A video accusing the American government of selling out to Hollywood has made a splash after being featured on the front page of the Pirate Bay, where it has garnered over 10 million views. Anti-Hollywood sentiment is nothing new, especially on The Pirate Bay, but what sets this video apart is its top-notch—one might even say Hollywood-caliber—production values.
On Wednesday, Ars spoke to one of the producers, who identified himself as “Andrew,” via Skype. He told us he’s a financial professional outside the United States. He created the video with a friend who also works “on the stock exchange.”
Believing a video would attract a wider audience than a text-based website, they hired a director and a sound professional to produce a 3-minute video. “Andrew” told us the whole video cost about $5000 to produce, and that he and his friend funded the project out of their own pockets. “We really don’t have much to do with the Internet industry as a whole,” he told us.
If this video is a hit, it could be the first in a series of videos focused on “online freedom and copyright.” The next one might be tied to the American elections in November.
Why the secrecy? “You see what’s happening with people who are involved in this kind of stuff,” “Andrew” told us. “Especially when you’re directly attacking against political figures. We don’t want to attract unnecessary attention in our lives.”
He said he was motivated by the sight of people being “getting arrested left and right in different countries for various copyright infringement ‘offenses.’” He said that copyright issues “affect pretty much anybody.”
