Post by StevePulaski on Jul 24, 2013 13:36:24 GMT -5
Downloaded (2013)
Directed by: Alex Winter
Directed by: Alex Winter
Rating: ★★★½
The tagline for Martin Scorsese's masterwork Casino is "no one stays at the top forever," and I could think of no better contemporary film to attach that line to than Alex Winter's documentary Downloaded, concerning music downloading and peer-to-peer filesharing before the days of iTunes. Winter jumps right in, focusing on Shawn Fanning and Sean Parker, two men who worked over the internet in the late nineties, in complete anonymity, formulating codes, structuring software, and simply receiving a reassuring sense of belonging in what would later become rather commonplace in society.
When Fanning and Parker met, three years after meeting in online chatrooms, they got right to work on creating what would be known as "Napster," a filesharing website that allowed for music to be shared and passed from different internet users who downloaded the software. It was basically taking your hard drive and opening it up, allowing numerous people to come in and download the music you had and vice-versa. The idea should've failed, what with how obsessive we are over our own privacy. Numerous people who became involved with Napster in its early stages were stunned to see how quickly the idea caught on.
But it did. After a simple download of the software, Napster allowed for the regular person with an internet connection to browse through thousands, if not, millions of songs they could download and store on a hard drive and not be burdened of paying a fee. Fanning further elaborates on this model by saying that the intention and the focus was never to "get back" at the companies and "steal" their profits. It was kind of like the seed of a social networking site, where people could log on the web, surf different music channels, talk with others about their music choices, and then go from there. The filesharing seed was planted and simultaneously the seeds of services like Myspace, Facebook, and Twitter.
Napster, has even the most ignorant man could predict, would go on to be enormously controversial. Music executives and corporate labels, who were effectively putting their own spin on the music industry at the time by buying up indie labels and small-scale studios, were frightened, basically watching the dollars fly the opposite way from their wallets. This lead to lawsuits, enormous backlash from bands (particularly Metallica and their drummer Lars Ulrich), and an all-out revolution on the way people buy, listen, and collect music.
DJ Spooky, who scores Downloaded, says that music has evolved in the last few years from being an intimate process to one that is totally algorithmic, made up of coding and numerous computer-processes. I couldn't agree more. I watched a documentary in January called Sound City, about the iconic studio in California that, while rag-tag and very shaggy, was the birthplace of some of the greatest rock records of all time. With all the technology existing today, from mixers, to synthesizers, to even audio correction services, "there is almost no need for rehearsal," one musician frighteningly states. Music has lost its technological simplicity and its wholesomeness because of corporatism, shallowness in lyrics, the "money" mentality, and maybe even the digital age. Even MTV, the network that once aired music videos constantly has resorted to gutter-Television with its cheap reality TV shows. Why have a network devoted to around-the-clock music videos when you can just visit Youtube?
Mike D of the Beastie Boys sums up the internet-age of music by saying that big revolutions of industries do not come from CEOs, business tycoons, or the filthy rich one percent who control the industry; they come from the people. The people are the experimenters in this equation. They are the ones always searching for ways to combat the promoted techniques to find ways that are more convenient and more simplistic for the public. The industry has the "if ain't broke, don't fix it" mindset. The consumer has the "if it ain't perfect, why not mess with it?" mindset.
I got into the internet after filesharing was considered brand new concept that could intentionally destroy an industry. When I began to regularly use the internet (circa 2004 or so) the controversy hadn't vanished but the public and the industry had a more stable idea of how it worked. I remember afternoons with my uncle, surfing Limewire to find music to burn to a CD. I'd make a list of about ten to twenty songs and we'd burn them to an album. The next day, when my mom picked me up, I couldn't wait to go in the car and play our mixtape and listen to the music that we assembled together into a package. That was music for me growing up. As fun as it was, I would've loved to spend an hour at a record store with my uncle.
Moreover, Fanning and Parker leave no stone unturned when discussing the lawsuits and the controversy they faced with Napster. The gangsta rap and rock-and-roll community seemed the most enraged about piracy (mainly because those were, and still are, the most popular music genres existing today). The irony of that is both genres are heavily predicated on the philosophy of abandoning the conventions of the establishments and the mainstream in favor of a more underground, individualistic persona. Both genres fought the battle of piracy the hardest when the money was coming out of their pockets; it appeared as if they would've rather been controlled by the establishments they hated.
Napster may have set off the digital revolution of music, but the music industry, rather than using the fundamentals to create something like iTunes a lot sooner, decided to combat it by facing lawsuits, suing and jailing their customers, and unleashing hell on the internet generation. This is why the music industry is looked at with such a disgusted look from many people. Not only have their acts of shallow corporatism corrupted the industry into a very plastic, assembly-line lack of individuality, but their apparent disrespect for their customers when they wanted to find a way of listening to music that was more convenient and current. I can see the industry's disgust at the filesharing process, and side with them to a stern extent (I do believe piracy of music and movies is wrong and do not take part in the practice), but there are other ways this problem could've been handled that would've saved the industry money. As IMO Entertainment CEO Don Ienner puts it, "the cat wasn't going back in the bag" when Napster went away.
I was sort of stunned to find out Napster wasn't around anymore. I always thought it existed in that weird, often reclusive sliver of the internet, along with Rhapsody (which now is, technically, Napster) and MySpace. What followed for Fanning, besides a lifetime's worth of controversy and trouble, was SNOCAP, a service that would allow artists and labels to dictate how their content would be shared on the internet, and those who didn't sign up, would have their content downloaded and streamed online. It's an interesting idea, but poor reception from the public and the ultimate creation of iTunes not long after led to a quick demise. Fanning then created Rupture, a social-networking community for online gamers, which was quickly acquired by the gaming company EA for a lucrative chunk-of-change.
Actor-turned-director Alex Winter directs Downloaded with pure heart and appreciation for the material, which leaves me optimistic he will continue to participate in the internet freedom/activism movement in the coming years. Two particular instances are when I knew Downloaded was a sincere experience on a documentary level. One is when we see Shawn Fanning and Sean Parker talking about how Napster, despite raising a considerable amount of funds, failed to take off as money was spent in every direction, Parker jokingly tells Fanning, "that's your fault." As Parker continues to talk, Fanning's head begins to look down and a frown forms. This is one of the saddest scenes in any documentary I've seen in years.
The other is when Downloaded ends, with the somber melody "I Don't Want to Set the World on Fire" plays. I couldn't think of a better song to conclude such a great film with. Thematically and emotionally, the song succeeds.
Starring: Shawn Fanning and Sean Parker. Directed by: Alex Winter.