The discourse around piracy thus far hasn't exactly been nuanced, with copyright holders pushing harder than ever to impose harsh penalities for anyone who downloads music or movies. All this while ignoring data that suggests that, in some instances, piracy can act as promotion for a film: with those hearing chatter about the movie choosing to seek it out, often by buying a ticket or a DVD. The argument could go round and round forever, but there's at least one director out there who has approached the whole thing quite reasonably.
Kern Saxton, the man behind the low budget crime flick "Sushi Girl" featuring Mark Hamill, Michael Biehn, Danny Trejo and Jeff Fahey among others, surfed over to a torrent site recently and confronted those who were making the movie available to download. And his reaction? Pretty level headed. He basically says that while he appreciates the attention they are giving his film, indie movies like his need every dollar they can get, and he hopes that if viewers enjoy it, they purchase it when it comes to DVD and Blu-Ray in February (and he notes it will have a better sound mix than what's floating about online). Basically, he's taking the if-you-sampled-it-and-liked-it-please-buy-it-approach. And again, that's more than fair.
See his full statement below after the red band trailer for the movie. "Sushi Girl" is now on VOD and open in limited release on January 4th. [Reddit]
Do you guys just comb Reddit for news now? It seems that's where you steal everything from now — no reason to visit your site.