TPB AFK: The Pirate Bay Away from Keyboard

Excellent story about real people taking the blame for dinosaurs failure to evolve. It is amazing too see how different generations fail to communicate. Please give the power and money back to the artists, make them understand they have to work to have an income, that culture is a commodity that is cheap because of the extreme supply and abolish the right to own other peoples copyrights.

Simon Klose makes an objective documentation of our time and puts the people ahead of the story. This is not a film in the end about piracy, it is a film about however unlikely an insurgent, an ideologist and a techie ended up together against the rest of the organised world. About individual loss but the win of a just cause.

TPB - AFK is a documentary structured like a political thriller and vice versa. It employs traditional film-making conventions (irony, drama, fact presentation) although the means by which it is produced, shot and distributed, are highly unconventional. It chronicles the persecution of the founding members of The Pirate Bay by members an objectively corrupt force. The film remains open-ended which is not only the right choice (dramatically) but also a realistic choice, as the ghosts of copyright infringement will probably haunt us longer than the war on drugs or terror. So, watch this first and pay later (or don't) if you like it, which is a far better deal than most cultural objects require from their audience nowadays...

Who would have guessed 20 years ago that Petabytes of information and data would be available for everyone with just a few clicks? Who would have guessed that millions of people would be sharing stuff with other people that they'll never know?

ARPANet was the beginning of a huge phenomena: the Internet. It's something you can't actually touch, yet it's there. It connects everyone, even if they are in opposite sides of the world. The Internet is more than a network, it's a part of OUR life!

Can you imagine spending a whole year without coming to the Internet? Not catching up with your friends, not playing online games, not researching for that work you're making, not seeing the latest viral videos, not writing about what you're eating. The Internet became the world! The Pirate Bay is just a proof of how the Internet rules over everything!

Because you see, TPB is not a warehouse where you can pick up anything you want. No. TPB is a gate. What TPB does is allowing you and me to share things with each other. What we used to do by re-writing CD's and VHS is what TPb is allowing us to do. And it's one of the greatest ideas ever!

I know so many things mainly because of everything I download from the Internet. Movies, documentaries, series, books, music... Everything contributes to our culture, to our wisdom! Hell, it contributes to the evolution of the HUMANITY! Why stop our own advance just because some companies lose little money a year? Yes, they lose LITTLE money. Take the example of videogames: most of them have online features nowadays; you can't play online in most hacked versions, so you have to buy the game. But at least, when you buy it, you know you like it! The same applies for everything else! COMPANIES NEVER LOSE MONEY, THEY JUST WANT TO MONOPOLIZE EVERYTHING!

This documentary shows that pretty well, and shows that all it takes to change the Internet, to change the world, is an idea and work. They're just 3 and they created the biggest thing in the whole Internet. We're more than 6 billion! Can't we change the world as well?

OK, so we all know ThePirateBay and the majority of netizens have visited it on at least one occasion to share files. What do we really know about the Pirate Bay ? Not a lot it seems. I was luckily invited to see an advanced screening of this documentary. I expected it to be an interesting story. I got what I expected and more. The twists and turns of the reality of how The Pirate Bay was formed, how the authorities went after them and how much The Pirate Bay has affected the lives of so many people, is such an intriguing tale. I definitely recommend this film to all netizens as a 100% must watch film about our generation and at it's core, our online culture and the attempts of the powerful to control the internet. Even if you are just a casual internet user who is mildly curious about internet culture, this is a must watch documentary. 10/10 because... gripping story that has never been told and doesn't end up as you expected... is truly... "gripping story"

Plot

An intellectual freedoms documentary based around the interpersonal triumphs, and defeats of the three main characters against the largest industry in the known universe. The media industry.

Cast

Not familiar with the creators.

Verdict

The story of the Pirate Bay is a well documented one, not only other documentaries but it's been international mainstream news multiple times so most folks already know at least the basics.

This pulls back the veil, tells the story again and to its credit isn't overly bias in its approach, after all piracy is an issue most have a strong opinion of one way or another.

The trouble is as I was watching TPB AFK I felt an overwhelming state of deja-vu. Seen this, know this, what else is new? Oh wait here come the credits.

If you know the story this is a waste of 85 minutes.

Rants

My opinion on piracy varies. You pirate a movie that's out at the cinema, that's one thing but what about pirating a 30 year old video game that you couldn't buy even if you wanted to? Then you have the issue of exclusivity on streaming platforms. How many are there now? Countless, you have to pay for each and the movie you want to see could be an exclusive on any of them? That could get expensive real quick, or absurd bouncing back and forth. They talk about the cost of piracy on the industry but then every year the budgets of movies get higher and new record profits are recorded. Something isn't right, say what you want about piracy but it's not as black and white as people often try to make out.

Breakdown

Fairly well made Feels recycled Not overly engaging.