[Fsfe-uk] MSN Thought Thieves

[Alex Hudson]

I'm sure everyone has seen this by now:

        http://www.msn.co.uk/thoughtthieves/

They're looking for short films (30sec<>45sec) on the subject of theft
of intellectual property.

I would be interested in collaborating with people to make such a film.
If possible, using live action, because I'm a great video editor(*) but
I have no video camera equipment. Fallback would be an animated short.

Ideas I have for the film already:

      * a student creates a short film, but in order to get it
        distributed he finds that he has to sign away all his rights -
        they even ask for his moral rights, which are unwaivable. He
        does this, and they bury his film. (This is similar to the
        current setup in the recording industry). There is no happy
        ending, sadly.
      * Programmer creates an innovative piece of software, and gets a
        software patent for it, and he is happy. Unfortunately, the
        programmer's work also infringes someone else's patent, so he
        has to cross-licence. BigCo(TM) gain rights to his invention,
        and crush him out of the market, and he is unhappy. Film is the
        story of how he was initially pro-IP and was converted; I
        imagine this being a film-noir style production.
      * Everyone is thieving intellectual property. IP rights protection
        has been removed by popular demand, and people are free to share
        anything. Everyone is happy.

Obviously, there is an issue with winners being required to sign over IP
rights to Microsoft, but this project would be done with the intention
that we wouldn't win. 

It's a bit of a short time frame, I know.

Cheers,

Alex.

*: in my opinion, obviously ;)