greg Proops from "Star Wars Episode One: The Phantom Menace", Peter Berkrot from "Caddyshack", Doug Benson from "Captain EO", the passengers from the bus in "Speed", Johnny Williams from "Goodfellas", Paul Rust from "Inglorious Basterds", Eileen Dietz from "The Exorcist", Jenette Goldstein from "Aliens", "T2", and "Titanic", DC Pierson from "Captain America: The Winter Soldier", Stephen Toblowsky from "Groundhog Day", and most recently, Diane Franklin from "Better Off Dead". All the episodes are great, even better for people who are fans of the movies. A couple of my favorites are, Doug Benson, Paul Rust and Peter Berkrot. Listening to Doug Benson talk about how odd Michael Jackson was on set to his(Doug Benson) exploits as a dancer in the movie are pretty funny. Paul Rust, who plays one of the grunts, talking about how cool and calm both Brad Pitt and Quentin Tarantino were give me even more respect for the two of them. And then there's Peter Berkrot AKA the kid who had the rake pushed against his neck by Bill Murray's Carl Spackler while telling him about caddying for the Dalai Lama, is excellent. According to him, most of Bill Murray's speech was improvised. That's incredible! But, my favorite episode so far is last weeks with Diane Franklin from "Better Off Dead". I'm a HUGE fan of that movie. My brother showed it to me when I was in my early twenties and I still quote it to this day. The movie holds up very well too. For those of you who don't know who Diane Franklin is she played the French foreign exchange student, Monique Junot Diane's character becomes John Cusack's love interest in the movie. Her stories range from her close friendship with John Cusack to, the fact that the director Savage Steve Holland wanted her character to not only have a French accent, but a lisp as well. Thankfully they got rid of the lisp before filming. It's a great episode of a wonderful podcast. Each episode is about an hour long which is a perfect amount of time in the podcast world. Their only 14 episodes in and it's bi weekly, so there's plenty of time for everyone to catch up. Give it a listen to, especially if you're a big time movie buff and enjoy.

Ty

Ty is the pop culture editor for Seed Sing.  He recommends other great Savage Steve Holland such as

Cloves and Fedoras: What We Do in the Shadows reviewed

What We Do in the Shadows is a 2014 "mockumentary" that follows the lives of three vampires and room mates in modern day New Zealand. The vampires, played by Jermaine Clement(Jermaine, Flight of the Conchords), Taika Waitti(director of many episodes of Flight of the Conchords) and Jonathan Brugh(first co starring role), have to deal with many modern day dilemmas that are very foreign to them since they've been around for centuries. This has to be one of the funniest movies I've seen in a long time. One of the opening scenes is a round table discussion of the three room mates arguing over their chore wheel. It's so funny, I was literally laughing out loud in the theater. To see these three argue over who has to clean the blood soaked dishes is priceless. The back stories of the three are pretty great as well. Vladislav(Jermaine Clement) is a 862 year old self proclaimed sex symbol and a world class hypnotizer. Although since his run in with "The Beast" his powers aren't as great as they once were. Viago is a 379 year old "fancy pants" vampire. He's concerned with keeping the house clean and organized and making his victims feel safe before he feeds on them. And then there's Deacon, my favorite, a 183 year old former Nazi vampire. His explanation of fleeing to New Zealand after the war is uproarious. Along the way you meet other vampire friends, some victims and a great back and forth between the vampires and their enemies, the werewolves. They make a human friend during the movie that helps them with all the modern technology. Things like cell phones and Facebook being taught to them is incredibly funny. If you're a fan of the Flight of the Conchords TV show, you'll love this movie and if you're a fan of comedy in general, you'll get a kick out of it as well. This film is HIGHLY recommended. Enjoy

Ty

Ty Kulik is the Pop Culture editor for Seed Sing.  He does not smoke any kind of cigarette and never wears a fedora

Cloves and Fedoras: Starred Up Reviewed

Cloves and Fedoras is Seed Sings reviews for little know pieces of pop culture.  Feel free to contact us with your own submissions of little gems that must be known.

I recently watched a little known movie from 2013 called Starred Up. The movie is about a troubled teen named Eric, played by Jack O'Connell(Unbroken), who is sent to an adult prison where he sees his father(Ben Mendelsohn, The Place Beyond the Pines) for the first time in 14 years. The movie opens with silence, you see a young man unloaded from a prison truck and he's being checked into a new prison. Upon arriving to his new bunk, he immediately makes enemies. He fights with an inmate whom he thinks is stealing his lighter. The inmate is so badly beaten that Eric believes he may have killed him. He takes him to the infirmary where Eric is met by a SWAT team. They proceed to fight him and in the midst of the fight, a counselor named Oliver (Rupert Friend, Mr.Wickham in Pride and Prejudice) tells the SWAT team to stop and that he wants to help him. Oliver takes him to his therapy sessions that he holds in the prison. There he meets some inmates that teach him that talking through the anger and that boxing properly can help him curb his appetite for aggression. His father is not pleased with his new group of inmate allies. He wants Eric to do his time and get out of prison so he can live his life. He doesn't want him making friends or joining gangs, just do his time and get out. Eric fights his father’s wishes and continues to train and take therapy. Some shocking revelations come to light involving his father and his father's crew, as well as some of the prison staff that I won't divulge as I feel people need to see this movie. There were times watching this movie I felt like I was watching a documentary. The prison and actors seemed so real. Jack O'Connel is a tour de force in his role. He's phenomenal to say the least. I highly, highly recommend this film. 

Ty

Ty Kulik is the Pop Culture editor of Seed Sing.  He does not smoke any kind of cigarette or wear a fedora.