Boing! Boing! is pointing to this uintentionally hilarious apology by “Moriarty” over at Ain’t-It-Cool-News.
The short version is that people have been downloading illegal copies of the workprint for the forthcoming Hulk movie, and were posting reviews and commentary about it on AICN. “Moriarty” had a fit, accusing such individuals of being thieves, pirates, etc. for downloading such illegal content.
At which point people in the AICN discussion group pointed out the obvious — that AICN itself is based on theft of intellectual property. The site relies on movie insiders willing to break their NDAs, pass along scripts, smuggle out shots of movie sets, etc. For awhile, AICN was apparently deleting such posts.
But it is “Moriarty’s” response that is hilarious — essentially conceding that yes AICN does benefit from such illegal acts and so, therefore, maybe stealing isn’t all that bad after all,
First, it’s a personal choice. I have no business telling anyone what decision to make regarding the trafficking of stolen materials. And I wouldn’t even if my hands were squeaky clean. Which they aren’t.
How about renaming the site Ain’t-It-Theft-News?