Stephen Fry shouldn’t worry about his little chat to a youthful throng at the iTunes Festival last night in Camden’s Roundhouse.
He was talking about piracy (ripping off entertainment type stuff illegally and without paying for it and not the ship stealing, “shiver me timbers” kind) to well over a thousand scallywags who’d garnered free tickets from those generous folks at Apple to see some bands later on that evening.
For nearly an hour he held an audience rapt in awe at his “internet history lesson/rant” against the “draconian” efforts by record companies and distributors to quash the little folk who might engage in a little bit of “ bit torrenting” of a Sunday afternoon.
Given the audience and given the stage I think few people could have commanded the respect and silence (punctuate by occasional raucous laughter and cheers) that Fry managed during his stint. A mixture of impromptu comedy, infectious knowledge and self-effacing self-questioning meant at least some of the arguments we got across in an interesting and accessible way.
For the record he did not suggest, as a later tweet clarified, that he was a “help yourself and be a pirate advocate” but that his industry should take a long hard look at the way they are policing CD,DVD,TV rip-offs and try and think of alternative business models.
To some, his “you’re all decent and loving human beings” approach may have seemed naive but if the majority of the audience were serial freebie-mongers then they might just think twice the next time and “do the right thing!”
I must have been the 3rd oldest bloke in the audience behind Stephen and Rory Cellan-Jones from the BBC who said later he’d like to see the same talk given to the Musician’s Union but I think that was the point. You had a high profile star of several kinds of screens giving an open and authentic talk at an event organised by a music-download company, and admitting that he didn’t have all the answers to several hundred intelligent entertainment consumers of today and tomorrow.
He might well get a few comments from fellow writers and performers who are not quite in such a privileged or wealthy position, but I think his point was the industry has to evolve as rapidly consumers and technology do.
If you’re in any doubt as to what he actually said as opposed to inferred, you can find most of his speech in any number of places on the internet already this morning.......and it’s all free!
