Lights! Camera! Legal action!

It could only be Microsoft. Who else in the free world would launch a propaganda contest? The theme of the Microsoft Short Film Competition, to be judged next month, is ‘Thought Thieves’, and entries are required to dramatise ‘how intellectual property theft affects both individuals and society’.

And you thought the plot of The Phantom Menace was boring.

The ironies hardly need enumerating, but I’m paid by the word:

1. Microsoft is the subject of numerous lawsuits from other software producers – not least Apple – whose work it’s alleged to have plagiarised
2. Microsoft’s most advanced contribution to the art of film production is Windows Movie Maker
3. Microsoft is inviting people to make a movie condemning ‘intellectual property theft’ at a time when the attitudes of digital rights holders such as Microsoft have brought the whole nature of intellectual property into question
4. Not strictly an irony, but just in case this didn’t seem creepy enough yet, there’s an under-18s category. Uncle Mao would be proud

Apart from that, cool idea.

Now, we at MacUser have no ingrained aversion to Microsoft. Many of us swear by Word 5.1, and legend has it that a member of the advertising sales team once got something to look right in PowerPoint. Each time Bill Gates has appeared by video link during Steve Jobs’ keynote speeches, our reporters in the conference hall have diligently tutted at their colleagues who felt it appropriate to boo. When a misguided ruffian regrettably attacked Mr Gates with a custard pie, did we join other publications in printing photos of the incident? We did not. Well, only on page 16. And the cover.

So it’s nothing personal. I’d have the same concerns if any other totalitarian mega-corporation came up with such a gobsmackingly cack-handed attempt to screw with people’s heads.

Then again, if I enter, I could win video equipment worth a massive £2000. (The marketing department’s biscuit kitty must be sadly depleted.) So let’s check the rules. My film ‘should be between 30 and 45 seconds long.’ Whoa – seconds? That’s not a film, that’s a TV commercial. Makes sense, given that it’s designed to sell something (intellectual property despotism) to people who really don’t need it (us). Oh, and this miniature masterpiece must be ‘in a format compatible with Windows Media Player.’ There’s a certain poignancy when it dawns on you that this is because the Microsoft people don’t have access to any other video software. Bless.

Writing a screenplay is a lot harder than writing a column, so obviously I’ll nick someone else’s. It’s just a question of which one. Shame on you, all those who called out ‘Kill Bill’. Anyway, that’s much too long. I just need one memorable scene. Let’s try ‘What have the Romans ever done for us?’ from Monty Python’s Life of Brian.

REG: What has intellectual property ever done for us?
STAN: Well, Reg, it’s given us literature…
MATTHIAS: Music…
FRANCIS: The industrial revolution…
STAN: Movies…
MATTHIAS: Computer software…

Then Reg hits them all with a stick and points out that, even if the other claims weren’t ridiculous, software copyright law has been cobbled together mostly in reaction to, rather than as a precursor of, proliferation and innovation, and if the only copies of software ever used had been legal ones, the impact of computer technology on everyday life would have been comparable to that of the Sinclair C5. What have the Romans ever done for us? Sod all.

Kinda works, but not many laughs. OK then, here’s my final draft.

[Mr Praline, a software industry lobbyist, enters the European Parliament chamber.]
MR PRALINE: ’Ello, I wish to complain about this software patent directive.
[The MEPs ignore him.]
MR PRALINE: Ahem. I wish to complain about this Microsoft-backed software patent directive what I steamrollered not half an hour ago through your very own Commission.
AN MEP: Ah yes, remarkable bird, software patent law. Lets the big companies patent every trivial technique, then divvy up licences among themselves, preventing honest developers from exploiting the fruits of their own labours. What’s wrong with it?
MR PRALINE: I’ll tell you what’s wrong with it, my lad. It’s dead!
AN MEP: Too right it is. Now piss off.

Do you think I’ll win?

Adam Banks is the former Editor in Chief of MacUser. He now lives in the North East, where the Internet is delivered every Friday on a cart.

First published in MacUser, 10 June 2005

Tagged as: Copyright, Film, MacUser, Microsoft, Monty Python