The latest episode of The Simpsons, “Steal This Episode” , aired on 5th Jan on Fox is an apt sitcom dealing with illegal downloading rampant in today’s scenario. The Simpsons is one of the most popular and greatest animated shows of time known for its amazing gags.
The episode starts with Homer getting annoyed at almost everyone he meets discussing about Radioactive Men’s latest release, which unfortunately he has not watched yet. He takes his family to the movie but comes back further annoyed because, for one the movie outing cost him dearly, and second the movie was riddled with commercials which he could not avoid. His son, Bart, tries to help with the situation by teaching him how to download movies illegally through the best pirate website available—The Bootleg Bay.
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Homer, following the instructions of Bart religiously, downloads a latest Bond movie on his laptop and shows it to his colleagues as well to share the fun of theater and the thrill of stealing. The sequence that follows draws parallel to the mission of ‘The Pirate Bay’—-“to offer culture to all.” Homer opens his own free mini theater for the people of Springfield that shows movies downloaded illegally form The Bootleg Bay.
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A stray incident by Marge (sending a check to Hollywood for watching a pirated movie) sets off series of events; Homer is investigated by the FBI. The sets created for the show speak volumes about the resources being allocated to the ‘Movie Piracy’ department which is significantly larger to the next door ‘Drug Enforcement’ department. Furthermore, the inside of the movie piracy department is a busy activity center with agents glued to their monitors tracking the pirate locations.
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The episode also makes several implicit references to famous file-sharing incidents such as Cosmic Wars II movie (in reality the Star Wars) and taking refuge in Swedish consulate when hounded by the FBI agents; Sweden being the only country that is in favor of free sharing of movies.
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While the episode clearly highlights the debates of both sides: the interests of the movie producers as well movie watchers, the show also raises concerns about the righteousness of law enforcement when one does not have local access to watch a movie or show.
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Now the most ironical part—while the latest episode takes a dig at the file sharing phenomenon, a Canadian man, who ran websites linking the episodes of The Simpsons and Family Guy, is ordered to pay Fox $10.5 million in damages. This amount is considered to be the highest ever awarded by the Canadian Federal Court in Toronto.
[Via: TorrentFreak]
